I have seen that companions on your second page (and further) that used to have <1% chance to join are now true 0% and will not join any battle. Firstly, this is not mentioned in the update notes and it is a fairly major change.

Secondly, I like all my companions, even the useless ones, so I don't mind if they join the battle. I know other people love this change so why not make it an option? There is a huge thread here discussing this and the only compromise that could be made was to have it be an option. Then those who like lots of companions can have them and those who want a few can do that too.

Thirdly, this addition makes the benching tokens useless. If you bench a companion, one of the ones that were on the second page become active. So why would you use the bench if you could just move the companion to the second page?

On your second point... If anything this makes the system more honest. The chance of second page companion appearing in the current system might as well be zero. They don't appear often enough to be worth spending companion training points on all of them but they drag the team down when they do appear. If you want to use a wider range of companions you really need to swap them in and out of your first 3 rows with the current system anyway... They only appear often enough to annoy people who don't want them to show.

On your third point... They are still very useful before a pirate has 2 pages of companions. For many comp pirates it lets us remove a few comps from the line up without having to shift. Say I know I'm about to fight a battle against many epic heavy musketeers. I could bench Bonnie and Cogburn for that specific battle without messing up my overall line up.

Nesogra on Feb 21, 2013 wrote:

On your second point... If anything this makes the system more honest. The chance of second page companion appearing in the current system might as well be zero. They don't appear often enough to be worth spending companion training points on all of them but they drag the team down when they do appear. If you want to use a wider range of companions you really need to swap them in and out of your first 3 rows with the current system anyway... They only appear often enough to annoy people who don't want them to show.

On your third point... They are still very useful before a pirate has 2 pages of companions. For many comp pirates it lets us remove a few comps from the line up without having to shift. Say I know I'm about to fight a battle against many epic heavy musketeers. I could bench Bonnie and Cogburn for that specific battle without messing up my overall line up.

I don't necessarily want to use a wider range of companions, I just want to have them. I don't get annoyed when a lower powered companion joins my battle. In fact, I like it because I get to use a companion that may have been a favourite but has since been surpassed. I don't want to have to swap around my companions (because I'll forget when an important battle comes up).

I'm not saying other people don't have problems with companions and this change is great for them. But it should be an option. Either increase the number of benching tokens given or allow one token to bench an entire page (if you have more than one page).

As for your point on my third point, I hadn't thought of that. It is a really good idea.

Ratbeard on Feb 21, 2013 wrote:

Indeed.

To be clear: I'm "indeeding" your "give them time" comment. Most of the early feedback seems to lean against this change for a variety of reasons.

I wish I could blame all my bad decisions on bugs.

Booo.And I was so glad that was back -_-

Ratbeard on Feb 21, 2013 wrote:

Indeed.

To be clear: I'm "indeeding" your "give them time" comment. Most of the early feedback seems to lean against this change for a variety of reasons.

I wish I could blame all my bad decisions on bugs.

Ditto.

Ratbeard on Feb 21, 2013 wrote:

Indeed.

To be clear: I'm "indeeding" your "give them time" comment. Most of the early feedback seems to lean against this change for a variety of reasons.

I wish I could blame all my bad decisions on bugs.

I strongly think they should add more tokens then by the time you get to level 50. With over 20 companions only being able to bench 3 of them isn't really worth it. Those three already had a less than 1% chance to come up, so it's not really a big difference after all.

It seems like it'd be better if at least you got one bench marker every 10 levels giving you 5 total, or every 4 or 5 companions you get you receive another marker or something like that to make it more useful.

That's just my opinion at least.

Thank you Ratbeard for listening to everyone on this subject. It is going to be tricky to get a situation that makes everyone happy. But I do have a suggestion. What if, when a pirate had more than one page of companions, a benching token could be used to bench the entire last page of companions. So if a pirate had three pages of companions they could use one token to bench page three or two tokens to bench both 2 & 3.

KiwiChickenz on Feb 22, 2013 wrote:

Thank you Ratbeard for listening to everyone on this subject. It is going to be tricky to get a situation that makes everyone happy. But I do have a suggestion. What if, when a pirate had more than one page of companions, a benching token could be used to bench the entire last page of companions. So if a pirate had three pages of companions they could use one token to bench page three or two tokens to bench both 2 & 3.

Or how about this. Add a 'multi-bench' button that would bench all companions with <1% chance of appearing and pressing it would cost one token. That way we will always have 15 since benching another companion higher up on the list would wake up another companion because the %s shift down the list by one unit. It would have the same effect as the original benching system on test but with just one less token.

Despite my intentions, it seems that only Nesogra really saw the full functionality of what I was trying to accomplish with Page 2 combined with benching tokens. Half the people hated it immediately because they like page 2 companions; and folks like deoxy immediately dismissed it as useless. Nesogra "got it" but if the solution isn't instantly grokkable by the vast majority of players, it's not viable.

The major points are this:

1) Allow people who enjoy the game now to continue playing it as is. (Easy enough: don't use your bench tokens.)

2) Provide benching tokens for people to remove companions they simply don't ever want to show up. (Note that this is distinct from strategic companion management-- this is simply a solution for matters of taste.)

3) With respect to strategic companion management, this constitutes a short-cut through the game. If you take companions out of the roster, the game is easier on a number of levels: you won't lose as many battles if you have better control over your companions, and you won't spend as much time doing side quests for training tomes and gold. We don't mind short cuts but we have to balance them carefully.

