So, about skipping Kotfe-Kotet..

[IoNonSoEVero]

Just to clarify, and maybe I misread your post so may not apply to you, but still may be helpful to others. There is a pretty easy workaround, but requires you keeping a quest in your log, which may bug some people. What I do is go the mission terminal on my personal ship. Then:

 

A) I accept KotFE, but then scroll down and immediately accept Chapter 1, Wrath and Ruin, of Eternal Throne.

 

B) As the intro to Chapter 1 is playing or right at the start, just exit the quest.

 

C) Voila -- you are on Odessan with access to everything, including Companion Return Terminal, Find a Findsman quest with Yuun (which opens up a host, but not all companion returns), Star Fortresss, Alliance Turn-Ins, etc.

 

The one downside as mentioned above is that you have Chapter 1 Wrath and Ruin stuck in your quest log. For me, that's a small price to pay. Obviously, if you are skipping KotFE / ET for the purpose of keeping your companions on your personal starship, then this not the route to take.

 

Dasty

 

AFAIK this is also the way to ensure you get any KOTFE main story companions if you do want them (Lana, Theron, T7, etc.), with the exception of Koth (if you play Imperial it will be auto-filled that he left) and Senya (since she's gone in chapter 1). If you skip straight to Iokath you don't get any of those companions to stay.

[DarthFixxxer]

I never said that everyone was fine with losing the companions - and in fact since I get some of my classics back at the terminal I want them. By the same token just because YOU find the extra companions uninteresting doesn't mean everyone does.

 

If one doesn't want the non-main-story companions, you can always ignore the Alliance Alerts or refuse to take the companions at the end of their quests.

 

But for me, as someone who identifies with F/F romance, Lana and that part of KOTFE are invaluable. KOTFE+ is also the only place M/M long term romance can happen.

 

If you don't want to do KOTFE and KOTET - don't. As mentioned, you can either do the flashpoints without context, or skip to Iokath directly and live with whatever choices the devs pre-selected for you.

 

Or here's an idea:

 

How about you do whatever you want, aka complete KOTFE and KOTET and do the romance and all the other things that you are interested in, with as many toons as you want, choosing to complete the story with however many toons you want...

 

And at the same time, how about I also have the option to do what I want, meaning that I can skip KOTFE and KOTET, and still have access to Iokath for the dailies (after all it IS a daily area), the Iokath operation without needing someone to summon me, without losing my classic companions, without getting a bunch of companions that I don't care about?

 

Why would that be so hard?

[IoNonSoEVero]

Or here's an idea:

 

How about you do whatever you want, aka complete KOTFE and KOTET and do the romance and all the other things that you are interested in, with as many toons as you want, choosing to complete the story with however many toons you want...

 

And at the same time, how about I also have the option to do what I want, meaning that I can skip KOTFE and KOTET, and still have access to Iokath for the dailies (after all it IS a daily area), the Iokath operation without needing someone to summon me, without losing my classic companions, without getting a bunch of companions that I don't care about?

 

Why would that be so hard?

 

Who exactly is stopping you from doing that? Really? Did I ever say you had to do the game the same way I or anyone else did? Oh wait, no, I didn't.

 

It's been explained over and over in this thread by numerous people that you DO have the ability to skip both expacs and don't get the KOTFE companions or the Alliance Alerts if you skip both expansions.

 

Iokath is on your ship from the minute you hit Level 70. Go there if you want. What's the problem?

 

You can do all of the flashpoints and get the drops from them without doing KOTFE/ET too, and as a bonus, you won't pick up an unwanted companion (Raina) if you do them outside of the story. You can still do the Iokath Op.

 

If you've skipped KOTFE/ET you don't lose your classic companions AFAIK. And if you do, you can take five minutes out of your life to accept the first chapter of KOTET, abandon it, and retrieve all the companions you want. That might give you a few extra KOTET companions, but you can always, you know, leave them on your console and ignore them, the same way I have to ignore Quinn, Doc and the rest of the wastes I'm saddled with in the class story.

