Keta Posted August 9, 2016 Share Posted August 9, 2016 You know what's pretty frequent on this board? Masking "venting as "constructive criticism." Guys, I'm not sure you ever picked up a book about communication, and I'm pretty sure you didn't, but what a lot of people are doing here is in no way constructive or reasonable. It's just that many people will immediately jump into a defensive stance and defend their bad and very insulting phrasing with the sentence: "You can't handle constructive criticism, can you?!" ... Sometimes I really miss not having a "Like" button on these forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holocron Posted August 9, 2016 Share Posted August 9, 2016 Not getting into the specifics of this particular thread's OP, which I'll grant you is over the top. However I hope you are equally moved to decry those making the exact opposite mistake. Namely, the instant pouncing on anyone with valid, reasoned constructive criticism and labeling it as venting/hating etc. I find that far more detrimental to meaningful debate than getting worked up over the occasional blowhard. Totally agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightSaberAddiCt Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 but up until those 5 minutes you had loads of choices, Krogan cure, Geth VS Quarian, Cerberus, Aliens Vs Humans racist.... lots of fun emotional choices. Last 5 minutes were disturbing but it doesn't cancel the entire game. With KOTFE I can't remember a single choice with an impact. Koth coming back, being a dick once again, and stealing the ship? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zechio Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Koth coming back, being a dick once again, and stealing the ship? You forgot where he saves the player and does exactly the same as if you had kept him happy instead, negating any choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epochlss Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 TBH after the multicolor endings of ME3 it wasn't really unexpected. All the branches in the story cost money for new cutscenes so they cut their expenses wherever possible. Then develop to raise sub rate to afford, not some 10 year old minded F2P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lironBD Posted August 10, 2016 Author Share Posted August 10, 2016 You forgot where he saves the player and does exactly the same as if you had kept him happy instead, negating any choice. exactly, also if he takes the ship after arcann is gone and scorpio disperse the eternal fleet who cares? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilathrone Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 I love how people have very high expectations for SW:ToR story, if any other MMO would have KOTFE quality story (and story telling and not even speaking of interactivity) then their playerbase would **** in their pants, but here it's QQ,QQ,QQ. At least that's my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shwarzchild Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 I love how people have very high expectations for SW:ToR story, if any other MMO would have KOTFE quality story (and story telling and not even speaking of interactivity) then their playerbase would **** in their pants, but here it's QQ,QQ,QQ. At least that's my opinion. Well..the response to something like this is "yes and no". Yes, no other game to my knowledge has the story that we have here. What I caution against is judging things on someone else's standards. You wouldn't judge Wildstar by EA's standards for games or history. Bioware, as a company, has hung their hat on story, and they have a history of success with it. So, with any current or future Bioware product, the bar to match is not what another game might have going for it (or not going for it for that matter). It's about how that product met the standards that the company has already established. That's not to say that the industry environment doesn't play a part, but if we're talking about end product....I think it's definitely at least step 1 to assess how it stacked up vs other same company titles. With Kotfe? Hmm.. It's tough. It's good, and certainly not bad. It has had it's down moments (kaliyo chapter), and some really awesome moments (vette/ gault, gemini captain etc.). What I think isn't responsible is to ignore things that should have been (in terms of story telling) just because what we have is better than some other thing that isn't controlled by the studio that we give our monies to. Keeping the bar at the established level I think is important for Bioware Austin to strive for and maintain. While chapter 16 wasn't terrible, it still left too much unutilized. Your alliance? Where were they for instance? There was definite opportunity within this chapter to really provide a lot of choice in who to send where, and what they do. There was definite opportunity to further romances which wasn't even brought up (and argue the point or not about this, romanceable companions in Bioware games has been an important character development tool that really ties the player to the story line and down to the situations they face in game). So while from a story stand point Kotfe raised the bar for swtor. It's arguable that it's not yet truly at the bioware pre-established level that many (or just some) of their dedicated consumers expect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilathrone Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Well..the response to something like this is "yes and no". Yes, no other game to my knowledge has the story that we have here. What I caution against is judging things on someone else's standards. You wouldn't judge Wildstar by EA's standards for games or history. Bioware, as a company, has hung their hat on story, and they have a history of success with it. So, with any current or future Bioware product, the bar to match is not what another game might have going for it (or not going for it for that matter). It's about how that product met the standards that the company has already established. That's not to say that the industry environment doesn't play a part, but if we're talking about end product....I think it's definitely at least step 1 to assess how it stacked up vs other same company titles. With Kotfe? Hmm.. It's tough. It's good, and certainly not bad. It has had it's down moments (kaliyo chapter), and some really awesome moments (vette/ gault, gemini captain etc.). What I think isn't responsible is to ignore things that should have been (in terms of story telling) just because what we have is better than some other thing that isn't controlled by the studio that we give our monies to. Keeping the bar at the established level I think is important for Bioware Austin to strive for and maintain. While chapter 16 wasn't terrible, it still left too much unutilized. Your alliance? Where were they for instance? There was definite opportunity within this chapter to really provide a lot of choice in who to send where, and what they do. There was definite opportunity to further romances which wasn't even brought up (and argue the point or not about this, romanceable