Does anyone like Companions?

Castagere

I have not picked them up and don't think I will. From what I have been reading they sound like grind work and have annoying personalities. In their move to be clever they just made them worse. They should have kept it simple like in SWTOR. No need to level them or gear them. and you pick how they play either Tank DPS or Heal. And it's annoying as heck seeing everyone with the same companions. I think they really blew it with them. It could have been good.

Merforum

Merforum wrote: »

I actually like the companions. They are still very weak but provide a bit of extra help. For instance, I had tried soloing normal dragonstar arena in the past and had bad luck. I could DUO it with me and my brother fairly easily but never solo. Anyway yesterday I tried it again and I had bastian and we blew threw most all the way, only died a few times on the stage where peasant changes into dragon on altar if you don't kill them fast enough and 1 time on the blue guardian that you HAVE TO INTERRUPT. But it was fairly easy until the final boss(ES).

I don't have enough DPS to burn him down fast enough so I have to deal with literally like 10-15 bosses chasing me around and CCing the hell out of me. I got killed like 20-30 times but then I changed bastian to all heals and ranged (dual wield got him killed too fast even though I like him using his melee whip to set even bosses off balance). With those few extra heals from bastian and focusing 100% on only damaging main boss and rolling like crazy, I finally finished dragonstar. Didn't get the master SnB or bow I wanted but did get mythic lead.

I don't have time now but might start a thread top 10 reason companions are better than real people. The example above is one reason, I can change their skills to whatever will HELP ME in a particular situation.

You might say you can also ask a real person to do what you want or give them suggestions but my experience in these types of games is that they either ignore you or worse do just the opposite to grief you. Even my own brother who I played with for first 3 years until I couldn't stand it any more, would absolutely grief me continuously.

For instance, EVERY time I look at a skill and especially morphs if something helps people in group I ALWAYS take that one even though I mostly play solo. Like taking echoing vigor over resolving. Anyway, my brother actually could never play anything but a magplar to get more DPS (spamming OP sweeps) than me and his 2 sons so he could brag even though no one cared and I tanked mostly. Anyway I remember telling him wow I love the shards because they really help with my sustain, guess what he did, STOPPED USING THEM. I just ignored it, then he was using Ritual and I said wow I really like the synergy that cleanses, and HE STOPPED USING IT TOO.

I said HEY [snip] why every time you do something that helps the group and I tell you, you stop using it. Meanwhile most of my sets and skills I specifically get to HELP THE TEAM. He says 'I shouldn't have to CARRY YOU'. [snip] he can't kill a world boss without me but I can without him, but he carries me. Get this, if a boss puts a DOT on my brother just before we kill the boss, my brother WILL DIE if I don't heal him, because his ONLY HEAL is SWEEPS (even though he spams only one skill he won't slot a heal because it might heal the team too). Anyway, I see this SAME mentality all over the forum and in game, when people talk about toxic this is what they mean.

[edited for profanity bypass]

Sylvermynx

I neither like nor dislike them, I'm just totally uninterested in them.

azjuwelz

I’m enjoying them more than I thought I would—I figured they’d be mostly rpg flavor, but they’re actually quite useful with the right gear and skills to compliment the character.

My main, a stamblade, appreciates the healing that Mirri provides, and having her accidentally draw aggro is nice because it’s easier to flank the baddies. Don’t care if she dies, though I am planning to give her more survivability.

My tank runs tank gear while questing since I never know when guildies will need me, so having a bit of damage from Bastion is nice. Much faster when soloing world bosses.

One last fun thing—certain times of the day it can be hard to pull a raid group together. We actually beat the first side boss in VRG with only 8 players and 4 companions. Took a while, but they did help, lol!

ectoplasmicninja

Merforum wrote: »

There are a few changes that have happened that I don't like. This past week my companions didn't receive ANY XP from my writs. Literally ZERO. I know because Bastian was 1K away from level 12 and should have got ~1.3K for each toon but got none. But last week, when I got 20K for writ Mirri got 5K and leveled up. So they broke that. Not only is writ XP down to 5.6K from 20K with no warning, companions get ZERO XP now.

