Charge!

Well, honestly, there was a lot I liked about the expansions. I liked the aesthetic of both Odessen and Zakuul, I liked the new characters for the most part, considering the type of story it was being able to look in on the villains, something a lot of people complained about, didn't bother me. The voice acting was often fantastic. I liked the work on the three primary romances, for the most part, though honestly that's not really my thing. But, I sorely missed having my own storyline based on my class. A mention here and there wasn't enough. The fact that it went past SOR and RotHC, by not even having a different story based on faction, wasn't the direction I wanted that aspect of the game to go in. Skytroopers in their hordes. The feeling that we started to focus more and more on a few characters, not even old friends, but at first Lana and Theron and Koth. I like them all well enough, but they just get too much screen time. The fact that two out of three of them can be dead, leaving us only Lana as likely to be consistently in story, is a bother. I am deathly tired of mental illness and abuse being used to make the villains. Yes, one of them can turn around if allowed, but he did too much harm and considering that too much of the work we see was his mother, not him. And the fact that the way we treated Vaylin, specifically, sounded to my ears way too much like abuser language, giving excuses to her tormentor, doing what he said, her weakness just being able to be forced to kneel to the guy that did that to her and that we use it without even any regret, just bugs the hell out of me. And even the moments where we did better don't make up for any of that. Their stories taken together did not endear the game to me. I don't even necessarily think we needed the option to let either live, I just didn't think the options they gave us were enough. I generally thoroughly hate this story, but when done with care, it can be tolerable. Here, there is no way in which it was. Arcann's romance, not technically part of the expansions but related. Not so much that it exists, though I know a lot of people hate it and him, but if it must, at least don't give him lines about being a weapon for us to command. Don't make him such a woobie. Let him be a reformed villain and stop trying to wash away his crimes. Sometimes, they acknowledge them, others, not so much. And so on. These expansions, I genuinely thought at first, were being handled very well for my needs, but they just ultimately dropped the ball so badly I nearly dumped the game. Only continuing to enjoy the vanilla game drew me back, and that's not going to grow, after all. It's a shame, and nothing post KotET has really repaired any of that for me.

Other way around, I did the screenshot based on the art.

Something like this? ("Vaylin" is obviously a stand-in, I'd love to get a similar shot with a companion statue) The Emotional Spectrum I only just discovered that Arcann doesn't have a dye slot.

Rage is all I have.

I'd just like to know why people insist on sticking their noses in here like that, but I guess that's what fandom is, choosing to go somewhere that annoys them to rain on other people's parades. I thought she was destroyed by dear old dad and that it was a story that needed to be handled with substantially more sensitivity, yet they keep doing this as though it makes them, what? Clever? Righteous? Makes no sense. Still, it bumped the thread. I guess that's a win.

Huh, so a Vaylin companion would be weird story-wise (or maybe they meant a Vaylin romance, I'm honestly not sure), but a romance is perfectly reasonable? Or one with a droid? For that matter, if they meant a Vaylin romance, Arcann's is just as weird, story wise. Combined with the return of , I kind of think something else may be going on. I mean, I only want a console/CM companion to take a bit of the sting off the story, I'm not even sure I would want them writing for her any further, but these are what they think aren't weird, from a story point of view? Ah, well. Still, according to the reddit, there may be hope that at least they realize the story was less than perfect, which has always been what bothered me, so, progress. Have to give credit where it's due.

Yeah, she basically says that she can't surrender because we're a puppet of her father, that he won't show her mercy. And because of the way it's set up, she's absolutely right. It's one of the things that would make it better for me: that he was influencing us and therefore our out of character behavior was on him. I've always thought the breaking point was making our characters do it without remorse. Her dying because of the ritual or being controlled by the Emperor for that moment would have resolved the problem. It would have made it worse for people that were creeped out by things like the IA story, though. Giving us the option to save her, or at least try to save her, would have solved all of that.

A new species made after Vaylin, then?

Yes, Arcann being just allowed into the Alliance without question but Vaylin just having to die sets my teeth on edge. And I'm not really against being able to save him, as long as we don't have to for the people that dislike him. They both kill a lot of people, after all. But, yeah, that's what she said. Personally, I just wanted to have one compassionate dialog option and no forcing her to kneel to her abuser. I'm not a fan of using mental illness and abuse to create a villain, but even so, that's just nasty. My go-to example is simply being able to say she CAN be saved, and her saying she never wanted to be. It would make it less grotesque. That's not to say we never try to reason with her. We do. But once we get to Kneel, none of that is enough. As for her being a monster (I'm assuming you mean in the sense of "ridiculously powerful"), if they'd left in the dialog they apparently had with ships being pulled from orbit I might have accepted it. But, ultimately, we walk up to within reach if using a lightsaber (I mean, we plant feet and drive the weapon through her up to the hilt), we could have knocked her out, and blasters have stun settings. That entire scene, if we are meant to believe there was no other way, needed to be revamped heavily. Because it wasn't, it felt to me like we were punishing her rather than ending a threat, since at that point other options were available. Maybe "there was no other way" was what they intended, but if so, I think they failed. There are some other things, but this is too long as it is. Honestly, she was tortured enough and probably "unstable" enough that even if it were possible to purge her of magical Force powers or anything, of that sort they could make the argument that she still would be dangerous. It just would have been nice to be allowed to try. There were ways to handle this even if she must die, but if for whatever reason they couldn't, they should have given us some means to let her live, even if it's no more plausible than Arcann being accepted. I would have been fine with that.