companions in Bioware games has been an important character development tool that really ties the player to the story line and down to the situations they face in game). So while from a story stand point Kotfe raised the bar for swtor. It's arguable that it's not yet truly at the bioware pre-established level that many (or just some) of their dedicated consumers expect. BW has always had high quality games (since Kotor at least, i didn't play games like BG2 or that kung fu one), but note, that a game like DA:I for example had 3-4 years of developement time, now ME:A is in developement since 2012 now (or 2013 i don't remember) so it's understandable that those games are higher quality in every aspect. MMO content has to be pushed out yearly or in every year or 2 years to maintain player base. So I think you cannot really compare an MMO expansion with a single player RPG. Imagine if BW would had 2 + years to develop KOTFE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsetso Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 BW has always had high quality games (since Kotor at least, i didn't play games like BG2 or that kung fu one), but note, that a game like DA:I for example had 3-4 years of developement time, now ME:A is in developement since 2012 now (or 2013 i don't remember) so it's understandable that those games are higher quality in every aspect. MMO content has to be pushed out yearly or in every year or 2 years to maintain player base. So I think you cannot really compare an MMO expansion with a single player RPG. Imagine if BW would had 2 + years to develop KOTFE. That's not a valid comparison. DA:O had probably 100+ hours content. KotFE has ~16 hours( giving each chapter an hour). If we're talking only about story let's compare vanilla SWTOR with everything after it. It was developed for 5 years and at launch it had a different story for each class, where choices didn't really matter as far as the ending but at least gave that illusion. Add to that all the planetary arcs and all the side quests( actually x2 because bonus series). Daily areas on ilum and belsavis. This is all story only - i 'm not considering ops and pvp. If you add all of this i'd say you'll get 200-250+ hours of story. For 5 years of development that's 40-50 hours per year. So KotFE has still 3 times less than that. RotHC had about 7-8 hours main story but it was different for rep/imp so actually 14-15 which is fairly close to KotFE. However it also got CZ and Oricon dailies, 3 or 4 new ops, GSF. Microbinocular and Seeker droid quests had probably 10 hours of gameplay with very nice story. SoR had probably the least story from all the expacs but it still had 8 different quests for the different classes, 2 new ops, 6 new FP with a very good story arc. So i'd say it didn't have as much content as RotHC but still a lot more than KotFE. So even compared to their previous expands based only on the story KotFE seems rushed and without a focus. For expansion that was supposed to focus on story i don't think this is acceptable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Transcendent Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 It's misleading. After finishing chapter 16 and every quest related to KOTFE I must say that saying it's "Bioware" level writing and quests is pure misleading and borderline lie. It isn't quite up there to the standard expected, or it may seem that way due to how the chapters were "padded" out with linear corridors and dispersed monthly. There is a subtle difference. You seriously compare that level of story to the vanilla SWTOR? to the Dragon Age line? To Mass Effect universe? No. There is no comparison, this is something else entirely. No choice mattered, every quest didn't matter, every choice player made had no weight. Some choices did matter, such as primarily (or so it seems currently) losing Koth early on, or not. That plays out at the end of this "season". We have no way of knowing if things like arming the Mandarlorians will bite us later, or choosing not to shoot at Senya and Arcann. In the end it was the most linear experience in RPG I've ever encountered. No arguements on this, it was very rail-roaded. Even some of the decisions on the last chapter are rail-roaded because, plot armour. And Heskal character, what started as a joke became the grim realization of truth. Choices matter? One has so far. Choices are an illusion? Well obviously this is going to be the case if BioWare writers have decided to keep certain characters in play for season 2. Chapter 16 and the conclusion of KOTFE were so bad and horrible compare to Bioware products and vanilla swtor in general story\quest wise that I've even decided to give up entirely on Season 2. Get grip on yourself and straighten up yourself. Chapter 16 has flaws depending on a persons viewpoint. Sorry that you didn't enjoy it Ora, I'm fairly neutral over it. I still preferred the Mandalorian chapter out of all 16. Personal preferences and all that. However you do raise interesting points that I hope BioWare learn from. Specifically the rail-roading of our characters down linear paths fighting countless trash mobs of Sky Troopers. More open world experiences where we can avoid fights should we choose to would be on par with the original SWTOR, allowing players to kill off NPCs with force choke etc (if given the option to kill someone, then mean it!). There are plenty of examples of plot holes where things just simply do not make sense if put under scrutiny (such as Koth being able to take the Gravestone from an Alliance with military personal and force users). Plenty of examples over on /r/swtor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anzel Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Agreed, this isn't a BioWare game anymore. It's really just a vehicle to get children to gamble on their crappy packs. Super super shameful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midianlord Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Let it stay there as a reminder of what becomes to those who rest on laurels and take advantage of a brand that makes money because it simply is Star Wars rather than making quality content. ^That.^ Today, all day, every day! /Thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midianlord Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Cannot be the same game/companyt when most of original developers quit. EA will probably stop using the brand when they run its reputation to the ground. It wouldn't be the first time, and I highly doubt it will be the last. BioWare --the original BioWare, the one just 300-ish km up Highway 2 from me in Edmonton, not this laughable Austin farm-team-- died a long time ago. Long track record of this, anything EA touches turns to ****. I'm sure we all hoped, once...but did we really expect different here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiguelGx Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Worst of all is that they are the only company with rights to make Star Wars games for the next years so we're pretty much ******. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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