(SNIP)

I'm sorry but the lack of understanding is not on my end. You're mixing up everything that is being said to you. So this will be my last response to you. As everyone has said, YOU CAN DO everything you want to do. Nobody's trying to force you to do KOTFE/ET and you've been given workable solutions to get around it. Point by point:

You want to do the Iokath segment: It's on your mission console on your character's ship. Activate the mission and go. YOU DO NOT need to do KOTFE or KOTET for access to this mission. The only requirement is being Level 70.

You want to do the Iokath dailies: Finish the Iokath segment. You keep saying you can't do the dailies without KOTET, and it's now been explained about four times that YOU CAN. Just accept the Iokath mission (which is not KOTFE/KOTET), do the mission, and unlock the dailies.

You want your classic companions: Don't do KOTFE/KOTET. Or accept chapter 1 of KOTET, abandon the mission and get them all back from the console.

Romance gifts don't work on returned companions: So get them to max influence before you temporarily lose them, or use other gifts that cost the same and have the same or more influence.

You want to do the Umbara, Copero and Nathema flashpoints: You do not need to do the KOTFE and KOTET expansions. You can access all three flashpoints in the activity finder.

You don't want your characters to have anything to do with KOTET or that storyline: Then don't do any content past Ziost. It's simple. If you are on Nathema, Iokath, Umbara or Copero your toon is in that timeline, like it or not. You have a choice to stop the story at any point you want, but asking for your toon to not be in the story AND for you to be able to access the story's playable content really is unworkable. This is a game with story progression and not one that is just areas to grind.

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.

"My neighbor's toilet stopped working so I might as well not get one because if it breaks, tough cookies."

Options presented in a game shouldn't be compared to a single player game's version of continuation and carrying over choices. MMO's are meant to give a platform for content to expand upon and in this game, that already encompasses whatever boxes your character has checked to and up with their outcomes.

"My neighbor's toilet stopped working so I might as well not get one because if it breaks, tough cookies."

 

Options presented in a game shouldn't be compared to a single player game's version of continuation and carrying over choices. MMO's are meant to give a platform for content to expand upon and in this game, that already encompasses whatever boxes your character has checked to and up with their outcomes.

I'm not sure I follow; but I compressed my argument a tad as well.

I did a bit more research into the ME tools available, and it looks like the biggest difference is that for the jump from ME1 to ME2, the "character import" was originally done by a "checkbox" system rather than by directly importing saves, so the capability was built in from the beginning. This was not the case for SWTOR. Designed from the beginning makes things way easier than bolt on afterwards.

But my particular point the support options is that "messing with character database flags" is an inherently risky business. In a single-player "buy once and done" game, you can simply say "this is not supported behavior, if it breaks, you're on your own." In SWTOR, which is an MMO with a subscription, they can't get away with telling someone "oh, your character is boned start over."

FInal note, as to the fragility of the character flags database in SWTOR. I was shipping stuff around last night because I just started up a new character, and almost every item (including stuff crafted by my characters or others, and CM items) got that silly "are you sure you want to mail this, it might prevent trading between eligible characters" pop-up you get now. This is an indication that the devs don't really trust the flags database any more; even for something so trivial as "is this an item that came from group activity and the bind timer hasn't expired." There's other minor bugs you can trip over from time to time that indicate the flags database is not in as good a shape as it ought to be. The one that stares me in the face on every character I've started KotFE with is the "unavailable companions" section that lists Treek; even though there's another perfectly good copy up in my Other Companions section. Usually there's a couple others, but Treek is always there.

They chose not to do an interface for the Token 60s when they were developed, going back and doing so now would be fraught with danger.

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.

We get it, you hate KOTFE/KOTET. But as others have pointed out there are very quick and simple workarounds for that. As for ruining companions and their personalities this one I have to address. While SOR and RotHC have companion dialogue triggered in specific spots, they're still silent through most of the content after vanilla. I mean for crying out loud you can have Lord Scourge up and he won't say anything about Revan, or Revan reacting to him. So fact of the matter is companion interaction with KOTFE and its Alliance Alerts could've been better but it's more than we ever got in years.

But my particular point the support options is that "messing with character database flags" is an inherently risky business. In a single-player "buy once and done" game, you can simply say "this is not supported behavior, if it breaks, you're on your own." In SWTOR, which is an MMO with a subscription, they can't get away with telling someone "oh, your character is boned start over."

First of all

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.

And second of all, theres this thing called Customer Support if you manage to bone yourself regardless.

Weird crap happens all the time in swtor that can bug your character one way or another, how do you think anyone has survived this far if nothing would ever be fixable "because it's mmo"

SNIP SNIP.

You can't do Iokath without ruining your companions menu. End of story. The rest I knew already before you thought you explained it with your wisdom.

So, if I were to use my ship's terminal to start Fractured Alliances without having started KotFE, how does that work? (If these questions have already been answered, I apologize for not reading the whole thread )

Do I lose my original companions and get the FE/ET companions instead? If I get to keep my originals, are they the real originals with area barks or the mute pod person versions? If I don't get the FE/ET companions, how are scenes that require those companions handled?

