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Everyone will be forced to be a tamer in TOR with mass companions all over the place...
wrekognize
Member UncommonPosts: 388
"The game is not designed to be played without companions especially when your not in groups" - Darth Hater
....a horrible idea for an MMO. Dragon Age 2's system was terrible, and that was a single player game. I can see Mos Eisley now, packed with NPCs. Raids and PVP..will be a huge mess. The companion feature alone has made up my mind not to buy this game.
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Wouldn't it be more challenging not to use companions then?
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Well for one thing, they've said that companions wouldn't be able to be used in raids, and the latest news is also not in battlegrounds. I don't think it will be a problem.
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But seriously, can't we wait for the game to actually come out before we make up our minds?
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the not designed to be played without companions is refering to soloing
you can only have one companion with you at a time. they are not allowed in raids or warzones, and they take up a party slot when doing flashpoints and out in the open world. so if you have a party of 4 players, then none of them can use a companion
From what I have gleened, you will only be allowed four companions and only one will ever go with you on any given quest. Plus, no companions allowed in anything PvP or Raids (atm). So, settle down...it isn't what you think.
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this is like GW1 then. You can't play gw without full party of either players or companions (heroes, henchmen), unless you have a specific solo build for that specific area. Is this the case here?
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I still don't think it should be compared to GW1 so easily. In GW1 you could fill the whole group with NPCs minus yourself. In SWTOR you are only allowed to control 1 comapnion at a time. so the most companions you could ever get in a group is 2, 1 for each player equaling a group size of 4.
Player + Companion + Player + Companion = Full group
Player + Player + Player + Companion = Full group
Player + Player + Player + Player = Full group
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http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6342962#post6342962
DanielErickson
Joined: Oct 2008
04.29.2011 , 11:45 AM
Hey Folks,
Sometimes quotes are taken out of context (this one was not, but thanks to everyone who tried to give me the benefit of the doubt!) and sometimes people (read: me) just say things poorly when answering live Q&A.
Companions do represent a sizable amount of your power and The Old Republic is not balanced to play without them. That said, I was attempting to talk about people's likely styles of play, not what was possible. It is totally possible to play solo. You simply put your companion away. It is an extremely hard way to play and you'll likely be destroyed unless you're crazy-uber-elite guy - and even then you'll be going very slow.
Randy, our Bounty Hunter writer, booted up Dragon Age: Origins the first time we got it, put it on "Nightmare" difficulty and declared he would never take any party members with him. He's that kinda guy. Doesn't mean most people would want to attempt it. I certainly got obliterated trying to do the same thing.
Similarly, playing solo with no CCs in SWTOR isn't for everyone. Or most people. You're making the game much more difficult and choosing to miss all the companion content. But it is certainly possible.
You could also play in a two person team with no CCs, do all the solo content that way and you'd be stronger than one person with a CC. There are lots of possible scenarios but that doesn't mean the game is designed with them in mind. The solo player who is playing PvE content is expected by game design to have a CC and the game is balanced accordingly.
I did not say CCs would have to be micro-managed - at least if I did I certainly don't remember and didn't mean to. CCs have continually changed from build to build and we're always looking for that perfect solution. The goal always has been to let players who want to personally control their CCs have a meaningful amount of ways to do so and to give those people who don't wish to control them a robust enough AI that they can let them act as independent party members.
I hope that helps!
Daniel Erickson
GeorgZoeller
Joined: May 2010
04.29.2011 , 11:36 AM
Companions are not pets. Pet class mechanics in MMOs traditionally require you to micro manage (tell them who to attack, control ability use, etc.) your pet closely to be able to overcome the challenges of the game.
The main concern I hear is that there is a need to micro control your companion's actions in order to be able to play the game.
While it is definitely beneficial and a player that does it will be able to take on harder challenges than a player that doesn't, it is not required that you micro manage your companion to play or enjoy The Old Republic.
That said, ignoring your companion completely (e.g. not giving them equipment updates, leaving them on the ship, etc.) is not advised - unless you are grouped with other players to compensate.
Companions are an integral part of the SWTOR experience, so that won't change. They assist in combat, they are important to the Crew Skills system and they fill various roles in story and progression. They are full characters with equipment slots.
