They'll probably continue to give Lana and Theron some dialogue since (so far) they're guaranteed to be in the story no matter what choices you make. Other characters are probably going to be more limited since they might be dead or otherwise not around based on your choices (plus there's a lot of other companions and more to come as class companions continue to return to the story). Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I would recommend keeping expectations low - I don't get the impression it's a priority.

Like SteveTheCynic said - you ran into the lock-in for her romance - both the flirt and the option you took lock in the romance (the flirt just has your trooper move in first) while the other option is to tell her you aren't interested (which ends the possibility of romance). Basically every romance in the game works this way - there's a point where you either start the romance or turn it down and that's it. If you want to RP a flirt/someone who will never commit, you have to turn down the companion romance (or you can hold off on conversations and have your character change their mind later on prior to KOTFE, I guess). In terms of making things more casual - you can turn down marriage later on, I guess. Once you hit the end of her conversations from vanilla content, that's about all the romance content you get until Iokath, anyway.

I don't do ops or PvP, so I can't really comment on those sides of the games. As a story player, this letter sounds nice and comforting, but I have not enjoyed KotFE's approach to either the larger story (which feels like it's basically rehashing similar themes and plot points I've seen in the Bioware games I've been playing for years) or the smaller-scale stuff (like interactions with companions, or the shoving aside of so many class-specific companions and the relationships my characters had with them). I have not enjoyed going months with barely a hint at what happened to most of my favorite companions, nor do I look forward to months more of waiting until I get them back. I don't enjoy all of my characters feeling far less distinct than they did up until the expansion, and I don't like how the game barely acknowledges their missing friends/companions/spouses (presumably so players don't dwell on the fact they're missing). I wish I felt more interested in replaying the 9 (now 12) "incredible" story-driven chapters, but they feel like a slog. I wish I was excited to see Season 2 come, but at this point I feel like I'm resigned to hoping for more class/factio-specific flavor, waiting for my favorite companions to "get their turn" (and hoping that they don't get sidelined in favor of whoever you guys prefer writing or killed or written badly) and also hoping for more varied and interesting level design to make chapters feel like less of a drag to play. I don't really feel much motivation to play my level 60s-65s any more, save for a couple of playthroughs of new chapters to see LS/DS differences. When I heard KotFE was going to be a story-focused expansion, I was hoping for different/better. I will just do a better job of tempering my expectations going forward.

It's not confirmed in-game. It comes from an answer given by Drew Karpyshyn, who only gave his impression of who he thought the Entity was supposed to be. I'm not even sure there's definitive proof that Karpyshyn actually said that - the email exchange/Q&A was posted on this blog. He also obviously equivocates (he thinks the Entity is supposed to be Kreia).

All of them. Elara and Vector the most, if I had to pick.

That's true. But why not have a dialogue option to mention them if you have recruited one or both of them? Or mention having run into Vik? Why doesn't Jorgan care about where his former squadmates are, too? Even with Elara, who is mentioned, why isn't there at least a line for a male trooper that romanced her to ask Jorgan where his wife is? I mean, Bioware included a line in Chapter 10(**) for Jedi Knights who had met Kaliyo through Doc's companion conversations, why couldn't they spend a tiny bit of time/effort for a much more important relationship/connection? It just comes across as very lazy/poorly done, especially since the same issue has plagued almost every reunion - it's as if nobody cares about the people they were working/living with for months. I can't help but think it's because they don't want to deal with the in-universe implications of their out-of-universe decision to drag out companion returns as long as possible by having everyone conveniently fall completely and totally out of touch...sure, some companions didn't get along, or might not care, but everyone? ** It was bugged but - "•Jedi Knights that have completed the Mission “Healing a Hutt” now have the correct line when first meeting Firebrand in Chapter X. " in the 4.2 patch notes.

Nope - I brought my spare (female) trooper through the chapter since my main troopers are being benched until Elara is back and I was able to get both lines where Jorgan mentions her. I think you have to choose specific dialogue options to get those mentions though - one to get the information that she was "already on thin ice" when the trooper disappeared, implying that she was reassigned/fired/discharged. The other is just a joke Jorgan makes about the paperwork that would be required to get the trooper reinstated or something like that. It's handled pretty badly overall and made worse by the fact that you can't follow up at all (even as a male trooper that might, you know, be interested in knowing where his wife is) and you can't bring up the other squad members either, even just to say "Yuun/4X are back in my alliance". Jorgan doesn't ask about or mention those two or Vik, either.

