Official Feedback Thread: Bonding Runestone Changes

gromovnipljesak

Make orange rings tradeable with a merchant while you're at it. With this nerf everyone will need so much arp and since it's so stupidly hard to get rings we need, make it a one-time thing. You can trade one orange ring for another orange ring. Any type, any IL - just make it worthwhile.

santralafax

I found the original patch notes, it was May 2016 that they killed augments and brought down the reign of bondings:

"Bonding Runestones now grant their combined effect in a single stack.
For example, if a summoned companion has two Bonding Runestones (Rank 12, 95% each) equipped, the related buff now gives the player 190% of the summoned companion's current stats.
This effect no longer stacks. This gives the effect a maximum of 285% of the summoned companion's current stats (with three R12s equipped)."

NOW, in Sept 2017, they are telling us that bondings are overpowered. Who'da'thunk.

When bondings still stacked, many of us were more than happy to still run augments, which had 100% uptime. I've never liked bondings, but WAS suckered into them....

mamalion1234

find the difference

beckylunatic

Trick question? Both runes pictured are rank 12.

mamalion1234

beckylunatic said:

Trick question? Both runes pictured are rank 12.

1 of the three bondings proc on preview after the last patch.

sparafucile11

So here might be a significant amount of gasoline added to the fire... I'm really not trying to start rumors here but this is from a trusted PC player utilizing the preview server (I'm on Xbox one so have no access but others can easily check who can access preview). The final sentence on the current bonding runestone tooltip where it states something to the effect of "this effect is added for each additional bonding runestone equipped" has specifically been removed from the 12b bonding tooltip and tests are so far confirming that the 55% value of the 12b rank 12 runestones is only proccing from a single stone (even though 3 are equipped) for a total of 55% of companion stats being transferred as opposed to the 165% one would expect from 3 nerfed rank-12 bonding stones. No one is positive whether this is a glitch or not but the specific removal of that last sentence from the tooltip might be confirming this very specifically.

I'm honestly not sure what to say.

beckylunatic

That's definitely not in keeping with any argument of "they'll still be BiS".

sparafucile11

On thinking about this, at least for now, I'm going to choose to believe it's unintentional as that would make an augment companion without a single runestones equipped significantly outperform bonding stones and I have to assume the developers wouldn't go THAT far. I hope not, at least.

gromovnipljesak

sparafucile11 said:

So here might be a significant amount of gasoline added to the fire... I'm really not trying to start rumors here but this is from a trusted PC player utilizing the preview server (I'm on Xbox one so have no access but others can easily check who can access preview). The final sentence on the current bonding runestone tooltip where it states something to the effect of "this effect is added for each additional bonding runestone equipped" has specifically been removed from the 12b bonding tooltip and tests are so far confirming that the 55% value of the 12b rank 12 runestones is only proccing from a single stone (even though 3 are equipped) for a total of 55% of companion stats being transferred as opposed to the 165% one would expect from 3 nerfed rank-12 bonding stones. No one is positive whether this is a glitch or not but the specific removal of that last sentence from the tooltip might be confirming this very specifically.



I'm honestly not sure what to say.

I've had that issue, but it's not right. You just need to re-summon the companion. It happened upon upgrading runestones to R13.
Speaking of upgrading, this probably belongs into refining refinement thread, but why do the orange enchantment stones have different names (major, superior, ultimate or whatever)? There's one in the lockbox, and one with a different name to upgrade runestones. Is there a difference or just a tooltip thing?

mamalion1234

i leave this here.

SO after last patch only 1 from 3 can proc on your companion.
IS that intentional or an error?

kalina311

@mamalion1234

yup deception thru rewording we will now give them 100% uptime but only make it 1 in 3 now activate or maybe they proc separately ?? feels like long distance phone plans here things keep getting shook up so it is impossible to properly compare one thing to anther (bonding vs augments)

or
we should have left if alone at all 3 procing 50% of the time that would have been more then this .. the devs sure taught us a lesson here and punished bondings even more

Whats the point of having 3 bonding slots then for the tranquil bonding stone perhaps 10% bonus to companions attacks..lol

stealth nerf fool me once....maybe NOW they are more in alignment with augments lol dont buff augment nerf bonding even more to be in line

mamalion1234

kalina311 said:

@mamalion1234

yup deception thru rewording we will now give them 100% uptime but only make it 1 in 3 now activate or maybe they proc separately ??

