Things in Chapter XII that don't make any sense...

[Max_Killjoy]

Hm. All my characters so far have consequently rejected his aid. Only my Imperial Agent accepted his aid a single one time to save Lana. All my character got a line "time and again you rejected my aid". Does he still say that when you did accept his aid?

 

We've been bouncing that around for a bit on these threads; either the choice flags are broken AGAIN and characters in Ch. 12 are saying the same thing no matter what because the game isn't recognizing that the PC made other choices previously... or Bioware has gone full-on "come watch our movie" mode and we're going to see more and more instances of everyone getting things based on the default assumptions.

[TheAresian]

- Satele's idea of casual manslaughter in the woods:

When you meet Satele for the first time, she makes an offhand remark about deciding not kill you, when she and Valkorion found you. I've found this especially baffling on a Jedi Knight or Consular. Satele is integral to the story of the Jedi Knight, she is practically our mentor and the Knight saves the Republic and the Jedi Order single-handedly on multiple occassions.

 

Perhaps I'm reaching here, but to the best of our current knowledge, Marr and Satele still only see Valkorion as the Sith Emperor. Satele's new found practicality may have led her to believe that she had an opportunity to kill the villain by killing the host, i.e. us.

 

Again, this may be a reach here, but i think a lot of this is philosophical reflection on the nature of the Force itself. The Force isn't light or dark. It's neither Jedi not Sith. The Jedi and Sith philosophies are ideas on how people should be when they interact with the Force. Valkorion's way seems to imply some sort of Force zen. With years to meditate and reflect, both Satele and Marr have had opportunities to increase their understanding on the nature of the Force and how it functions in comparison to their lifelong held beliefs. It's not terribly different from how Bruce Lee talked about people should be like water.

 

It's a double edged sword for force users as Valkorion's power could be a great enhancement to their own or it could work against it. For non-force users, they would be conduits for Valkorion's power. Non-force benefits? Not sure. I suppose one could really, really stretch and say that clarity of thought might lead to better combat skills.

 

Ultimately, how logical all of this depends on the explanation of Valkorion's endgame. At present, we're looking at threads not knowing what kind of tapestry they form when we can see the whole thing. Is that going to save the threads? Only time will tell.

[Unperson]

or Bioware has gone full-on "come watch our movie" mode and we're going to see more and more instances of everyone getting things based on the default assumptions.

 

And why shouldn't they? They have been stripping down the actual gameplay for a while now. The meager C&C this game ever had kept getting in the way of "artistic integrity", so it had to go. For a game with a plot that actually reacts to your decisions, go play Alpha Protocol. Guess what, it failed pretty hard commercially.

 

Then again, a lot of folks would be happy if this product had the same reactivity as a comic book, "story" over anything, so who can blame them. Problem is, the storytelling quality here is closer to the "Mofference" than it is to, say, Dark Times.

 

And we aren't even done with the first season yet...

[Max_Killjoy]

And why shouldn't they? They have been stripping down the actual gameplay for a while now. The meager C&C this game ever had kept getting in the way of "artistic integrity", so it had to go. For a game with a plot that actually reacts to your decisions, go play Alpha Protocol. Guess what, it failed pretty hard commercially.

 

Then again, a lot of folks would be happy if this product had the same reactivity as a comic book, "story" over anything, so who can blame them. Problem is, the storytelling quality here is closer to the "Mofference" than it is to, say, Dark Times.

 

And we aren't even done with the first season yet...

 

 

Moving on...

[TUXs]

Perhaps I'm reaching here, but to the best of our current knowledge, Marr and Satele still only see Valkorion as the Sith Emperor. Satele's new found practicality may have led her to believe that she had an opportunity to kill the villain by killing the host, i.e. us.

The Emperor had exited our bodies prior to Satele finding us though...his exit is the reason we were passed out...right?

[Unperson]

 

Moving on...

 

The truth hurts, I know.

[JediQuaker]

- The Gemini Frequency hyperwave comms station is 10 kms beneath Zakuul:

This just feels weird, you don't really put signal transceivers underground. Not at least if you want to get clear reception. I would expect such a facility to have an antenna that stretches into orbit, past atmospheric interference. Maybe it does and we're just invading the control room below the surface.

