My (and many other's) general consensus on a Companion Rework.

[(XBOX)Affective64]

After asking multiple questions in Alliance chat, Region Chat, and Q&A chat over the past couple days, i've compiled a bit of different answers based on Companions. I will keep the users anonymous for privacy reasons, and every paragraph is a recorded answer from a player.

Sentinels: "I love sentinels and all, but i hate it when i have to run a mission solo because it died. There's a bandaid called not using a weapon, but the whole point of a Sentinel is to back you up in missions, and i get some like Helios and the Oxylus don't need to attack, and Djinn is immortal, but they are still just really impractical for most late game stuff."

MOA's: "Moas are really underated and fun to use, but are just useless compared to Panzer, and i hate Panzer, but it's the only sustainable thing in late game. It's aggrevating how my aunt i memorialized as a MOA, is completely useless compared to a * stupid * cat. * Vulps."

Kubrow/Chargers: "I hate how Kubrows and chargers are terrible but some * cat isn't. Don't get me wrong, i love my smeeta but i'd rather use one of my dogs. But i can't because the developers are braindead and won't fix the * elephant in the room. Either buff them, or Nerf Kavats and Vulps. Hell, just * remove Vulps entirely."

Vulps: "Imo, Vulps shouldn't be nerfed but other companions absolutely need to be buffed to the same level. Or at least, increase survivability, or damage or something. Maybe make Kubrows come back stronger when the die, or moas can respawn titanfall style, and crush some enemies or something. I mean, you kinda gotta use your imagination for it, but at least these would bring some attention to them, and the entire game wouldn't just be "vulp vulp vulp" or "smeeta smeeta smeeta". Something like this would be nice to have. 

Kavats: "Buff the other companions. That's it. Don't nerf Kavats or Vulps, and don't put a bandaid on bad companion design. That's not buffing them, that's just a way to put off work that is actually needed to fix the other companions in the game. And then i can stop worrying about seeing questions like this.

I could not get a good or solid answer to Predasite's.

I agree with most of the ideas stated in the paragraphs above, in that there absolutely needs to be a companion rework to make the entire companion side of things not about, in quotes, "vulp vulp vulp" or "smeeta smeeta smeeta".

[NinjaZeku]

Companions in general should just be immortal.

To still make Health etc matter, have a cooldown / recovery state when they take "lethal" damage
during which offensive abilities are turned off (unless it's a Vulp, leave them that unique option),
but always have stuff like Animal Instinct and Vacuum / Fetch stay active.

Current Bleedout Mods and whatnot would be altered to affect that recovery speed instead.

Really, this is kind of like the old "universal Vacuum" thing to me, yes it's a very nice, in-demand effect,
but not one that completely breaks the game or anything, it just helps make other Companions more attractive / fun to use.

And ye, with that finally done and over with, look into buffing under-performing Companions
... and also Robotic weapons while we're at it, there's just no reason for e.g. Tazicor and Vulcax
(yes those weapons exist, I don't blame you for forgetting about them) to be so utterly garbage.

Lastly, on the topic of weapons, give Pets a separate weapon slot already.

[SpicyDinosaur]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Affective64 said:

After asking multiple questions in Alliance chat, Region Chat, and Q&A chat over the past couple days

I stopped reading here. Not enough time to get a good sample size, and other than your alliance (which I know nothing about so that's left to speculation) most people that have any sense turn off Region and Q&A. You're basically asking a mixture of completely new players and the 4Chan of the game, so... yea.

[AegidiusF]

Companions rework was announced for this year, after Tennocon.

I want to see what they are going to do.

[Voltage]

On 2023-06-30 at 4:13 AM, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

Companions rework was announced for this year, after Tennocon.

I want to see what they are going to do.

Unless they plan on nerfing the Smeeta or Vulpaphyla, I don't see anything changing in practice. It will turn out just like the time they buffed sentinels after an overwhelming usage of Carrier Prime. Nothing changed.

The only way DE can really make unique companions shine is through gamemode additions where they bring something to the table. Trials back in the day actually encouraged players to run a Huras Kubrow or Shade sentinel. This is the kind of choice influence that needs to happen.