 

So what exactly is the problem? The mechanisms to do everything you seem to want already exist and nobody's standing in front of your computer to stop you from taking those decisions.

Edited September 15, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[IoNonSoEVero]

You can pull the rejected companion from the return terminal. I did it in a moment of madness on a couple of characters

 

I was actually really shocked to see her there, along with a few of the companions I'd specifically killed off, like SCORPIO.

But at the same time, HK-55 isn't claimable (yeah, yeah, I know, bonus chapter) and I actually *would* want him.

[Kiesu]

Why are we so opposed to the idea of putting some check-marks on story decisions if we want to skip them?

I've seen the entirety of kotfe/et ten times now and I still have 40 characters who haven't gone trough it, because I'm bored out of my mind watching the same 10h of cinematics and walker slogging just to pick a few specifically different options for my characters.

 

You people are being silly.

I don't see you on ME/DA forums yelling about deleting world-state tapestries because they make playing previous games "obsolete".

They absolutely does't. I player Inquisition more times than I would have otherwise thanks to the tapestry, because I disliked DA2 and didn't want to spent time playing it again just to have a alternate timeline for an alternate character in Inquisition.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Kiesu

[Elessara]

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a checklist of choices to skip KotFE/KotET but I do think that someone should probably be required to have played through KotFE/KotET at least once to get that option - mostly because it can be difficult to understand the context of some of the choices without actually playing through the story. For example:

 

KotFE

Chapter 1

Do you call for an evacuation of Marr's ship? Yes/No

Do you accept Valkorion's offer? Yes/No

Chapter 2

(Ok, I can't remember any real choices off the top of my head for this one)

Chapter 3

Do you stop the reactor from overloading? Yes/No

Chapter 4

Do you choose to help the refugees? Yes/No

Do you use Valkorion's power to save Lana? Yes/No

 

Obviously not a comprehensive list but if you haven't played through the story at least once then you would have almost no idea what these questions refer to. I guess they could give you a synopsis of what's happened with cutscenes and such but at that point you might as well just actually go through the story.

[Rion_Starkiller]

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a checklist of choices to skip KotFE/KotET but I do think that someone should probably be required to have played through KotFE/KotET at least once to get that option - mostly because it can be difficult to understand the context of some of the choices without actually playing through the story. For example:

 

KotFE

Chapter 1

Do you call for an evacuation of Marr's ship? Yes/No

Do you accept Valkorion's offer? Yes/No

Chapter 2

(Ok, I can't remember any real choices off the top of my head for this one)

Chapter 3

Do you stop the reactor from overloading? Yes/No

Chapter 4

Do you choose to help the refugees? Yes/No

Do you use Valkorion's power to save Lana? Yes/No

 

Obviously not a comprehensive list but if you haven't played through the story at least once then you would have almost no idea what these questions refer to. I guess they could give you a synopsis of what's happened with cutscenes and such but at that point you might as well just actually go through the story.

 

Can you do KOTET too? I want to feel like I beat it because I don't intend to ever finish it on any toon.

[Elessara]

Can you do KOTET too? I want to feel like I beat it because I don't intend to ever finish it on any toon.

 

I mentioned KotET ... but I also said to get a checklist you should be required to play through it at least once. So I guess you'd be out of luck with my suggestion.

[ImmortalLowlife]

It sounds to me like people don't want a comprehensive checklist. It seems to fall to about 3 questions

 

• Who did you romance
  
• Does the "traitor" live or die
  
• Which side did you choose Pub, Imp, or alliance. (Threw alliance in there because most of my characters don't want to go back to being a pub/Imp do boy.... so here's a plug for that 3rd faction option)
  

 

They could do that in a conversation at the beginning of the new expansion. Characters who played through KOTFE/KOTET would get a custom conversation based on their choices. Those that skipped get a generic conversation that manages to ask those questions.

 

 

I think THAT would make the majority of players happy.

