Disappointing end to the agent story

[SoonerJBD]

Starting a counter thread to the one below praising the end of the Agent storyline. I loved leveling my Agent. The story was great throughout. And then the ending was a massive let down. No big twist. No real resolution. Very disappointed. Of the five classes I have played, I rank it behind the Knight and Warrior story lines and ahead of Consular and Inquisitor. Just sad that I wasn't as blown away by the ending as the rest of the story.

[caveslug]

I thought it was one of the better story's myself. Only let down for me, was I wanted to join the "bad guys". I sort of RP'ed my sniper as agreeing with them, was sort of a shock in act 3.

[iDraxter]

did.....u kill hunter before he could show u that "one last thing"?

[chuixupu]

Well, you can't please everyone, I guess. I thought it was awesome. Inquisitor ending is definitely a bit more "epic", but I thought the agent story was ending was very fitting for the class and character. And certainly more interesting than the Consular, Smuggler, or Bounty Hunter ending. Haven't finished the rest.

[oakamp]

Starting a counter thread to the one below praising the end of the Agent storyline. I loved leveling my Agent. The story was great throughout. And then the ending was a massive let down. No big twist. No real resolution. Very disappointed. Of the five classes I have played, I rank it behind the Knight and Warrior story lines and ahead of Consular and Inquisitor. Just sad that I wasn't as blown away by the ending as the rest of the story.

 

yup, seems Americans like ia story,

but not me,

for me it would be BH=SI >> SW = Trooper > JK >>>> IA>JC

[Zoidrinali]

Just a curious question which route did you take? There's various different endings for the agent story.

[SoonerJBD]

Just a curious question which route did you take? There's various different endings for the agent story.

 

I didn't let light/dark side affect my choices that much. I took the light route for the final choice, but I also watched the dark ending on Youtube. Not really impressed with either.

[chuixupu]

I didn't let light/dark side affect my choices that much. I took the light route for the final choice, but I also watched the dark ending on Youtube. Not really impressed with either.

 

The true light route is giving the codex to the SIS, which you can only do if you let all the SIS members live.. The neutral route is keeping the codex for yourself, or destroying it.

[zzoorrzz]

I agree that the ending wasn't a blast, but I could think of much worse endings, for example Jedis I saw on youtube.

[krakadyla]

No big twist. No real resolution.

 

No big twist yes, but no resolution? It definitely is there, just not of boombastic, "Everyone in the galaxy including the most powerful people are telling me how AWESOME I am!" sort like SW or JK gets, but then IA isn't a Mary Sue McChosen-One like these two, so it all fits.

[SoonerJBD]

No big twist yes, but no resolution? It definitely is there, just not of boombastic, "Everyone in the galaxy including the most powerful people are telling me how AWESOME I am!" sort like SW or JK gets, but then IA isn't a Mary Sue McChosen-One like these two, so it all fits.

 

I was avoiding being too specific because I didn't want to put everything in a spoiler tag, but I guess I will expand and clarify what I meant.

 

 

You never really learn how the Star Cabal is able to exert such influence. They manage to convince the Dark Council to eliminate Imperial Intelligence, and yet you never find out how. The other members of the Star Cabal other than Hunter are meaningless people who are nowhere in the storyline. We get the codex, and even if you keep it, you never find out who in the Empire was helping the Star Cabal. There is no member of the Dark Council revealed as a traitor. No higher-up in Intelligence. Nothing to explain how they can manipulate things on such a scale. There is no real resolution with Watcher 1/Keeper, and the outlook for the Minister of Intelligence is grim no matter what you do. Regardless of your choice, Imperial Intelligence is dissolved. And as for Hunter, the character is completely undeveloped. The gender switch is meaningless because Hunter's gender was never important. He/she is not some highly-placed former Imperial official or maybe someone who had been wronged by Imperial Intelligence. I didn't expect an ending like with the Jedi/Sith characters. The agent worked from the shadows and needed to stay that way in the ending. But I expected some bigger twist. Some sort of Imperial traitor or something indicating the Star Cabal was more than it seemed. Something to explain the influence the group had other than some gangsters and assassins being involved. And I was really disappointed with the lack of resolution involving Watcher1/Keeper and the Minister of Intelligence.

 

[SoonerJBD]

I agree that the ending wasn't a blast, but I could think of much worse endings, for example Jedis I saw on youtube.