 

Um, it seems you've answered your own question.

[Max_Killjoy]

The truth hurts, I know.

 

You know it's generally frowned upon to have mutiple logins, MadCuzBad.

[Unperson]

You know it's generally frowned upon to have mutiple logins, MadCuzBad.

 

So I'm MCB now? Yeah, the fact that you cannot fathom that two completely different individuals can reach similar conclusions on the issues this game has and the direction it's headed in betrays how small-minded you are. As I said, the truth hurts, and you're obviously desperate for ways to cope.

 

But, ah, who am I to stop you from indulging in your fantasies? You're welcome to report me for sockpuppeting. Good luck with that.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Unperson

[Max_Killjoy]

So I'm MCB now? Yeah, the fact that you cannot fathom that two completely different individuals can reach similar conclusions on the issues this game has and the direction it's headed in betrays how small-minded you are. As I said, the truth hurts, and you're obviously desperate for ways to cope.

 

But, ah, who am I to stop you from indulging in your fantasies? You're welcome to report me for sockpuppeting. Good luck with that.

 

Your sarcasm detector may be broken.

 

 

 

This whole "the truth hurts" and "you don't agree with me so something must be wrong with you" thing you're doing here is right out of that other poster's playbook. And to post what you're posting right now, and then flip it around and call other people "small minded" or accuse anyone else of being "unable to deal with people reaching different conclusions" is the height of irony.

 

 

 

And gee, I'm sorry if I didn't take your rant about other players wanting the game to be a bad comic book and the story to be utterly non-interactive seriously. Try not cranking the rage up to 11 and insulting random other people just for "impact".

Edited April 12, 2016 by Max_Killjoy

[robertthebard]

They mentioned it was urgent because the Intel they intercepted was soon to be outdated if they didn't act quick enough. Hence them leaving without you joining the operation.

 

 

 

Abstraction or not... still seems odd that Satele has never been spotted with all the obvious clues of her existence.

 

 

EU aside, the order of the Jedi were reduced to single digit numbers and that the entire army the Jedi fought beside is against them. The old republic still has all their troops, hundreds of Jedi and starships, Yoda had nothing but two kids and the best defensive duelist around.

 

These caught my eye.

 

Hmm, I must have missed how many Jedi still exist outside of what's on Odessen. Where was that mentioned, so that I can look for it in my next playthrough.

 

As another interesting aside, Luke goes to Dagobah to find Yoda, what does that have to do with the EU? This happens in the original trilogy of movies, and is therefore as canon as it can get. The events that led to it, regardless of the EU, were laid out in the second trilogy, for better or worse, and is also as canon as can get.

[peter_plankskull]

Hmm, I must have missed how many Jedi still exist outside of what's on Odessen. Where was that mentioned, so that I can look for it in my next playthrough.

 

As another interesting aside, Luke goes to Dagobah to find Yoda, what does that have to do with the EU? This happens in the original trilogy of movies, and is therefore as canon as it can get. The events that led to it, regardless of the EU, were laid out in the second trilogy, for better or worse, and is also as canon as can get.

 

If the Republic still has enough people to be at war with the empire, I'm pretty sure they have plenty of jedi and other resources to use against them, still way more than Yoda had.

 

I was saying regardless of EU, as EU mentions a lot of escapees and such surviving order 66, as of late only obi wan, yoda, and Kanaan, and maybe Ezra, if you want to call him a jedi, are alive.

[Max_Killjoy]

If the Republic still has enough people to be at war with the empire, I'm pretty sure they have plenty of jedi and other resources to use against them, still way more than Yoda had.

 

I was saying regardless of EU, as EU mentions a lot of escapees and such surviving order 66, as of late only obi wan, yoda, and Kanaan, and maybe Ezra, if you want to call him a jedi, are alive.

 

And maybe Ahsoka. A galaxy is a big place, there were lots of Jedi, there's plenty of room for more to have survived the purge out there in the canon timeline of the OT.