[IoNonSoEVero]

It sounds to me like people don't want a comprehensive checklist. It seems to fall to about 3 questions

 

• Who did you romance
  
• Does the "traitor" live or die
  
• Which side did you choose Pub, Imp, or alliance. (Threw alliance in there because most of my characters don't want to go back to being a pub/Imp do boy.... so here's a plug for that 3rd faction option)
  

 

They could do that in a conversation at the beginning of the new expansion. Characters who played through KOTFE/KOTET would get a custom conversation based on their choices. Those that skipped get a generic conversation that manages to ask those questions.

 

 

I think THAT would make the majority of players happy.

 

They'd likely have to throw in a question about 'did you keep Arcann/Senya alive' too because that may prove to have really serious implications later. Or at least I hope it will and there will be some pushback if Arcann is alive.

[IanArgent]

Why are we so opposed to the idea of putting some check-marks on story decisions if we want to skip them?

I've seen the entirety of kotfe/et ten times now and I still have 40 characters who haven't gone trough it, because I'm bored out of my mind watching the same 10h of cinematics and walker slogging just to pick a few specifically different options for my characters.

 

You people are being silly.

I don't see you on ME/DA forums yelling about deleting world-state tapestries because they make playing previous games "obsolete".

They absolutely does't. I player Inquisition more times than I would have otherwise thanks to the tapestry, because I disliked DA2 and didn't want to spent time playing it again just to have a alternate timeline for an alternate character in Inquisition.

 

"Story flags" are a technical nightmare; I recall a lot of out of cycle 4.x patches having to do with messed up story flags. I still have a character with 2 copies of the imp ship droid because of one of those. And that's just on the back end. On the front end, there's no interface existing to "Set flags" - they'd have to build one and keep it maintained. This is all effort that would take away from new content.

 

It's not worth it to implement. Even if it was possible, which I have my doubts about.

[kodrac]

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a checklist of choices to skip KotFE/KotET but I do think that someone should probably be required to have played through KotFE/KotET at least once to get that option - mostly because it can be difficult to understand the context of some of the choices without actually playing through the story.

 

One time sure. Which is the same thing I said when they started making us complete KOTET for companion returns. They're reasoning is spoilers, but it's not like subsequent playthroughs are any different. Honestly, I think they just don't want to attempt coding in any Legacy checks.

[Jdast]

"Story flags" are a technical nightmare; I recall a lot of out of cycle 4.x patches having to do with messed up story flags. I still have a character with 2 copies of the imp ship droid because of one of those. And that's just on the back end. On the front end, there's no interface existing to "Set flags" - they'd have to build one and keep it maintained. This is all effort that would take away from new content.

 

It's not worth it to implement. Even if it was possible, which I have my doubts about.

 

Let us stipulate at the outset that anyone who has read my posts knows that I come from a law and economics perspective.

 

Ian, if I were the suit in the boardroom and read what you wrote I would ask the following:

 

1) It's 2018, you can't set up codes for 5 or so choices; and 2) We did it for Dragon Age, why can't we do it here?

 

I know it sounds like I'm being snarky, but those are the exact questions I would ask being on the management side with ZERO technical know how. In other words, you may be 100% right, but from the other side of the coin / perspective.... I would be like, huh?

 

Dasty

[Elessara]

Let us stipulate at the outset that anyone who has read my posts knows that I come from a law and economics perspective.

 

Ian, if I were the suit in the boardroom and read what you wrote I would ask the following:

 

1) It's 2018, you can't set up codes for 5 or so choices; and 2) We did it for Dragon Age, why can't we do it here?

 

I know it sounds like I'm being snarky, but those are the exact questions I would ask being on the management side with ZERO technical know how. In other words, you may be 100% right, but from the other side of the coin / perspective.... I would be like, huh?

 

Dasty

 

If I were to answer, I would say there's a lot more than 5 or so choices because there are not only further choices in the game but also dialogues that rely on seemingly minor choices and Dragon Age is not SWTOR. Both games use wildly different engines. What works in one game may not work in the other. Unless you want to rebuild SWTOR from the ground up using a different engine? /s ... At this point, dasty, you being the suit and thus my boss would fire me for being snarky.

