KOTFE - Love / Hate thread

[Strive-US]

Here are the things I like and dislike about the new expansion (what are yours)?

 

Like

+ Renewed emphasis on storytelling

+ Consequences based on your choices

+ More intensive use of cutscenes (although there are a few too many in the beginning)

+ Much better character dialogue and jokes

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Reduction of equipment slots for companions

+ Level sync (although enemies are still way too easy)

+ Soloable instances

 

Dislikes

- Vaylin is too one-dimensional (similar to dark side Jaesa)

- Voice actor for Arcann doesn't seem to fit his appearance

- Lack of diversity in new party (it's mostly humans)

- Inability to access pre-expansion content once started

- Lack of things to spend crystals on

- Story is kind of weak so far

Edited December 4, 2015 by Strive-US

[ImmortalLowlife]

Like

+ Renewed emphasis on storytelling

+ Consequences based on your choices

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Reduction of equipment slots for companions

+ Soloable instances & FP's

+ Leveling alts using only Class & main planetary quest

 

Dislikes

- New companions can't wear armor from my collections

- companions lost "special abilities" (like HK's assassinate)

[Ferretfur]

Like

+ Renewed emphasis on storytelling

+ Consequences based on your choices

+ More intensive use of cutscenes (although some do seem a bit long)

+ Much better character dialogue and jokes

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Reduction of equipment slots for companions

+ Level sync with level-based rewards (really made me enjoy old worlds again)

+ Soloable instances

+ New Weekly Heroic system (I love the need to go back to old worlds, and even got all my legend titles now)

 

Dislikes

- The way in which some new Companions are gated and not being able to refuse to recruit if you do not really want them (with the exception of Xalek)

- Not being able to abandon old class missions (Ilum and Makeb) so they annoyingly sit in your mission log

- Lack of enough interesting things to spend common crystals on

- The coldness in the way romantic interests seems to have been dealt with (if they can mail you, surely you can mail back)...maybe these should have been early returning companions.

- Loss of special moves for companions, though I do love that they can all multi-role

Edited December 4, 2015 by Ferretfur

[AylaL]

Like

+ The Storyline

+ All character backgrounds, Lana beniko etc.

+ Trolling the different characters you meet like Lana beniko.

 

Dislikes

- Level Sync

- No voice for player character during regular cutscenes like when handing in alliance chests (Or whatever there called) in to Oggurob, Hylo Visz etc.

- Companion nerf prior to the buff for companions

-

The death of Darth Marr, he was such a cool guy

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by AylaL

[Master-Nala]

Like

 

- Being able to have M1-4X on my non-Troopers;

- Beautiful Visuals

- Level Sync

- Alliance Boxes

- Dr. Oggurobb, Hylo and Admiral Argo

 

Dislike

 

- The KOTFE story

- Plot armor for the 'Main Character' companions

- No replay value

- No way to bypass the story and just recruit new companions

- Far too easy

- Companions won't embrace the pleasures of polyamory

- Having a Voss run the Force users enclave

[AylaL]

Like

 

- Being able to have M1-4X on my non-Troopers;

- Beautiful Visuals

- Level Sync

- Alliance Boxes

- Dr. Oggurobb, Hylo and Admiral Argo

 

Dislike

 

- The KOTFE story

- Plot armor for the 'Main Character' companions

- No replay value

- No way to bypass the story and just recruit new companions

- Far too easy

- Companions won't embrace the pleasures of polyamory

- Having a Voss run the Force users enclave

 

Not to get too off topic, you can get your companions back from the alliance terminal on Odessen without having to go through the KOTFE storyline.

[wolfyde]

Like

+ Focus on storytelling

+ The massive improvements in cinematography during the cutscenes

+ HK!

+ No JarJar Zykken.

+ Choosing companion roles

+ Removal of equipment slots for companions

+ Soloable instances and FP's

+ The Odessen alliance hub area

 

Dislikes

- The extortionist new Cartel Pack makeup, haven't spent a cent on CC's since 4.0

- No mainhand weapons on the crystal vendors (was always the case but the changes to crafting made it worse)

- The terrible changes to crewskills (slicing components for recipes that never needed them, the moving of entire categories to other professions, ...)

- Not having the Graveyard as my ship

- Lack of classrelated variety in the story leading to little replay value

- No new stronghold

- No real 'open'-area planet, everything's a corridor

 

Main worries going forward

* Release rate and contentvolume of upcoming individual chapters

Edited December 4, 2015 by wolfyde

[Master-Nala]

Not to get too off topic, you can get your companions back from the alliance terminal on Odessen without having to go through the KOTFE storyline.