 

Somehow, though, the movies never seem to be able to grasp scale and scope... here's a conflict that's supposed to involve the entire known galaxy, and yet we see "grand fleets" of a couple dozen ships, and stories told as if everything that's going on comes down to a handful of people...

[CommanderKeeva]

Hmm, I must have missed how many Jedi still exist outside of what's on Odessen. Where was that mentioned, so that I can look for it in my next playthrough.

 

As another interesting aside, Luke goes to Dagobah to find Yoda, what does that have to do with the EU? This happens in the original trilogy of movies, and is therefore as canon as it can get. The events that led to it, regardless of the EU, were laid out in the second trilogy, for better or worse, and is also as canon as can get.

 

I couldn't find any specific numbers or even generic estimates to that question. If you're playing a Jedi, Lana can comment that the Jedi Order suffered heavy losses in the war against Arcann, just as the Sith did. At the end Chapter IX, you can ask Theron about Satele and he replies that his contacts among the Jedi hadn't been able to locate her. That would imply that they still exist in some form or another. When you talk to Choza Rabaat, he says he doesn't not know what happened to the Jedi order but he doesn't believe that it had been completely wiped out. The Republic isn't destroyed, however, it still has a standing military, a fleet, a chain of command, albeit much weaker than 5 years ago. Based on this, I'd say that the Jedi and the Sith are shells of their former selves, their numbers had been reduced significantly but they had not been completely wiped out and they're still serving what's left of the Republic/Empire.

Edited April 12, 2016 by CommanderKeeva

[peter_plankskull]

And maybe Ahsoka. A galaxy is a big place, there were lots of Jedi, there's plenty of room for more to have survived the purge out there in the canon timeline of the OT.

 

Somehow, though, the movies never seem to be able to grasp scale and scope... here's a conflict that's supposed to involve the entire known galaxy, and yet we see "grand fleets" of a couple dozen ships, and stories told as if everything that's going on comes down to a handful of people...

 

I didn't include Ashoka because she defines herself as a grey Jedi. Not to mention the dude who makes the show cares greatly for her, and gave her the comic book ending, unless seen on screen, she doesn't die and can be used later for anyone else.

 

Yeah ill admit their probably was loads of jedi that lived on, but it isn't Canon yet and still not nearly enough to oppose the empire.

[CommanderKeeva]

Also, Yoda isn't infallible by any means. It could be that he's simply wrong and relaying misinformation to Luke. The fact that he does not know of other Jedi who survived Order 66 doesn't mean they don't exist.

[thebumpkin]

But they were talking about Arcann.

 

Is Arcann devoted to the Emperor? Hell no, but he is the strongest Zakuul knight.

 

Sith does have to keep discipline as well, many of them are calm and only releases passion when necessary.

 

They were referring to Zakuul Force training in general. Satele specifically states that the KOZ see the Force as a reward for their devotion to the Emperor. He wasn't happy with the way Valkorion treated him but, still, he served his Emperor and carried out the Emperor's bidding, there was some devotion there. But really, Arcann and Vaylin, the way they act, the way they treat thier people, the way they snuff out lives like they are nothing.... Arcann and Vaylin are basically Sith 2.0

 

Sith have some discipline of course, but, many are incited to fury and murderous rage at the least thing. My point was, that when it comes to utilising the Force, the Sith use for the vast majority, passion. The Jedi have some passion themselves too of course, but, the KOZ are 50/50 in the approach.

[Slowpokeking]

They were referring to Zakuul Force training in general. Satele specifically states that the KOZ see the Force as a reward for their devotion to the Emperor. He wasn't happy with the way Valkorion treated him but, still, he served his Emperor and carried out the Emperor's bidding, there was some devotion there. But really, Arcann and Vaylin, the way they act, the way they treat thier people, the way they snuff out lives like they are nothing.... Arcann and Vaylin are basically Sith 2.0

 

Sith have some discipline of course, but, many are incited to fury and murderous rage at the least thing. My point was, that when it comes to utilising the Force, the Sith use for the vast majority, passion. The Jedi have some passion themselves too of course, but, the KOZ are 50/50 in the approach.

