Thank you BioWare for the best expansion yet.

[Borderrr]

What an epic end! I have no words about it. It's just a great story with many choices.

 

Great work, thanks Bioware!

[DarthWoad]

I disagree. It wasn't the best expansion. In fact i wouldn't even call it an expansion. An expansion isn't typically released over the course of a year. It's released all at once. These were simply content updates. Edited August 9, 2016 by DarthWoad

[zechio]

What missions were you doing? Heroics? Dailies? Flashpoints? I don't recall BioWare removing any group content. It's not like KotFE was devoid of any group content. Star Fortress is group-oriented. Heroics are more profitable if you do them with a group. We got two new arenas and a wz with KotFE. I guess I just don't understand what you think BioWare has done.

 

SWTOR is still an MMO. KotFE is just a small part of a much larger game.

 

Star Fort was solo oriented, maybe 2 man if you want to make it easy.

 

As far as the MMO content, it's been what they haven't done. Look at the past number of FPs, OPs, planets, heroics, open worlds, even story that came out...and compare that to now. For an entire year, KoTFE delivered very little. It had a couple of open world areas, but they were smaller than origin planets. Essentially no side quests. No heroics. In fact, even if you want to join a friend for the story and see how it goes for them...you can't most of the time. KoTFE constantly used instances with no entrance, so there was no way to get to where your friend was sent. EC easily could have had a 2, 4, 8 and 16 man versions along with Hard and NiM...but they simply chose not to. Sure, you can bring a friend into this at least...but it goes from really easy, to a complete joke since it's still the same solo mode.

[Epochlss]

What an epic end! I have no words about it. It's just a great story with many choices.

 

Great work, thanks Bioware!

 

LOL what choices? That you can flirt with Lana or not?

[gabigool]

clearly the BioWare storytelling is what the majority wants.

 

This is a bunch of bunk. Tiring bunk.

 

I can promise you, you have no idea what the majority wants. At best, you know what 5 or 6 people want. Maybe 20 or 30 if you're in a guild.

 

I have never once seen a request by BW asking what sort of content the playerbase would like. No one has ever asked. Not once.

 

Please stop saying stuff like this. It's laughable.

 

And don't even bother trying the metrics argument. I can wreck it.

[Aowin]

This is a bunch of bunk. Tiring bunk.

 

I can promise you, you have no idea what the majority wants. At best, you know what 5 or 6 people want. Maybe 20 or 30 if you're in a guild.

 

I have never once seen a request by BW asking what sort of content the playerbase would like. No one has ever asked. Not once.

 

Please stop saying stuff like this. It's laughable.

 

And don't even bother trying the metrics argument. I can wreck it.

 

You do realize the main reason anybody even got this game at launch was for the eight class stories? Right? There was literally no endgame when SWTOR released. Operations were broken. Ilum World PvP was a slideshow. The only thing that everybody unanimously agreed on that was great were the class stories.

 

Now, perhaps you are one of the few who doesn't care about story at all. However, I think you are foolish for believing folks who play a BioWare MMO would not want BioWare storytelling in it, especially when the base game at launch was all about BioWare storytelling.

[Rob_Knight]

Yes...thank you for destroying guilds, servers and entire communities with KOTFE. MMOs had become too social for some folk...solo play is where it's at.

 

+1 and +2 and+ many more to this.

 

Thanks BIOWARE

[benmas]

You do realize the main reason anybody even got this game at launch was for the eight class stories?.

 

i actually got into this game because i saw this

fighting a huge battle droid with other people sounds great

and taking down others in PvP combat on different planets and warzones sounds perfect

[Aowin]

i actually got into this game because i saw this

fighting a huge battle droid with other people sounds great

and taking down others in PvP combat on different planets and warzones sounds perfect

 

Did you play Eternity Vault at launch? I had the first republic group on my server to complete Nightmare EV. It took us seven hours to down Soa. A large contributor to that fact is because EV was horribly broken and buggy at launch. As I said earlier, endgame in SWTOR was either completely broken or missing entirely.

 

As far as warzones, battlegrounds are nothing new to MMOs. The only thing BioWare tried to do differently (and failed) was the resolve system. To this day it is still a terrible system that in no way effectively deals with stun abuse.

 

Ilum World PvP was great (even if it was a slideshow) until BioWare removed it permanently... BioWare said they'd bring it back and we got a pointless FFA zone with the Gree event...

Edited August 10, 2016 by Aowin

[benmas]

pointless FFA zone with the Gree event...