 

I know that, what I was referring to, was getting non-base companions. So I can't get Yuun on my Smuggler unless I suffer throught KOTFE.

[Lesaberisa]

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.
  

Edited December 4, 2015 by Lesaberisa

[The-Kaitou-Kid]

- companions lost "special abilities" (like HK's assassinate)

 

I have a theory about why they did this and I'm wondering if it could be remedied in a way.

 

For one, I imagine it was partially due to companions having fewer abilities now. To keep that would mean he'd have lost another DPS ability and since Assassinate is strictly out of combat and based on the Target Eliminated stacks that would have hurt him significantly during combat. Then there's the fact that it's an activation ability that you have to specifically target and command so that in conjunction with the first portion probably did it in.

 

So why not take advantage of their new temporary toolbars? Give HK-51 a passive that gives the player the stacks of Target Eliminated and upon reaching five you get a temporary toolbar with HK-51's assassinate ability, allowing you to take out a silver or below enemy while out of combat. It gives HK his signature ability back without messing with how companions work too much.

[SerraShar]

Like:

-Lana , Theron , the alliance system .

-Story , cutscene

 

Dislike:

-Star Fortress Boring Grind

-Koth

-copy/past stories from Mass effect in Swtor

-Arcann and Sister are very cliché .

-The whole 'Abandon your world and come clean my mess and in reward I give you zaakul ! I worked so hard on Zaakul you know ? its a real Gem! Come on! say yes! I,m giving it to YOU for pete sake and for free! well...save for the clean my mess part ' .

[Sheppered]

Dislikes: Koth

Every companion wearing the same thing.

Not having the gravestone as my flagship.

 

Likes: something for now to kill.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Sheppered

[BorisKarloffe]

Likes:

--New content that has an actual storyline/convos/cutscenes.

--New level cap and upgrading all the ops to max level running.

--Better quality of cutscenes.

--Access to more legacy gear for any class.

--New FP (star fortress, since let's be honest, there's only one with the same baddies named differently).

--Plentiful new types and amounts of deco drops.

--The weekly priority HM op dropping 224 gear.

 

Neutral:

--level sync

--companion role interchangeability

--Bolster for SM ops

--sub rewards

 

Dislike:

--Still a lot of cut and paste (particularly from the Empire Strikes Back) in the storyline, even down to certain dialogue lines.

--Despite the "choices that matter" promise, we haven't seen much in the first 9 chapters to indicate that it does.

--Game has become very grindy. After all the alts ppl have accumulated from 12xp, now a lot of them will sit unused since it takes so much time to grind alliance/comps on one toon. People will get burnt out on the game quicker.

--The rehashing of content passed off as "new": replay old heroics, get back comps you had before, get back an ability you had before since the level cap went up, still no new ops etc.

--Disparity in comp affection level with companions you barely met vs. old comps who should care a lot more about you (i.e. blow up a few things and random npc you've talked to once likes you just as much as someone you spent the first 3 chapters/long time and hardships with).

--Lack of companion gearing anymore and lack of customization with new comps.

--Continued lack of class balance in pvp and lack of pvp content.

--The "simplifying" of crafting by making it more complicated.

--The inexplicable behavior of some characters and inability to address it (Senya hates Koth for being a traitor, yet she is currently committing treason...., Koth's hero worships Valkorion yet for some reason...doesn't hate you for killing him....).

--Gating comps behind events, pvp, and other comps.

--The various major bugs and glitches still not fixed and some not even acknowledged.

--The prolonged absence of pretty much all old love interests.

--Not much difference from class to class playing through first 9 chapters as far as dialogue/background. It devalues making alts.

--Lana begins to feel like the dev's pet character (practically holds the pc's hand the entire time and is mysteriously the only one who could find or get u out of Zakuul despite the plethora and powerful array of original companions the pc had, which she also mysteriously has no idea of their whereabouts.)

 

Hoping the later chapters will rectify some of this and that BW will fix others in the mean time.

