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Changes to bondings and companions

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  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    Retiring the Bonding Runes will lead to one more funny thing. When was it when Eldritch rune retired? M16? It still drops - I got one from spoils of war yesterday. You have to exchange it... for bonding. =)
    So, once the bondings retire, you will have to exchange Eldritch for Bonding... in order to exchange Bonding for something that finally can be manipulated with. =)
  • zimxero#8085 zimxero Member Posts: 876 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    I don't think Companion Influence should be converted wholesale into one different stat. It would better for balance to divvy up the sources into multiple different things. Some possible alternatives for Companion Influence:

    +Companion Health boost
    +Companion Damage% - good choice for Charisma or Insignia of Domination
    +Combat movement speed% - good choice for Insignia of Domination or Storyteller Journal
    +non-Combat movement speed%
    +Threat Generation up for tanks, down for non-tanks - good choice for dark enchants, but would require coding
    +Incoming Healing%
    +Control
    +Control Resist
    +Stamina generation
    +Action Point Gain
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    rikitaki said:

    Retiring the Bonding Runes will lead to one more funny thing. When was it when Eldritch rune retired? M16? It still drops - I got one from spoils of war yesterday. You have to exchange it... for bonding. =)
    So, once the bondings retire, you will have to exchange Eldritch for Bonding... in order to exchange Bonding for something that finally can be manipulated with. =)

    Better for me to exchange few stacks of Eldritch to bonding now before the exchange is removed (if they remove it).
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • the1truehunterthe1truehunter Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 211 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    No worries guys! We will get some Companion Upgrade Tokens so they can close our mouths after this revamp will release, exactly how it happend with mounts. Another start from -10, not from 0 to make our toons even powerful
  • the1truehunterthe1truehunter Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 211 Arc User
    All I know is that I am using more than 8 legendary companions for their atributes + augment + striker companion. Let`s say 10 companions that I am using almost constantly wihtout swaping them, Upgrading them to Mythic will cost me at least 10k ZEN if one mount will require 150 companion upgrade tokens from legendary to mythic. And at the curreny price point of companion tokens packs in auction house it will cost me over 14 mil AD. I didn`t count the fact that I have already spent maybe twice amount of money to buy them and upgrade to legendary+experience for each of them. So for me personally, even with the investiment return from Bondings I won`t be able to conver the loose. And if meta changes with surely will do, then God help us. Regarding Companion Influence, I would really hope that they won`t replace it with movement speed or another HAMSTER irelevant bonus. I ve spent btw 5-10m on my darks r15. Also good luck for those who play multiple characters.

    On the other note. Instead of working and giving us updated events rewards such Winter Festival (one of the most important event in the game) they are working on revamping the companion system which will be a total joke. Not only because they won`t do it properly convering the entire companions and we will have still 80% irrelevant companions but the fact that this revamp it is just the first step in depowering us again. Do not forget about the fact mod 20 is close along with enchantments changes with will lead to another status drop where r15`s will be devalued drastically on the market. This is how the studio follow the same path every two mods and I will be very surprised if it will be any different this time.
  • fademist#5406 fademist Member Posts: 58 Arc User
    i think all that is caused cause devs want to contain the stats/dmg to not go to crazy numbers...
  • grogthemagnifgrogthemagnif Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,651 Arc User

    Will there be a trade in for Dark enchants as well?

    Or are thety going to give us the Speed Bonus they took away???
  • drago#3250 drago Member Posts: 190 Arc User

    Will there be a trade in for Dark enchants as well?

    Or are thety going to give us the Speed Bonus they took away???
    Would mean "hey Folks it is an old game. If you are new study the history what happened in 2014".
    That is good marketing. Not.
  • rockster#6227 rockster Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    benyr said:

    @noworries#8859

    The third point is self evident, we need to upgrade companions to mythic. This is a change that's been coming for a along time and if its done correctly I could probably swallow it. Especially if the cost is covered by by the bonding exchange. However I can see two very real problems. Firstly Companions are not as easy to upgrade as mounts because they need experience to reach the next level. Experience is currently only gained by the actual summed companion or by using tomes of experience, which is a very expensive hidden cost on top of the upgrade cost. As part of the introduction of mythic companions I'd like to see companion experience removed from the game, or at the very least not be required for the legendary to mythic upgrade.