 

not really pointless it has quests and you can have some fun in there

 

as for EV sure it was broken completely but the place still looked great even if it was a bit rubbish on the mechanics side and on the working side

 

and have you tried playing a game without a resolve system

*stun*

burst

*stun*

stun break

*stun*

burst

*stun*

burst

dead

*cough* archeage *cough*

 

and thats if you have a stun break you can pick your 3 specs to make your class and not have one

made a paladin and none of the 3 specs that made it had a stun break in them

Edited August 10, 2016 by benmas

[Sithsorc]

Alright, how much did EA pay you?

 

LMAO no kidding! Ea OWNS Bioware, this is EA story telling.

[commanderwar]

I agree I thought was great the expansion.

[Morrolan]

Without a doubt, KotFE is far better than Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan combined (not including GSF and GSH as they were QoL updates). While many may criticize KotFE for being a forced single player experience, I think many seem to forget what separates SWTOR from every other MMO on the market: BioWare Storytelling.

 

I think its the worst xpac and that the storytelling is the worst I've seen from any BW game. That includes all DA games and ME games, JE, Kotor and Baldurs Gate 1 and 2

[Aowin]

not really pointless it has quests and you can have some fun in there

 

as for EV sure it was broken completely but the place still looked great even if it was a bit rubbish on the mechanics side and on the working side

 

and have you tried playing a game without a resolve system

*stun*

burst

*stun*

stun break

*stun*

burst

*stun*

burst

dead

*cough* archeage *cough*

 

and thats if you have a stun break you can pick your 3 specs to make your class and not have one

made a paladin and none of the 3 specs that made it had a stun break in them

 

My point is Ilum World PvP was actually massive scale and faction-based. Now, Ilum is just a FFA joke with some pointless quests that people will cry about if you kill them in the PvP zone. It's not what it once was.

 

I think you misunderstood my point about resolve. I'm not saying there shouldn't be ANY system to counteract stuns. I'm saying BioWare should have gone with diminishing returns like most MMOs as that works a lot better. Heck, even ESO came up with a great system where you can break stuns as much as you want as long as you have stamina.

 

People try and spam you with stuns and eventually they just won't work anymore. Not this arbitrary system where some stuns fill the bar more than others and the bar will decrease (even if you are dead) making it largely a useless system. SWTOR is called "Stun Wars" for a reason. Resolve has never worked well.

 

Either way this is getting off topic and is merely highlighting a few of the reasons why BioWare going back to its roots is a great idea. They've done a pretty lackluster job in terms of the MMO side of things.

[peter_plankskull]

Technically it's six flashpoints, although obviously the basic layout is the same for each. The flashpoint also changes based on whether you are solo or in a group. It has a not more replay value than any previous flashpoint, which are all static and do not change.

 

We have a new wz which allows cross-faction play as well as TWO new arenas. I'm just going to assume you don't PvP very often, if at all. BioWare literally stated shortly after KotFE released that its subscription base increased higher than it has been in years. SWTOR also saw a huge boost in new players coming to the game because of KotFE, unlike with previous expansions and updates.

 

SWTOR is more popular now than it has been since launch. You are definitely in the minority if you think KotFE was a terrible expansion.

I realize this is like 4 pages back... but still....

 

Czerka and Oricon are daily zones. Forged alliances was some dialogue but really just four fps. Ziost was a short 2-hour prelude for KotFE. As I said, you can't seem to distinguish between BioWare storytelling and the skimpy attempts at a story with all the daily zones and small updates we've had for five years. There is a difference.

 

So it's okay for star fortresses, a slopped up skimpy mess of and a attempt at group content to count as flashpoints, but ROTHC and SOR don't count in terms of Bioware story telling?

 

Not to mention I read the entire thread, and I really can't tell why you don't think ROTHC sucks and SOR is mediocre, or what makes KOTFE so good. All I see is "ROTHC and SOR was a generic story" when KOTFE is apparently ripped from the ME and DA series. What made KOTFE so good, and the other expansions so bad in terms of story?

 

To also say theirs more replay value in a star fortresses all because the background changes or the map format comes in a different rotation is a bit of a stretch imo. At least in most flashpoints, with four people theirs enough factors to make each run, for the most part, different one way or another. Yeah every now and then you get these perfect runs which play out the same, but theirs enough variety with your group to make each run different. I'm not saying flashpoints have a whole lot of variety either, but far more than crummy star fortresses which are exactly the same as their solo counterpart, bar raised health and the final boss.