[Isnogut]

I'm going to take the OP list, but add my different impressions

 

Like

+ Renewed emphasis on storytelling

+ More intensive use of cutscenes (although there are a few too many in the beginning)

+ Much better character dialogue and jokes

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Reduction of equipment slots for companions

+ Level sync (although the entire sync is all but balanced)

+ Soloable instances (which I mostly alreay did. Even a good feature for new people, nothing interesting for me here)

+ Vaylin seems that persona that dark side Jaesa never got to be (got intrigued)

+ Lot of usefull things to spend crystals on

+ Story is very immersive

+ More companions to recrute

+ The pact between Outlander and Valkorian

 

Dislikes

- Arkann is one dimensional villian

- Storyplot brings some classes to a place, they have absolutely no motivation to be. (Commander of the alliance, ... as a Sith Warrior. WTH?)

- Voice actor for Arcann doesn't seem to fit his appearance, also the Voice of Lana Beniko, who seems to be on speed ín the english version.

- Lack of diversity in new party (it's mostly humans), well at least they don't talk gibberish. It's something.

- Can't disband unloved companions

- Have to do the companion alerts in order do move on with that companion to give you new alerts

- No real Consequences based on your choices

- Bad tactial flashpoint balance. (It's not normal to throw a low level player out of the group in order to use a buffed companion as healer)

- Bad H2+ balace. While doing lowlevel H2+ it is extremly easy. Coming to Makeb H2+ they got almost impossible. Different classes have different chalange degree. Heavy armor DDs are predestined to do H2+ way easier than the others.

- Old companions don't really recognise the toon, beside the recruting dialogue. No special dialogues with them.

- No friendship dialoges. Either bang or staying professional.

- Crafting (beside a few things for the endgame, the crafting is totally useless and can't keep up with the leveling speed of the toon)

Edited December 6, 2015 by Isnogut

[Justbee]

+ Renewed emphasis on storytelling

+ Much better character dialogue and jokes

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Reduction of equipment slots for companions

+ alliance system

 

- No real consequences based on your choices

- Lack of diversity in new party (it's mostly humans)

- Inability to access pre-expansion content once started

- Lack of things to spend crystals on

- Story is kind of weak so far

- Level sync

- No new real MMO endgamecontent like ops, due to a lack of replayability in the story its getting boring

- Companions lost their "specials"

- More cartell packs then new content; stop milking

- 1 new Chapter for about 1 hour of playtime is the only conent for the next 3 month ?

- subbing fpr 1 chapter every month, means every visit in cinema is cheaper, with a better story

- No possibility for companion conversations

- Long waiting time for old companions in the stor

- No new planet, Questhub, nothing

- underwhelming experience to reach lvl 20 in ur alliance factions

- Annoying Star Fortress Grind, i did all the acms i wanted during the first week, i wont visit them again, boring, timesinking, unrewarding (the weekly lawl!)

- No companion customisation, all look the same -.-

- No Strongholds, BGs, GSF Maps/Ships nothing just recycled boring old content.....

- Crafting still sucks

- New planetary conquest system, nearly no solo content to get ur points!

Edited December 6, 2015 by Justbee

[Nizzemancer]

I hate koth, the guy is a *********** moron.

 

Hey did you know that Valkorion killed Billions of people? Yeah well that's cool because he was always good to zakuul. That's like saying Hitler was a good guy because he was kind to "X".

 

Love HK 55, too bad about...you know.

[ekwalizer]

Here are the things I like and dislike about the new expansion (what are yours)?

 

Like

+ Renewed emphasis on storytelling

+ Consequences based on your choices Which choices have you made that actually had consequences?

+ More intensive use of cutscenes (although there are a few too many in the beginning)

+ Much better character dialogue and jokes

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Reduction of equipment slots for companions

+ Level sync (although enemies are still way too easy)

+ Soloable instances

 

Dislikes

- Vaylin is too one-dimensional (similar to dark side Jaesa)

- Voice actor for Arcann doesn't seem to fit his appearance

- Lack of diversity in new party (it's mostly humans) That's a non-issue once you finish Ch9

- Inability to access pre-expansion content once started

- Lack of things to spend crystals on Truth be told the leveling is so fast you really don't need to spend those crystals on gear. The entire expansion is designed to be completed in 190s.

- Story is kind of weak so far But, didn't you just say that "Renewed emphasis on storytelling" was in the positive section?

 

Like

+ Companions can be set to different support roles

+ Better ease of travel

 

Dislikes

- Post-vanilla companions have no conversations and no explorable back-story. This leads to a lack of attachment to these companions. Further, granting all roles to each companion ensures that most will never be used beyond "mandatory fun".