Her KotFE letter to a romanced trooper implies she is strongly considering leaving the Republic to find the trooper*, who she does not believe is dead. They needed to write her out of Havoc Squad to justify her not being here this chapter (since romanced companions apparently can only come back one at a time ), so based on her letter and the one line from this chapter, it sounds like she was causing too much trouble for Saresh/her cronies (at least in part because she was challenging them declaring the trooper KIA, maybe also because she would not support Saresh' stupid continued fighting with the Empire), got discharged and then left the Republic. * She mentions "exploring other options" for help in finding the trooper, which makes me curious to see if that might include her family that remained in the Empire (i.e. like the Commander Dorne who used to give the AC quest for agents).

Havoc's not your squad any more - you're the Outlander and above such petty roles

Koth is a character that desperately needed the kind of deeper/more meaningful conversations with companions that we got with our companions in the class stories, especially when you would have a series of talks that explored a particular companion's past or motivations, whatever. Maybe Bioware wanted him to be a blind Valkorion/Vitiate loyalist regardless, but at least it would have provided the character with time and room to explain himself, provide nuance to his views and maybe change his mind. Instead, like with pretty much every companion in KotFE, you get a couple of short conversations where you have no opportunity to dig deeper about anything - his "conversations" about Valkorion/Vitiate are very shallow and any objections your character has are immediately brushed off. It's not surprising people don't like it when you can't really question his support for Valkorion, try to change his mind, etc. (although there's other issues at play too). Even as someone who likes Koth, I have been really disappointed with the execution of his character arc... he feels like a missed/blown opportunity by the writers, and I feel like it's mostly due to Bioware apparently not caring all that much about companion interactions outside of their mandated cutscene appearances.

Oh, I'm not too bothered by Kaliyo specifically (though it seems pretty stupid to not just kill her and set up your own diversions...). I did phrase it badly...it's more that multiple companions (even the Outlander, really) seem to be able to operate on Zakuul with impunity - the worst you have to deal with is the occasional Zakuul Knight, but mainly it's just packs of skytroopers. It just feels weird that we've had at least two cutscenes now where Arcann basically goes "That rascally Outlander was right under my nose on Zakuul again!". Arcann's competence seems to depend entirely on what the scene needs him to do/be, and at times he just comes across as hopelessly incompetent. To be honest that was probably the least of my criticisms about this chapter, though, apart from Arcann continuing to feel really uninspired as a villain.

Thought the chapter was plain awful, to be honest. Boring, uninspired, and continuing many of the same troubling trends from Chapters 1-9. I'd give it a 2/10. Dull story. Considering the IA Agent story writer was brought back for it, I was really bummed that it felt like yet another KotFE chapter with generic storytelling designed to fit all classes regardless of your previous choices or experiences. Arcann and Vaylin continue to be boring, one-note, characters that make me roll my eyes every time they're on screen. How are so many of our companions blowing stuff up and otherwise operating under Arcann's nose? Apparently Zakuul has the worst security in the galaxy. Boring, repetitive story mechanics (hey, let's click a quest objective and then fight some trash mobs about 20 times!). Pointlessly long corridors designed to make you spend more time than you really need to getting between objectives. Bugs making multiple trash mobs/packs attack you at once. Only one really meaningful moment, which occurs at the very end of the chapter and has nothing to do with Kaliyo, really. We waited 3.5 months for this? 20 minutes of actual story and twice as many of boring gameplay to cover up for the fact you apparently can't construct a meaningful story arc your first post-Chapter 9 time out? Where's the companion interaction? Why do none of our companions talk to us like they used to? Why do my characters still not care about their missing spouses? Why do you feel the need to make us wait months and months for our companions to return because you feel the need to shoehorn them into the story like you did Kaliyo (who basically just rehashes the choice from Chapter 3)? I had fairly low hopes/expectations going into the chapter and it still failed to meet them.

They apparently (per Dulfy) answered that by saying they only want to bring companions back when they can be tied deeply to the KotFE story. Apparently true love is not enough to overcome the needs of plot convenience. Edit: So if they can't come up with something to justify having a chapter (or chapters) for our favorite companion(s), are we basically screwed? I really don't care about having them be part of the main story - they are important to my characters (and me) because of their relationships/friendships, not because they're plot-relevant or can be used by Bioware to fill content for another month or two. Basically all I'm seeing is "we're going to make this story content last as long as we can, so you'll likely be waiting a long time to get companions back". It's going to be fun seeing the gymnastics used to explain why your romanced companion didn't notice your character was back and/or why your companion didn't care to track down their spouse until EXACTLY when they were needed for plot reasons. Wonderful.

