WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Why would they be so low? They could do 50k and still be half of a good player. If they’re intended to make soloing as a tank or healer less painful then they’d have to be at least equal to a mediocre DPS.

Are you saying 50k DPS is mediocre? Total DPS of most pug groups on consoles is much less than that.
Besides I'm not gonna recruit a companion who puts out more damage than I ever had. There is no fun in it.

On another note, I believe people are missing the point of companions. It's more about RPG than it's about MMO side of things. There will be a very vocal and annoyed group of players when the chapter launches.

I would rather them not do DPS of any significance. The best in quest companions the game has partnered me with Heal or Draw Aggro. The ones that do DPS tend to get in my way and do not really contribute to the fight.

Grandesdar wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Why would they be so low? They could do 50k and still be half of a good player. If they’re intended to make soloing as a tank or healer less painful then they’d have to be at least equal to a mediocre DPS.

Are you saying 50k DPS is mediocre? Total DPS of most pug groups on consoles is much less than that.
Besides I'm not gonna recruit a companion who puts out more damage than I ever had. There is no fun in it.

On another note, I believe people are missing the point of companions. It's more about RPG than it's about MMO side of things. There will be a very vocal and annoyed group of players when the chapter launches.

Actually, the point of companions is so that players don't have to group with others to do content and so that the number of real players needed to do content can be reduced. It is not about RPing. House guests are about RPing. Companions are suppose to be a viable replacement for a group member, at least that is what is being pushed in the official streams.

They didn't give any new info really. Either companions will be extremely basic (akin to the quest NPCs already in-game), or that was a very early dev build with most features missing. I hope it is the latter.

In my opinion companion effectiveness will largely depend on whether or not they can equip armor sets and benefit from their effects, but I find this possibility unlikely due to performances issues. In the video they showed I only saw a few slots for weapons. They didn't say if companions could be brought to 4-man dungeons, but judging by experience in other games AI never mixes well with mechanics so I'm guessing they wouldn't be useful there in any case.

Finedaible wrote: »

They didn't say if companions could be brought to 4-man dungeons, but judging by experience in other games AI never mixes well with mechanics so I'm guessing they wouldn't be useful there in any case.

They confirmed companions can go everywhere except for PVP and solo arenas, so they can go in 4 man content

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Why would they be so low? They could do 50k and still be half of a good player. If they’re intended to make soloing as a tank or healer less painful then they’d have to be at least equal to a mediocre DPS.

50k is half of a good player’s dps, but twice (or more) that of the average dungeon pug.

Nestor wrote: »

I would rather them not do DPS of any significance. The best in quest companions the game has partnered me with Heal or Draw Aggro. The ones that do DPS tend to get in my way and do not really contribute to the fight.

Yes. This is the role that I want to task them with. They can either keep the mobs off me, or heal me when they try to stomp me. I can do my own damage, thank you.

I expect that they will be limited by cooldowns and rotation limitations to the point where the main thing they will contribute is to look fabulous while I dispatch the monsters.

As far as I'm aware, you can put regular gear on companions. And some proc sets have proc conditions that are so easy even the dumbest AI can proc them. So I guess we can push our companions above 20k dps.

I am not super familiar with the system. But if I can throw relequen and aegis caller on them then I'm getting at least 10k off it. So hopefully more once abilities are taken into consideration.

ThorianB wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Anything more than 5k will cause problems in overland questing and for players with poor DPS. I can't really see ZOS making companions preferable to random human teammates.

My actual prediction is around 2k.

They are actually meant to give people the option of not having a random teammate to do content. I would say they will probably be able to reach 10 to15k max dps

The point is to make it easier to find groups to do content. If companions do more DPS than random PuG players, they'll wind up making it harder for those players to find groups. In other words, ZOS doesn't want people asking: "Why would I ever queue for a PuG if I would be better off just soloing or duoing a dungeon with companion NPCs?"

If ZOS gets the balance right, companions will be worse than pretty much any human player, which means less than 5k DPS. I could see companions being a little bit better as healers or tanks, but that's mostly because so many humans that queue for those roles aren't actually trying to do the role. Having companions be decent healers or tanks is also less destructive to the overall queue economy because there are already shortages of humans queueing for those roles.

Won't be using them for DPS. Maaaaaaaaybe as occasional Tank. I'd guess very low, like around 5 - 10K max.

Seraphayel wrote: »

ThorianB wrote: »

Grandesdar wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Why would they be so low? They could do 50k and still be half of a good player. If they’re intended to make soloing as a tank or healer less painful then they’d have to be at least equal to a mediocre DPS.

Are you saying 50k DPS is mediocre? Total DPS of most pug groups on consoles is much less than that.
Besides I'm not gonna recruit a companion who puts out more damage than I ever had. There is no fun in it.

On another note, I believe people are missing the point of companions. It's more about RPG than it's about MMO side of things. There will be a very vocal and annoyed group of players when the chapter launches.

Actually, the point of companions is so that players don't have to group with others to do content and so that the number of real players needed to do content can be reduced. It is not about RPing. House guests are about RPing. Companions are suppose to be a viable replacement for a group member, at least that is what is being pushed in the official streams.

Not necessarily in dungeon or trial content though. They might work there, but they might not be useful there. A companion alone could pretty much solo most of the solo PvE content anyway because the level of skill needed for that is incredibly low.

They did actually cite dungeons as one of the reason why theyre bringing them on. It was part of the live stream when first announced if I remember. I dont disagree about them having limited use in dungeons though.

I doubt very seriously that they could be used effectively in most vet DLCs and even some base game dungeons. There are typically decisions that need to be made, sometimes on the move, that will make a human player more advantageous. SCP HM for example, even if the companion were immune to the breath, would they block the beam? Sigil phase in MHK, or any of the fights in MHK where the design is more of a controlled burn with burst damage at times. The first mini boss in Vault of Madness. Will they stop attacking? Neither will PUGs so I suppose thats a wash.

I think they'll be useful for casual players or solo players who want to run content at their own pace and the damage will likely reflect that.

Agenericname wrote: »

I think they'll be useful for casual players or solo players who want to run content at their own pace and the damage will likely reflect that.

Yeah and this should be pretty much their main use in my opinion. They could add some inventory slots for you on top of that and work like walking mannequins for your costumes, but that’s it.

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Realistically, if a companion does 10k and doesn't stand in red and die, your taking it over a PUG aren't you. The median pug seems to be a 5k affair with a high chance of dying every given fight. Since most of the point of dungeon finder is to incentivize good players to carry poor ones though their pledges or completion on other dungeons I really doubt they will be putting in a system that disincentivizes that.

My expectation is companions will do 5k and will not self heal at all. I expect the tanks to hold agro and be quite tanky but not self heal.

Would be nice if you could que with a buddy each having a companion and then despawn them when the rando normal starts to get +10%xp for the run. Not sure if ZOS will see that coming and stop it LOL.

Companions can self heal, we already saw an example in the stream on Tuesday. You have to equip the self healing skill though.
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By the way: I hope they add an option to the dungeon finder that prevents from getting queued with people that are using their companion for the group finder. I don’t want to join pug groups where there’s a companion (think about it: you queue your companion as a tank and yourself as a healer when none of you is that and you’re both DPS - fun times ahead).