 

I don't PVP at all in this game, but after all the flak I heard from hackers, bugs/glitches/exploits being used, I won't be going to anytime soon unless I get really desperate. So what they added two new maps if they weren't finished or prepared, and they were probably left over from SOR anyway.

[Aowin]

I realize this is like 4 pages back... but still....

 

So it's okay for star fortresses, a slopped up skimpy mess of and a attempt at group content to count as flashpoints, but ROTHC and SOR don't count in terms of Bioware story telling?

 

Not to mention I read the entire thread, and I really can't tell why you don't think ROTHC sucks and SOR is mediocre, or what makes KOTFE so good. All I see is "ROTHC and SOR was a generic story" when KOTFE is apparently ripped from the ME and DA series. What made KOTFE so good, and the other expansions so bad in terms of story?

 

To also say theirs more replay value in a star fortresses all because the background changes or the map format comes in a different rotation is a bit of a stretch imo. At least in most flashpoints, with four people theirs enough factors to make each run, for the most part, different one way or another. Yeah every now and then you get these perfect runs which play out the same, but theirs enough variety with your group to make each run different. I'm not saying flashpoints have a whole lot of variety either, but far more than crummy star fortresses which are exactly the same as their solo counterpart, bar raised health and the final boss.

 

I don't PVP at all in this game, but after all the flak I heard from hackers, bugs/glitches/exploits being used, I won't be going to anytime soon unless I get really desperate. So what they added two new maps if they weren't finished or prepared, and they were probably left over from SOR anyway.

 

I'll tell you why each sucked. RotHC added six hours (at most) of new story content. None of your choices mattered. None of your companions mattered. The expansion ended the same way for everybody. BioWare tacked on a pointless romance that was never revisited. The planet design for Makeb was absolutely horrendous with poorly done dailies and a tacked on raid boss with lazy mechanics. I'm not sure what you found to be so wonderful about RotHC, but it was a slap in the face to the kinds of storytelling we had with the original eight class stories.

 

Shadow of Revan was BioWare's "lets make money off of KotOR" expansion. The entire experience was going down nostalgia lane for an easy cash grab. Revan came back and was a bad guy for "reasons" and we conveniently were visiting iconic locations for KotOR 1 just so we'd be "happy." I even have to admit going back to the original score for KotOR 1 for Manaan and Rakata Prime was great thinking on BioWare's part. Overall, the story was pretty lackluster.

 

Revan is still obsessed with the emperor and wants to destroy him at any cost. We have to stop Revan. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, SoR did absolutely nothing to move the plot of the game forward in any meaningful way. In fact, the only aspect that actually mattered was the last five minutes of the expansion, when Revan releases Vitiate. Sadly, Ziost actually is a more coherent and better story than Shadow of Revan was.

 

Again, Rishi was a horribly designed planet with an overly-convoluted datacron grind. Yavin 4 is another cookie cutter daily zone. The only positive to either is they each added a new operation? Yeah, I'm just not exactly sure what thrilled you about either expansion, especially since you had to pay $19.99 for each of these small updates that provided less than 10 hours of content. How KotFE is worse in your eyes is something I'll never understand.

 

In KotFE story was the focus again. Our character is actually relevant to the story and not just background like he/she was in RotHC and SoR. Companions were relevant again and many old friends have returned as well as new ones. The villains are far more interesting and compelling (better than the hutts and Revan) in KotFE and they aren't just generic bad guys. Yeah, KotFE didn't add any new raids, but it completely revamped the leveling system on planets, overhauled heroics and made them relevant again, has provided us with more companions than we could ever need with the ability to use any role, and while you may not like Star Fortress it is very well done for group-oriented content.

 

Again, KotFE has added much more in terms of content and updates than either RotHC or SoR. The only thing it lacks is an operation, which I guess is the reason you hate KotFE ultimately. I think it's pretty likely KotET will have an operation, but I'm not sure why you think one or two raids that will become boring and stale after a month is quality content. Raids are fun the first couple of times. They become a boring gear grind after that.

[Dewlmenow]

I'll tell you why each sucked. RotHC added six hours (at most) of new story content. None of your choices mattered. None of your companions mattered. The expansion ended the same way for everybody. BioWare tacked on a pointless romance that was never revisited. The planet design for Makeb was absolutely horrendous with poorly done dailies and a tacked on raid boss with lazy mechanics. I'm not sure what you found to be so wonderful about RotHC, but it was a slap in the face to the kinds of storytelling we had with the original eight class stories.

