New Chapter: Visions in the dark - Post your thoughts

[wangxiuming]

Really enjoyed this chapter! Took me about 2 hours to complete (though I did stop and kill every hostile mob and reset a few cutscenes because I didn't like what some of the dialog choices ended up being). Some really interesting developments, two very exciting fights, and some of the most beautiful sets in swtor yet. Thumbs up in my book.

[commanderwar]

I thought it was the best chapter yet, really great, got some interesting character development Edited April 6, 2016 by commanderwar

[Slowpokeking]

Don't forget, at that point Revan was 1. Technically insane and 2. it was in fact in-character. The histories of the Mandalorian Wars state Revan's necessary sacrificing of worlds in order to achieve victory elsewhere (a question you're even asked by the terminal on Kashyyyk) was part of how he won the war. It was also part of how he had fallen to the dark side by the end of the war.

 

But you're right, the point of grey Jedi is that not all the choices they make are "good". Some are "evil/bad", but I think the point is most are really neutral, as in how ordinary Joes live out their lives. The point of the gray Jedi is not that he's OP, but that he's average, and that it connects to the player better when their character is average. Revan was supposed to be the exception (canonically gray and the only one to master both sides). Meetra Surik was canonically lightside, not gray. Kyle Katarn is canonically gray, but not OP.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

But "good" and "evil" is not decided by the numbers of the choices, but the consequence of the choice. Some "evil" people only made a few bad choices in their life and it was enough to make everyone loathe them.

 

In SW, some sacrifices for the "greater good" is understandable sometimes, but commit genocide based on bloodline, is evil regardless of what have you done before.

 

Qui Gon didn't abandon the Jedi way for something else, just trying to improve the stubborn Jedi order.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Slowpokeking

[Uruare]

I really like the new chapter, though I was taken aback but Valkorian suddenly being all pissy. Dunno if it's weird writing or the character is just bipolar, but his sudden about face from being your co-conspirator to your fed up college roommate felt random to me, and not in a believably good way.

 

Other than that, I'm digging it.

[Slowpokeking]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it should be totally black/white, I think even the good guys can make some bad decisions sometimes and the bad guys could do some good thing when it brought them benefit. As long as they don't do good/bad thing because they are good/bad it's ok. I'm just against the Mary Sueish of the Eternal Empire and the Zakuul characters.

 

Also the idea of Grey Jedi? Sure one of them, a few unique characters are cool, but when you got a dozen of them, you will find them are more boring than the Sith/Jedi.

[Nothing_Shines]

As my Light Side Jedi Knight, it was quite cool and felt 100% appropriate. Nice setting, good atmosphere. Marr is always awesome. Very ESB all around. Could have done with less bamphfing creature mobs, though.

 

As my Dark Side Bounty Hunter, it was beyond ridiculous. All I got was the NPCs making fun of my class for not being 1337 enough without the Force and how I needed to kinda-sorta use Force stuff to choose my destiny and to make a crap looking flintlock pistol with a scope on it. That's magic. Somehow. I point out I've killed things the size of an oil rig before, not to mention immensely powerful Force users, and extra-planar gods, but me and my toys still aren't good enough to take out the guy who got crippled and almost killed by mortar fire.

 

I imagine it will also feel appropriate with my various other Jedi and Sith toons, just as my Agent, Smuggler and Trooper will feel just as stupid.

 

All I could think of was bad fanfic about sending Boba Fett or Han Solo to Dagobah to train with Yoda and Obi-wan's Force Ghost in how to use the Force to build magical blaster pistols so they can fight Darth Vader, but during ROTJ, after they've been not Jedi for the last 40 years.

 

Why aren't they training Lana to do this again? Oh, right. I'm the Chosen One. Sigh.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[LonelyWookiee]

I really like the new chapter, though I was taken aback but Valkorian suddenly being all pissy.

 

Yeah, that struck me as odd too. I mean, I knew it was coming but it was just so sudden.

[Nothing_Shines]

Yeah, that struck me as odd too. I mean, I knew it was coming but it was just so sudden.

 

That too. My BH went along with every single thing Valkorian suggested so far (intending to still betray him at the very last second, mind you) and he starts stamping his feet and having a temper tantrum about me not doing what he wanted. LOLWUT? Then he acts like he's going to kick my ***, we fight, I burn him down like he isn't even there, and boom! cutscene and suddenly I'm losing to him. He says he's taking his toys and going home, maybe to never see me again, and then about faces again and says he'll leave me with one last gift of power. That whole scene came across as off, like story flags hadn't triggered properly or something.