If your companions were getting XP from writs before, that was a glitch. They were always meant to only level from combat XP. It was that way on the PTS and is stated in their menu UI, and on live mine have never gotten XP from writs, quest turn ins, or anything else other than kills.

I can't say I've seen any adjustment to writ XP either, I'm still getting what I was getting before the patch, which at my CP level (1479) is 5.8k for all seven writs without enlightenment. Sounds like you had enlightenment active for your previous writs.

AllegedParadigm

I think they r fun. Lvling and gearing them is a grind, but having mirri heal allows me to solo world bosses and adds a nice roleplay esque effect to overland content, with the exception of seeing everyone else with her.

JimT722

There is really no downside to using a companion. They are great for what they are. The only thing missing is more variety. They need to have one of every race. Also the option to display headgear. I can't believe they didn't allow this.

jssriot

I like them better than how some players are acting now that they have a companion. Like today in Deshaan I was doing dolmens with Mirri to run out the timer on a XP pot I had drank and there was someone else there, CP800 or so, just standing there with a resto staff occasionally casting regen and letting their Mirri and me with my Mirri do everything, including close the pinions. The player wouldn't even move 2 steps to close the pinion they were standing right next to. So at the final boss, I pulled back and let them fight it with their resto staff and their underperforming Mirri, only killing an ogrim that had aggro'd on my Mirri. People, don't be this person.

Also, it would be super awesome if we could at least store extra companion gear on companions. They may not be sworn to carry our burdens, but they could at least carry theirs.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Short Answer: I do not like companions, if ZOS wanted followers they could of simply added basic Hirelings who you pay some gold to and they follow you for an hour or two.

tenryuta

irstarkey57 wrote: »

No, seriously. I, for one, donnnnnn’t. Can’t help but to think what could have been fixed, improved, added, developed with all the time it took them to bring us good ol Mirri and Bastion. I have yet to see them be any use in the game. All I’ve seen is a grind. The one positive is new life in the guild stores. Other than that, total meh for me. I’m sure people have different opinions though. Let’s hear it!

if you hate them dont use them, if you hate blackwood, do some interweb wushu for a refund.

me i like my mirri acting like my NB even with companion stat/skill restrictions, and i like the imperial portions of BW and deadlands, and we're getting later this year even more deadlands hopefully with a daedra/dremora comp

ArchMikem

I kept telling myself I wasn't going to bother. I don't need assistance in Overland at all (minus WBs of course), and everyone else having copies of the same person is off putting. But I finished the main questline and was going through the side ones, and of course, Bastian's came up. Decided to go see what the hubub was, and, well...



Matching outfits, because of course.

I still don't believe I'm really going to use him, spent a little bit of time taking him through world bosses and a public dungeon and got him to Level 5 I think? One thing I've already noticed, Companion Gear drops VERY rarely. It's no wonder I saw someone selling a piece asking for 250k.

Now, if ZOS releases a Khajiit Companion in the future.....might find it hard to say no outright to that.

Merforum

ectoplasmicninja wrote: »

show previous quotes

Merforum wrote: »

There are a few changes that have happened that I don't like. This past week my companions didn't receive ANY XP from my writs. Literally ZERO. I know because Bastian was 1K away from level 12 and should have got ~1.3K for each toon but got none. But last week, when I got 20K for writ Mirri got 5K and leveled up. So they broke that. Not only is writ XP down to 5.6K from 20K with no warning, companions get ZERO XP now.

If your companions were getting XP from writs before, that was a glitch. They were always meant to only level from combat XP. It was that way on the PTS and is stated in their menu UI, and on live mine have never gotten XP from writs, quest turn ins, or anything else other than kills.

I can't say I've seen any adjustment to writ XP either, I'm still getting what I was getting before the patch, which at my CP level (1479) is 5.8k for all seven writs without enlightenment. Sounds like you had enlightenment active for your previous writs.