 

But Arcann and Vaylin were the real powerful ones.

 

The high rank Sith mostly control themselves well. Yeah Sith uses passion, but they prefer to dominate it as weapon rather being driven by it.

 

Valkorion picked KoZ simply because they are the best tools, they won't plot against him like the Sith did, and they are willing to do his dirty work unlike the Jedi, this is where his "better way" come from, while he is a Sith himself.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Slowpokeking

[Max_Killjoy]

I saw this quote in forum signature somewhere yesterday, and I thought it appropriate to the Sith-Jedi Dark-Light discussion.

 

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.”

 

There is a certain sort of Sith who looks with disdain on both the way many Jedi live in secret fear of their emotions, and at the way that many other Sith are slaves to their emotions. To them, a true Sith neither denies nor is enslaved by their passions.

[Ramalina]

Going back and rereading my last post in this thread, I feel like I should expand and give a concrete example of sloppiness in the story when it comes to plausible challenge, character agency, and deus ex machina shortcuts.

 

Head back to the Asylum, where we were trying to repair the Gravestone. Not chapter 12 I realize, but one of the first big examples of sloppy cutscene ex machina in KotFE.

 

There are two big fights the character has with Arcann at Asylum.

 

The first encounter is not too bad. The Arcann throwing the character around with the force bits in cutscenes are perhaps a bit excessive, especially for some of the force user classes that going by their class stories, could have turned Arcann into liquid meat product if they had decided to push back as hard as they could. But whatever, it establishes that Arcann can force push hard enough to make someone have a really sore back the next day. A reasonably skilled player then fights Arcann in a fight that is slightly challenging, but that Arcann is quite clearly in the process of losing.

 

Our villain can't die, we'll need him later. Oh, no, what do we do? Enter deus ex machina stage left. Arcann's bombardment of Asylum saves him by dropping a large pillar between him and the character, stopping the fight. Collapse of the building keeps the fight stopped.

 

That's not that bad as a way to save Arcann from the character. The player is winning, confirming that even after 5 years in carbonite their character is more bad-*** than some whiny snot-nosed little kid, and it's pretty clear that there's going to be another round with the boy, and that he shouldn't look forward to it, but the player probably will.

 

Round two in the control tower. This is where the story just gets sloppy. Again, the play is only mildly challenging, and Arcann is inexorably losing. It's quite obvious that he's losing. Ok, consistency is good, Arcann just doesn't have what it takes to beat the player one on one in a fight. Again the content creators need a way to save the villain for reuse.

 

Only this time, instead of enter deus ex machina, it's enter hamfisted deus ex machina. If the content creators have done a good job establishing that Arcann can't hack it in battle against the player, taking the controls away from the player to insert a cutscene where Arcann suddenly becomes an unstoppable killing machine is bad form, bad game mechanics, and bad storytelling.

 

There are better options, for example:

 

Option: Arcann runs for it. A perfectly sensible option. There's an opening to the outside, and he has a lot of flying units out there some of which have force sensitive pilots. He could have called on one for a lift and jumped onto the moving ship. There you go, Arcann is a skilled force user, and even if the character can beat him in a fight, he's clearly going to be a problem if he's strong enough to disengage from a losing fight successfully. Pinning him down in the end could be really hard. Sort of like Skavaak in the Smuggler storyline, a peer in power to the character, or maybe a bit weaker, but capable of causing a lot of trouble for a long time.

 

"But, but, we want Valkorion's kids to seem scary on a personal level, not just like whiny brats with Daddy's army"

Uh, well, that boat sailed a long time ago, and the writers didn't just miss it, they went to the wrong port city.

But . . .

 

Option: Arcann is being ground down by the character. Start cutscene. Aarcann spouts some melodramatic nonsense like, "Father, do you think you're the only one who can meddle? Vaylin, help me!." Cutscene to Vaylin and Senya's fight, Vaylin turns head as if hearing something, and starts fighting in a weak/distracted manner, cutscene ends and Arcann is now using not just saber technique similar to a Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior but also a wider array of Consular/Inquisitor like force powers. Go back to player controlled fighting, and talk the coders into doing percentage based attacks for Arcann so that the player can be forced to lose X percentage of health over Y seconds of time regardless of gearing and player skill. Now the player is facing inexorable loss.