[ImmortalLowlife]

Let us stipulate at the outset that anyone who has read my posts knows that I come from a law and economics perspective.

 

Ian, if I were the suit in the boardroom and read what you wrote I would ask the following:

 

1) It's 2018, you can't set up codes for 5 or so choices; and 2) We did it for Dragon Age, why can't we do it here?

 

I know it sounds like I'm being snarky, but those are the exact questions I would ask being on the management side with ZERO technical know how. In other words, you may be 100% right, but from the other side of the coin / perspective.... I would be like, huh?

 

Dasty

 

I'm not gonna act like I'm a tech genius, but I'd answer that board member with

 

Ok the game you mentioned is a single player game. To do it with DA we had to set up a completely different website and have customers create accounts to store those choices, then interface that with their individual games. We're talking about a mmo with thousands of players playing on the same servers simultaneously. With the current budget constraints, game engine, and the size of the current team of developers it's unreasonable to assume it's as easy as you seem to think."

Edited September 15, 2018 by ImmortalLowlife

[AureliaSulis]

The only content that I would happily skip is the Vaylin dream fight, the Guardian Droid (Chiss Flashpoint) and all the battles where you have to control a Walker or be that Mouse droid-whatever-that-thing-is.

 

Reasons – playing from regional Australia and having to contend with lag spikes = lots of dying in game.

 

Walker game play = really annoying.

[Jdast]

If I were to answer, I would say there's a lot more than 5 or so choices because there are not only further choices in the game but also dialogues that rely on seemingly minor choices and Dragon Age is not SWTOR. Both games use wildly different engines. What works in one game may not work in the other. Unless you want to rebuild SWTOR from the ground up using a different engine? /s ... At this point, dasty, you being the suit and thus my boss would fire me for being snarky.

 

FWIW, to you and Immortal Life....

 

I would have appreciated the brutal honesty. Having been one of those wearing the suits (of course I was wearing Armani -- I mean why not be the best dressed in the room )....and albeit in a very, very different industry:

 

Smart suits and managers know when they are wrong. You would have correctly pointed out the different engines, which is a demonstrable, empirical fact. Mature managers / suits would have the smarts to say, "Okay, got it!"

 

Of course, then we would have been a pain in the rear and said -- so come up with a solution -- you're the smart ones after all!

 

Dasty

Edited September 15, 2018 by Jdast

[DarthCasus]

I'm not gonna act like I'm a tech genius, but I'd answer that board member with

 

Ok the game you mentioned is a single player game. To do it with DA we had to set up a completely different website and have customers create accounts to store those choices, then interface that with their individual games. We're talking about a mmo with thousands of players playing on the same servers simultaneously. With the current budget constraints, game engine, and the size of the current team of developers it's unreasonable to assume it's as easy as you seem to think."

 

And we're here talking from OUR perspectives without actual insight. I don't find theories to be the best way to shut down or conclude arguments and since that's all we're running on here, I'll consider this kind of idea to still be on the table until told so by someone with actual inside knowledge.

[IanArgent]

Let us stipulate at the outset that anyone who has read my posts knows that I come from a law and economics perspective.

 

Ian, if I were the suit in the boardroom and read what you wrote I would ask the following:

 

1) It's 2018, you can't set up codes for 5 or so choices; and 2) We did it for Dragon Age, why can't we do it here?

 

I know it sounds like I'm being snarky, but those are the exact questions I would ask being on the management side with ZERO technical know how. In other words, you may be 100% right, but from the other side of the coin / perspective.... I would be like, huh?

 

Dasty

 

Short-form? Because the story flag database is a hot mess because of decisions made going back to when development started in 2010 or so. Because the story flag database for SWTOR is immensely more complex that Dragon Age or Mass Effect, because it supports the eight storylines, etc.

 

This is a heck of a lot more complicated than the Citadel website.

[Kiesu]

We're talking about a mmo with thousands of players playing on the same servers simultaneously. With the current budget constraints, game engine, and the size of the current team of developers it's unreasonable to assume it's as easy as you seem to think."