Yeah, I can confirm for sure that I no longer get XP on my companions from writs but I think I did before. I distinctly remember Mirri leveling up and having the message pop up exactly while handing in writ. One think I can confirm without a doubt is that writ XP is continuously changing, now it is 5K, sometimes it is 11K, for years it was 20K. I always test this. I had full enlightment today and still only got 5K so I don't think that is what is happening.

Merforum

JimT722 wrote: »

There is really no downside to using a companion. They are great for what they are. The only thing missing is more variety. They need to have one of every race. Also the option to display headgear. I can't believe they didn't allow this.

Exactly at a minimum a companion can add a buff/heal/taunt that you don't have to and a pretty consistent light attack which isn't much damage but better than nothing. If you slot the correct weapon/skills depending on the particular fight, they can actually stay alive and help out.

I did dragonstar arena solo w/comp and on the final round on the peasant who turns into dragon if you don't kill fast enough, there is one boss who keeps healing herself if you don't interrupt but there is so much happening with the adds and her hitting with original frags that knock you down, and setting mines that stun and negate magic and all the adds running around. I had a tanky build so couldn't kill things fast enough and keep on top of her and the fight was lasting 10 minutes then I decided to rez Mirri and keep her rezzed and heavy attack that boss so Mirri would keep a constant barrage of light attacks on her while I was doing everything else, and within about 2 minutes we finally widdled that boss down and killed her. If I left Mirri lying dead I think I would have been at a stalemate.

But interestingly the final battle where all the bosses spawn on you was much easier with my tanky/DPS than it was with my more pure DPS that I tried yesterday. I needed to keep bastian alive and give all healing skills yesterday but today I was able to kill final boss and just let Mirri be dead. I can also do lvl1 vet dungeons pretty easily with my companions. My next test will be to get one other person with a companion or 2 people with me and a companion to try some vet content.

Essentially the companions are pretty weak but if you need just a little bit of help trying to do something specific they can really make it possible. Ideally I would like to see them scale with the content you use them in, for instance, they should do double damage in a vet DLC as they do normally. Attack faster, shorter cooldown, higher values, more than 5 skills slotted, more than 1 ult, conditional tactics etc. there would be many ways to scale them and make them even more fun to use.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

I like them

aldriq

Merforum wrote: »

NOW, this past week, as soon as ANY monsters head starts to flash red, Mirri/Bastian attack them. And especially when someone actually attacks me because I don't run by fast enough, companions attack. I can't believe how many times I am running along and Companions are way behind in middle of fighting, it is ridiculous. PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK to ONLY WHEN I LITERALLY ATTACK someone does that can my companion attack, they should go back to ignoring anything until I ATTACK. It is almost as if this week the devs decided they want to help us level up companions by making it so you can NEVER skip any mobs.

“Cowards die many times before their deaths – The valiant never taste of death but once."

I can so imagine Bastian quoting you this with a straight face

Seriously though, I agree, there are a few tweaks to their behaviour and pathing that would make companions a safer, more reliable pair of hands in their assigned roles.

captainwolfos

I love the companions -- I hate their irritating habit of getting right up in my face when I'm trying to pick something up.

Tharonil

captainwolfos wrote: »

I love the companions -- I hate their irritating habit of getting right up in my face when I'm trying to pick something up.

I know this feeling. But I'm saying to myself, Mirri maybe only wants that I interact more with her.

We can't only take, we need to give something back to our companions to keep them happy

But for real, I don't want to play without companions anymore. They are a lot of fun!

rotaugen454

How many "like" points do you need? I've been reading bookshelves over and over with Bastian, see I get the point, but after grinding this for a LONG time, it doesn't look like the scale is moving.

colossalvoids

rotaugen454 wrote: »

How many "like" points do you need? I've been reading bookshelves over and over with Bastian, see I get the point, but after grinding this for a LONG time, it doesn't look like the scale is moving.