And if they stick to having a romanced companion return every chapter (or every other chapter), it's going to be a long time until we see everyone back. Hence their question, I assume - it's not fun to think it'll be late 2016 (probably 2017, right?) until we'll get some/many/most of our romanced companions back. Season 1 won't end until August/September, and we're still going to be missing almost all of the romanced companions. The laziness of the in-game justification - "well they're out there, somewhere, you just have to wait" used so Bioware can drag out their returns (to in turn drag out the story as long as possible) is also something I find really annoying. I don't really have a specific question, per se, but I do want to say that I've been extremely disappointed with the way the expansion's story has gone so far - I hate how my companions were scattered and are now basically meaningless in the story/to my character (it's great how none of my characters really give a damn about their spouses, too ), and how my characters' "personal story" seems to really mean "story where they basically all talk the same way, have the same companions, do the same things and largely ignore anything and anyone that came before KotFE". I would have much rather had an expansion where my characters had their original companion crews supplemented by certain expansion-specific characters (Lana, Senya, Koth, Theron, etc.) rather than this mess of 30+ interchangeable companions with their personalities/relationships largely ignored by the story and what few conversations you get. KotFE feels like Bioware forcing another of its"YOU ARE AN EPIC HERO WHO MUST GO ON AN EPIC ADVENTURE TO EPICALLY SAVE EVERYONE IN A TOTALLY EPIC WAY" stories, regardless of whether it makes sense for the characters/classes/stories we played before. I absolutely hate how we've gone from class stories that developed characters in their own unique ways to a single story where all my characters are the damn Outlander with almost nothing to distinguish them.

This, along with the "this is your personal story, and by personal we mean each of your characters will have the same story" irritation is really making me question my desire to keep my sub going. I'm not interested in having HK-55 as a companion or playing as him for a chapter - I want my characters to have their personal stories recognized and continued. And, yes, that includes having the companions that matter to them being involved, not having them return slowly every month so Bioware can milk its subscribers as long as possible. Even if Season 2 (or whatever they want to call it) started a month after Season 1 ended, we're still looking at months and months until most of the romanced companions return. I'm supposed to be excited by this? Having Bioware pick and choose my characters' companions are allowed to matter to them while forcing a single, boring, story down their throats is going back to Bioware's roots of quality storytelling? Give me a break.

You can read the letters here if you want. I think they have everyone's.

I kind of wish they'd used an agent rather than their bland/generic Jedi, to give a sense of how she might react to reuniting with someone she knows. Even the audio of an agent-specific line or two would have been great. I'm not the biggest Kaliyo fan, but I'm interested to see how this chapter goes, as I think it'll tell us a lot about what to expect from later chapters and how romanced companion returns will be handled.

It's clearly not a deliberate choice by Bioware because otherwise you wouldn't have a particular romanced bugged for only some people but not others. If I had to guess why they haven't acknowledged it, I would say it probably has more to do with their general poor job with QA/QC and general slow/inadequate response to the bugs they introduced. Their track record with bugs in this expansion has been even worse than usual.

4.0 apparently broke whatever flags they have tying relationship status to gifts. Some companions like courting gifts even if unromanced (especially Doc), but romanced companions either give none or the incorrect (unromanced) amount. Too bad Bioware hasn't even acknowledged (let alone fixed) the bug in the weeks since, despite revamping companion gift responses overall

He loves courting gifts even if not romanced - I don't remember if he's supposed to get an additional boost if he is romanced or not though.

That's correct. Kira and my knight are back to adventuring together again. Not ideal (since I'd rather have her back for real already), but since Bioware seems to think waiting months (or longer) to get my favorite companions back, I'm not going to bother hoping she'll be back sooner rather than later.

