How would it be nonsensical to pretend to believe Arcann, use him and his mommy against Vaylin, then dispose of both of them? To some characters they would be tools to be used and discarded, plus seeing the look on his face when I stab him in the back (like he did to daddy) would be priceless. Apparently EA isn't capable of that level of writing though- it's either blindly good or stupidly evil. Apparently behaving more like Palpatine is not an option for the outlander. It's not like there's a history of betrayal in Star Wars or anything...

I thought it was 'patriots' according to you. Don't worry, the Moby Dick gang can call it whatever they want- we all know the correct term.

As soon as the white knights stop praising every game decision as perfection. After all, why praise EA since they will do what they want anyway?

That's why they created the cartel crates- to appeal to gamblers. Why infect the rest of the game with it?

I love getting rank 5 gifts (worth about 10k according to the vendor) and schematics that require group content to craft. On the plus side, I got a pet- yipee for me!

Why not? It's not like my body is going to give out any time soon.

I prefer to speak of the poor quality of this railroaded clichefest from a position of knowledge. I'm still waiting to read if I can use and abuse Arcann as fodder against his sister or if my character is forced to accept his alleged redemption story and be stuck with him at the end. That's the only choice I would be interested in exploring- otherwise this whole sad expansion with its bad story and worse RNG gearing can be forgotten like a particularly bad dream (you know, like every other bit of story in the game-see my Inquisitor question for an example).

So potentially get another interchangeable companion, kill or save two more interchangeable companions, choose which interchangeable companion dies, and kill a character many players have likely forgotten about by now (and was clearly as relevant as Satele at this point). Perhaps if the game didn't toss out companions like confetti then losing them would actually mean something. The only people for whom any of these choices matter are those who raised influence with both Vette and Torian and saw a loss on their investment. Speaking of choices... where is my choice to send the Fleet into a star because no one should have that much power?

So Arcann is really really sorry for killing billiions all because he was throwing the deadliest tantrum in the history of their galaxy and he'll never do it again? The story gave me no reason to want to spare him. If I only get a hint of his alleged redemption AFTER I choose to save him it's pretty poor pacing. Why not use one of the dozens of cutscenes in the previous story to show him as anything other than a glowering psycho, mad at the world because he wasn't Daddy's favorite? My Trooper isn't Luke, and Arcann isn't Vader. Help me out, did I miss a cutscene in the previous story where Arcann did anything other than get angry and kill people (including half his Force-users)? BTW if I decide to keep him around would I get to kill him in Chapter 9? My Inquisitor could theoretically use, abuse, and discard him to defeat Valkorion and his crazy sister. The theoretical look on his face that I could pretend to forgive him just to use him as fodder would almost be worth dealing with him until the moment of betrayal.

Because I don't care enough about the story to play it again on any character at this time? I don't want to see him again, I don't want to see his face in my companion tab, I don't want to hear his 'I'm trying to be James Earl Jones' voice, I don't want to see his cybernetic arm when cyborg player characters don't get that option, I don't want him to be part of my SWTOR experience period. I don't want a mass murdering psychopath on my team. For all I know I could say something, he would reply with "You're just like Father!" and someone would be dead on the floor. The idea that he can be redeemed is laughable-why not ask those who lost beings during his war against the rest of the galaxy if he should be tried? Would the Outlander hand him over for trial? Would Arcann accept judgment by 'lessers', even if that judgment involved a death sentence? At least Vader didn't blast five planets to rubble-hell, Tarkin was in charge of the Death Star and that was only one.

That's because there's only one story. Either I get Arcann as yet another interchangable companion (with yet another influence grind) or I don't- IMO that's hardly a choice that matters when I already have a dozen or more that I neither need nor use. I have a rank 50 influence on all the crafters- others don't need it to grind heroics when I need credits and I certainly am not going to grind more influence than necessary, even if I can grind story chapters to raise it without gifts. The original characters have planets full of missions to raise influence- what does Arcann get, a few cutscenes? I get that you like Arcann- for me he was a second-rate Vader who was only memorable due to EA's kilometer-thick plot armor surrounding him. After the third 'nope can't kill him' on Voss I decided that he would never be part of any of my characters' forces. He might be worse than Kai Leng in Mass Effect- at least that guy wasn't the main villain when he made Shepard look incompetent.

I don't know-is killing them light or dark? I went into the story at light 5 and finished it at light 5. I killed Senya for betraying the Alliance to save her pwecious widdle boy, I killed Arcann for being a mass murdering psychopath (after being trolled YET AGAIN on Voss), and I don't see how anything would have changed beyond only having to beat Vaylin's spirit (I don't even recall killing Arcann's-just spamming attacks and I guess at some point he keeled over-just like the unmemorable villain he was. Even then I had to deal wth him again with the Valk fight). Tell me, do you think that Arcann and Senya have deep, meaningful conversations with the character after chapter 9, or will they be reduced to nearly mute pixels with a couple of stock phrases in combat? Hell, I don't recall getting any actual conversations with my squadmate Jorgan, it was almost all Lana/Theron as forced companions.

Really? Possibly get another companion (How many is that now?) and choose which one to lose. What other choices mattered? So phenomenal that it's over in a few hours with nothing else to do but grind for RNG crates?