 

At least my LS JK had actively opposed him the whole time and was expecting a showdown.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[Max_Killjoy]

I already don't want to take characters through KotFE.

 

Every time someone posts about it, the not wanting to increases.

[-Bob-]

Do you remember in * The Empire strikes Back* when Luke goes to Dagobah and finds Yoda (or Satele shan in this case) and he fights an illusion of Vader in a cave? Yeah thats what i got out of this xpac, A rehash. Darth Marr = Obi Wan.

pretty creative, Good Job BW. Maybe the time and money spent could have been used to fix the bugs that have existed for the past few years instead. It's good to see my Sub $$ is utilized as appropriately as my Tax $$.

[studiablo]

I made the darkside option to kill Shan and she did not die.

[SerraShar]

I made the darkside option to kill Shan and she did not die.

 

Lol awww.....

 

 

The force is a bigger Boss , beside Marr was pissed if ya take that option

 

[LogosPathos]

I enjoyed the chapter. My LS Jedi Guardian, however, will BE a LS Jedi Guardian for as long as I play him and I don't care if he's the last one in the entire story. Tread lightly Bioware

[LogosPathos]

So they are a lot more powerful than Arcann, then why should we give up the Jedi/Sith way to grab some new stuff to fight him? Even when facing the Emperor himself, the Hero of Tython didn't try such garbage.

 

 

I would also add that I was BEATING Valkorion before they forced me to the cut scene.

 

[Aeneas_Falco]

I really enjoyed it as well.

 

Though I can see the "There is no gray Force" crowd having a bad day.

 

Good prediction. I was a little annoyed for that reason.

 

I hate the whole gray Force nonsense and the prodding towards gray morality rather than light side for my Outlander. It feels out of place with the film canon for Star Wars.

 

Gray Jedi is an element of bad fanfiction from people who didn't get that the story they were expanding on is an old fashioned fairy tale about a struggle between good and evil. Morally gray Jedi antiheroes are out of place and should never have been introduced to the EU to begin with.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Aeneas_Falco

[Vanis]

Again, the concept that your character can hold their own against very powerful force-users, like Darth Revan, who himself was able to stand up to Vitiate and were it not for Lord Scourge killing Meetra Surik, probably would have beat him, and then fight him mentally for 300 years, just is a total disconnect.

 

Especially as both the Warrior and Knight where you DO defeat Vitiate, and he was allegedly more powerful in the Warrior than he was in the Knight questline.

 

And what really is the major plothole is why was Revan trying to resurrect Vitiate, if he was never dead to begin with? Why the evil genocide plans on Belsavis, Voss, and Corellia, and why Ziost? You could explain that this was just to prolong his life, but the Vitiate written was very different from the Valkorion we have now, despite that they are stated several times to be the same person.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

Revan was only able to "resist" Vitiate for 300 years due to Meetra's intervention (he says as much). Also despite how it seemed the fight with Vititate was still up in the air. If it had been a sure thing Scourge wouldn't have killed Meetra and betrayed Revan, but the Force told him they were going to lose one way or another.

 

The Voice of the Emperor is a strange topic because it treads on arguments that no side has been able to outright prove. Some say that the Voice the Warrior fought was more powerful because it had both the essences of Sel'Makor and Vitiate within the body, but others have said that the being that the JK fought was more powerful because Vitiate would have been actively resisting Sel'Makor (a battle of wills) during the Warrior fight whilst his attention while not augmented would have been solely on killing the JK. Unless a dev has outright said this fight was harder (and no, coy *wink wink, nudge nudge* doesn't count as confirmation for either side).

 

As for the "plot hole" I'll agree to a point. I mean the argument could be made that Vitiate lost a lot of power when he was killed by the JK. Marr says that the JK had done the closest thing to killing Vitiate in his entire history so the whole Yavin thing could have been to regain his power after being killed. He feeds on death so the more death the better (I guess). What I mean to say is that the story presents it as the JK doing actual "Force damage" to Vitiate to the point that he has to reconstitute himself. He corrupts Revan into making that happen faster because he can't stand not being at full power and when he is "reborn" on Yavin it gives him enough power to achieve his ultimate goal on Ziost. The whole thing on Belsavis, Voss and Corellia? Essentially that was to get him to the point he was at post-Yavin. And then Ziost achieved his ultimate goal of immortality. How? Idk. Why? Idk. Could be that Valkorion fears death so deeply that he wants to escape the flow of destiny via the Outlander who via being a PC is outside destiny in general.

