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Additional Companion Changes Updates
nitocris83
Member, Cryptic Developer, Administrator Posts: 4,498Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Howdy all! Menzoberranzan is live and we wanted to make a few quick comments on the current, and upcoming, companion changes.
Our first round of updates hit with Menzoberranzan, and we updated a lot of the companions in Neverwinter, but not all of them. We hope that old favorites, like the Pseudodragon, are still seen as viable, but we hope players are finding many of our other companions are far more competitive. We know a few, like the Incubus, took some hits as we addressed bugs or significant imbalances, but we tried to power-up many companions to viable and playable levels.
We will have another patch within the next few weeks that will update more companions. A few of those were erroneously listed in our first draft of patch notes, such as the Cold Iron Warrior and Angel of Protection. We'll be improving those in the next patch, and improving a number of other companions, such as insuring our 'starter' companions perform more consistently. We don't expect every companion to perform the same, or for them all to be 'top tier', but we hope to get all companions (over time) to a solid, playable level.
We're hitting a number of support/healer companions in that patch too, such as the Fawns, to try and open up some more options for players. We don't believe we've 'nailed' support/healing companion balance just yet, but we know there is room to make many of them MUCH better as we work on their balance.
We are aware of a balance issue regarding our new companion, the Blaspheme Assassin. The stacking mechanic will be updated, such that the companion does not perform differently in groups than when used solo. That mistake is on us, and we apologize for it, but it will be corrected swiftly to prevent it from becoming polarizing.
Lastly, we want players to know that companions have a degree of randomness in their damage outputs and skill usage. Please take measurements of their raw damage output as rough estimates as a result. There is as much as +\- 10% randomness on some companion's performance, so depending on luck, a companion that deals 525 damage in one test might actually be the same as one that scored 475. General rankings are good to insure we hit a consistent balance, but don't sweat the details too much if your favorite companion was only 3% lower than another.
We are open to feedback on the current, and future changes, and we hope to continue to improve companions (of many types) as we make them a more interesting and diverse tool for players in Neverwinter.
Thank you for playing, and we'll see you in Menzoberranzan!
Our first round of updates hit with Menzoberranzan, and we updated a lot of the companions in Neverwinter, but not all of them. We hope that old favorites, like the Pseudodragon, are still seen as viable, but we hope players are finding many of our other companions are far more competitive. We know a few, like the Incubus, took some hits as we addressed bugs or significant imbalances, but we tried to power-up many companions to viable and playable levels.
We will have another patch within the next few weeks that will update more companions. A few of those were erroneously listed in our first draft of patch notes, such as the Cold Iron Warrior and Angel of Protection. We'll be improving those in the next patch, and improving a number of other companions, such as insuring our 'starter' companions perform more consistently. We don't expect every companion to perform the same, or for them all to be 'top tier', but we hope to get all companions (over time) to a solid, playable level.
We're hitting a number of support/healer companions in that patch too, such as the Fawns, to try and open up some more options for players. We don't believe we've 'nailed' support/healing companion balance just yet, but we know there is room to make many of them MUCH better as we work on their balance.
We are aware of a balance issue regarding our new companion, the Blaspheme Assassin. The stacking mechanic will be updated, such that the companion does not perform differently in groups than when used solo. That mistake is on us, and we apologize for it, but it will be corrected swiftly to prevent it from becoming polarizing.
Lastly, we want players to know that companions have a degree of randomness in their damage outputs and skill usage. Please take measurements of their raw damage output as rough estimates as a result. There is as much as +\- 10% randomness on some companion's performance, so depending on luck, a companion that deals 525 damage in one test might actually be the same as one that scored 475. General rankings are good to insure we hit a consistent balance, but don't sweat the details too much if your favorite companion was only 3% lower than another.
We are open to feedback on the current, and future changes, and we hope to continue to improve companions (of many types) as we make them a more interesting and diverse tool for players in Neverwinter.
Thank you for playing, and we'll see you in Menzoberranzan!
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Comments
I appreciate the update announcement here with more companion changes coming. I appreciate the works that the Devs are putting in trying to balance companions, and also admitted/owned the mistake on their part. We are not perfect, so acknowledging it and do your best to make corrections and communication to be transparent are great!