I just need to apologise for the way I am acting on this topic. I get rather defensive when people tell me how I should be playing a game (unless it is causing them grief).

Ratbeard on Feb 24, 2013 wrote:

Despite my intentions, it seems that only Nesogra really saw the full functionality of what I was trying to accomplish with Page 2 combined with benching tokens. Half the people hated it immediately because they like page 2 companions; and folks like deoxy immediately dismissed it as useless. Nesogra "got it" but if the solution isn't instantly grokkable by the vast majority of players, it's not viable.

The major points are this:

1) Allow people who enjoy the game now to continue playing it as is. (Easy enough: don't use your bench tokens.)

2) Provide benching tokens for people to remove companions they simply don't ever want to show up. (Note that this is distinct from strategic companion management-- this is simply a solution for matters of taste.)

3) With respect to strategic companion management, this constitutes a short-cut through the game. If you take companions out of the roster, the game is easier on a number of levels: you won't lose as many battles if you have better control over your companions, and you won't spend as much time doing side quests for training tomes and gold. We don't mind short cuts but we have to balance them carefully.

I had to Google "grokkable" since I'm too old to be up with all the latest hipster talk and slang. But I fail to see how we aren't saying the same thing just using different words/language.

Nesogra said to use the tokens for multiple companion that had a less than 1% of appearing thereby always giving you an effective number of 15 "active" at all times.

I said have the first page always active (which is officially 16, 1 more than Nesogra's example) and have everything on every page thereafter "inactive" but still available for making active or "waking up" or "unbenching."

How is that substantially different? They are saying the same thing using different words and a different methodology, but it's the same end result. I fail to see how that is not "getting it" or we are not "grokking" a solution to the problem.

And for the record, I was never talking about strategic companion management. Another alarmist viewpoint thrown into this discussion without checking the facts. I never said that.

I never once said anything about changing the way Epic Battles are handled, not once. I don't have any issue with "strategic companion management." I like the way Epic Battles are handled.

I was speaking about mob battles, generic battles, run-of-the-mill quest battles. Specifically I was speaking about the ability to have real and direct companion management of my crew. Not getting rid of anyone, not having it be epic battle choices every time, just being able to limit it down to a reasonable number of active duty companions that may show up. And one page (or 15 - 16 "always active") is a reasonable number regardless of whether that is achieved by Nesogra's idea or my suggestion.

As I review this entire thread, I see there are many different ideas/feedbacks, concepts in discussion.
Not just one persons, my responses although I may have quoted someone, do refer to the entire thread. I quote a person if they say something I want to respond to, but that does not mean my entire post was in response to that single person. I try to take everyones comments into consideration.

KI acknowledges user feedback and considers changes accordingly.

I personally chose to play the game the way it was designed, take that on as a challenge, and then come up with game play strategies to make it work instead of trying to change the game.

What I do know the facts on, is that if I was able to further limit the companions that the game would automatically apply to me, then it would make it far easier, as I could select companions I had no interest in, bench them, or set them aside, and then never have to train, or spend any time or resources on them thusly making it much easier to manage the remaining companions. Giving me a shortcut.

I personally believe it would be best to eliminate the page second page 0% stuff, and then come up with a viable number of benchmarks as a compromise allowing those that wish a means of controlling the number of their "active" crew. The benchmark ONLY should eliminate a companion from being included.

I like the surprise of all my companions showing up at any given time, its a concept about this game I thoroughly enjoy. It breaks the game for me to automatically leave out page 2+ and make me have to constantly shuffle companions around for a chance to use some of the less popular ones. Some dont want to work on managing all their companions, I dont want to have to shuffle the game around to be able to use all my companions. They are unwilling to strategize full companion mgmt, why should I have to shuffle things to play the game as originally intended?

aaronlightwalker on Feb 26, 2013 wrote:

I had to Google "grokkable" since I'm too old to be up with all the latest hipster talk and slang. But I fail to see how we aren't saying the same thing just using different words/language.

Nesogra said to use the tokens for multiple companion that had a less than 1% of appearing thereby always giving you an effective number of 15 "active" at all times.

I said have the first page always active (which is officially 16, 1 more than Nesogra's example) and have everything on every page thereafter "inactive" but still available for making active or "waking up" or "unbenching."

How is that substantially different? They are saying the same thing using different words and a different methodology, but it's the same end result. I fail to see how that is not "getting it" or we are not "grokking" a solution to the problem.

And for the record, I was never talking about strategic companion management. Another alarmist viewpoint thrown into this discussion without checking the facts. I never said that.

I never once said anything about changing the way Epic Battles are handled, not once. I don't have any issue with "strategic companion management." I like the way Epic Battles are handled.

I was speaking about mob battles, generic battles, run-of-the-mill quest battles. Specifically I was speaking about the ability to have real and direct companion management of my crew. Not getting rid of anyone, not having it be epic battle choices every time, just being able to limit it down to a reasonable number of active duty companions that may show up. And one page (or 15 - 16 "always active") is a reasonable number regardless of whether that is achieved by Nesogra's idea or my suggestion.

From my understanding the main difference between Nesogra and your solutions is that Nesogra's solution would only lead to a massive game change if players made an active choice to bench the second page with a token. Wheras your solution would automatically change the game for a vast majority of players who(like me) enjoy seeing their second page companions every once in a while.