They can literally answer all that within 1 update if they stop wasting what's little left of the limited screentime (due to budget) on useless, repetetive and redundant Malgus prattle about galaxy in flames we heard 7 times already. Or Heeta escaping from Shae for the 2837th time and coming up with the next Evil Plot of the Year like a sunday cartoon villain. Nathema Conspiracy or Echoes of Oblivion are 2 good examples how quickly they can resolve multiple plot threads at once when they want to. Many would say perhaps too quickly and neatly when it comes specifically to these 2 updates (Nathema alone resolves the Gravestone, Gemini, Zildrog, the Eternal Fleet and the Alliance all at once) but they're proof that it can be done and still work. And that there's massive difference between moving thing forward versus a plot that spends years and years going in circles with little-to-none progression. That's the thing - it's also how and what they decide to write - and right now (more like since 2019) they write ALOT of talking about nothing, stalling, asking rethorcial questions and then questions about those questions, repeating the same statements and saying everything and nothing at the same time just to waste more time. The entire Voss Retreat side-detour could've been replaced with Sana-Rae telling us that the Three had a vision where "you will be the one to save the galaxy" as that's literally all there is to it. Or it could've been skipped entirely as that statement actually brings nothing relevant and doesn't move the plot one bit. BTW, we now know who Nul was, her entire backstory actually was revealed in 7.3 finally. Granted, half of it happened via her Codex entry, but still. The fact that you, an avid story player, didn't even register that or already forgot about it is both hilarious and telling in itself, a great example how badly they're mishandling the writing in this story era. Not blaming you nor ciritcizing you in any way, it's their fault. The updates are not only extremly rare (but that happened before too, Ziost was the sole mid-year story progression patch between SOR and KOTFE) but most importantly - the few updates we get waste so much time dragging the same tired questions & "mysteries" for far too long that it's making people question what is even an actual progression/big reveal and what is another stalling for 2 more years. Or it makes them not register it all when it actually does happen. Or forget about it by the time the next bit of progression happens 2 years later. It makes the plot developement lose all the remaining little relevance and impact it already barely had left to begin wirh. The Nul backstory being a great example. We find out who she was. Turns out it wasn't even important at all because it still doesn't answer what exactly Malgus wants to do with her Force-bonding/Force-reaching techinques. We've JUST had a Manadalorian update. Technically. Becuase it added NOTHING of importance and value to Heta and her story/motivations/goals/etc. Hours wasted. That's the summary of the entire Malgus/Mando saga. I'm fine with filler and detours if there's time and budget to do it and if it doesn't hurt the main plot. SWTOR doesn't have either left anymore tho and every bit of stalling hurts the main arc heavily at this point.

Finishing up 7.3 and 7.4 on Imp main, decorating 1 stronghold and then bailing off till Summer/Fall when another story drip happens. Since 7.0 the new planetary quests became so mindboggingly grindy that I no longer want to get all 8 classes through the main arcs so just the 2 mains from now on. Skipped Season 5 entirely. No companion, no Stronghold, no care.

I agree with Makeb being very well written but you're skipping over some key parts of it and reasons why it worked so well. Reasons that honestly would contradict and go against your desire for an endless, exclusive Imp vs Rep where everyone "wins some, loses some": - the Hutts as the new 3rd galactic Faction catalyzing the events. Great if you still think you got your "Imp vs Rep" kick covered, but let's not act like it was the main theme of that exp, it was a bonus in a much bigger narrative focused primarly on introducing and fighting with the new, 3rd Big Bads - the initial ROTHC galaxy-state setup pretty much cancels out Imp-story-progression from the base game. YES it was a great setup and I agree with you totally about that Marr conversarion. But it worked so well precisely because it placed the Empire within a near collapse-state which happened... off-screen for the Imp players. Voss and Corellia are framed as big FAT wins for the Imps with their world arcs yet "off-screen" the Rep side swoops in after and cancels it all out. And at the start of Makeb, it's finally laid out in plain sight to the Imps too, instead of getting hidden/veiled like Taris & Balmorra's varying states are while leveling. Many people did complain about that back in the day - "Win some lose some" throughout multiple Imp vs Rep expansions would mean that we would always have to end up at an even state basically, so no more great setup like Makeb again. Or setups that retroactively hinder one side with off-screen events. Potentially very controversial and hard to swallow for players and probably another reason why they went with "You win! And you win! Everybody wins!" Oprah angle in Onslaught... I hated it but what else can they do when the story is solely about Imp. Vs Rep... So yeah, it actually IS extremly tricky to write/set-up compelling Imp vs Rep stories that don't feel meaningless and have potentially big, galaxy-spanning consequences. And don't piss off either one faction of the players. Hence the 3rd parties.