https://archiveofourown.org/users/myscribblings/works

Really, the Machine should absolutely sympathize, having been a slave to a race of arrogant monsters, and having a Light Side option to re-enslave. She might do it for free, especially for the Inquisitor.

Yeah, that got completely away from me. But what can I do? I'm not in charge of my brain.

I'd really like 1-4 quite a lot. I'd also like to see Jadus return and, for preference if she is alive, Zhorrid being allowed to help me put him in the ground. Or we can serve him if she was killed, I suppose. I'm generally somewhat ambivalent to the Grey thing, but it is part of the Old Republic already, so 5 is fine with me. The rest sound good. I'd like to see Nautolan PC's. Maybe some work on the look of some of the existing ones, some of them can look very odd.

I don't know,, but I was thinking they'd want it back since it was important to the Emperor. I kind of think that if they're going to follow his principles, they should also want to keep his stuff.

I could see him being found by the opposite faction of the PC and joining them, even if it was the Sith, due to feeling betrayed. But most likely if they were to do that I expect it to be one side, and it to be the Sith reclaiming the world.

I suppose. I just hope such a thing would either not be too hard, be permanent (unlike DvL), or have an alternative. I wouldn't mind too much going through KotET on Veteran or something as long as I wouldn't miss the chance, and as long as it was only once or once per optional companion.

I would think so, and have it be about that difficulty level or a bit harder rather than like the DvL event or having to replay the whole story.

Yeah. It's a good idea. and I would do it at least once, I'd just like the option to skip it, and also to just buy Master Ranos rather than go through the DvL event. Hoping for the best, either way.

I generally agree. I mean, there are a bunch of things in this game that could stand some revision, I just think she's the single worst thing. But I saw your previous post and the way my brain works once I had a way to deal with the problem I had to put it up. Even if I thought it was the best course, no way it's going to happen. Whatever reason the story came out the way it did, if they could have done it better I think they would have, and I don't see them re-writing the past. The only possibility is the future. Personally, I'd prefer to just pay for her. I don't want to drag myself through the story again at a higher difficulty, I did my time on it already, and there's a lot of it I didn't enjoy. If she had a brief continuation of her story that explained her being alive, I could play through KotET for it, but if it's just companion with no story, I'd rather not. But I'm not alone on this, and I'm sure there are people that would like to not have to spend the money, so I'll support it if it comes up.

If they were to actually go so far as to re-write it, they could always give people the option of starting over from the edited chapters, and if they liked the way the story went they could just opt out. The editing would be more work than I expect to see, but since the option of replaying the chapters is already there, maybe it would be doable.

Hey, that's both clever and clears up my issue with his resurrection all at once.

I suppose someone might do it that thought that the world's return to life might make it an appropriate place for her, that she might appreciate that symbol of her father's desctruction. Or someone that knew that this was a possible result and, for whatever reason, wanted her back. She did have some that were loyal to her, maybe they were for reasons beyond her rage driving them. But if it's anyone, I expect it to be Theron, like you originally said.

That's what I would have thought, but there are just too many ways to do it that would be unique to her and fit the story that it doesn't seem to me to make sense. Instead, I think he was saying it would be irresponsible because the story was good and poignant and new and they don't want to ruin it or something like that. If so, I obviously don't agree. I think the story as told needs a bit of ruining. Bringing her back is not the only way, but I think it's the easiest, honestly. Plus, it's just so much more poetic for Nathema to bring her back if it does that for anyone, the reversal of all the damage he did there including her (even if it doesn't also heal the damage he did to her mind), though it would surely freak her out. It seems like a great opportunity for one character to get out of death, and if it happened I'd really like it to be her.

Absolutely. I'd love to hear what "responsible" meant to them. I only have my own interpretation. But if it's just the mechanics of a resurrection or ghost, we've already seen that. Some people (not the devs) are saying we shouldn't see any MORE of those, but if that's the hangup, bringing anyone else back (like Theron in this case) shows they are willing to do so. That's what would perturb me.