Not sure how you wanted to move a progress bar by doing 1/125 of a mages daily or a 1/500 of his personal quest. It's still 1/5 of just scrying for any lead.

khyrkat

Either like them either don't. I leveled Bastian nearly to max but don't bother finding super gear for him, got some purples but I haven't even decided what role he should have, for now he's a wanna-be-healer. At the start it was fun to hear his comments but now they're annoying, wish we could turn them off entirely because "infrequent" setting is still too frequent to my liking, I just like silence. I didn't bother with leveling Mirri, doing this all over again, daily guild quests etc, etc... just nope. Why the hell did they think grind fest would be good for this game? And seeing all clones around... no, just no.
Dunno... I thought I would like them more actually OT: feels like ZOS shoot themselves in the foot with only two, pretty generic and annoying companions, in the chapter that feels like cheap DLC slapped onto generic game assets but with full expac price, with no will to keep high standards of story writing from Summerset or Orsinium. Did they fire the guy responsible for writing?

Klad

Well yes I do...

What I do see is what I predicted... the dungeon queue folks are pissed off , because it's taking much longer for to queue up and they can't scream FAAAAKKKEEE TANK!!!!!!!! or FAAAAKKKEEE Healer!!!!!!!! as often.

I have heard a lot of complaining about this in chat. I can also tell you that the Companion system is nowhere near done. There are actions that show up very rarely that points to the AI not being turned on all the way.

Finally if Companions are not popular why do I see a metric ton of folks playing with them everytime I log on?

ArchMikem

Klad wrote: »

Finally if Companions are not popular why do I see a metric ton of folks playing with them everytime I log on.

It's the new shiny. Give it some time for the sheen to wear off and you'll see only the players who take the Companions seriously while everyone else either stops summoning them, or just stops playing cause they only got the game just because of the new shiny.

Alurria

ArchMikem wrote: »

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Klad wrote: »

Finally if Companions are not popular why do I see a metric ton of folks playing with them everytime I log on.

It's the new shiny. Give it some time for the sheen to wear off and you'll see only the players who take the Companions seriously while everyone else either stops summoning them, or just stops playing cause they only got the game just because of the new shiny.

I don't think that will happen,just take a look at the people who want to gate keep others from queing in vet dungeons. I would rather play with a companion than to play with judgemental players who thinks it's their right to tell me I am not good enough. I like companions and feel they will only get better with time. At least they are not bunny hopping around and complaint they are bored. The companions have a pleasent attitude and don't get mad if I stop and pick flowers or fish. They don't rush me through content and I can stop and read a book or quest if I want to without being judged.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

SammyKhajit wrote: »

This one likes them, even the bellyaching, cereal eating Bastian

But one thing that puzzles Sammy is there seems to be no more personal quests beyond the two family related ones per companion. Would be nice to have more character and story development.

This one believes that there will be more quests for companions when new companions come out. Maybe even updating some of the older companions quest lines. For now, just happy that the companions and the new system actually works more or less.

Lugaldu

starlizard70ub17_ESO wrote: »

This one believes that there will be more quests for companions when new companions come out. Maybe even updating some of the older companions quest lines.

Oh yes, I also hope that new companion quests will be added in the future. I was so overjoyed today when Basti finally had a quest marker over his head...

danno8

jssriot wrote: »

I like them better than how some players are acting now that they have a companion. Like today in Deshaan I was doing dolmens with Mirri to run out the timer on a XP pot I had drank and there was someone else there, CP800 or so, just standing there with a resto staff occasionally casting regen and letting their Mirri and me with my Mirri do everything, including close the pinions. The player wouldn't even move 2 steps to close the pinion they were standing right next to. So at the final boss, I pulled back and let them fight it with their resto staff and their underperforming Mirri, only killing an ogrim that had aggro'd on my Mirri. People, don't be this person.

Also, it would be super awesome if we could at least store extra companion gear on companions. They may not be sworn to carry our burdens, but they could at least carry theirs.

Sounds like they were testing stuff to me.

Abigail

Have to laugh when people suggest companions don't do much. Every now and then my Bastion one-shots mobs, killing them quicker than me (and dps on all my alts is 35-40K). Happened today in a Blackwood PubD. He normally need 3-4 skills to kill, but that's still doing a lot. More ...