we should have left if alone at all 3 procing 50% of the time that would have been more then this .. the devs sure taught us a lesson here and punished bondings even more

Whats the point of having 3 bonding slots then for the tranquil bonding stone perhaps 10% bonus to companions attacks..lol

Here my screenshots actually





naked character 0 power no legendary bonuses.


with legendary bonus.


check here the companion power.



here my power after the bonding proc.



and here truly my companion wears x3 bonding rank 12.

yppo

mamalion1234 said:

mamalion1234 said:

kalina311 said:

@mamalion1234

yup deception thru rewording we will now give them 100% uptime but only make it 1 in 3 now activate or maybe they proc separately ??

we should have left if alone at all 3 procing 50% of the time that would have been more then this .. the devs sure taught us a lesson here and punished bondings even more

Whats the point of having 3 bonding slots then for the tranquil bonding stone perhaps 10% bonus to companions attacks..lol

Shoot me for not uploading the test :P But i saw on an empty character with power 0 gone 1913 frm 2 legendary bonuses and then with bonding proc 5600 power. MY companion has 3 bonding rank 12 and 7000 power.

Here my screenshots.


zip

Now they managed to totally ruin bondings, but at least other runestones are better since you only need one bonding now! (sarcasm intended!)

luks707

Ok - so thinking about this a bit more, I think there is really only one solution.
Bonding runestones need to change and that means removing them from their current place.
My proposal is as follows:
Create a SEPARATE Equip area for bonding runestones and change them to give their stat (power) and a buff based on CHARACTER gear. This means bonding stones are important but the most important thing is levelling your character.
This creates space for the other runestones to buff the companions. Companions and legendary companions are then still relevant but not more important than the character.

Please consider this as a constructive solution. It keeps bondings attractive - it shifts the development focus on the character gear away from the companion.
If you can't implement this right away - please freeze bondings at rank 12 as they are until you can.

beckylunatic

I sincerely doubt it's intentional, but it does fairly effectively ensure a lost week of public testing.

micky1p00

mamalion1234 said:

beckylunatic said:

Trick question? Both runes pictured are rank 12.

1 of the three bondings proc on preview after the last patch.

1. Did you check this on preview ? The actual proc, not tooltip.
2. Your topic says rank 14, this is rank 12.

mamalion1234

micky1p00 said:

mamalion1234 said:

beckylunatic said:

Trick question? Both runes pictured are rank 12.

1 of the three bondings proc on preview after the last patch.

1. Did you check this on preview ? The actual proc, not tooltip.
2. Your topic says rank 14, this is rank 12.

Decided to post the screenshots in bonding feedback thread.

can a mod remove this thread ? thanks.

andorrabell

Clarification devs please and ASAP - I thought we were done with messing up bondings.

@nitocris83

gromovnipljesak

beckylunatic said:

I sincerely doubt it's intentional, but it does fairly effectively ensure a lost week of public testing.

Yeah, I mean, I know they're not really the smartest when it comes to decision making, but this is just beyond HAMSTER. No putting it other way, really.

And no, devs, I ain't insulting you, in fact I'm giving you a compliment. IF this isn't intentional.

treesclimber

Many people in this discussion don't care about the variability of companions, but how they are going to be affected, which is understandable, their goal is to be the best and they'll go for the best. There was a meta from mod 6 till more recent bonding changes (lightfoot thief and zentharim warlock) and there is a meta now (fire archon and con artist like companions, and a lesser percentage of some buffing companions) and a full board of competing companions will hardly ever be achieved.

So one thing from this can be extracted, companions are always preferred if they somehow boost player or party performance, being the companion DPS or heal put aside, if many "non party friendly" companions were to get 176,5% of their stats to the player and not interact with mount insignias but yet keep their powers, they would be seen as nothing more than augments with funny powers. Some companions are at the moment confined to 76,5% of stats sharing to the player because of their slow bonding runestones interaction doesn't make them worth to carry, meaning 100% stats gift bellow augments (100% p 25,5%*3). Please take in consideration doubling the bonus of non bonding runestones (profane,eldritch, etc) while used in non augment companions to give companions that interact poorly with bondings a chance to exist even if not the best out there.

I seriously doubt that the slow behavior of these companions is because they would be too good with bondings and i can assure they won't be near the best because the existence a "same capacity companion" that has a good interaction with bondings and will surpass these ones, but for players that truly want them a bit of stats loss may be acceptable. This is simply a solution to avoid reworking many companions.

I don't see how it can be disadvantageous for cryptic either since many awesome companions (like mystic phoera) have their prices high or some other awesome (like armored orc wolf) only exist in a uncommon state, being possible choices of upgrades that cost lots of AD.

@mimicking#6533 @noworries#8859 @rgutscheradev

treesclimber

luks707 said:

Ok - so thinking about this a bit more, I think there is really only one solution.
Bonding runestones need to change and that means removing them from their current place.
My proposal is as follows:
Create a SEPARATE Equip area for bonding runestones and change them to give their stat (power) and a buff based on CHARACTER gear. This means bonding stones are important but the most important thing is levelling your character.
This creates space for the other runestones to buff the companions. Companions and legendary companions are then still relevant but not more important than the character.

Please consider this as a constructive solution. It keeps bondings attractive - it shifts the development focus on the character gear away from the companion.
If you can't implement this right away - please freeze bondings at rank 12 as they are until you can.

But this brings a problem, many people focus defensive stats on companion's because of main stat importance to their build, so the stats you see on an idle character may differ a lot from those when a companion gifts that player. Other case is filtering crit to the companion, just a example, GWF with slam build to get the most out of slam, by saying "this runestone will give you x% of your equipment as bonus" you are restraining players to get the same stats they have on their character.

armadeonx

This would be the opposite of what they have said they are going to do. It's one thing to ignore us and go ahead, it's something else to not even do that and deliver a change that would kill all companions.

I'm going to assume it's a bug until we get an official response (or it goes live...) as I think the alternative would be to watch Cryptic commit suicide.

meirami

If it is intended that only one of the three equipped Bonding Runestones provides a slice of the pet's stats, it will lead to another Elemental Evil-esque mass exodus. It would be a terrible business decision and it isn't documented in any of the patch notes, so I think it's just some leftovers from Owlbear testing.

mamalion1234

Change like this means: you must have powershare to make your : 1 bonding 2 eldritch =115% be better and if it is better than:
1 augment 3 eldritch =175% stats.
This is strange or to say bad idea. We need to have an answer today please if possible.

micky1p00

mamalion1234 said:

Change like this means: you must have powershare to make your : 1 bonding 2 eldritch =115% be better and if it is better than:
1 augment 3 eldritch =175% stats.
This is strange or to say bad idea. We need to have an answer today please if possible.

I don't believe you will get an answer, they are not working until Monday.

mamalion1234

micky1p00 said:

mamalion1234 said:

Change like this means: you must have powershare to make your : 1 bonding 2 eldritch =115% be better and if it is better than:
1 augment 3 eldritch =175% stats.
This is strange or to say bad idea. We need to have an answer today please if possible.

I don't believe you will get an answer, they are not working until Monday.

They should that is something not affecting me but everyone.

bluebubbl3s

So the feedback thread on the bonding stone changes has taken a turn in discussions about the change of the tooltip on preview and the possibility that only one stone will proc... and there seems to be a theory that its a little stealthy nerf that the devs are going to put in. while we wait on dev response (dont hold your breath...) i want to bring up something i have been noticing lately and wonder if there has been more stealthy things happening that we havent been told about...

Has anyone noticed with the launch of mod 12 that your companion is "dumb"? i have noticed that the ai on the companion appears to be nerfed, or something to that effect... i am not a tester, but this is just from running dungeons, farming chult etc.

the first thing i noticed was that my companion doesnt enter battle as fast as it did before, and that obviously is making the proc of the bonding take longer to begin. he kinda just stands around a little bit, before he runs forward to take his first hit. i am running the con artist, so i wonder is it just the con artist or is anyone else noticing this on other compaions like the fire archon?

there have also been occasions where i have been in a fight and my companion has quite litterally just been standing there, doing absolutely nothing, and therefore no bonding proc at all. the first time this happened i just put it down to a glitch, but its happened a few more times since, and other guildies have experienced the same situation. the last time it happened to me was when i came across a trex on my own, and that was some tough work.

i have been wondering to myself if this is a deliberate nerf and did anyone know about it? i havent really checked if there are any posts about this yet, so pardon if this has already been bought up and discussed. it was just the chat in the bonding thread post that made me think i should ask about this as well.

Cheers

sorry, i was trying to put this post elsewhere... not sure how i managed to put it here....