 

Shadow of Revan was BioWare's "lets make money off of KotOR" expansion. The entire experience was going down nostalgia lane for an easy cash grab. Revan came back and was a bad guy for "reasons" and we conveniently were visiting iconic locations for KotOR 1 just so we'd be "happy." I even have to admit going back to the original score for KotOR 1 for Manaan and Rakata Prime was great thinking on BioWare's part. Overall, the story was pretty lackluster.

 

Revan is still obsessed with the emperor and wants to destroy him at any cost. We have to stop Revan. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, SoR did absolutely nothing to move the plot of the game forward in any meaningful way. In fact, the only aspect that actually mattered was the last five minutes of the expansion, when Revan releases Vitiate. Sadly, Ziost actually is a more coherent and better story than Shadow of Revan was.

 

Again, Rishi was a horribly designed planet with an overly-convoluted datacron grind. Yavin 4 is another cookie cutter daily zone. The only positive to either is they each added a new operation? Yeah, I'm just not exactly sure what thrilled you about either expansion, especially since you had to pay $19.99 for each of these small updates that provided less than 10 hours of content. How KotFE is worse in your eyes is something I'll never understand.

 

In KotFE story was the focus again. Our character is actually relevant to the story and not just background like he/she was in RotHC and SoR. Companions were relevant again and many old friends have returned as well as new ones. The villains are far more interesting and compelling (better than the hutts and Revan) in KotFE and they aren't just generic bad guys. Yeah, KotFE didn't add any new raids, but it completely revamped the leveling system on planets, overhauled heroics and made them relevant again, has provided us with more companions than we could ever need with the ability to use any role, and while you may not like Star Fortress it is very well done for group-oriented content.

 

Again, KotFE has added much more in terms of content and updates than either RotHC or SoR. The only thing it lacks is an operation, which I guess is the reason you hate KotFE ultimately. I think it's pretty likely KotET will have an operation, but I'm not sure why you think one or two raids that will become boring and stale after a month is quality content. Raids are fun the first couple of times. They become a boring gear grind after that.

 

It has been fascinating reading what you've been saying. Redoing 1.0 Heroics is better than all the daily areas added since 2.0 and Star Fortresses are more repeatable content than raids because raids get boring and stale faster.

[Aowin]

It has been fascinating reading what you've been saying. Redoing 1.0 Heroics is better than all the daily areas added since 2.0 and Star Fortresses are more repeatable content than raids because raids get boring and stale faster.

 

Heroics are absolutely better than dailies. One click of a button and I'm teleported to the location immediately. Not to mention, you also get a lot more credits for doing heroics and they are a WEEKLY not a DAILY. I don't like repeatable quests at all, but I'd rather do heroics over dailies any day. Also, dailies have been in the game since launch.

 

I never stated I liked Star Fortress. I merely suggested it is a flashpoint and it was built to have replay value. I think both fps and raids get stale rather quickly. That's why I predominantly PvP if I do anything and stun wars and bad players who don't play objectives get old as well.

 

My point is KotFE isn't just 16 chapters of solo story, regardless of what people would have you believe. The entire alliance system completely revamped much of the game and a lot of that content is group-oriented.

[BorisKarloffe]

I'll tell you why each sucked. RotHC added six hours (at most) of new story content. None of your choices mattered. None of your companions mattered. The expansion ended the same way for everybody. BioWare tacked on a pointless romance that was never revisited. The planet design for Makeb was absolutely horrendous with poorly done dailies and a tacked on raid boss with lazy mechanics. I'm not sure what you found to be so wonderful about RotHC, but it was a slap in the face to the kinds of storytelling we had with the original eight class stories.

 

Shadow of Revan was BioWare's "lets make money off of KotOR" expansion. The entire experience was going down nostalgia lane for an easy cash grab. Revan came back and was a bad guy for "reasons" and we conveniently were visiting iconic locations for KotOR 1 just so we'd be "happy." I even have to admit going back to the original score for KotOR 1 for Manaan and Rakata Prime was great thinking on BioWare's part. Overall, the story was pretty lackluster.

 

Revan is still obsessed with the emperor and wants to destroy him at any cost. We have to stop Revan. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, SoR did absolutely nothing to move the plot of the game forward in any meaningful way. In fact, the only aspect that actually mattered was the last five minutes of the expansion, when Revan releases Vitiate. Sadly, Ziost actually is a more coherent and better story than Shadow of Revan was.