1. Bastian tanked the big salamander WB for the Justicier daily. Didn't die, had no trouble holding aggro.
2. I collected all the skyshards in Blackwood today, meaning PubDs and Delves -- we were magnificent as a team burning through mobs and bosses.
3. Bastian is along for the Mage, Fighter, and Dauntless dailies, and with him they go a lot quicker.

For those saying the companions are near useless -- max their level and get them in all blue gear (I've got Bastian is blue HA, with a split between crit and pentration traits. His sword and board are blue, but I've got a purple bow on him most of the time.

Soloing, I've always got Bastian out, and I've no intention to run without him.

Alurria

Abigail wrote: »

Have to laugh when people suggest companions don't do much. Every now and then my Bastion one-shots mobs, killing them quicker than me (and dps on all my alts is 35-40K). Happened today in a Blackwood PubD. He normally need 3-4 skills to kill, but that's still doing a lot. More ...

1. Bastian tanked the big salamander WB for the Justicier daily. Didn't die, had no trouble holding aggro.
2. I collected all the skyshards in Blackwood today, meaning PubDs and Delves -- we were magnificent as a team burning through mobs and bosses.
3. Bastian is along for the Mage, Fighter, and Dauntless dailies, and with him they go a lot quicker.

For those saying the companions are near useless -- max their level and get them in all blue gear (I've got Bastian is blue HA, with a split between crit and pentration traits. His sword and board are blue, but I've got a purple bow on him most of the time.

Soloing, I've always got Bastian out, and I've no intention to run without him.

That's awesome! I have Bastian set up as dps/heal. I am dps so we burn through things, I often die before he does and I feel bad when he mourns me. But I am not having the issues that many people are saying they have. Aggro well he walks right by mobs if I am going around them without aggroing, I haven't seen him reset a boss either. So I don't know what people are doing but I just haven't experienced what some are saying. Of course I don't believe half of what I read hear, not saying it doesn't happen or won't happen.

I just feel people like to embellish events to make them sound more believable. Again not saying it can't or hasn't happened I just feel sometimes people exaggerate circumstances. No doubt companions need tweaking in areas. We need a helpful thread for improvements to companions. If a person doesn't like them well guess what you don't have to use them, some of us really like this new feature so leave us alone and go about playing the game thank you.

ectoplasmicninja

If I'm riding/running past enemies and aggro them, my companion may hop off their mount and attack. But if I just keep going, they break off pretty quick and zip over to me. I've never had one hang back and fight to their death. They do occasionally dodge roll backwards too much and cause a boss to stray, but I haven't seen one actually reset yet.

The gear grind is very real though. Bastian is at level 20, max rapport, all his skill lines maxed, and I still don't have a second ring for him. In all our time adventuring I've found one necklace and one ring, period, and only two pieces of purple gear at all.

Merforum

aldriq wrote: »

show previous quotes

Merforum wrote: »

NOW, this past week, as soon as ANY monsters head starts to flash red, Mirri/Bastian attack them. And especially when someone actually attacks me because I don't run by fast enough, companions attack. I can't believe how many times I am running along and Companions are way behind in middle of fighting, it is ridiculous. PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK to ONLY WHEN I LITERALLY ATTACK someone does that can my companion attack, they should go back to ignoring anything until I ATTACK. It is almost as if this week the devs decided they want to help us level up companions by making it so you can NEVER skip any mobs.

“Cowards die many times before their deaths – The valiant never taste of death but once."

I can so imagine Bastian quoting you this with a straight face

Seriously though, I agree, there are a few tweaks to their behaviour and pathing that would make companions a safer, more reliable pair of hands in their assigned roles.

The weird thing is this behavior definitely changed this week, on PTS and first week I tested both companions never aggroed mobs. We could both run away from mobs attacking, NOW they always just fight, so no point rushing. I wonder if they did this to stop the XP grinders. Although I still think they shouldn't attack unless I at least LA a mob.