If I were to answer, I would say there's a lot more than 5 or so choices because there are not only further choices in the game but also dialogues that rely on seemingly minor choices and Dragon Age is not SWTOR. Both games use wildly different engines. What works in one game may not work in the other. Unless you want to rebuild SWTOR from the ground up using a different engine?

Engine has nothing to do with piece of script being stored in your characters account. Having a save in any game consists of thousands of flags (or removed flags as the case may be) to mark your games progress. Storing flags from a spread-sheet vs trough game dialog weights the exact same amount, the file doesn't suddenly get bigger because you saved it in alternate way. To illustrate it simply, if you have ever attempted to create any kind of videogame in school or something with a save function that carries buffs and stuff over, the idea is the same.

 

"Story flags" are a technical nightmare; I recall a lot of out of cycle 4.x patches having to do with messed up story flags. I still have a character with 2 copies of the imp ship droid because of one of those. And that's just on the back end. On the front end, there's no interface existing to "Set flags" - they'd have to build one and keep it maintained. This is all effort that would take away from new content.

 

It's not worth it to implement. Even if it was possible, which I have my doubts about.

Setting up flags in a spreadsheet once their function has already been created is not the hard part. The hard part is creating the flag in play in the first place and have it function simultaneously with other flags that might or might not be trigger-able at possibly conflicting circumstances. These have all been created already so we're past the gamedesign hard part.

 

The only hard part in putting the flags on a list would be that they'd have to remember which decisions counter out other decisions and make sure we cannot select conflicting choices.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Kiesu

[IanArgent]

Also, the Citadel website doesn't have to work. If something gets broken by it, they can tell you "shrug, start over." Doesn't work that way in SWTOR.

[DarthFixxxer]

Who exactly is stopping you from doing that? Really? Did I ever say you had to do the game the same way I or anyone else did? Oh wait, no, I didn't.

 

It's been explained over and over in this thread by numerous people that you DO have the ability to skip both expacs and don't get the KOTFE companions or the Alliance Alerts if you skip both expansions.

 

Iokath is on your ship from the minute you hit Level 70. Go there if you want. What's the problem?

 

You can do all of the flashpoints and get the drops from them without doing KOTFE/ET too, and as a bonus, you won't pick up an unwanted companion (Raina) if you do them outside of the story. You can still do the Iokath Op.

 

If you've skipped KOTFE/ET you don't lose your classic companions AFAIK. And if you do, you can take five minutes out of your life to accept the first chapter of KOTET, abandon it, and retrieve all the companions you want. That might give you a few extra KOTET companions, but you can always, you know, leave them on your console and ignore them, the same way I have to ignore Quinn, Doc and the rest of the wastes I'm saddled with in the class story.

 

So what exactly is the problem? The mechanisms to do everything you seem to want already exist and nobody's standing in front of your computer to stop you from taking those decisions.

 

You don't seem to understand, even after 2 times of explaining, so I don't know why I am still trying, but here goes.

 

1. You CANNOT do Iokath dailies unless you complete the Iokath storyline. Which places your toon after the events of the Valkorion Blues. Which I hate. And no, I cannot go to Iokath on my ship unless I start the mission. It's not there. Unless they changed it in the last 1-2 months, which I highly doubt.

 

2. I do not want to have a list of 15 companions, including Lana, Theron etc on my Companions menu. I just don't want to. So I CANNOT play the game how I want to.

 

3. If you accept the KOTET first chapter and use the Companions Locator to get them back , they are not the same as before. The romance option is not working anymore. So that's awful by itself. Plus, your toon is now in a post KOTFE world.

 

Anyway.... this conversation is not going anywhere. The KOTFE KOTET storyline is a mess for a million reasons anyway, and the chapters format is the worst they could have come up with. Linear progression without any open world exploration, mobs that aggro even if you are on a stealth toon, chapters like the one with the mouse droid that make you wanna break your computer, and many more problems. Even the story itself makes little sense for a variety of reasons. The only way to cope with all of that, is to just do Iokath dailies and Odessen stuff on a few toons, and never set foot on any of those planets with my alts. Hoping for a much better storyline in the future, and some kind of option to choose whatever parts of the game and companions you wanna have, without being limited by idiotic choices you have made (or haven't).