An alliance with the same faction that every few centuries comes back to attack the Republic? Why should my character assume that Acina would be able to purge the Empire of backstabbing, warmongering Sith? Their entire society is based on it- the entire structure is irredeemable. There might be exceptions, but even Lana wanted characters to save the Rakata borgs that the Revanites were using- hardly the sort of technology that implies peaceful co-existence with one's neighbors (especially ones that they were attacking a mere 5-6 years earlier, and 30 years before that, and 300 before that, and...). So EA is too cheap/lazy to take anyone's backstory into account-why again do they bother with choices then? Why not assume in the next 'expansion' that Arcann died regardless? Perhaps his cut-rate Nar Shaddaa cybernetics gave him the Star Wars equivalent of cancer, or the damage the outlander previously inflicted was simply too much for his body to bear. Maybe he kills himself out of shame for the billions he killed in a temper tantrum over why Daddy didn't love him (not likely since that would require the character to have more depth than a puddle). No comment on the "Why do the characters assume that Valk is really, truly, 'we mean it' gone"?

How is the story 'quite different' if you spare them? So I had to fight two bosses instead of one- I'm not surprised that EA managed to troll me one last time even after Arcann's death. Why can't my pro-Republic Trooper simply use the Alliance in what he considers the best interests of that same Republic, using all the information gathered from the Empire to stomp it into dust since it always seems to respawn later to cause problems anyway? Why can't my Sith Inquisitor crush both and become the intelligent ruler that never leaves his seat of power (unlike easily manipulated idiots like Arcann and Vaylin)? BTW, if an Inquisitor plays out the final battle do they get any help from all the OTHER ghosts in their head, or did EA forget about that plot point? Can I simply devour Valk and the rest of the family? Does Valk take notice of the fact that I was rebuilt on Belsavis and I am quite possibly immortal as well? As I asked in another thread- why do Lana, Theron, and the outlander assume Valk is gone at all? Doesn't the outlander know that Valk can 'play dead' in his/her head? He's at least a thousand years old, why not wait until the Outlander has been worn down by the stresses of the Empire/Alliance they are leading? My Trooper would be demoralized and easier to possess if he had to kill Republic soldiers because the Senate sees them as a threat, and a subtle change in tactics would lead most of the outlander's supporters to not suspect until it was too late. More Palpatine, less Saturday morning villain.

So EA sucks at writing for at least 3 settings (you forgot Dragon Age). Is this simply a matter of "What did you expect from this stable of writers"?

Funny thing is there's no point to even doing that. RNG gearing isn't tied to the story and there are no rewards other than xp for completing it if you played 4.0 to any degree. No returning companions, no special cosmetic items, I don't even think you get a title for it. If anything playing through the story is a wash due to decisions made. I don't get why EA bothered with a forgettable story that isn't tied to the rest of the game at all, especially one that if anything plays out worse than the previous one (chapter 6 is a waste of time, the droid/walker sequences are clunky as hell, the finale is typical for this company).

But the story isn't any good either.

I would love it (ha ha) if spurned lovers actually dealt with a philandering outlander. Cheat on Vette with Lana? Maybe she doesn't want to stick around after the 'big heist'. Cheat on Jaesa with Lana? Maybe there's a battle between them and your intervention decides which lives. Anything would be better than "We hate each other but even though I'm running the show I can't get rid of you". Problem is we're stuck with Lana (literally in many cases when she's the companion forced on the player). With my Sith I wish I could give her the boot or that she would tell off the outlander and leave, but if players are going to be the bit players in the 'Lana & Theron Show' they could at least make them more palatable.

I didn't fight the battle, the holocron and his children did. I was simply the button masher who got lucky when Vaylin stopped throwing me off the 'mental platform'. The fight happened in my head, and for some reason the stars of the show simply assume that Valk is gone. Good thing he was so arrogant as to not wait a year or two for the outlander's spirit/mental fortitude to become worn down due to the inevitable "Sith/Republic attempt to beat the Fleet that spanked them five years ago and have kept them on a leash ever since". I'm sure my trooper being forced to kill Republic soldiers by the (thousands? millions?) would be great for his psyche and inevitably harden him to any attempts at control by an ancient Force spirit. Such a great long-term thinker- I can TOTALLY buy that he was running not one, but two empires for centuries.

Are they that hard to find in the swamp?

You mean the year that over 3/4 of the subscribers left, over one hundred servers were merged, and it was forced to go free to try to survive at all?

People are "complaining" that they've been playing for 1-2 days and not received ANY upgrades (despite hitting level 70 without any effort-maybe EA should have made leveling a grind as well?). You actually had something more than the 204 pvp or 208 crystal gear? You took the time and effort to augment that gear? Good luck seeing any actual upgrades in that vast swamp of a loot table. Nothing like trashing everything so you get closer to another roll of the dice-maybe next time you'll get something decent! When the only thing worth keeping was a rank 5 purple companion gift (worth what, 10k now?), the system sucks IME.

"My virtual credits deserve a better ROI because deep down I'm really a money mogul. I could have been a billionaire if life were fair." So you'll waste time running around Breaktown instead of using 6 out of how many companions because you need metals NAOW!!!. End of story. BTW nodes are available-see there's this thing called other players. If they get the nodes first then too bad, so sad... not my fault you were too slow. Whining about a problem with an already exisitng solution. Talk about lacking common sense. PS no comment about how it's unfair that slicing nodes only give credits? Have you been railing against the 'poor ROI' on getting sliced tech parts, or is scavenging somehow more special?

So if you don't level the Empress with shiny gifts you will still be screwed in veteran mode regardless of your eventual gear?