 

Again, Rishi was a horribly designed planet with an overly-convoluted datacron grind. Yavin 4 is another cookie cutter daily zone. The only positive to either is they each added a new operation? Yeah, I'm just not exactly sure what thrilled you about either expansion, especially since you had to pay $19.99 for each of these small updates that provided less than 10 hours of content. How KotFE is worse in your eyes is something I'll never understand.

 

In KotFE story was the focus again. Our character is actually relevant to the story and not just background like he/she was in RotHC and SoR. Companions were relevant again and many old friends have returned as well as new ones. The villains are far more interesting and compelling (better than the hutts and Revan) in KotFE and they aren't just generic bad guys. Yeah, KotFE didn't add any new raids, but it completely revamped the leveling system on planets, overhauled heroics and made them relevant again, has provided us with more companions than we could ever need with the ability to use any role, and while you may not like Star Fortress it is very well done for group-oriented content.

 

Again, KotFE has added much more in terms of content and updates than either RotHC or SoR. The only thing it lacks is an operation, which I guess is the reason you hate KotFE ultimately. I think it's pretty likely KotET will have an operation, but I'm not sure why you think one or two raids that will become boring and stale after a month is quality content. Raids are fun the first couple of times. They become a boring gear grind after that.

 

You really should stop drooling over KotFE. I'll not pretend that RotHC or SoR were anything special. RotHC was meh. SoR was just bad. I will say that RotHC had two different storylines going for it and if you were an Imperial, you could choose to kill an awful lot of people at the end.

 

Having said that, KotFE isn't the spectacular expac you're billing it as either. It rehashed a TON of stuff we were already familiar with and left us with a linear storyline that's not great and has no replay value. None of your companions mattered. None of your choices mattered. Romances get forgotten. Sound familiar?

 

The saving graces for the other two expacs were that they had other areas of the game they catered to instead of just "story" and neither of them presented you with "fake choices" in the way KotFE repeatedly does.

[peter_plankskull]

I'll tell you why each sucked. RotHC added six hours (at most) of new story content. None of your choices mattered. None of your companions mattered. The expansion ended the same way for everybody. BioWare tacked on a pointless romance that was never revisited. The planet design for Makeb was absolutely horrendous with poorly done dailies and a tacked on raid boss with lazy mechanics. I'm not sure what you found to be so wonderful about RotHC, but it was a slap in the face to the kinds of storytelling we had with the original eight class stories.

 

Maybe its just me, but honestly, that description can fit KOTFE just as well as it did ROTHC. Only like...six... choices mattered... and that's including ones as minor as a different dialogue.

 

-Deciding to kneel to Valkorian in chapter one or not will impact chapter eight if your dark sided.

-Letting the generator blow up in chapter 3 spikes different reactions between lana/koth and different dialogue from Kaliyo in chapter 10.

-Koth will leave the alliance in chapter 10 if you blow up the spire.

-You can kill Jorgan/Kaliyo in chapter 13 depending on if you gave didn't them the go ahead in chapter 12.

-Koth can come back and steal the gravestone in chapter 16 if he left in chapter 10, still unresolved so it doesn't count.

 

All the companions you recruited in KOTFE didn't matter. At all. None of the star fortress companions, vanilla companions, even main story companions if you killed them off. Everything is the same.

 

Expansion ended the same way for KOTFE as it did for everyone in ROTHC. Two crazies on the throne plotting to one day kill you.

 

Horrendous level design in KOTFE that was nothing but tight corridors and no room to explore off into the sunset besides a few sight seeing movements on Darvannis and chapters 1-9.

 

KOTFE was also a slap in the face compared to the vanilla stories letting us have 3 endings each with varying personalities and depth of personal beliefs and interactions with companions. KOTFE has none of that.

 

ROTHC at least had given their community with more than one interest multiple things to do, giving raids, flashpoints, PVP, some content, and even making new things like GSF, macro/seeker droids, and strongholds which was innovative compared to KOTFE which was pure story, two broken PVP maps, a reskinned bosses of TEC.

 

Shadow of Revan was BioWare's "lets make money off of KotOR" expansion. The entire experience was going down nostalgia lane for an easy cash grab. Revan came back and was a bad guy for "reasons" and we conveniently were visiting iconic locations for KotOR 1 just so we'd be "happy." I even have to admit going back to the original score for KotOR 1 for Manaan and Rakata Prime was great thinking on BioWare's part. Overall, the story was pretty lackluster.