 

Now with the next cutscene you can plausibly have Arcann injure the player badly, or disengage on his terms, or let Valkorion's aid force Arcann to flee. It also quite conveniently gives an explanation of how Senya manages to defeat Vaylin, when we are told that Valyin as a toddler was already more powerful than Senya. As a bonus, it establishes that while Arcann is not much of a threat in personal combat on his own, when working together with a sibling they become a formidable threat. (Also a sibling/close relationship bond sort of like a more personal version of battle meditation gives a nice "new different force power advantage" that's a bit less silly than the "beyond light and dark" nonsense we see cropping up in chapter 12. One that doesn't require abusing the integrity of poor Satele and Marr. At the very least it gives the potential for A) Go beyond light and dark to defeat Arcann and Vaylin or B) choose companion with which you will form your own deep force bond to counter Arcann and Vaylin's ability).

 

In either of the above example options, the point is to have the player feel like what they are doing with their character in game is driving what is happening in the game. Niether of the examples actually would give the player more choice or influence than in KotFE as currently implemented, but it might give a better illusion of choice and influence.

 

In the case of Vaylin vs Senya, it would also make the story a lot more internally consistent, which is never a bad thing.

 

 

If on the player's end I know that doing well as a character in terms of gameplay and story choices means nothing, because a cutscene is just going to come along and snatch away potential victories until the end of next year's season of KotFE, and that those devastating cutscene inflicted losses on the part of my character are going to be reversed by deus ex machina cutscenes that then step in to rescue my character from the previous cutscenes, then as a player I have to ask the following question:

 

Why the heck am I even playing this character?

 

 

I tend to be a story driven type GM myself, and typically don't let players see NPC stats or rolls in order to make it invisible if I choose to break the rules for the benefit of the overall gaming experience. The thing is, the rules are sort of the baseline contract between the content creator and the players. If you as the creator are going to break the rules, you had better be damn well sure that it's both for the benefit of the players and extremely well executed.

 

Devs, story team, please figure it out. Soon. I realize that it's probably already too late for things as far out as chapter 15, but maybe for 16 and next year's season we can have the story structure be a bit more fundamentally sound in terms of RPG play? Pretty please?

Edited April 12, 2016 by Ramalina

[Max_Killjoy]

Going back and rereading my last post in this thread, I feel like I should expand and give a concrete example of sloppiness in the story when it comes to plausible challenge, character agency, and deus ex machina shortcuts.

 

Head back to the Asylum, where we were trying to repair the Gravestone. Not chapter 12 I realize, but one of the first big examples of sloppy cutscene ex machina in KotFE.

 

There are two big fights the character has with Arcann at Asylum.

 

The first encounter is not too bad. The Arcann throwing the character around with the force bits in cutscenes are perhaps a bit excessive, especially for some of the force user classes that going by their class stories, could have turned Arcann into liquid meat product if they had decided to push back as hard as they could. But whatever, it establishes that Arcann can force push hard enough to make someone have a really sore back the next day. A reasonably skilled player then fights Arcann in a fight that is slightly challenging, but that Arcann is quite clearly in the process of losing.

 

Our villain can't die, we'll need him later. Oh, no, what do we do? Enter deus ex machina stage left. Arcann's bombardment of Asylum saves him by dropping a large pillar between him and the character, stopping the fight. Collapse of the building keeps the fight stopped.

 

That's not that bad as a way to save Arcann from the character. The player is winning, confirming that even after 5 years in carbonite their character is more bad-*** than some whiny snot-nosed little kid, and it's pretty clear that there's going to be another round with the boy, and that he shouldn't look forward to it, but the player probably will.

 

Round two in the control tower. This is where the story just gets sloppy. Again, the play is only mildly challenging, and Arcann is inexorably losing. It's quite obvious that he's losing. Ok, consistency is good, Arcann just doesn't have what it takes to beat the player one on one in a fight. Again the content creators need a way to save the villain for reuse.

