Add the ability to decline companions (especially ones that arent too involved)

[CaptainLS]

EDIT/TLDR: Add the ability to decline companions from joining your crew if the progression of the story is not dependent on their addition to the crew. Not asking for replacement companions. Not asking for the ability to kill companions. Just asking for the ability to decline companions that are not necessarily important to the development of the main storyline.

 

 

Rant about Skadge:

 

There are some companions in the class missions that are utterly horrible - They are either so horrid, there's no way your companion would allow them to serve in part of your crew... and/or they don't contribute at all to the story.

 

I can make my peace with some companions, as annoying as they are, like Kaliyo and SCORPIO. However, I can not make my peace with Skadge.

 

Skadge enters the story like a villain at odds with your bounty hunter. On Belsavis, he continually hinders your success and gets in your way - something that I would have killed plenty of characters for. Yet, at the end of the planet's mission, you are forced to take him onto your crew. Why? It's not like he really contributes much to the story, and he's a horrible companion. I honestly think there should be the ability to decline him from joining your crew entirely... Especially since you can kill him during the Eternal Empire arc when you find him on an Alliance alert.

Edited May 30, 2021 by CaptainLS

[Hrafnhildur]

I support this proposal, because, even if they contributed and are part of the story, Kira Carsen and Lord Scourge do not fit in everyone's crew and should have been either guest companions ( like Major Anri, Rass Ordo , Tau Udair) or the player to have the possibility to refuse them as permanent companions.

As an example, how exactly does Kira Carsen fit in a Bounty Hunter crew? She does not.

[xordevoreaux]

Add the ability to decline companions (especially ones that arent too involved)

The ones for which there is only one recording of any high-priced voice acting?

The ones for which all dialogue prompts and back story side quests were programmed for?

The ones for which all of the subtitles were written?

The ones for which all of the opposite-gender-only flirt options were meticulously programmed into our out of?

 

Those?

Building a multi-dollar MMO is not the same as cranking out a Roblox game in an afternoon.

Edited May 28, 2021 by xordevoreaux

[CaptainLS]

Those?

Building a multi-dollar MMO is not the same as cranking out a Roblox game in an afternoon.

 

Oh heroic (unnecessary) defender of the developers, please understand that I am not criticizing the development of the game thus far, nor ignoring the complexities (or lack thereof) of the game.

 

I only feel that players should have more options in deciding who can and can not be apart of their crew. Are you against giving players the option to choose to decline companions that are not involved heavily in the development of the story/missions?

Edited May 29, 2021 by CaptainLS

[mike_carton]

The game allowed killing off of companions in the early development. Testers who used it then demanded that they should be able to reverse that. BW removed those options. Edited May 29, 2021 by mike_carton

[SteveTheCynic]

The game allowed killing off of companions in the early development. Testers who used it then demanded that they should be able to reverse that. BW removed those options.

That's a very polite way of describing what could equally be described as "Hey, I killed Quinn, and now he's, like, you know, dead, and he won't heal me."

[xordevoreaux]

Are you against giving players the option to choose to decline companions that are not involved heavily in the development of the story/missions?

 

An extremely facetious question meant to deflect my point and therefore I won't answer whether I'm for or against it.

 

What I will do is expose that I'm trying to help you realize that the multi-million dollar investment in this game won't be chucked out the window merely to re-invest however many hundreds of thousands more necessary to hire the voice-actors and to move graphical engineers away from whatever they're currently doing to develop replacements for companions incorporated in the game since launch.

 

I know full well most of what I'd like to see will never happen. Never. Few players ever appreciate, understand, or care about the inertia necessary to make such changes and the disconnection between that investment and Bioware ever realizing any sizable profit from it. I strongly suspect you're not going to rage quit over this issue, and Bioware burning money on this or any other changes that won't increase or sustain the player base isn't profitable.

Edited May 29, 2021 by xordevoreaux

[CaptainLS]

An extremely facetious question meant to deflect my point and therefore I won't answer whether I'm for or against it.