 

On another note about Revan. While the exact numbers he kills isn't known in KOTOR I don't think we can definitively say that he "killed Bastila's strike team". I present my evidence.

In this clip you see three bodies. The first is a Sith Trooper (you can tell because he/she has the shiny armor). The next one is the body of the Dark Jedi Bastila kills moments before. And finally the republic soldier is the last body (killed by Revan). Unless its some tertiary source like the Star Wars Roleplaying Game we can say almost definitively that Revan didn't kill anyone except that officer. Bastila is later backed up by three Jedi who are either killed or knocked out (temporarily or for a while it doesn't matter) when Malak fires on Revan's bridge.

 

Note: Which as a point to the one person on here who was so bothered by the fact that Arcann was caught by surprise...Here is a perfect example of an incredibly powerful Jedi/Sith being caught off guard. Jedi intuition only goes so far even with the greatest Jedi/Sith. Yoda gets knocked around by Sidious and vice versa. Being caught off guard even as a Jedi/Sith isn't out of the realm of possibility. Atton Rand of KOTOR II makes that abundantly clear when he points out the various ways he as a non-Force user (at the time) tripped up Jedi.

 

As for the discrepancies between stories I won't say anyone's feelings are invalid here. If that's how you felt that's how you felt. My argument at least as far as Force users go though is that for the Inquisitor you needed the power of the ghosts to "match" Thanaton. To match a single Dark Council member.

 

Arcann may not be his father, but Valkorion makes it clear that his son isn't a pushover in the slightest. Arcann and Vaylin are the spawn of the single most powerful Force user in the galaxy (maybe in all of Old Republic history) and are competent Force users themselves. Does Arcann lose fights? Sure. Every great Force user in the galaxy has at SOME point. Anakin lost to Dooku, Anakin lost to Obi Wan. Vader lost to Luke. Sidious lost to Vader. Yoda lost to Sidious. etc etc. Kylo Ren was awesome until Rey whipped him like a teenager in the shower room and you bet your bungalow that Rey is going to be beaten at some point during the trilogy.

 

Arcann beat us. That is not a failure on the part of the player. That showcases what you're going up against without creating yet another 10 feet tall laser shooting raid boss. It wasn't in the cards for the player to win. That should be telling you something. Its not, "All my past victories are invalid." It's, "Wow I've beaten his father, Thanaton, Darth Baras, The First Son. Council members, Revan, ancient abominations and yet he nearly killed me/I barely scratched him." Should you get angry? Sure, especially if that's in character for your Sith or even Jedi. Your Sith should be pissed this punk beat you. Arcann should be terrified because now the Empire's Wrath/Darth Nox/Jedi Battlemaster/Barsen'thor is out for blood.

 

What this Chapter did was remind the player that, "Look. You are the single greatest fighter in the galaxy Force user or no. But so was I and so was Marr at some point and one of us is a throw rug for Vaylin." You don't have to take what Satele or Marr say at face value. One of the options hints that maybe Satele fell to the dark side or vice versa. They are afraid because even as the epitome of the Jedi and Sith they were beaten, VERY easily and people lost their lives because of that. Still, you don't have to adhere to their ideology. My character trusted Satele, but I don't know for certain that she was right. You can even say (multiple times), "Uh no. The Jedi/Sith code is the single way I'm going to win (or my blaster idk)" and that is just as valid a response. It's just that these people think x is the way to victory. Yoda and Ben thought killing Vader was how they were going to win. Clearly they were wrong.

 

[Jedi_riches]

J

And a plot-related thing that occurred to me, hiding behind a spoiler tag:

 

Did anyone else get the impression that the Satele and Marr we met weren't the real Satele and Marr? It seemed...awfully convenient to me that after Valk and I had our little spat over not fulfilling my destiny and crap because I won't take his power, two other more trustworthy individuals show up and start more or less persuading me to believe the same things Valk was trying to persuade me to believe. And then they pull the whole "well, we have something important and nondescript to do over on the other side of the galaxy, be seeing you!" when I invite them to come help out. I'm quite suspicious...

 

They certainly do seem to be teaching your character exactly the same thing that Valkorian has been preaching since the first chapter of kotfe, but then again after 5 years and coming across their limits in the fight against Arcann could lead them to the same point, plus Satele and Marr did have enough respect for each other I could see them debating philosophy for hours and come to this point.

 

I think that's because the problem is it's geared towards start-at-60's or people who levelled up after 4.0 with 190 green gear and have no idea how to play their class, and not people like me in 220/224 mix with a very good rotation.