- Quite frankly, there are way too many companions and contacts available. If a player is 100% complete with pre-Chapter X they have 23 available companions to choose from - assuming they have not recalled their old crew. This becomes an issue in the crew skills window, trying to locate suitable companions (read: highest influence) to run crew skills. Recommendation: Implement a "sort-by" feature in the crew skills window. Options could be: Influence, Alphabetic, etc etc; I'll let you figure out the details. But, sort-by Influence is an absolute must-have.

- Agents get two story companions back almost immediately, Troopers get two companions back almost immediately, Inquisitors get two companions back almost immediately, Warriors get one companion back almost immediately, Consulars get one companion back almost immediately. Knights get a companion back almost immediately. Bounty Hunters and Smugglers get zero companions back up to this point. You have given back nine story companions and there are eight stories, yet there is a disparity on which stories get a companion back.

- Lack of new Operations or PvP Maps

- NiM Loot debacle

- Telling us that you are "returning to story" and "decisions matter" then reversing your own story based decision to kill HK-55 due to forum nerd-rage.

[Zephrus]

Rant mode=on

 

I do like the emphasis on story telling in the Fallen Empire chapters. The problem is, the story itself is nowhere near as original or interesting as KOTOR or especially the restored KOTOR2.

 

BTW yes I realize I am resurrecting a two year old thread here, but I have been subscribed but not playing for a good while and just finished the KOTFE content this week.

 

There's a great deal I dislike about the Fallen Empire quests and characters.

 

Continuity problems. Such as, why do I as the Jedi Barsenthor, not still have my armies of Esh-Ka, Voss, etc. with which to fight the Eternal Empire?

 

Previously, the companion characters had the ability for meaningful changes in equipment, and they all had their own special skills and tactical abilities. They had some unique dialog for just about everywhere you went. That's all gone. Now they are all essentially the exact same character, just reskinned, with the exact same abilities and no effect from different equipment aside from purely cosmetic with no influence on gameplay or dialog choices. And they seem brain-dead, having forgotten almost everything about your past relationship and adventures, and even don't have the area-specific dialogues and knowledge they used to have. Why?

 

Why don't companions have any common sense, like wear a respirator so you don't drown on Manaan, a spacesuit in space in case the ship loses atmosphere, or have to put on sensible winter clothing instead of wearing a skimpy bikini and loincloth on Hoth or Ilum or else freeze to death?

 

If that's for "play balance" making all the companions the exact same except for reskinned even for PVE, that is the worst possible and just a plain lazy way to achieve play balance.

 

What's up with completely disregarding both old and new Star Wars canon, as well as previous content in KOTOR, KOTOR2 and even SWTOR itself. Satele Shan abandons the Jedi Order? Sith can become force ghosts? And Satele, who was so into non-attachment and the Jedi code that she abandoned her lover and her infant son, is now apparently permanently attached to the force ghost of an evil Sith Lord? um what were you thinking there?

 

I never felt like I was on rails in KOTOR or KOTOR2. You at least had options of which part of the story to do next, and where to go, what to do. And those were single user games more than a decade ago. The KOTET/KOTFE content is so easy tactically to solo that its basically just a series of mediocre cutscenes spliced together with completely trivial gameplay. And no options about what part of the story to do in what order or many meaningful open world play options.

 

It is far far far too easy to level now. Leveling is not how to prepare to play the game, it is the game. There's no effective death penalty, no loss of experience or levels, no loss of equipment. You don't get a bad reputation or criminal record, open warrants even for blatantly murdering people in plain view of law enforcement officers.

 

There's no challenge to leveling and therefore no sense of accomplishment. With the content scaling now, and the tremendous nerfing of difficulty of both puzzles and combat, you might as well be playing some other game I won't mention and just start at max level.

 

One of the good things about SWTOR compared to KOTOR/KOTOR2 is multiplayer gives great opportunities for role-play. But that's ruined 1) by the fact that the higher level story progression is exactly the same with only cosmetic differences which quickly merge back to the same story line, and 2) by the fact that everyone's story is, "I am the greatest hero ever, savior of the Universe and Emperor of the Eternal Empire."

 

There was no reason at all to suddenly drop the Rakata as ancient evils and introduce the Eternal Empire located in the same area in space, with the same force-based technology and historic role. Why, just on the assumption that we would only "relate" to villains who just happen to look exactly like northern european humans?