My male characters that romance Arcann will DEFINITELY enjoy this "Crossing Sabers" lol 😏 Don't change the quest title devs! 🤪

Well it's novel and not cliche for Star Wars standards, SWTOR included. Or would we rather have yet another boring Sith villain? Not like the devs got any other better ideas* *actually they did with Scorpio/Eternal Fleet but people complained that it wasn't the same old Imp vs Rep over and over and over again so I now don't suggest anything new anymore, rather a return of non-endlessly-rehashed villains from the vanilla game. Thus Star Cabal. Nothing else was even REMOTELY interesting in 1.0 when it comes to villains. Tavus in Tropper Act 1 was but that's obviously one and done and not an entire faction

Then the solution is simple - they should write shorter arcs. Your suggestion that Malgus/Mando story could go for another 3-4 years is just bonkers. Not because it's unrealistic, it may very well happen this way, but it would be absolutely ridiculous. It already is! This arc has been going on since like 2019, years&years longer than ANY story saga in the game prior, on top of the least frequent updates. No wonder no one remembers anymore what is even suppoused to be happening, the plot keeps going in circles with tiny progression here and there stuck inside massive detours form the actual developement. If they don't have the budget anymore to do more, they need to keep the arcs much shorter so people dont wait 2 years for another major plot developement which they won't even understand because they already forgot most what happened before

Ding ding ding! Agent story has Star Cabal - an actually novel and interesting idea for an enemy faction with great motivation. But nope, people want generic evil-Sith-because-evil #7262 back again.

Sure, when it comes to quantity of content updates.. But what kind of a story they decide to tell is entirely up to them and obviously no EA suit forced them to drag this Malgus/Mando nonsense for years and year without going absolutely anywhere to the point even story players abandoned the game. Within the same budget they could've switched up the main storyline 3 times already but no, it's gonna be another year of the exact same thing since 2018

So still multiple times more content than the 3 minute cuscenes we've been getting as story "updates" nowadays

Too late for me, did that on multiple chars already. But I have all 8 class storiea completed so maybe thats why I didn't experience any issue

Yup and Im glad. For far too long Bioware was "getting away with it" despite releasing by far the LEAST content in patches and expansions in the whole MMO market. With 7.0 they went too far even for SWTOR's own already-low standards. Something has to change or this will be the of the game/actual maintenance mode and none of that mythical "Bioware reputation restoration" will ever happen

Ohh but I sure DO whine about constant Rebels vs Imp, and focusing on it soo much turned out to be one of the key issues of the Sequel Trilogy. The most succesful and acclaimed Star Wars story in recent years is The Mandalorian which despite being set in the same period finally moved away from old rehashed tired trope of Imp vs Rep. There's no rule or law that forces writers to be uncreative, it's a choice and time period is not an excuse. Besides, this is FICTION we're talking about, not historial documentaries. What defines each time period and when each time period ends/begins/changes is entirely up to imagination and writing freedom. It's sad how little thought it takes to satisfy some people who will just consume the same trope over and over and over and over again.