 

Never played KOTOR but even I have to agree with this statement... still... KOTFE is from what I heard, ME and DA combined into one story. "A return to Bioware story telling" isn't a blatant cash grab to attract fans from past Bioware games in hopes of cashing in on them?

 

Revan is still obsessed with the emperor and wants to destroy him at any cost. We have to stop Revan. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, SoR did absolutely nothing to move the plot of the game forward in any meaningful way. In fact, the only aspect that actually mattered was the last five minutes of the expansion, when Revan releases Vitiate. Sadly, Ziost actually is a more coherent and better story than Shadow of Revan was.

 

Neither did KOTFE. Two crazies still on the throne plotting to rule the world, Valkorian is still in our body, and still fighting a uphill battle against the eternal empire. The only thing different is that senya/Arcann may have changed sides, but since it isn't resolved it doesn't count.

 

Again, Rishi was a horribly designed planet with an overly-convoluted datacron grind. Yavin 4 is another cookie cutter daily zone. The only positive to either is they each added a new operation? Yeah, I'm just not exactly sure what thrilled you about either expansion, especially since you had to pay $19.99 for each of these small updates that provided less than 10 hours of content. How KotFE is worse in your eyes is something I'll never understand.

 

KOTFE may give us slightly more than 10 hours of content, but the content isn't repeatable... at all... SOR and ROTHC could be completed a few times over to see the different interactions between our old accomplishments being brought up and our class being mentioned unlike KOTFE where all dialogue is the same. Not to mention we could always repeat operations, flashpoints, and dailies a few times. We could even dive into a whole new play style that is GSF and spend time decorating our strongholds with our past accomplishments we have achieved and used a however tacked on conquest system.

 

The only thing I agree with is the BS RNG datacrons grind on Rishi however...

 

In KotFE story was the focus again. Our character is actually relevant to the story and not just background like he/she was in RotHC and SoR. Companions were relevant again and many old friends have returned as well as new ones. The villains are far more interesting and compelling (better than the hutts and Revan) in KotFE and they aren't just generic bad guys. Yeah, KotFE didn't add any new raids, but it completely revamped the leveling system on planets, overhauled heroics and made them relevant again, has provided us with more companions than we could ever need with the ability to use any role, and while you may not like Star Fortress it is very well done for group-oriented content.

Relevant by going to go fetch Tora on the Asylum? Refilling supplies? Running away in terror from countless skytroopers and falling debris? Ill admit I like the villians more, and I feel Arcann is misunderstood, but revamping the level system made combat irrelevant, and it's fine to make heroic relevant, but they rehashed it into mainstream. I will agree that the QOL changes they made were great however.

 

Again, KotFE has added much more in terms of content and updates than either RotHC or SoR. The only thing it lacks is an operation, which I guess is the reason you hate KotFE ultimately. I think it's pretty likely KotET will have an operation, but I'm not sure why you think one or two raids that will become boring and stale after a month is quality content. Raids are fun the first couple of times. They become a boring gear grind after that.

 

No way did KOTFE ever beat ROTHC in terms of content.

 

For the most part, ROTHC and KOTFE is roughly equal in terms of story runtime if we include the whole expansion periods of 2.0-3.0 and as of right now 4.0-.4.7. We will see how long the HK chapter is and if they give us anything else, not likely, but ill remain optimistic.

 

Ill be generous and say those crummy reskinned bosses in TEC is equal to two operations, and that so called star fortresses is equal to six flashpoints.

 

Even then, ROTHC had actually created new play styles to dive into like GSF and strongholds while expanding on their game on all currently existing areas and branching out. KOTFE remains in a shallow bubble trying to only cater to one group of players in the wrong type of gaming genre. ROTHC also had additional side quests/dailies to involve yourself in, actual world bosses, and elite enemies to slay if you're looking for a challenge.

 

Raiding may be boring after the first few repeats, but KOTFE is far worse on its 2nd and 3rd time around.

 

I'm glad you enjoy KOTFE, I really am, and I myself was actually quite enjoying myself through it until I figured out that choices never really mattered. I just hate the gameplay in MMOs, and KOTFE just made it far worse with excessive amount of CC on your characters, and in general the lack of innovative hands on outside the box thinking of fighting is boring. All it is, is simply pressing the same sequence of buttons over. What happened to when we approached multiple situations that vary from gameplay that made us think each time while giving us a plethora of options to overcome the obstacle at hand.

 

I'm not even going to get into all the bugs...