 

What I will do is expose that I'm trying to help you realize that the multi-million dollar investment in this game won't be chucked out the window merely to re-invest however many hundreds of thousands more necessary to hire the voice-actors and to move graphical engineers away from whatever they're currently doing to develop replacements for companions incorporated in the game since launch.

 

I know full well most of what I'd like to see will never happen. Never. Few players ever appreciate, understand, or care about the inertia necessary to make such changes and the disconnection between that investment and Bioware ever realizing any sizable profit from it. I strongly suspect you're not going to rage quit over this issue, and Bioware burning money on this or any other changes that won't increase or sustain the player base isn't profitable.

 

Who said anything about replacements? I think you may have misinterpreted.

 

I'm asking for the ability to decline adding a certain companion to my crew if they aren't important in the story arc. I am not suggesting the creation of additional companions.

 

If it's difficult to comprehend the suggestion, listen to this scenario:

 

Bounty Hunter finds Skadge. Skadge sucks and doesn't contribute at all to the story. Bounty Hunter declines Skadge from joining his crew (without killing him, so he can reappear in Eternal Empire Alliance alerts). Bounty Hunter crew is now 4 strong, instead of the original 5.

Edited May 30, 2021 by CaptainLS

[CaptainLS]

The game allowed killing off of companions in the early development. Testers who used it then demanded that they should be able to reverse that. BW removed those options.

 

I'm not all for killing companions necessarily. As much as my bounty hunter would have liked to kill Skadge, preventing him from joining your crew while keeping him alive is still sufficient... (and you can still kill him via alliance alert after chapter 9 of eternal empire anyway)

 

I think Skadge suffered heavily from poor writing tbh. The whole "I'm getting on your ship, with or without you!" and your only 3 responses being yes, yes, and yes rubbed me the wrong way.

Edited May 30, 2021 by CaptainLS

[xordevoreaux]

I'm not all for killing companions necessarily. As much as my bounty hunter would have liked to kill Skadge, preventing him from joining your crew while keeping him alive is still sufficient... (and you can still kill him via alliance alert after chapter 9 of eternal empire anyway)

 

I think Skadge suffered heavily from poor writing tbh. The whole "I'm getting on your ship, with or without you!" and your only 3 responses being yes, yes, and yes rubbed me the wrong way.

 

There are, for every class, cut scenes around the conference table on the ship using the conference console. It's a way to advance the plot and explain to the player what's going on in the story. The participants around that conference table are your five companions. Each of your companions, sometimes more than once, gets a word in edgewise to contribute to that plot advancement during that conversation.

 

What you're asking for directly affects those cut scenes, and by affecting those cut scenes, that means all five companions contribute to your story. There are no toss-off companions:

 

--There is no test currently performed at the beginning of any cut scene in the original 3 chapters of your class story which determines who you may have previously dismissed. By any given point in the story, the writers built the story assuming you've acquired all your companions (or however many that particular cut scene expects). The game would need to be reprogrammed to become aware of which companions you previously dismissed.

 

--With however many remaining companions you did NOT dismiss, the same dialogue that originally carried the plot advancement would then need to be carried by fewer companions. Which companions voice those lines at that point, especially since some of them make comments during that interplay such as "I agree with so-and-so." Do you haul back all the voice actors to voice ALL lines from ALL companions for ALL possibilities that may exist, because the game now has no idea ahead of time who is actually left to participate in those cut scenes?

 

For example, let's say you dismiss both Skadge and Torian. Now, instead of 5 companions carrying that cut scene's dialogue, you have 3. You're asking the game to be smart enough (the developers agile enough in their programming) to fulfill that cut scene's purpose based on any variation of remaining companions.

 

You mention the alliance alerts, but that's not the only content affected.

