Who are Companions? What do you do with them? Why are they needed? I'm going to answer these questions to the best of my ability. In the game your character will get what they call companions. These are NPC characters that will help you out in battle. This is a good thing for people like me who are not really great when it comes to those epic battles you get in SWTOR.
Each class has their own starting companions. My Smuggler's companions are different from the companions I have with my Sage or my Trooper. Right now my top companion is on my Smuggler and his name is Corso Riggs. He is almost at level 24 of 50. He fights pretty good for me.
Now to get your companion to fight the best, you will need to raise their influence level. How do you get your companion's influence up? It used to be that you raised it through your actions. If you did something your companion approved of you got points. However, if you did something your companion disapproved of, you got points taken away. The creators have changed this since people were playing their characters just one way and making choices based on if they will get points with a companion. I know when I started there were times I wanted badly to make one choice and did the other because I knew my companion would approve of instead of disapprove. Deep down inside I really wanted to do the other action, just didn't want to risk losing points. I was playing my character not as I would like but as my companion would like. See the problem with this.
The way it is done now is you give your companion gifts. You can get gifts on drops from killing evil NPCs, you can send your crew members out to do missions for the gifts, or get them from a companion gifts vendor. There is one of these vendors on the Fleet and some of the other planets.
Here is where it gets a little complex but trust me it's not too bad. Different companions like different gifts. You're thinking do I have to memorize what everyone likes or loves or doesn't like at all. No you don't. Thank goodness. If you run your cursor over the gift in your inventory while your companion is out it will tell you if your companion likes it and how much they like it. I look for large influence gains because that's what is going to give the most points. Corso, mentioned above, really loves weapons and these gifts will cause a large influence gain. There have been times I have had to go through a few companions before I found the one that liked a particular gift. Remember what is a small influence gain on one companion will be a large on another.
This all changes when you get to level 65. You lose your starting companions and you get others. Everyone gets the same companions. So you'll see multiple upper level players from different classes, all running around with the same companion. I was distraught that I lost my original characters since they had grown on me. I was unsure I was going to get my favorites back. I did get two of my companions back with the story line. Now the creators have put in a terminal where you can get your characters back without having to follow the story line where you "may" get them back. So I have my original crew back. All good now and I'm a happy person.
There is one more aspect to companions, however, I'll be saving that for the next blog post. You'll have to read on to learn more.
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