So you're saying this may accidentaly lead to cross-faction guilds and cross-faction mechanics? best news ever I gotta try it out and hopefully it "bugs" for me too

And Fourth Boss being Imp vs Rep. Or is that suddenly not completly played out somehow to the point it could be written by a random story generator? I can LOL on that one very easily too - Empire invades Ossus lol. Empire attacks Corellia lol. Empire invades Manaan lol. None of it matters and the war changes absolutely nothing in the narrative lol. At the very least KOTFEET shook things up a bit in this tired stale galaxy state and I for one cannot underatand how can some people wish for endless rehash of Imp vs Rep over and over and over and over again

I'm sure Kathleen Kennedy was thinking at night how can she screw up the design of SWTOR's UI

There's still a big diff between questionable design/balance/features decisions and undisputable barebones content or stuff that is just unacceptable under any criteria like the new UI. I really REALLY doubt the next Destiny exp will "feature" either to the degree SWTOR just pulled. Content-wise it was mid-size patch effort on a microscopic budget (you can tell just by the number of voice actors involved) and the new UI is something that would be embarassing even for amateur designers so....

The complaints are right there in PTS forums to read, are you serious? Everything is ALWAYS spelled out to the devs before the release it's not the players/testers' fault the devs chose to ignore the feedback. Heck, even when there was closed invite-only PTS for Shadow of Revan, Dulfy's NiM raiding guild literally screamed at the devs for SM Temple of Sacrifice balance nonsense and that no one will touch that OP and sure enough that's exactly what happened. They ALWAYS get all the feedback...

Precisely. Dear God

If I got the wrong idea it wasn't outta nowhere, you know how you wrote your previous post pulling "they own u nuthing read Eula!" silliness and you know it

Thank GOD poor, delicate EA/Bioware corporations got you to defend them though, otherwise players would abuse the EULAs and dare to ask for something that belongs to non-profit EA/Bioware

They can barely release ANY new content, any system updates/changes are unbalanced trainwrecks, massive bugs remain in the game for years and years and you want them to maintain essentially 2 versions of the game? C'mon...

Dear Mr. Gary McKay, current GM of all Bioware studios You've talked about the need to restore Bioware's reputation recently so my question is... How do you plan to do that while releasing disastrous stuff like 7.0 "expansion" for the sole remaining currently active Bioware game that is SWTOR? Do you hope that Bioware's reputation will just magically get restored overnight in 2028 or something when Dragon Age 4 completes its 16th internal reboot? Don't you think it would be a smart idea to actively try and regain trust of the playerbase by launching quality & frequent content updates for a game that is still active and for many years will remain the sole "face" of Bioware? Especially after the debacle that Anthem and its "10 years support plan" turned out to be? Do you realize that huge part of renewed faith in then-in-developement FFXV came from Square Enix' turnaround of FFXIV MMO? No seriously, you do realize that large section of SWTOR players are your old crossover fans of KOTOR/Dragon Age/Mass Effect franchises? Do you think 7.0 made us reassured that Dragon Age 4 or Mass Effect 4 will be ANY good??? This is a question whether quality actually matters to Bioware anymore or its all just empty talk and "looking forward" letters And before you think "oh noes that bad Austin team!" please remember that it's Edmonton higher-ups who stripped away SWTOR's team to the point of skeleton crew remaining and that it is Edmonton higher-ups who have power and pull with EA to request higher budgets and staff hirings, so yeah

What makes sense and what Bioware/EA do is often a very different thing tho. Honsetly, given the obvious microscopic size of the remaining SWTOR dev team barely being able to scrape together ANY new content, the idea that they're secretly working on ANY console port(s) is just unfanthomable to me right now. I would love it and support it, but does anyone actually believe it anymore? This is a 10 years old game that is close to maintenance mode when u look at how much content gets released, not one that aims to attempt complex port&launch to console systems...

At least that would make sense and I would actually support it as an attempt to increase the playerbase = revenue = budget for the game. But what is the actual EVIDENCE or the smallest HINT they're doing any of it? Where's the official controller setup? Where are the leaks/rumors? Where are relevant job listings? Trimming down a few abilities is light years away from a concrete sign that SWTOR could be coming to consoles or EVEN getting a full Steam Deck support

Yup. The worst part is that Bioware (and other devs) often believe it too. There's a big differencr between ignoring pointless Titanic memes (resonable) and straight-out deluding onself everything is fine "la la la" no matter what. Bioware's been doing the latter far too often for far too long in the past decade until it was trully too late.