    I don't know if what I'm going to say is useless/redundant or if it helps some people so I'll just offer it anyway in case it helps even one person. One way of giving a companion experience without having it summoned all the time while fighting and playing with it at a weakened level is before you hand in any quest, summon that companion temporarily while you hand it in and that companion will level up, then re-summon your main active again after handing in. I used to think I had to have a companion summoned as my active to get it ranked up, as I focused on the fact it got experience as I was fighting, but then I realized it gets far more experience at the time of handing in quests than it did while in combat. One example I can offer is what I did most recently to upgrade a companion I bought on the AH, I didn't have it summoned while I was playing, but I collected all the Stronghold quests from the builder (All washed up, Beasts, Cyclops etc, those ones) and when I had a full list and she wasn't offering any more quests to me each day I went with my usual companion and did them all in one go. I then went back to the Stronghold but before I went up to the builder I summoned the new companion. I then handed in all the quests at the same time while the new companion was summoned and it got all the XP. After handing in I put back my usual companion. Again, sorry if this is obvious and people are like "we already know this and this is not the issue we're discussing in this thread", but I did want to point out to any players who don't know that you don't have to have a companion summoned at all times in order to give it XP as you play, just summon it at the time of handing in any quests and then after handing in swap it out again. It's a pain and sometimes easy to forget to do, but it's an option if you want to avoid buying tomes of experience and also want to avoid using a low ranking companion while in combat.
    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
  • ramesh84ramesh84 Member Posts: 133 Arc User
    edited November 2020


    For those asking about upgrade tokens, companions can still be upgraded directly with AD as they always have as well as with upgrade tokens.

    True, but current AD cost should be adjusted to be meainingful, because currently paying 1mil AD to upgrade a companion to legendary is way more expensive than buying 120 companion tokens by zen, even taking discounts out of that; that would also work as an AD sink.
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    ramesh84 said:


    For those asking about upgrade tokens, companions can still be upgraded directly with AD as they always have as well as with upgrade tokens.

    True, but current AD cost should be adjusted to be meainingful, because currently paying 1mil AD to upgrade a companion to legendary is way more expensive than buying 120 companion tokens by zen, even taking discounts out of that; that would also work as an AD sink.
    Indeed it is cheaper to buy companion upgrades with tokens, in particular if you buy those tokens for Zen with discount.

    However the challenge is you need Zen for that.

    If your only option is to buy those comp tokens for AD on AH, using tokens or direct AD is much more balanced.
  • admiralwarlord#3792 admiralwarlord Member Posts: 611 Arc User
    It would be interesting that in the enchant's exchange store has on sale the companion upgrade premium pack for a short period of time, since it was the best way to upar companions. The price of this item was 1M on AH before the announcement of these changes. But for those who are interested in already getting ready for the new module, there is the possibility of farmar Bel in Vallenhas where the cost of the companion token has always been cheaper than in AH, 5k of AD per token or through the Legacy Store.
  • regenerderegenerde Member Posts: 3,041 Arc User
    Well, at this point i see no reason for spending more time (AD) or money (ZEN) on companions, until i can actually test the new system and/or it's finally on the live server. As others, i'll just stick to what i can get from the game while simply playing it.

    I'd also like to suggest that the Companion and Mount Tokens should stay in the Bleeding Citadel store beyond the end of the Milestone thingy. It's starting to look like we're going to need a whole lot more stable sources for those kind of tokens...
    I do believe in killing the messenger...
    Want to know why?
    Because it sends a message!
  • otoole68#6922 otoole68 Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    How can people be happy about this. I didn't use ad to upgrade my bondings it was done with real money and alot of grind which took along time to do. As for the we will give you 2.6 mill for them. It's a joke and another kick in the teeth for what has been a loyal but now dwindling player base.
  • mythdemeanourmythdemeanour Member Posts: 87 Arc User

    How can people be happy about this. I didn't use ad to upgrade my bondings it was done with real money and alot of grind which took along time to do. As for the we will give you 2.6 mill for them. It's a joke and another kick in the teeth for what has been a loyal but now dwindling player base.

    The AD/Zen exchange has been getting longer and longer. I have an order in from Sept 14th for 2k and it still isn't filled. That leads me to believe that many of the ones left now are the those that pay for everything in cash. I see flying wings and giant companions everywhere and very few horses and minor mounts anymore. It could be players that got lucky last year and used the exchange when it was not so backed up, but the current business model will make many just fork out the cash or leave, I fall into the later category BTW after my membership expires.

    Sad too as I used to support this game with cash occasionally, now it is just an uphill grind with no end in sight with every mod!
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User

    How can people be happy about this. I didn't use ad to upgrade my bondings it was done with real money and alot of grind which took along time to do. As for the we will give you 2.6 mill for them. It's a joke and another kick in the teeth for what has been a loyal but now dwindling player base.

    Bonding runestone rank 15 was less than 2.6 million in PC before the announcement.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User

    How can people be happy about this. I didn't use ad to upgrade my bondings it was done with real money and alot of grind which took along time to do. As for the we will give you 2.6 mill for them. It's a joke and another kick in the teeth for what has been a loyal but now dwindling player base.