 

Or once more, lazy writers/coders.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

I was in 208's and its not like Valkorian was a pushover, we were both hovering around the 75% mark, plus while I know my character it does not help when I have NPC's dissapear on me as just as I am ramping up my rotation it goes to shot and any procs I was getting to are lost.

 

The story mode has to be balanced around people who are likely be in gear ranging from 190's to 208's otherwise people will stop running it if you suddenly need ops level gear to complete.

 

As of I comment I saw about wishing they learned the balance from Revan, I would like to point out that Revan never had balance, He was once a Jedi who turned Sith, only became a Jedi again after loosing his memories (which he never regained fully during kotor) by the time he died in the foundry I think that he was heading towards the dark once again. So I don't believe that Revan is a guy you can learn balance from at all, he never did find it.

[Grieverheart]

I thought this chapter was fantastic. Best one so far.

[Darkwords]

Enjoyed it a lot. If there was no trash along the way to distract, it would of been perfect

[nanamaryjj]

I really like the new chapter, though I was taken aback but Valkorian suddenly being all pissy. Dunno if it's weird writing or the character is just bipolar, but his sudden about face from being your co-conspirator to your fed up college roommate felt random to me, and not in a believably good way.

 

Other than that, I'm digging it.

 

I am so with you on that one

My DS Jedi, who chose all the pro valk dialogue like kneel to him etc, accept his help.

For him to suddenly be so dismissive and cold felt like a total disconnect , felt like I was playing the part of someone who has always said no ro him.

It didnt make any sense whatsoever

[Velgar]

Story itself was pretty good but was badly marred by the constant utterly pointless trash mobs that are such blatant time wasting filler material. The fact that they cannot be bypassed with stealth just proves they are deliberate time wasting filler.

 

If they are going to put filler like that in, at least put some effort into working the filler into the story, give it a reason to be there that is strongly story related.

 

The constant pointless filler trash mobs disrupted the whole flow and feel of the story for me and knocked about 75% off my enjoyment of it.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Velgar

[Max_Killjoy]

What I'm taking away from this discussion is that Valkorian and Arcann are "cut scene awesome" and that the player is railroaded into losing.

[nanamaryjj]

What I'm taking away from this discussion is that Valkorian and Arcann are "cut scene awesome" and that the player is railroaded into losing.

 

I think you just found the name this chapter should of been called

OT the Vaylin bits were predictable but also really well played

[Sportiva]

I thought that the chapter was complete garbage ... the gameplay & fights were so tedious. The whole chapter was do a lot of really simple & unchallenging things then watch a cut scene.

 

As for the cut scene, they were good, and I can see the appeal of the story from a certain point of view, but I have ZERO interest taking a non-Force user through the chapter. I will take my DS Marauder through the chapter, but that probably will be it.

 

Also, (I played it through on my LS Guardian) I felt that I was being forced to accept a path that was contrary to the way I want this character to view the Force. As a caveat, the final dialogue choice while in the Odessan Wilds may have rectified this concern, but at this point I am not quite sure how the chapter ended; it was a little vague as to what the consequences of my choice was.

 

One last complaint, the choice of the companion to be featured in the next chapter is ridiculous in my opinion ... a whole chapter on that idiot ... seriously?!?

[FlavivsAetivs]

On another note about Revan. While the exact numbers he kills isn't known in KOTOR I don't think we can definitively say that he "killed Bastila's strike team". I present my evidence.

In this clip you see three bodies. The first is a Sith Trooper (you can tell because he/she has the shiny armor). The next one is the body of the Dark Jedi Bastila kills moments before. And finally the republic soldier is the last body (killed by Revan). Unless its some tertiary source like the Star Wars Roleplaying Game we can say almost definitively that Revan didn't kill anyone except that officer. Bastila is later backed up by three Jedi who are either killed or knocked out (temporarily or for a while it doesn't matter) when Malak fires on Revan's bridge.

 

Yeah okay, that was the exact scene I was thinking of. I thought that the Jedi running up were in the prior scene and that he had already cut them down.

 

Nevertheless, Revan was quite clearly prepared to incinerate them. It's stated in the game Bastila was not capable of taking on a Sith Lord (as we see with her taking on Malak, who Malgus and Arcann both rip off IMO).

 

After all we're talking about the only guy who could summon the force in its purest form, unleash force storms, and absorb Darth Nyriss' (I think that was her name) force lightning and incinerate her with it.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited April 6, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs