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Companions need some Pazazz!
tinypyro
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 371 Bounty Hunter
I didn't really have too many major concerns from BWE1, but the one thing that really stood out to me and frankly saddened me a little bit was how dreadfully dull the companions were. Give them some character! Personality! Flare!
Many of us here (including some Devs I'm sure) played Balder's Gate. The character companions in that game were so rich and unique and entertaining that I will never forget some of them until the day I die. NWN 1&2 as well as Balder's Gate really nailed it when it came to companions. And you can say what you want about SWTOR, but that game also had fabulous companions. I was really hoping to see the same thing here, but they were very bland and boring. They feel more like a permanent buff rather than a companion.
I want them to make me laugh. I want them to make me angry. I want them to irritate me so much that I go looking for a high cliff just so I can kick their irritating <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> right off.
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Many of us here (including some Devs I'm sure) played Balder's Gate. The character companions in that game were so rich and unique and entertaining that I will never forget some of them until the day I die. NWN 1&2 as well as Balder's Gate really nailed it when it came to companions. And you can say what you want about SWTOR, but that game also had fabulous companions. I was really hoping to see the same thing here, but they were very bland and boring. They feel more like a permanent buff rather than a companion.
I want them to make me laugh. I want them to make me angry. I want them to irritate me so much that I go looking for a high cliff just so I can kick their irritating <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> right off.
Follow me?
Post edited by tinypyro on
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They make sense for things like the Druid class, but to give every class a companion (like SW:TOR did) becomes more an annoyance than a convenience in the end. The tend to clutter up zones, they tend to stack on top of one another, don't always path right and often can't stand up in the big fights.
SW:TOR companions were a particular pain in the butt. They not only needed to be constantly geared up, they had to be pampered and worst of all, were sometimes required to come along on certain missions. They had really cheap obvious story lines to them, they had dull personalities and although you could customize them a little, they generally looked the same, so you had entire legions of players with all these clone companions cluttering the view just about everywhere you went. They also kind of sucked. The first companion you get as a Jedi tank for example, was a tank companion! Your DPS companion would often stray away from your target, drawing aggro (you could mitigate that a little, but it was a pain). In fact, I learned my survival rates for most zones actually improved with no companion!
That was a large part of the problem in SW:TOR's design. It tried to keep elements from the old KOTOR console game, so it had these clunky "single player RPG" elements embedded in it, that were awkward and clumsy in an actual MMO.
I guess the Pokemon generation just expects pets in any game they play, but we could lose companions entirely and I would not shed a tear.
I doubt I'll ever really use mine.
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Great thing is like you said. You can always choose not to use them. Personally I enjoy having them around sometimes. And lol @ Pokemon. I never played that silly game. Companions go way back to Balder's Gate if not earlier. Hell even UO (arguably the first solid MMO) allowed you to tame animals so they would follow you around or allow you to ride them. So yeah it's nothing new and certainly didn't start with silly Pokemon.
While I agree that complex companions were great in SW:TOR, I don't necessarily think that would be good in this game. Strong supporting characters are a staple of Star Wars and, for that matter, work well in STO, where your bridge crew is a critical piece of the genre.
But DnD is a team game. I personally think the simple companions we have are a nice attempt to split the needle by Cryptic developers. Making solo gameplay for fragile wizards and rogues is made a lot easier and more variable when those fragile people have NPC guardians and clerics to accompany them. That's a win for both player and dev. And keeping the companions simple means they don't overshadow other players, and never replace them. It's not like anyone is going to feel unnecessary because someone has their companion out. This replicates DnD, where henchmen and hirelings were often pretty basic. The real muscle comes from your fellow players.
But honestly, I suspect it all comes down to money and resources. Personalities and voices and plots for companions costs money and a lot of it. By making them simple NPCs, Cryptic can allocate their resources somewhere else.
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I think comparing to NWN or Baulder's Gate is a mistake though. Those games were story focused white NW is... Foundry/UGC focused i guess? That means you can't have long meaningful relations with NPCs outside of one persons Foundry content. You will be able to get to level 60 without playing any of the official story missions, so they can't have your companions react and grow based on events that Cryptic can't plan for.
it wouldn't be that difficult to give them personalities.