[casirabit]

. You CANNOT do Iokath dailies unless you complete the Iokath storyline. Which places your toon after the events of the Valkorion Blues. Which I hate. And no, I cannot go to Iokath on my ship unless I start the mission. It's not there. Unless they changed it in the last 1-2 months, which I highly doubt.

 

This is no different than doing the Oricon dailies. Unless you do the storyline for Oricion you can't just do the dailies there either. And then to finish Oricon you need to do the operations which some people don't want to do. While it may not have to do with Valkorion it is basically the same principles so if they allow people to do Iokath dailies without the story line they will need to do the same with Oricion.

[IoNonSoEVero]

You don't seem to understand, even after 2 times of explaining, so I don't know why I am still trying, but here goes.

 

1. You CANNOT do Iokath dailies unless you complete the Iokath storyline. Which places your toon after the events of the Valkorion Blues. Which I hate. And no, I cannot go to Iokath on my ship unless I start the mission. It's not there. Unless they changed it in the last 1-2 months, which I highly doubt.

 

No, I do understand that you're not accepting that there are ways to get to the content you want - but that if you want to access content set after the KOTFE/KOTET storyline, that involves dealing at least marginally with some of the story or effects of those expacs.

 

You not only want to skip KOTFE and KOTET but also want to skip Iokath? *facepalm* Iokath is not the expacs. You can't do the Ziost dailies without doing Ziost, or the Yavin 4 ones without doing SoR. Iokath is no different. As people say about other parts of the game, if you want the thing (access to the daily area), do the work to get it (the story segment on Iokath). That's life.

 

Yes, it places you after the expacs in terms of story, but if that is the dealbreaker, how exactly would you explain being on Iokath at all with a toon when everything in the dailies is in the context of that storyline? Can't have both.

 

And of course you have to start the mission ion the ship to go to Iokath, but the point remains that the possibility to do that exists from the moment you hit level 70 without going near KOTFE and KOTET if you so choose.

 

2. I do not want to have a list of 15 companions, including Lana, Theron etc on my Companions menu. I just don't want to. So I CANNOT play the game how I want to.

 

You don't even have to call up that companion menu if you don't wish to, but if this is such a big deal that it's a dealbreaker for you, as it's been repeatedly said: go right to the Iokath mission or do the Op and flashpoints piecemeal. You have a solution for this.

 

3. If you accept the KOTET first chapter and use the Companions Locator to get them back , they are not the same as before. The romance option is not working anymore. So that's awful by itself. Plus, your toon is now in a post KOTFE world.

 

There is no "romance option" after the class story. The companions are just there with you and there's no additional romance content scripted anywhere in the game - unless you do KOTFE and KOTET or the related Alliance Alerts, which you don't want to do.

 

If you do the flashpoints, Iokath Op or Iokath dailies, your toon is also technically in a 'post KOTET world.'

 

This is a game with story content, not just areas to grind that you can select piecemeal that completely circumvent all story. But you're not blocked from doing anything; there are ways for you to do every single bit of endgame content you've mentioned. You just don't want to take them. That's fine if that's your choice, but it is your choice.

 

Not going to keep debating this, but IMHO you're asking for way more than skipping KOTFE and KOTET or the checklist that others are discussing, and that's not reasonable.

Edited September 16, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[DarthFixxxer]

This is no different than doing the Oricon dailies. Unless you do the storyline for Oricion you can't just do the dailies there either. And then to finish Oricon you need to do the operations which some people don't want to do. While it may not have to do with Valkorion it is basically the same principles so if they allow people to do Iokath dailies without the story line they will need to do the same with Oricion.

It's not the same for reasons I have explained 4 times as of now. Completing the Oricon storyline does not remove your classic companions, and add a bunch of unwanted ones. Iokath does. Therefore, not the same.