 

Similarly, why re-introduce Revan and the Jedi Exile only to kill them off? Why why why?

 

The Mandaloreans have been Flanderized into generic bounty-hunter type characters too obviously based on the Fetts in the SW movies. We see nothing of their unique culture and technology such as their cool basilisk war droids which made them such a threat to the Republic, nor their secret attempts to develop their own force-enhanced warriors and technologies, not to mention where are the actual original Mandalorean race, the Taung, originally from Notron/Corescant. According to Bioware and Obsidian's previous lore, Canderous Ordo was the first non-Taung to hold the title of Mandalore, so where are the Taung? Sith Purebloods were partially displaced/hybridized by humans a long time earlier than the time of Revan and the Exile, and yet Sith Purebloods are an integral character option for the game.

 

Why do such a vast majority the Fallen Empire characters look and dress like modern northern European humans? There are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions. The original movie Star Wars universe was notably diverse, at least in the background characters, even in the first three movies where they were physical props, puppets, or makeup. There's no such constraint on animation so why give us such a predominance of characters that look like people from Northern Europe on modern 20th/21st century Earth?

 

The neutral force user philosophy in KOTFE/KOTET seems like the Sith code with a velvet glove. It is all about do whatever is necessary to gain and hold power. But wear nice clothes and have great parties. Why not give us multiple choice force alignments, not only light and dark, but also the Living Force, Cosmic Force, Unifying Force, and Physical Force, with appropriate cults, appearance changes, and social and combat abilities for each?

 

I enjoyed the clever snarky writing for the Fallen Empire scripted character interactions, and that's about it. I do not care about the soap opera of the dysfunctional family of mass murdering psychopaths which form the Eternal Empire dynasty. At all.

 

A great opportunity was missed here.

 

Please stop trying to make a one-size-fits-all story of "you are the greatest hero ever" and force us all to conform to it. Give us an open world and let us make our own stories. Fine, have a Jedi Order, and let it have ten thousand knights, fine. But only a few hundred Masters, a couple dozen on the Council, and one Grand Master. Likewise for the Sith.

 

Really tremendous would be give us the tools to make our own areas and quests, and after some look-and-feel polish, approval and balancing, make them generally available. That would multiply the content available tremendously with little cost to Bioware/EA/Lucasfilm/Disney. Games with active modding communities last a lot longer in the market, that's a fact.

 

I am a founder, and that's my opinion. What do you think?

Edited July 26, 2017 by Zephrus
add title

[notanjelika]

Likes:

 

- Theron Shan

- T7

- Torian Cadera having no problem with joining a JC

- Shae Vizla actually helping a Jedi

- the music from Darvannis

- getting my starship back

- re-recruiting Qizen Fess

- trolling Heskal

- calling The Exalted "the head weirdo" LMAO i loved that !

- recruiting Kalyio Djannis

 

Dislikes:

 

- no Nadia Grell

- no Zenith

- Vaylin's voice

- the Scions

- losing HK-55 forever :(

- not being able to recruit Tanno Vik ( i understand he's a Republic companion)

- Heralds of Zildrog

- Koth

[Eshvara]

Like :

• Arcann and his voice. /swoooooon:p

• Senya.

• cutscenes and seeing the perspective of the villains more when you're not there.

• Amazing voice actors in general.

• Chapter system and how you can repeat it.

• The story line.

• How characters can have different looking body types, like Senya, Arcann, Lana and such.

• Amazing music.

 

 

Dislike;

• No longer being able to choose whatever companion comes with you , it's typically almost always Theron and or Lana.

• Too much involvement from Theron and Lana overall.

• Missing of important companions such as Scourge and Kira.

• Having all these companions I'd never use, from all classes.

• Multisex companions, I hope it stays at it just being these three, rather than multisex forever.

• The gravestone not feeling as epic as it should be.

• One size fits all type of story mode, while I initially liked the story, I wanted there to be more individuality.

• How it didn't really matter much whether you kneeled or not before Valkorion.

• How saving Ranken or the others didn't matter in the end.

[Slowpokeking]

Like: Most of the story other than chapter 12 and the down ending of chapter 16.

Dislike: Forced level sync and bloster all ops to top level. Lana romance lock was very easy to miss.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Slowpokeking

[Paulsutherland]

KOTFE - was okay, it was setting up for something, or atleast I thought it was with the 'new force' thing in chapter 12.

KOTET - felt like it was rushed for this Iokath story.