 

The Consular story stunk, but the Knight story is quite good.

[SoonerJBD]

The true light route is giving the codex to the SIS, which you can only do if you let all the SIS members live.. The neutral route is keeping the codex for yourself, or destroying it.

 

I was talking about the neutral ending. Siding with the Republic is a ridiculous choice completely antithetical to the character's entire existence, so I never considered that.

[krakadyla]

From the stuff you quoted in spoiler tag, it seems you expected Agent's story to be a power fantasy - you know, where the valiant hero saves the galaxy, defeats the Big Bad and his Badettes, solves every mystery, punishes every crime, gets the girl and rides into sunset - no questions unanswered, no loose ends left and all in a day's work. Basically, a reskinned Jedi Knight story. Thing is, Agent's story isn't this at all. It's, well, personal. Introspective. All those things you listed? They are not important to the story, which is basically "Agent has stuff happen to him, does some thinking and then decides who he is and what he wants". Note how people who liked the story praise it, among other things, for different endings, although galaxy-wise it's all the same --

 

 

The Intelligence is still disbanded, Sith still are insufferable idiots and Republic sanctimonious hypocrites

--

 

that's because all those endings produce very different Agents and that is the story's resolution.

Edited April 30, 2013 by krakadyla

[SoonerJBD]

That's not what I expected, and I said as much. Expecting resolution to story lines that were brewing the entire game seems reasonable. Expecting to learn who was pulling your strings the entire final two thirds of the game seems imminently reasonable.

[Seireeni]

yup, seems Americans like ia story,

but not me,

for me it would be BH=SI >> SW = Trooper > JK >>>> IA>JC

 

I loved IA story and I'm nowhere near American.

It looks like a lot of people like this story, regardless of the country they live in.

[Emencie]

I have to admit I didn't think the ending was all that great except for the fact that some of my choices actually had some effect on the ending unlike every other class story I've played. Honestly the stories in this game read like a teen novel Which I suppose makes sense since the game is rated T but its hard to get invested in a story that is so 1 dimensional dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that They are bad stories, just not as good as they really could have been to make room for 8 and to appeal to the masses.

 

As for the reveal I'm assuming the reveal is when you find out

Hunter is a woman?

I didn't even think about that as a reveal until people started calling it that... So what you have breasts? Is that supposed to magically change my feelings about you? You have chased me around the galaxy, trying to kill me, and ruining everything I love and hold dear And now in the moment I'm about to shoot you in the face you think some cleavage is going to change my heart? Pew Pew Pew The "reveal" could have just as easily been another race, or species and it would have been just as meaningless. I didn't find it horrible though I did find it a bit insulting, While this may not have been the intent of the writer I got the feeling that the Idea was "look now everything is different right? now you are in love!"

 

Uhhh...

No.

 

Reminded me of when Corso was telling me he doesn't shoot women.

 

Corso: I don't shoot the lady folk.

Me: What if they are shooting at you?

Corso: Call me old fashioned, but I just dont like shooting a woman.

Me: So... You will die because you refuse to fight for your life if the person trying to kill you is a woman? You aren't old fashioned you are a fricken idiot.

 

 

The idea that there is something relevant in the swap, means that you think there is an inherent difference between the 2, the game doesn't take the time to tell us there is a difference or that it matters. Even the character outright tells you it doesn't matter we aren't even told why he did it. He may as well revealed that he never ate waffles for breakfast. At least then I would have felt sorry for the guy.

Edited May 4, 2013 by Emencie

[chuixupu]

All of that argument is silly if you remember for a minute that you can play an agent as a woman.

 

It's her complete loss of identity that is striking, it didn't have to be a gender swap to get that point across, but it showed just how far a person can go.

[Emencie]

All of that argument is silly if you remember for a minute that you can play an agent as a woman.

 

It's her complete loss of identity that is striking, it didn't have to be a gender swap to get that point across, but it showed just how far a person can go.

 

That is my point. Agents can be women, Agents can be men, There are women and men in the organization, and there was no reason for Her to do what she did... So the reveal is meaningless. Your Idea of it shows how far a person con go... for what? There was no reason (that we were given) it just was what it was... As far as I'm concerned she had a personal crisis and should have spoken to her personal doctor about it... but I shot her in the face so... to late I suppose.

[SoonerJBD]

That is my point. Agents can be women, Agents can be men, There are women and men in the organization, and there was no reason for Her to do what she did... So the reveal is meaningless. Your Idea of it shows how far a person con go... for what? There was no reason (that we were given) it just was what it was... As far as I'm concerned she had a personal crisis and should have spoken to her personal doctor about it... but I shot her in the face so... to late I suppose.

 

This was a big part of the disappointment for me. Hunter's gender was completely irrelevant. We have no idea who he/she is or what his/her motivation was. That is the real problem. If Hunter had ended up being the Minister of Intelligence's estranged son or the kid of a dark council member or something, it might have made some sense and brought something to the reveal. The entire point of the last act was that we were unraveling a conspiracy, and in the end, we never did. We never found out who the big names in the Empire were that were supporting the Star Cabal. We never found out how they could exert such influence over the Dark Council that they could get Imperial Intelligence dissolved. That really disappointed me.

[krakadyla]

Maybe we didn't find the "big names" because there weren't any? Just some pawn type dudes like, say, Sanju Pyne or Ardun Kothe's team or that SIS dude pretending to be imp tech in Nar-Shaddaa bonus series. You don't need some Bigname McBrainwasher to make Sith disband Intelligence - these idiots have had their heads up their arses for so long that **** eventually replaced their brains and they would never even presume someone, anyone, were manipulating them - and that made them an exceptionally easy target. It's been said in the game that they have been eyeing Intelligence's assets for quite some time - to tear apart and use for their own petty, Empire-sabotaging schemes. They didn't need a reason, all they needed was an excuse, and things this small can be done by any low-level, no-name infiltrator.

 

And thank goodness Hunter -- or anyone else -- didn't happen to be Minister's long lost bastard son or something equally melodramatic. Things like that belong in daytime soap operas, Saturday morning cartoons and Force users storylines.

[Bleeters]

I

As for the reveal I'm assuming the reveal is when you find out

Hunter is a woman?

I didn't even think about that as a reveal until people started calling it that... So what you have breasts? Is that supposed to magically change my feelings about you? You have chased me around the galaxy, trying to kill me, and ruining everything I love and hold dear And now in the moment I'm about to shoot you in the face you think some cleavage is going to change my heart? Pew Pew Pew The "reveal" could have just as easily been another race, or species and it would have been just as meaningless. I didn't find it horrible though I did find it a bit insulting, While this may not have been the intent of the writer I got the feeling that the Idea was "look now everything is different right? now you are in love!"

 

Uhhh...

No.

 

The reveal isn't that Hunter is female. The significance isn't that she had lady parts the entire time.

 

The point is that she's been living a life of codenames, subterfuge and cover identities her entire adult life, to the point that she doesn't have an identity of her own anymore. She's a walking cautionary tale for the agent not to lose sight of who they are, which given that one ending sees them literally erase all record of themself, is pretty important.

 

[SoonerJBD]

Maybe we didn't find the "big names" because there weren't any? Just some pawn type dudes like, say, Sanju Pyne or Ardun Kothe's team or that SIS dude pretending to be imp tech in Nar-Shaddaa bonus series. You don't need some Bigname McBrainwasher to make Sith disband Intelligence - these idiots have had their heads up their arses for so long that **** eventually replaced their brains and they would never even presume someone, anyone, were manipulating them - and that made them an exceptionally easy target. It's been said in the game that they have been eyeing Intelligence's assets for quite some time - to tear apart and use for their own petty, Empire-sabotaging schemes. They didn't need a reason, all they needed was an excuse, and things this small can be done by any low-level, no-name infiltrator.

 

And thank goodness Hunter -- or anyone else -- didn't happen to be Minister's long lost bastard son or something equally melodramatic. Things like that belong in daytime soap operas, Saturday morning cartoons and Force users storylines.

 

 

Expecting some sort of resolution to the story is perfectly reasonable and does not require a soap opera ending. We never discovered who the conspirators in the Empire were. They were powerful enough to get the dark council to disband Imperial Intelligence at a whim, which is far harder than you suggest. They were powerful enough to exert all kinds of influence over two large governments with complicated power structures. All we ever learn of the conspiracy we've been trying to break the entire last act of the story is that some exchange/pirate types and a group of assassins is involved. No one of any consequence in either the Empire or Republic is identified. I mean, the entire third act is built around this mystery of the Star Cabal, and it is never unraveled. It's as if you are reading a murder mystery, and in the final chapter of the book, the detective reveals that the butler is a transvestite but never says who the murderer is. Kind of important to the story. I don't care if the butler wears a bra and panties. Tell me who the murderer is. Hunter was completely inconsequential to the story. He was an agent of a conspiracy. We need to know who the conspirators were. That is the ending to the story, and we never got it.

