But… if the challenge is to do stuff the hard way, why are you then bringing Companions to make it easier? 🤔

Companions being unaffected by difficulty is a non-problem. It would be a lot more programming for something that would affect few people… and let’s face it, Companions don’t do much as it is. I see a huge difference since *I’m* the one tanking for *him*, and as such it does mean that I’m no longer outDPSing my Companion in full tank gear. It feels more like I need to protect him while he does damage, which is how my role is intended. For a DD with a tank Companion, now they can survive while you’re a glass cannon, exactly as intended. If you want them to fall over instantly when any enemy looks at them, then just put them away and you get what you want.

RandomSilliness wrote: »

I'm loving the new difficulty settings. It was a bit buggy on first login of several characters, but I figured that out. Here are some unexpected observations that might not be entirely accurate, but have struck me in some way while playing Vestige difficulty:

• Companions (at least some) do not appear to be affected by difficulty. I think I like this, but it has gone a bit too far. It elevates companions to the realm of "META", easily soloing critters with no help from me, while I am unable to solo that same critter without the companion's help.
• Passive healing based on damage output is ALSO reduced by 5x, due to the reduced damage that you're doing. That makes fights hard in ways that I doubt were intentional. At the very least it means players will re-think builds to rely less on passive healing, and more on active healing.
• When fighting a WB in a group I found I didn't get any XP sometimes, and I think that may be due to the challenge of meeting the threshold of participation.

That last one sounds very much like an unintended consequence. Getting credit for WB kills has been a point of frustration for a while, especially when it's one of those required for an endeavour/tome challenge. This is probably a good time for the developers to revisit how that all works and come up with a solution that's fairer for everyone.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

But… if the challenge is to do stuff the hard way, why are you then bringing Companions to make it easier? 🤔

Companions being unaffected by difficulty is a non-problem. It would be a lot more programming for something that would affect few people… and let’s face it, Companions don’t do much as it is. I see a huge difference since *I’m* the one tanking for *him*, and as such it does mean that I’m no longer outDPSing my Companion in full tank gear. It feels more like I need to protect him while he does damage, which is how my role is intended. For a DD with a tank Companion, now they can survive while you’re a glass cannon, exactly as intended. If you want them to fall over instantly when any enemy looks at them, then just put them away and you get what you want.

Very well put. One thing I love about the companions is had reintroduced the role fantasy into the single player game. I'm a spell slinger. I should be doing crazy damage but struggle to stay alive if enemies get too close. I use to have my summons tank for me in the single player Elder Scrolls Game while I called down the wrath of the divines on them.

And now I have that same feeling again. This Public Dungeon Archer actually hit me for crazy damage. So I snuck up on her so I could close the gap faster and Isobel would aggro her right away. And I still had to take care not to get hit by cleave because it was a one shot.

The fight lasted long enough that it was worth making sure I buffed up but not so long she felt like a damage sponge.

It was great.