 

No, I do understand that you're not accepting that there are ways to get to the content you want - but that if you want to access content set after the KOTFE/KOTET storyline, that involves dealing at least marginally with some of the story or effects of those expacs.

It is not your fault, but my fault, for actually trying to explain something to someone, when they don't understand because all they see is their point of view. I will be short and simple. I do NOT want all my characters to be the freaking stupid Outlander, with an idiotic Alliance and a bunch of horribly written companions. I want every character of mine to have their own personality, set of companions, titles, etc. The KOTFE & KOTET mess ruined all that. Therefore I am skipping those on as many characters as I can. And by skipping those, I cannot do the Iokath dailies. It doesn't get more simple than that.

 

In fact, I have accepted that. Since a long time. I am just pointing out, that there is NO problem such as this one with the previous storylines in the game, even if they were common for all the classes. Doing SOR, Makeb, Ilum etc, does not ruin your character's personality, their companions, nothing. You can disagree all you want if you wanna keep supporting the storyline that you like so much of course. That doesn't the fact that the previous expansions and storylines were much better planned, organized and executed.

 

You not only want to skip KOTFE and KOTET but also want to skip Iokath? *facepalm* Iokath is not the expacs. You can't do the Ziost dailies without doing Ziost, or the Yavin 4 ones without doing SoR. Iokath is no different. As people say about other parts of the game, if you want the thing (access to the daily area), do the work to get it (the story segment on Iokath). That's life.

I don't want to skip Iokath, and THAT's the problem. It IS different. I know that's life. And I also know it's one of the most important reasons why so many people have abandoned this game.

 

Yes, it places you after the expacs in terms of story, but if that is the dealbreaker, how exactly would you explain being on Iokath at all with a toon when everything in the dailies is in the context of that storyline? Can't have both.

Really now? But I can kill the Gods Of The Machine 100 times, once every week and all the other foes in this game, and complete the exact same dailies every day, but that's perfectly normal and not inconsistent? Going to an area of dailies without completing the story would be the issue? Come on man....

 

 

There is no "romance option" after the class story. The companions are just there with you and there's no additional romance content scripted anywhere in the game - unless you do KOTFE and KOTET or the related Alliance Alerts, which you don't want to do.

 

The romance companion gifts do not work once your toon is post-KOTET. This is a bug that has been addressed since 3 years ago, but Bioware does not give a damn about it. THAT is a dealbreaker, yes. It's one more thing that is ruined once you enter the world of Valkorion, like everything else.

 

If you do the flashpoints, Iokath Op or Iokath dailies, your toon is also technically in a 'post KOTET world.'

 

This is a game with story content, not just areas to grind that you can select piecemeal that completely circumvent all story. But you're not blocked from doing anything; there are ways for you to do every single bit of endgame content you've mentioned. You just don't want to take them. That's fine if that's your choice, but it is your choice.

 

Not going to keep debating this, but IMHO you're asking for way more than skipping KOTFE and KOTET or the checklist that others are discussing, and that's not reasonable.

 

I beg to differ. Black Hole and Section X are daily areas not connected to story. Also, every daily area, once you complete the storyline does not really make sense at all. Daily areas are designed in MMOs for people to grind them. Yes, they are accompanied by a basic storyline, but when that story comes with a lot of crap, then it becomes a problem. Not for you, but for others.

 

The difference is the following:

 

Oricon, Ilum, Makeb, etc : Do not ruin my gaming experience if I complete the storyline. And they don't ruin it if I don't.

 

KOTFE & KOTET : They ruin my gaming experience if I complete the storyline. I can choose to not initiate any of those or Iokath, and then I am missing out on something. So both options suck.

 

 

It is extremely simple. You can disagree all you want, and you can play however you want to play, and you can even try repeatedly to convince people that they should play how you play, but that doesn't how many people feel about KOTFE & KOTET and everything that came after it. At least I can still do Umbara, Copero and Nathema, without initiating any storyline. I guess we don't care about how my character happens to be on these worlds then right?