[DarthEccen]

It's great to see this amount of delusion on a gaming forum. Always nice to get a reality check and see that my critical thinking skills are still quite sharp. Lets debunk this entire post, shall we?

 

Without a doubt, KotFE is far better than Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan combined (not including GSF and GSH as they were QoL updates).

 

It's very easy to turn this statement on its head in full. You could try to make your case that KOTFE is better than one expansion or the other. I think most would agree that you'd be indisputably wrong, but that's a whole different bear. You stated that it was better than both of them combined. Between the two previous expansions, you got 2 full planets... Y'know what? Rishi was about the size of Dromund Kaas. I'll throw you a bone and say it was only about 1.5 full planets. You got 6 operations, 2 new warzones, at least one arena, both class story AND faction story, a slew of Flashpoints, several new (the operative word here is "new") Daily areas and a couple of overpowered companions.

 

In KOTFE, you get one planet about the size of a very beginning starter world (Zakuul), and a Daily.... hub, if you will (Odessen). If you'd like to say 'don't forget about Denova' that planet was so small and existed for content so minor that if you would like to count that as plus for KOTFE, then we'd have to go back and give an honorable mention to Manaan for the argument againts KOTFE being superior to the two previous expansions. But I digress. You do technically get 6 Flashpoints (Star Fortresses), but the content of each of those Flashpoints is so clearly recycled, even to the casual player, that I don't think you can really say that each of them is unique in their own right. You do get a single warzone and arena, which is nice after the considerable PVP dry spell in SOR, but that's still less PVP content than what was provided in ROTHC. There are zero operations, zero Daily areas (the "Daily" areas are old Heroics, not new content), and the multiple stories motif, a staple of SWTOR since launch, was eliminated in this expansion. Nevermind that you can't run story with friends or strangers anymore, but that's ALSO a completely different bear. The only thing KOTFE wins out on here is the number of companions, some of which, all of which are overpowered.

 

While many may criticize KotFE for being a forced single player experience, I think many seem to forget what separates SWTOR from every other MMO on the market: BioWare Storytelling.

 

Indeed, SWTOR remains unique for its fabled Bioware storytelling. It's storytelling has clearly been handicapped in this expansion, whether it be due to budget or creative differences among the writing team. At this point in time, I think the only way we'll ever know what on God's green Earth happened to the story in KOTFE and why it got completely derailed is if Edge or Game Informer runs a massive post-mortem on SWTOR when it finally gets shut down (whenever that may be). It's clear, though, that even if we have differing opinions on the content of the story, its still inferior to the two prior expansions for a couple of reasons. In ROTHC, you still had very unique split-faction stories, everything fully voiced, and since class missions had been temporarily halted, you could run every single quest in a group. In SOR, they took a clear step away from group and faction stories by introducing personal phases and outputting nearly identical faction stories. Class stories did make a return, however brief they may have been. KOTFE completely eliminates faction stories and also does not any reappearing class stories. Case closed on that one.

 

KotFE was a return to BioWare storytelling, and in an extremely positive way.

 

You clearly haven't played Mass Effect 1, 2, Dragon Age 2, or vanilla SWTOR. Bioware is, or was, renowned for the agency it gave players to have different outcomes in their stories. This kind of changed when they were adopted by EA, but the change wasn't immediately apparent, although the examples are glaringly obvious. I don't want to write an essay on why Mass Effect 3's ending was terrible since we're not even discussing that game, anyway, so I'll just skip straight to why KOTFE isn't a return to Bioware storytelling, as opposed to drawing comparisons between the best example of what is...... Not Bioware storytelling.

 

The player, regardless of their class, is railroaded onto one story that barely changes course throughout the whole of the expansion. The whole "Your choices matter" statement was clearly misleading, as sometimes the Chapter releases made no sense in the context of your character's history. Why is my Chiss Bounty Hunter being approached by the self-exiled Grand Master of the Jedi Order in the backwoods of a world my compatriots stumbled upon and introducing me to the ghost of a former member of the Dark Council? Why is my Jedi Battlemaster performing a shady gold heist? Vanilla SWTOR's story, both in class and in faction, were very much more tailored to your classes, and could have wildly varying consequences depending on your actions. KOTFE clearly does not have this much narrative depth and does not provide the player with much of his or her own agency. These are both cornerstones of Bioware storytelling.

 

Bioware has always been a story-centric MMO. To think that it has not been just shows that you haven't spent much time with the game. You even said yourself that people left the game after it first launched in large part because there was hardly any end-game. Most of the game was story-fixated.