 

Edited May 6, 2013 by SoonerJBD

[SoonerJBD]

The reveal isn't that Hunter is female. The significance isn't that she had lady parts the entire time.

 

The point is that she's been living a life of codenames, subterfuge and cover identities her entire adult life, to the point that she doesn't have an identity of her own anymore. She's a walking cautionary tale for the agent not to lose sight of who they are, which given that one ending sees them literally erase all record of themself, is pretty important.

 

 

I got the message they were trying to convey with Hunter, but it seemed rather pointless to me. You are given so much independence throughout the story, it's not as if "forgetting who you are" is ever any concern, especially since the agent has no real back story to begin with. The bigger issue is that they chose to make that reveal the climax of the story when it was so inconsequential to what you have been doing the entire time. I could give a crap less about Hunter beyond putting one between his/her eyes for all the crap he/she put me through in the last two acts. What about the conspiracy we've been trying to unravel the entire last act? Oh, here is a secret codex, but we're not going to tell you what's in it. The End.

 

[JelliMan]

I am a little confused as to why you don't feel some of the story was resolved.

 

 

 

Disbanding Imperial Intelligence: The Star Cabal didn't need to do a lot to get Intelligence to be disbanded. First, they let Jadus plot play out. They don't have to interfere, they just have to keep tabs on what's happening. Jadus from the twist in the plotline has really made that happen: if he succeeds, Intelligence is his puppet in creating his new empire; if he doesn't and you as the agent foil his plot -- which lets be honest, because he's Sith, he thinks you are incapable anyway -- he doesn't really care what the fallout is and Intelligence will be implicated in his plot as an accomplice at some level. Add to that -- depending on your play -- an agent has taken down a Sith (which is what happened in mine). It really isn't a stretch for the Dark Council to see Intelligence as incompetent , uncontrollable (as they can be played or bought or manipulated by any DC member), and dangerous as they have proven to be able to defeat Sith. Sith don't want normal humans who can kill them around in the first place -- never mind have them in their inner circle and count on them. From a Sith pov, the fact that someone can defeat you is a reason for them to kill you all by itself. Given all that, the Star Cabal really doesn't have to do anything.

 

Hunter: regardless of how one interprets the imagery -- and I think the previous poster has a well-thought out point that I buy into -- Hunter has lived a double life for a very long time. Playing as a double agent often leads to that double agent mistrusting both sides. The fact that Hunter hasn't revealed her true identity to either SiS or the Star Cabal shows her deep understanding of how the spy game is played and the need to protect herself from all sides. From that lens, the identity change and lack of reveal even to the Star Cabal makes total sense. In addition, as she says, Hunter during her manipulation of you in Chapter 2 begins to fall in love with you. After a certain point, she is never trying to kill you. Instead she is trying to set the stage for your ultimate choice at the end of story where in her mind you will choose to fall in love with her and join the Star Cabal. As strange as that sounds, that in my reading of the story anyway was her driving force to bring you to the ship at the end. Sure, she only reveals her true identity after her defeat, but as an agent she's going to play her cards as closely as possible and to the last moment. It certainly would be better for her to get you on the side of the Star Cabal and then show you her true identity and feelings in hopes that as a team you will see her love for what it is.

 

Deranged, yes, but I think it totally makes sense from her pov in terms of being a double agent, choosing to hide her identity from her employers in case things went wrong, and then falling in love with the target she is trying to play. The way I took it was similar to Vespa in Casino Royale. She was playing JB the whole way, then fell in love and tried to reverse course, only to find herself trapped in the end and try to work her way out of it in such a way that she could have both: money and JB. Really not sure why that doesn't make sense in terms of motivation from her pov.

 

Hunter's background: again her rationale is based on trying to protect herself as a double agent and then falling in love with her main target in a major plot/scheme. There's no need for a background motivation or something to pull it together. Her motivation is the driving force of the story, your travels, and your final confrontation when she hopes to win you over and bring you over to her side.

 

 

 

I don't know. Not saying anyone's wrong or right. I think the story was written to have multiple views and interpretations. But to me the motivations and rationale for these events hung together pretty well.