Problem with Taris Bonus Questline

[Signalights]

I'm a new player to the game, only started about 2 weeks ago and still working on my first character. Really enjoying this game so far and glad I subscribed. And I already know this problem has been brought up in the past, because it is an old problem according to what I was able to read about it online. But it's an old problem that was never fixed and it really bothers me, so I wanted to raise it myself to remind people that this is still an issue, especially for new people like me who are still learning and don't know all the ins and outs of this game yet.

 

The problem is that some of the planets including Taris have 2 separate questlines, as I have discovered, with the second one supposed to be a sequel to the first one for people that already did the first one so they could have a reason to go back and check how things are doing on the planet after all their hard work of helping the people there, which is cool. Except some of these secondary questlines, particularly the one on Taris, have not been scripted properly to only be offered by the NPCs in the zone after the player has completed the first questline.

 

Normally I would not bother to complain about this if it weren't for the fact that this issue actually causes the second questline to be unable to be completed if a person accidentally did some of the parts of the second questline while they were still working on the first set, because then the initial quest of the second questline wants you to redo those quests it is supposed to lead you to that you already did when the game will not let you get them again, and there is nothing you can do about it. Resetting from the mission log doesn't help (I tried that) and there is nothing you can do about it except delete the bonus series from your journal and forget about it, which sucks, especially when Taris is my favorite planet so far.

 

The reason why this happens is because, especially if you are new to the game, you go to these planets and start picking up quests from all NPC's that are asking you for help. I want to help everyone so I get as many quests as possible at one time and try to do as many simultaneously for efficiency's sake. But as a new player I have no way of telling what NPCs are giving me quests that I'm not supposed to be getting yet, because there is no spoiler warning tags on these quests, and it stands to reason they simply should not be giving me the quests yet. But I didn't figure that out until after the fact when I got stuck at an NPCs my mission told me to go to to help, but that person just thanks me for helping them with the quest I already completed earlier and won't give it back to me so I can continue with the rest of the second questline.

 

Anyway I have also submitted a bug report in-game in addition to making this post to try to raise attention to it again, after researching the past complaints about this problem so I could make sure what was happening.I think this is something that should be patched and there is no good reason why a problem like this should still be in the game after years of people already reporting it. I really like this game a lot and I'm not going to quit the game over it or even threaten to, but not only will I report this I will even give you a suggestion on how to fix it:

 

It should be a pretty simple fix, honestly, all you have to do is make sure all of the quests that are tied to the initial quest that is given by the NPC named "Strom" in the spaceport of Taris, which is called "Taris Bonus Mission", are flagged properly so they will not be given until after the completion of the final quest in the original Taris quest series. And for people like me who are already stuck and still want to be able to complete the second questline on Taris, just make it so that resetting the "Taris Bonus Missiion" in your mission log will actually reset all of the parts of that entire questline, including the parts we did early by accident, so we can actually re-do the entire bonus mission and actually finish it properly.

 

Sorry for the long post and I hope this makes sense. I'm just hoping the reason why this has still been a problem for so long is because it hasn't been explained as precisely as the dev's need to understand what is actually going wrong. I noticed that Tatooine has a similar problem with it's bonus mission, except in that case I was able to avoid the problem there since the initial questgiver of the second series on that planet was the one trying to give me his quest as soon as I had landed on the planet for the first time, instead of it being an NPC later on in the second series liked it was on Taris, and it just so happened to be obvious to me via his dialog that I wasn't supposed to be talking to him until way later on. Although it is the same kind of problem in that case as well, and he should not be offering people the bonus series until after they have completed the original one either.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Signalights

[Mubrak]

I wasn't able to find your actual problem when skimming that wall of text, but you should still be able to finish the bonus series, even if out of context story-wise. The separate quests of the bonus series are only available when you're actually supposed to do them. At least they were in 4.0 when I last did all them on new chars. I did Taris imperial just a few weeks ago on a lv 70 char that had it reset when 4.0 was released. Which quest (and faction) do you have a problem with? maybe it's just a matter of you going to the wrong NPC?

 

 

But yes, while there shouldn't be a technical problem there is a problem with story-continuity:

 

That the bonus series on Balmorra and Taris are available too early story-wise is a problem introduced with 4.0. Originally the bonus series could only be started by finishing the main quests and often were only available at a later level and led into areas with higher level mobs where you had no chance of surviving on your first visit. With 4.0 introducing level sync, BW had to change the bonus series, since you could no longer meet the level requirements.

 

The other bonus series are only available at level 60 now (and thus locked for F2P) this works fine for planets like Nar Shadaa, Alderaan and Hoth, where a message originally called you back about 10 levels after your first visit. On Voss, Tatooine and Belsavis it's a bit strange when they act as if you are just about to leave. What's worse is that you level so fast nowadays, that you're very likely above level 60 when you arrive on Hoth, Belsavis or Voss.

 

All this was changed with 4.0 when BW also changed side quests (including the bonus series) to be hidden by default and introduced boosted characters, allowing us to skip the class-story and planets altogether, and jump right into KotFE where the real fun is (according to the makers of KotFE...).

Edited April 22, 2017 by Mubrak

[Jagaimee]

I wasn't able to find your actual problem when skimming that wall of text, but you should still be able to finish the bonus series, even if out of context story-wise.

 

The thing is that there's one quest-giver, part of the bonus series, who gives his quest even when players are not actually on the bonus series. Thus, when it comes time in the bonus quests to do that specific quest...there's no option to do so, because players have already done it. And there's no indication that that quest is part of the bonus series.

 

OP, it's a known bug, sadly. It's been around since 4.0. No confirmation on a fix, or even acknowledgement that it is broken, to the best of my knowledge.

[mike_carton]

The problem is that the Taris Bonus Series cannot be completed under certain circumstances. One of the NPCs who needs to talk to you about a mission just says "Nice weather, isn't it" or something and turns away. You can't progress the Bonus Series after that.

 

One of my oldest characters encountered this and still has the mission in the log.

[Signalights]

The separate quests of the bonus series are only available when you're actually supposed to do them.

 

This isn't true, at least not for Republic players. Maybe it is different for Imperials. All I know for a fact is, and I had to find out the hard way, that there are certain quest NPC's on Taris who give quests for the bonus series out of order, and if you accidentally do them while you are running around trying to get the first quest series done, then you will not be able to get the updates needed to progress the bonus series once the actual starter NPC for the bonus series becomes available.

 

And like I already mentioned, but since you didn't want to read, I'll say it again, Taris is not even the only planet with this problem. In fact now that I have completed my class story, it seems like every planet involved that had a bonus series had it available right from the start of landing on the planet for the very first time. And the only way a new player has to know this is if the dialog happens to sound off and the NPC is blatantly saying you have done things you know you didn't already do yet, but that is not always obvious.

 

In the case of Tatooine and the rest of the planets I did after that, it wasn't that big of a deal because I could still get all the quests done anyway. It's just that in the case of Taris, unfortunately, the bonus series will become totally unable to complete unless you know to specifically avoid certain NPCs at two different outposts that are far away from the planet's spaceport, and are intermingled with other NPCs in the same camps that give quests for the original series, and there is no way to tell them apart.