It's something that hasn't been done in this fashion in other MMOs so it might be hard to accept for people that it isn't just 'everyone is a pet class' (since that's the only frame of reference they have from previous games), but that doesn't concern me much. People quickly understand after they get their hands on the game.
Not really. The game has multiple gameplay options.
1- Solo content - this is with 1 companion. It can also be done in groups of more players if you want
2-Group content (heroic quests) - These are world quests that are done with a full group. I'm assuming that you can use companions here to fill in the voids if you're missing players, but it might be difficult with less that 3 live players
3-Dungeons - 4 player groups, companions optional
4-Raids, pvp - no companions
As for the builds, I don't think you need to switch builds for the first 3 options. But builds haven't been discussed too much yet, we don't really know that part yet.
If you have played ME1 or 2 or Dragon Age you will get an idea of how these companions work and intereact but as noted you will only be able to have one with you at a time and they cannot join in on Raids, and maybe even Flashpoints, etc. The are characters that not only provide some help when soloing but are there as story elements as well, maybe even love interests.
i also want to just clarify something. currently they aren't allowed in warzones but they are allowed in open world pvp. i forget the why they gave but guessing it would have to do with people not liking having their companions be forcibly disappeared because someone attacked them or something
Now that I think of it ... I think I would actually pay a lot of ingame cash to "own" more npc's ...
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companions are a really bad idea imo. it kinda kills the small niche that pets have in MMO's... in TOR everyone has a freaking pet.
That's what the devs said, but some players who claim to want challenge don't want that type of challenge. Swtor forums are filled with complaints about every little thing.
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Story and companions are what will make the game stand out for me and considering how good Bioware is at companions I can't wait!
I fully intend to group up with other players but I'll still end up playing solo quite a bit whilst levelling and if I have a companion like HK-47, Minsc and Boo or the Professor along for company I'll be very happy.
What is sad is that every player will have the same companion. LOL! At least in WoW, there are hundreds of different pets available to hunters to mix things up. In WoW they go even further and let you actually pick the skills of your pet adding even more diversity. In SW:ToR, players are very limited, like Rift. So your companion will look and behave just like the next players companion.
It's ignorant based on current available information to call them pets because they do far more than pets when compared to any other game and they interact like 'companions', not pets. Second, did you not read Gaou's post? There are a different options available to play without a companion if you don't want to play with them. Why eliminate the choice for most who are going to disagree wtih you and enjoy having them around?
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This might be a problem if there were dedicated pet classes in the game. There aren't.
Also, re-read the dev posts. These aren't pets. They don't have to be micro-managed if you don't want to do that. They function independently of you and are their own full characters, with weapons and armor and all that.
These aren't pets. They're companions, meaning they're full characters that join you, just like in Mass Effect.
The pets in WoW are just animals or NPCs that you train and/or subjugate to your will and that you have to micro-manage. Not the same thing at all.
Actually there are no " pet classes in tor" So no pet niche to start with. This is star wars nobody in the star wars universe has ever had pets in any book or movie unless u count the mounts for the witches of dathomir as pets.
That said they arent pets in any sense of the word. Companions wont function like pets u can send the ones not with u out to do gathering and for crafting when u log out of game. Also when u are questing. The one u take with u is designed that way but i dont see the issue.
The whole companion system and how they react to your choices seems like a really cool unique game mechanic to me.
I for one cant wait. Also have u looked at companions they are all Sentient creatures with minds of there owns. Like wookies and humans and twileks. There are no leapard, scorpion, pets or even star wars creatures as pets in this game. NO class can tame anything.
So with no pet classes tamer's in game the companions system doesnt destroy or even harm the so called pet niche class.
well thats my whole point: there are no pet classes. bad decision.
That's not really what you wrote, but now that you reworded your post, I love pet classes in other games and it would be nice to have a pet on less of a scale as a companion, but controlling 3 might prove difficult lol. As long as I can have a Jawa companion, I won't miss pets hehe.
There Is Always Hope!
Why?
They are pets..period. No matter how the developers or players try to explain it any other way. Every single rl player will be required to have pets with them the entire time. Otherwise, you're just hurting yourself by not using them.