 

Your post is pretty much just bunk. You can be happy with KOTFE. There are a handful of things to be happy for. It probably has the highest quantity of story out of all the expansions thus far (even if there are differening opinions on the quality of it), you can get a boat load of companions that aren't restricted to certain classes, there has been a slight resurgence in PVP content, you can earn credits far easily than you previously could, and the summer event has yielded the return of extremely rare and sought-after items posted on the GTN (and in Cartel Packs) for semi-reasonable sums. There's plenty of reason to like KOTFE, but you mention just about none of them in your post.

[Aowin]

You really should stop drooling over KotFE. I'll not pretend that RotHC or SoR were anything special. RotHC was meh. SoR was just bad. I will say that RotHC had two different storylines going for it and if you were an Imperial, you could choose to kill an awful lot of people at the end.

 

Having said that, KotFE isn't the spectacular expac you're billing it as either. It rehashed a TON of stuff we were already familiar with and left us with a linear storyline that's not great and has no replay value. None of your companions mattered. None of your choices mattered. Romances get forgotten. Sound familiar?

 

The saving graces for the other two expacs were that they had other areas of the game they catered to instead of just "story" and neither of them presented you with "fake choices" in the way KotFE repeatedly does.

 

You still aren't getting it. Nothing in RotHC ultimately meant anything. It was a pointless side adventure that did little to move the story forward. It's forgettable. Nothing in that expansion mattered and it was incredibly short. SoR at least offered more content but the story was so incomprehensibly bad it wasn't much better.

 

I never claimed KotFE was "spectacular." I merely said it was better than what we had before and I believe BioWare is going in the right direction for SWTOR. It's also worth noting that KotFE is just the first arc of this very long story. Of course right now you don't think any of your choices will matter. That will likely change with KotET. We still don't even have half of the class companions back yet...

[zechio]

You still aren't getting it. Nothing in RotHC ultimately meant anything. It was a pointless side adventure that did little to move the story forward. It's forgettable. Nothing in that expansion mattered and it was incredibly short. SoR at least offered more content but the story was so incomprehensibly bad it wasn't much better.

 

I never claimed KotFE was "spectacular." I merely said it was better than what we had before and I believe BioWare is going in the right direction for SWTOR. It's also worth noting that KotFE is just the first arc of this very long story. Of course right now you don't think any of your choices will matter. That will likely change with KotET. We still don't even have half of the class companions back yet...

 

Except the RoTHC story was still better than KoTFE, and more sensible. Not particularly great mind you, but still better. KoTFE is all "Plot Armor" this, "McGuffin" that, and lets throw in some "Deus Ex Machina!"

 

Mind you, that's when the story is even progressing. If you want to talk about side adventures that did little to move the story, that was half of the KoTFE chapters!

 

That should have been quite obvious though when they went with the ol' "Lol, it's been 5 years and the world around you has changed!" That's right up there with lost memory for a story starter. ( Sort of the same. You can say you lost memory of the last 5 years. )

[lingarn]

It's also worth noting that KotFE is just the first arc of this very long story. Of course right now you don't think any of your choices will matter. That will likely change with KotET. We still don't even have half of the class companions back yet...

 

Right, that's what people said after the first several chapters were initially released: Your choices don't matter yet! Wait for the other chapters! The one example people could point to -- Koth leaving the alliance -- turned out not to matter in the end, because they just brought him back anyway. There is no reason to believe dark side characters won't magically regain access to the gravestone when the single-plot story calls for it in the next expansion, or that light side characters won't suddenly be unable to access it for some contrived reason until exactly the same point.

 

The reality is that they blew it. I like the idea of a story focused expansion, but they didn't deliver. The story doesn't make sense for most of the character classes, your choices don't actually matter (because only one ending will result in the next expansion they have already worked out), and unlike the other expansions, this wasn't a complete story that was resolved by the end. The failure to provide any kind of meaningful resolution (instead, pushing everything off for the "new" expansion) means that this story is worse than the other ones, no matter how ridiculous the other plots may have been. Couldn't you easily see this chapter as a late stage chapter, designed to bring us low before building to the climax? It serves the same purpose here, except we are told we have to keep subscribing a little longer to get the really real ending.

 

This expansion is a debacle. I am going to cancel my subscription as soon as this post is finished.

[Oticus]

i hate the kotfe, and I hate all the fanboys in this thread

 

 

That is all