 

 

In Chapter 2 of KOTFE, your character traverses a dreamscape while you're imprisoned in carbonite. During that, Valkorian rattles off a brief description of all five of your original class story companions, who are first depicted standing, frozen in time, and then a bit later, all five are dead on the ground. All that would need to be rewritten to accommodate any previously dismissed companions, because it would make no sense at that point for Valkorian to chatter about companions who never joined you.

 

 

On Taris, your Sith Warrior's story line involves divvying up work of the final attack among Pierce, Vette, and Malavi. Your character decides which of those three does what. Oh. But you previously dismissed Vette and Malavi because you hate those characters and all you have is Pierce. How does that attack work now?

 

 

With Malavi dismissed, he's not around for him to brandish a gun at your character and attempt to kill your character using a couple of droids, a scene which exposes a pivotal plot point in the Sith Warrior's story line that Baras is out to get you.

 

You have not thought this proposal through, and your proposal is asking the developers to do a hell of a lot of work because a player's salty about Skadge joining their team.

Edited May 30, 2021 by xordevoreaux

[CaptainLS]

You have not thought this proposal through, and your proposal is asking the developers to do a hell of a lot of work because a player's salty about Skadge joining their team.

 

Removing a companion from a cut scene and taking out a few lines of dialogue? Wow sounds like a crazy amount of work. Man you're right, i must've overthought that. Thanks for enlightening me! Crazy! wow! In the future, i'll try to make sure that my suggestions contribute absolutely nothing to the developers' workload!

 

What I will do is expose that I'm trying to help you realize that the multi-million dollar investment in this game won't be chucked out the window merely to re-invest however many hundreds of thousands more necessary to hire the voice-actors and to move graphical engineers away from whatever they're currently doing to develop replacements for companions incorporated in the game since launch.

 

So your argument has developed from a rebuttal against replacement companions (something that I never suggested, I might add) to the argument that removing companions from a cut scene is too much work. Are you serious? Obviously I understand that a companion needs to be removed from a cut scene. And honestly, removing a few lines of dialogue and a model from a cut scene doesn't seem like a whole lot of work. I should also mention that mike_carton pointed out that during SWTOR's development, "the game allowed the killing off of companions." So apparently, BW already had the framework to remove companions' dialogue and scenes from the game. So it must not be as difficult as you try to suggest.

Edited May 31, 2021 by CaptainLS

[JediQuaker]

I should also mention that mike_carton pointed out that during SWTOR's development, "the game allowed the killing off of companions." So apparently, BW already had the framework to remove companions' dialogue and scenes from the game. So it must not be as difficult as you try to suggest.

And then, CS pointed out to Mike that they already get a lot of "I accidently deleted a character" type requests.

Can you imagine all the "I accidently killed [companion x]" and/or "how do I get [companion x] back" posts they'd have to deal with? Just so that [companion x] doesn't appear on your list? 🤔

[casirabit]

There could be another problem as well.

 

Considered how they handle the killing of companioins it might affect another person. When they allowed the killing of companions then they basically remove the companions from everyone. Even if you didn't kill the companion there is no interaction with that companion. BW doesn't seem to be able to separate the dialogue for those who did and those that didn't which could be the same problem in when a person refused the companion and therefore you are removing that companion (for all purposes) from someone else.

 

If they could only remove the dialouge from those that dismissed the companion, killed the companion then maybe but they don't seem to have that figured out.

[Pricia]

There could be another problem as well.

 

Considered how they handle the killing of companioins it might affect another person. When they allowed the killing of companions then they basically remove the companions from everyone. Even if you didn't kill the companion there is no interaction with that companion. BW doesn't seem to be able to separate the dialogue for those who did and those that didn't which could be the same problem in when a person refused the companion and therefore you are removing that companion (for all purposes) from someone else.

 

If they could only remove the dialouge from those that dismissed the companion, killed the companion then maybe but they don't seem to have that figured out.

 

They figured it out just fine with Theron/Arcann/Senya.

 

No, the problem is that it makes no sense to be able to accept some companions and reject others. But you at least can get the choice to recruit people or not after KOTET (usually).