 

Only this time, instead of enter deus ex machina, it's enter hamfisted deus ex machina. If the content creators have done a good job establishing that Arcann can't hack it in battle against the player, taking the controls away from the player to insert a cutscene where Arcann suddenly becomes an unstoppable killing machine is bad form, bad game mechanics, and bad storytelling.

 

There are better options, for example:

 

Option: Arcann runs for it. A perfectly sensible option. There's an opening to the outside, and he has a lot of flying units out there some of which have force sensitive pilots. He could have called on one for a lift and jumped onto the moving ship. There you go, Arcann is a skilled force user, and even if the character can beat him in a fight, he's clearly going to be a problem if he's strong enough to disengage from a losing fight successfully. Pinning him down in the end could be really hard. Sort of like Skavaak in the Smuggler storyline, a peer in power to the character, or maybe a bit weaker, but capable of causing a lot of trouble for a long time.

 

"But, but, we want Valkorion's kids to seem scary on a personal level, not just like whiny brats with Daddy's army"

Uh, well, that boat sailed a long time ago, and the writers didn't just miss it, they went to the wrong port city.

But . . .

 

Option: Arcann is being ground down by the character. Start cutscene. Aarcann spouts some melodramatic nonsense like, "Father, do you think you're the only one who can meddle? Vaylin, help me!." Cutscene to Vaylin and Senya's fight, Vaylin turns head as if hearing something, and starts fighting in a weak/distracted manner, cutscene ends and Arcann is now using not just saber technique similar to a Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior but also a wider array of Consular/Inquisitor like force powers. Go back to player controlled fighting, and talk the coders into doing percentage based attacks for Arcann so that the player can be forced to lose X percentage of health over Y seconds of time regardless of gearing and player skill. Now the player is facing inexorable loss.

 

Now with the next cutscene you can plausibly have Arcann injure the player badly, or disengage on his terms, or let Valkorion's aid force Arcann to flee. It also quite conveniently gives an explanation of how Senya manages to defeat Vaylin, when we are told that Valyin as a toddler was already more powerful than Senya. As a bonus, it establishes that while Arcann is not much of a threat in personal combat on his own, when working together with a sibling they become a formidable threat. (Also a sibling/close relationship bond sort of like a more personal version of battle meditation gives a nice "new different force power advantage" that's a bit less silly than the "beyond light and dark" nonsense we see cropping up in chapter 12. One that doesn't require abusing the integrity of poor Satele and Marr. At the very least it gives the potential for A) Go beyond light and dark to defeat Arcann and Vaylin or B) choose companion with which you will form your own deep force bond to counter Arcann and Vaylin's ability).

 

In either of the above example options, the point is to have the player feel like what they are doing with their character in game is driving what is happening in the game. Niether of the examples actually would give the player more choice or influence than in KotFE as currently implemented, but it might give a better illusion of choice and influence.

 

In the case of Vaylin vs Senya, it would also make the story a lot more internally consistent, which is never a bad thing.

 

 

If on the player's end I know that doing well as a character in terms of gameplay and story choices means nothing, because a cutscene is just going to come along and snatch away potential victories until the end of next year's season of KotFE, and that those devastating cutscene inflicted losses on the part of my character are going to be reversed by deus ex machina cutscenes that then step in to rescue my character from the previous cutscenes, then as a player I have to ask the following question:

 

Why the heck am I even playing this character?

 

 

I tend to be a story driven type GM myself, and typically don't let players see NPC stats or rolls in order to make it invisible if I choose to break the rules for the benefit of the overall gaming experience. The thing is, the rules are sort of the baseline contract between the content creator and the players. If you as the creator are going to break the rules, you had better be damn well sure that it's both for the benefit of the players and extremely well executed.

 

Devs, story team, please figure it out. Soon. I realize that it's probably already too late for things as far out as chapter 15, but maybe for 16 and next year's season we can have the story structure be a bit more fundamentally sound in terms of RPG play? Pretty please?

 

Well said.