    The AD/Zen exchange has been getting longer and longer. I have an order in from Sept 14th for 2k and it still isn't filled. That leads me to believe that many of the ones left now are the those that pay for everything in cash. I see flying wings and giant companions everywhere and very few horses and minor mounts anymore. It could be players that got lucky last year and used the exchange when it was not so backed up, but the current business model will make many just fork out the cash or leave, I fall into the later category BTW after my membership expires.

    Sad too as I used to support this game with cash occasionally, now it is just an uphill grind with no end in sight with every mod!
    People like me planned to get Zen a year ago. People like me stashed Zen. When I started to play this game, the wait time was at least 6 months.
    My order that was posted on Sep 6 was processed on Nov 17. Hence, yours should be soon.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    TBH, as I was thinking of it, in terms of AH and economy in general it might be better to offer a generous amount of companion upgrade tokens instead of the AD. (along with the rune stone 1:1 trade)
  • mythdemeanourmythdemeanour Member Posts: 87 Arc User
    greywynd said:

    Look at the mount upgrade tokens. We need thousands to upgrade our stable to get up to max. Devs' generosity: 5 at a time, once a week.

    On a similar vein are the collar upgrade tokens, They drop like candy but I only still have my original epic collar I got for free on one character, no other drops. At this rate getting to one maxed character might happen before they shut down the servers but I doubt it!
  • admiralwarlord#3792 admiralwarlord Member Posts: 611 Arc User

    I still don't understand why you guys hating this upcoming change??

    These changes had to be done sooner or latter it is inevitable.

    With current companion system, any player who have augment + bonding runestones can easily ignore most of in game mechanics due raw stats.

    So it's no surpise why Pug's CoDG runs end up in fails, same can be said about dungeon in HC mode.

    Players don't even bother to learn mechanics or even pay attention to whats happening arround, all they do is keyboard hammering, and eat all hits without any attempts to avoid them.

    Or lets take Xuna/abyssal Chicken case.



    Not so long ago I was in IC, healer used xuna and in boss fight switched to Abyssal Chicken.
    Now in the end when we completed dungeon I looked to paingiving scores. Healer was tops dps, and he done x2 more dmg then second highest paingiver.

    It's no longer matter if you play as wiz, or warlock or ranger, heal or tank, xuna and abysal chicken wipe enemies for you.

    In other words players become least required element in gameplay.

    I agree with you that the changes would have to occur, but as has already been mentioned, there has been a major update on the mounts recently. To give you an idea, I spent 4.5M of AD on a mythical mount and over 3M of AD on necklaces only after this change. I have not yet upei a mount because I have no mount tokens (after the Mod 16 I turned FTP). Even my most hardcore friends who farmed ToMM at their peak and were super rich, spent their fortunes to achieve maximum bolster of mounts. If they who have already achieved this feat are not happy, imagine me, a simple commoner. If this change were today and there was no upgrade for mates to mitico I would have something close to 90% bolster of companions in my main char, but my alts would be almost unviable to play, and that's what's been tormenting me.
  • rockster#6227 rockster Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User

    I still don't understand why you guys hating this upcoming change??

    These changes had to be done sooner or latter it is inevitable.

    With current companion system, any player who have augment + bonding runestones can easily ignore most of in game mechanics due raw stats.

    So it's no surpise why Pug's CoDG runs end up in fails, same can be said about dungeon in HC mode.

    Players don't even bother to learn mechanics or even pay attention to whats happening arround, all they do is keyboard hammering, and eat all hits without any attempts to avoid them.

    Or lets take Xuna/abyssal Chicken case.



    Not so long ago I was in IC, healer used xuna and in boss fight switched to Abyssal Chicken.
    Now in the end when we completed dungeon I looked to paingiving scores. Healer was tops dps, and he done x2 more dmg then second highest paingiver.

    It's no longer matter if you play as wiz, or warlock or ranger, heal or tank, xuna and abysal chicken wipe enemies for you.

    In other words players become least required element in gameplay.

    But this is part of a long-standing pattern. They nerf things into the ground and take away things and people get weaker and weaker in order to 'balance' the game which on it's own and at first can seem to make sense at the time of the announcement, but over time all that happens over and over is that whatever happens to be most powerful at any given time gets constantly nerfed and sliced and diced to compensate for everything else and those players who invest a lot into their characters in order to get them to the most powerful level the game allows them to are P'd-off.
    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
  • sagakaiyume#0847 sagakaiyume Member Posts: 402 Arc User
    edited November 2020
    Also doesn't help when they do things like Nerf incoming healing from tacticals, all outgoing healing sources, crit sev for healers saying its for balance sake then re-sells them as collars.

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