Likes: Good companion crew (Lana and Senya in particular. Koth is pretty good too) Valkorion is a much more interesting character than he was as Vitiate, though the way they got there feels very ham-fisted - like they couldn't bear the thought of actually moving on from him as a villain. Focus on story Much higher quality cutscenes Some interesting story threads (i.e. SCORPIO) Companion flexibility (but see below) Solo instances Ambivalent/Worried about I'm a bit worried that Lana will be Bioware's pet character like Liara (and Garrus, I guess) were in Mass Effect. She's the one that rescues you, set up the Alliance, recruited your new companion crew, writes you messages about her total faith in you, etc. I'm worried about whether they'll be able to regularly give substantive content updates, which bothers me given most of my favorite companions don't seem to be returning any time soon Dislikes: Bugs, patches that create more bugs (especially when quest/story related) Alliance system is very poorly designed Too many companions - doesn't seem like Bioware has any plan for them Little actual new content Star Fortresses are boring and their associated companions add nothing to the story Companion flexibility (see above) is great but companion uniqueness feels mostly gone Lazy/corner-cutting in writing. I.e. each class having the same companion appear in Chapter 1 cutscenes regardless of story or romance choices. Major dislikes Story is mediocre and feels like a rehash of the same "epic hero must save the world/galaxy with merry band of misfits" story Bioware uses over and over again Boring "level" design. Long cutscene followed by several linear corridors fighting clusters of weak mobs followed by another long cutscene and then more linear corridors filled with clusters of weak mobs. Class/faction/character history barely matters any more. It basically feels like every character is The Outlander, who barely cares about where their friend(s)/spouse are or anything that happened before Chapter 1 Total lack of meaningful companion conversations in KotFE (which leads to things like the game seemingly glossing over Koth's attitude toward Valkorion) Vaylin and Arcann feel like Bioware trying to find a way to have a less compelling villain than Inquisition Scattering the romanced companions and making us wait months to get them back. I can't wait to finally get my favorite companions in late 2016-17 :rolleyes::rolleyes: Low replayability.

The unacknowledged romance bug and this bug are unrelated - this one is affecting all my characters, for example, but all my romances have been recognized so far. It'd be great if someone from Bioware could at least acknowledge this bug, though. It's been around since the expansion hit and they apparently decided to readjust what gifts companions liked without fixing it.

There's also people that aren't super attached to HK-55, so getting him back as a companion/being able to play as him/having monthly rewards related to him is really not all that appealing. I liked him but felt like the HK gimmick/joke has been run into the ground a bit, and I'm not sure I like the concept of retconning story events by giving Bioware money. It's hard to feel rewarded when they've apparently decided to center the rewards around one specific character I'm just kind of 'eh' about (especially when the rewards don't reflect people who have subscribed already and are more aimed at incentivizing being subscribed going forward). There's more to why I - personally - am feeling really negatively about the game right now, though - as someone the expansion is ostensibly aimed at, I feel like Bioware is completely missing the mark for me. I am a fan of story content that isn't happy with the direction of the story (i.e. the fact it looks like I may not be getting my favorite companions back until maybe 2017 - if Chapter 10 comes out on February 11th, that means we won't be wrapping up Season 1 until August of next year. So if I'm lucky, they'll have Season 2 start in September and dump all my favorites into those chapters/that content....and let's be honest, they aren't doing that. I am not enjoying being told that KotFE is all about my character's "personal story" while simultaneously having all my characters being forced into the same generic "Chosen One" story by Bioware (and then include a "bonus chapter" where you are playing as a companion ). I don't enjoy being told how much companions and choices and relationships matter only to see that Bioware only wants them to matter when it's convenient/easy to write...so if it's easier to just write all the romanced companions out of the story entirely and then drag out their returns they do it (to say nothing of how little effort they put into even recognizing your character might have a spouse and/or best friend out there, or the bug that mean your romance might not be recognized at all, an). So, I don't know. The subscriber rewards (which feel more like a pre-order bonus, honestly) were underwhelming. The story content feels more like an excuse to shove every character into the same story with the same companions, with only lip service being paid to our characters' relationships, class stories, personalities, etc. Bioware seemingly intends to take as long as possible to bring back the majority of the meaningful companions And who knows if we'll even get much content with them if/when they rejoin, as the ones that have returned through the Alliance system have gotten a handful of lines and then are just another pointless/faceless addition to the 500000 other companions we have now. I've never PvPed. I've never set foot in an op, and I only occasionally ran a FP. I've been subbed since day 1 and have always been mainly playing on my own or with a friend enjoying the story. This expansion should be something I'm excited about, but it's having the exact opposite effect.

What would get me excited? Finding out that my favorite companions are coming back - not necessarily right away but not months and months from now. I don't want or need HK-55 back. Getting conversations with companions, especially returning ones, that go beyond a line or two. Meaningful content beyond grinding heroics and star fortresses. I wasn't actually expecting much in terms of subscriber rewards, but the "everything else" included in the stream and the HK-55 focus was really disappointing.