[robertthebard]

I saw this quote in forum signature somewhere yesterday, and I thought it appropriate to the Sith-Jedi Dark-Light discussion.

 

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.”

 

There is a certain sort of Sith who looks with disdain on both the way many Jedi live in secret fear of their emotions, and at the way that many other Sith are slaves to their emotions. To them, a true Sith neither denies nor is enslaved by their passions.

 

I think this comes up on a LS SI, maybe DS too, when chatting with Ashara, don't recall exactly where I saw it now, but I'm sure it was in the SI somewhere.

[Unperson]

Your sarcasm detector may be broken.

 

Or perhaps you need to work on your sarcasm. Works both ways.

 

 

And gee, I'm sorry if I didn't take your rant about other players wanting the game to be a bad comic book and the story to be utterly non-interactive seriously. Try not cranking the rage up to 11 and insulting random other people just for "impact".

 

Yeah, I get what you're saying. However, that's what people have been asking for, even if not necessarily using those exact words.

 

Exhibit A:

 

You can play the game with one finger now. One. Finger. If that's too stressful for you, you can alternatively watch the game play itself. A nonsensical, one-size-fits-all story where "your choices matter" as much as getting a single different conversation line, if at all, is pretty much bad comic-book level interactivity. Is this what people want? It must be, otherwise they'd be leaving in droves, servers would be dead, and revenue would be down. But the vitriol and ridicule that is directed at anyone who dares suggest that's what's happening is proof that nobody is leaving at all... right?

 

It was inevitable. First they screwed PVPers over. Raiders then pointed and laughed. Then they screwed raiders over. "Story" players pointed and laughed. And all this time we kept rewarding them with our money. Really... what made you think they wouldn't eventually **** up the one aspect of the game that you personally like?

 

I'm going to borrow a phrase commonly used around these parts and adapt it just for this instance, tell me what you think: "if good writing and reactive storytelling is what you're playing this game for, you're doing it wrong".

Edited April 12, 2016 by Unperson

[robertthebard]

Or perhaps you need to work on your sarcasm. Works both ways.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I get what you're saying. However, that's what people have been asking for, even if not necessarily using those exact words.

 

Exhibit A:

 

You can play the game with one finger now. One. Finger. If that's too stressful for you, you can alternatively watch the game play itself. A nonsensical, one-size-fits-all story where "your choices matter" as much as getting a single different conversation line, if at all, is pretty much bad comic-book level interactivity. Is this what people want? It must be, otherwise they'd be leaving in droves, servers would be dead, and revenue would be down. But the vitriol and ridicule that is directed at anyone who dares suggest that's what's happening is proof that nobody is leaving at all... right?

 

It was inevitable. First they screwed PVPers over. Raiders then pointed and laughed. Then they screwed raiders over. "Story" players pointed and laughed. And all this time we kept rewarding them with our money. Really... what made you think they wouldn't eventually **** up the one aspect of the game that you personally like?

 

I'm going to borrow a phrase commonly used around these parts and adapt it just for this instance, tell me what you think: "if good writing and reactive storytelling is what you're playing this game for, you're doing it wrong".

 

Hey, I actually watched a guy spend about 15 minutes on an elite "playing with one finger". If that's your thing, go for it, just don't come here raging when I clear content you're "playing" with. I have better things to do than sit around waiting for a guy that thinks he's proving a point by taking 15 times longer to clear something than is required.

[CrazyCT]

I like to try things like this. I managed to get a BH to 61 using only the first 2 skills - Rapid Shots and Missile Blast - just for the hell of it. Never visited a trainer and never picked an AC. Have to admit it was pretty boring, and I gave up at 61, cause it was clear I was easily going to do it, but it was getting really boring.

 

Other side projects include - not leaving the starter planet (did FP's, WZ's and the Hutta Heroics), levelling without a companion (heroics got a little hairy at the top end, but still no real fear of dying), numerous speed runs (Gunslinger is still the fastest with a little over 12 hours to cap), levelling without changing gear from beginner (as soon as you get level-synched, you're fine).....people who complain about there not being enough content just have no imagination.

Edited April 13, 2016 by CrazyCT