Many players including me already got very frustrated with the RNG in mToS dungeon, and now with this mention of companion changes involving the RNG factor!!!
For example, a master dungeon like mToS with such difficulty and complexity mechanics should NEVER be added the RNG factor in it. It should be designed if players spent so much time and resources into learning mechanics and accomplish those mechanics correctly, then they should be able to proceed to completion of a boss fight accordingly. Instead, the Devs designed with the RNG into the boss fight like first boss where bad “RNG” throws in with back to back barrels, not just 2 barrels back to back, but sometimes with 3 barrels one after another! Then the design of last boss not following any aggro/thread rule of Tanks and just RNG jumping on top of cocoons totally caused players not able to free person out of cocoon and hence, have to wipe and redo over and over!
So similarly, the concept of “luck” or 10%+/- RNG for companions to do high dmg or low dmg doesn’t sit well for any player who spends or invest heavily expensively to obtain a companion and upgrade it to mythic. Why would players spend that much for a companion that they know are not consistent! Please lock at those existing companions that even has equipped bonus of 10% chance to do this and that for players, and see how many players even use those as part of their set up build (via Companion Equipped Bonuses page). Very little if any player even use one of those companions, they are probably new players who has no knowledge about those companions or how to test. There are many of these companions not being used and no one even want to buy, so many players ended up either discard or sell to vendors for some silvers as they don’t have room to store those junk companions! These kind of changes with RNG will just keep making players frustrated and not wanting to play the game. We already lost so many players veterans and can’t even hold new players long enough as they quit shortly from all the frustration!
So please reconsider not going with this RNG route on companion changes/updates.
Thanks for reading my feedback!
Xuna still has the problem of the area of effect of her jump that makes her take the aggro of waves of mobs that should not be started (I tested her in a mToS and that resulted in some deaths in the group I was in) . I also believe that she falls in arenas that are platforms, this problem didn't just happen to her, but it's common for teammates to be permanently dead in CoDG and Tiamat.
However, I'm uncertain what to make of the statement regarding the randomness of a companions performance. We already have several rng-based statistics like critical chance and severity, as well as the opponents deflect chance and severity that have a huge influence on a players and companions performance. Do we really need another varying (also invisible) factor on top of these?
Like, when we are going to test our companions, should it really look like this?
First round: the companion used their strongest attack — but shoot, it didn't crit!
Second round: the companion used their strongest attack — but shoot, it didn't crit and it got deflected!
Third round: the companion used their strongest attack, it was a critical hit — but shoot, it got deflected!
Fourth round: the companion used their strongest attack, it was a critical hit and didn't get deflected — but shoot, for whatever reason it was still weaker than it should have been!
Fifth round: the companion used their strongest attack, it was a critical hit and didn't get deflected. It actually got to deal its absolute optimum — rejoice!
When a tank needs to swap to 5 companions that have a hybrid %critical avoidance & Awareness, we can't because only one companion exists that has that combination. And or the rest can't be put in the correct slot. Meaning it would be helpful if all companions could go in ANY slot. And it would be helpful if there were 5 different companions that shared the same %stat combination, for each possible combination of stat% & that each one could go in each of the different slots. This so we could concentrate on what we need at the time, with a variety of builds made possible.
PS: The amount of currency needed to upgrade a companion, should he severely reduced, or just completely removed. And just have companions exist as mythic and never need to be upgraded.
PPS:There are tons of MMORPG that make their money through fashion and quality of life, without the need to sell progression in their cash shop(pay to win), or resort to gacha game loot box tactics.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
thanks!
> I forgot to ask redjackal how a companion can break your combat advantage?
Your companion takes up his place by enemy, you move to other side so both , you and companion have CA ( Combat Advantage) . However , many times as soon as you get to a different side , to deal CA DMG ( Damage ) , your comp moves beside you disabling your CA . Is it RNG ( Random Number Generator) that cause the companion to do this ?
I have witnessed many enemy groups moving to always to get CA so I think there is an AI ( Artificial Intelligence) problem with many companions move set and positioning.