A Different Approach to Companions

Abigail

I've seen this suggestion before, but I believe it needs more attention.

Create a companion mechanism that allows us to replicate companions from our own alts.

Years ago, the original Guild Wars did this in one of its latter DLCs. I found it particularly compelling and continued to play the game long after GW2 was launched.

With all the gripes about cloned companions, this would certainly solve the problem. I suspect, even if ZOS nerfed the hell out of them, companions comprised of our alts would be much more useful.

Mythreindeer

How would they be more useful?

Abigail

Mythreindeer wrote: »

How would they be more useful?

Right off, you wouldn't have to grind out a bunch of skills since your alt is already setup (if mature). Second, you'd have a broader array of skills, and all the armor would be in place or craftable/obtained from drops/sets.

Simply a better solution.

Lugaldu

Personally, I find the idea of having alts as companions unfitting. Because the new companions bring a background story that can be explored as an additional small quest and which is also reflected in their personalities. My alt has its own story that takes place in my imagination, nothing can be discovered if he would be suddenly a companion. Rather, it would limit the interactions with companions even further, and I would already like to see a lot more dialogue options with the companions.

Mythreindeer

Abigail wrote: »

Mythreindeer wrote: »

How would they be more useful?

Right off, you wouldn't have to grind out a bunch of skills since your alt is already setup (if mature). Second, you'd have a broader array of skills, and all the armor would be in place or craftable/obtained from drops/sets.

Simply a better solution.

Oh I thought you meant just copy an alts appearance but you mean clone the entire alt with skills and gear.

Yeah that wouldn’t be OP - pass.

phaneub17_ESO

Then they would actually have to make a working AI script to accommodate player abilities. If you noticed the companion abilities are very basic as either lock on target or cast at self. They would have no clue how to use ranged target at ground effects for example or activate based on situation types.

trackdemon5512

Abigail wrote: »

Mythreindeer wrote: »

How would they be more useful?

Right off, you wouldn't have to grind out a bunch of skills since your alt is already setup (if mature). Second, you'd have a broader array of skills, and all the armor would be in place or craftable/obtained from drops/sets.

Simply a better solution.

1) ZoS considers alternate characters narrative wise the same individual (Hero of Tamriel) with different forms. Making an alternate character a companion goes against that.

2) There are serious technical reasons why having alternative characters with their movesets and outfits won’t work. Namely that you would probably severely impact the server with needless additional ability calculations/rendering. Base game consoles can barely handle things as it is.

3) Companions were designed more as assistants than a second copy. As such they’re not supposed to do a heavy load of work. The current companions fulfill that role just fine.

AcadianPaladin

Haha, all my 'alts' are the same character. She views choosing which class/spec to play as casually as a hairstyle or outfit. Race, appearance, mount, pet, even name (within game constraints) is the same. So the current concept works better for me.

ectoplasmicninja

On one hand that would be cool, because it's always saddened me that my sibling alts will never meet. I have four siblings from one family and two from another, and have had twins previously before one died an untimely death. I can't even get screenshots of them together without Photoshop, which I don't know how to use. Sad face.

On the other hand, there's a reason our current companions don't have set bonuses to their gear - if we could have our alts exist as buff bots wearing certain sets I could see that leading to all manner of imbalance problems and probably to players being kicked from content in favour of alts who just buff and drop synergies. The devs would also probably have a great deal of trouble trying to get the AI to use those skills in a passable manner. And those characters wouldn't have any quests or story to them, which some folks won't care about but others will.

Plus we have some players who for one reason or another only have one character. Some are completionists. You'd see no end of tears and rage on the forums about how their playstyle is being attacked and they're being unfairly disadvantaged by the system because they're now being forced to create an alt in order to participate in all of the things, check all the boxes, get all the achievement points, etc.