Does starting Fractured Alliances from the terminal without playing through FE/ET block earlier content like starting FE from the terminal does? For example, if I do Fractured Alliances and Corso's alert, but I hadn't finished Corso's companion conversations, can I go back and finish up those conversations? Can I go back and do SoR?

Are FE/ET assigned choices based on faction or alignment? For example, would my light side Sith have access to Arcann's alert since they are light side, or does the game assume that he was killed since they are Imperial and the tokens assume all Imperials are dark side?

Can I go back and start KotFE from the terminal if I so choose, and if so how does that affect the choices I made in Fractured Alliances? For example, if I chose to romance Arcann during Fractured Alliances and then I go back to start KotFE and choose to kill him, is he going to be dead or alive in future content?

So, if I were to use my ship's terminal to start Fractured Alliances without having started KotFE, how does that work? (If these questions have already been answered, I apologize for not reading the whole thread )

 

Do I lose my original companions and get the FE/ET companions instead? If I get to keep my originals, are they the real originals with area barks or the mute pod person versions? If I don't get the FE/ET companions, how are scenes that require those companions handled?

From what I know. Yeah. But as others have said you can just accept KOTET chapter 1, do Yuun's Alliance alert "to find a findsman" then you'll be able to get the other alliance alerts for your companions (in case those haven't returned you can always use the Odessen terminal). Not sure on that one. I'm pretty sure the game just takes the default state and rolls with it for your playthrough.

Does starting Fractured Alliances from the terminal without playing through FE/ET block earlier content like starting FE from the terminal does? For example, if I do Fractured Alliances and Corso's alert, but I hadn't finished Corso's companion conversations, can I go back and finish up those conversations? Can I go back and do SoR?

No, you can still go through KOTFE/KOTET and even previous expansions normally. I am not so sure about vanilla game however, you might want to finish those conversations just in case.

Are FE/ET assigned choices based on faction or alignment? For example, would my light side Sith have access to Arcann's alert since they are light side, or does the game assume that he was killed since they are Imperial and the tokens assume all Imperials are dark side?

Pretty sure it is based on faction, but I could be wrong. For my Imperial token characters at least I got DS and I assume Iokath would follow a similar instance, if someone else can share more light into this issue please do.

Can I go back and start KotFE from the terminal if I so choose, and if so how does that affect the choices I made in Fractured Alliances? For example, if I chose to romance Arcann during Fractured Alliances and then I go back to start KotFE and choose to kill him, is he going to be dead or alive in future content?

I am not sure at all, I really don't know. I would assume the game would take your first run of KOTET as the "canonical" one, but I really don't know for sure.

If I don't get the FE/ET companions, how are scenes that require those companions handled?

Someone else posted about this but in another thread. If you do Fractured Alliances without KOTFE/ET, apparently you will get whatever KOTFE companion you need for each segment (so Theron on Iokath; Lana for Umbara, etc.) but you will not keep them after that content.

You'll earn the companions from Iokath and Copero though, as normal.

ETA: And it seems that the Alliance Alerts post-KOTET, including Arcann's romance, don't trigger unless you finish KOTET, so you probably can't get those.

Does starting Fractured Alliances from the terminal without playing through FE/ET block earlier content like starting FE from the terminal does? For example, if I do Fractured Alliances and Corso's alert, but I hadn't finished Corso's companion conversations, can I go back and finish up those conversations? Can I go back and do SoR?

SoR I don't know about, but someone else said it didn't block them from FE/ET. But I'd still reconfirm that before sending a character to FA if there is any chance I might want to do KOTFE/ET later.

First of all

 

And second of all, theres this thing called Customer Support if you manage to bone yourself regardless.

Weird crap happens all the time in swtor that can bug your character one way or another, how do you think anyone has survived this far if nothing would ever be fixable "because it's mmo"

A) Customer service costs them a LOT of money for each call

And b) they couldn't do a darn thing about my character with two copies of the ship droid.

Game flag databases, in particular this one, are NOT simple; and we've had more than ample evidence that this one in particular has some nasty unpredictable behavior in it.

Could it be done? I didn't say no. I said it can't be economically done.

People the game already has problems with small updates. There are always bugs. Now think about what happens if you can set the flags arbitrarily. I'm really scared that my notes will be deleted because of the crap.

To be obnoxious - this^^

A) Customer service costs them a LOT of money for each call

 

And b) they couldn't do a darn thing about my character with two copies of the ship droid.

 

Game flag databases, in particular this one, are NOT simple; and we've had more than ample evidence that this one in particular has some nasty unpredictable behavior in it.

 

Could it be done? I didn't say no. I said it can't be economically done.

You seem to have very little knowledge on how Customer Service or game engines work based on the few posts you have made recently. Excuse me if I don't trust your expertise.

If I as a coder hobbyist can make a list like this and have it work in Unity alongside the game, I'm pretty sure they can do that with professionals with far greater knowledge than me lol.

Or maybe we should stop making any kind of game-updates so we don't get any bugs! That solves all bug problems!

You seem to have very little knowledge on how Customer Service or game engines work based on the few posts you have made recently. Excuse me if I don't trust your expertise.

If I as a coder hobbyist can make a list like this and have it work in Unity alongside the game, I'm pretty sure they can do that with professionals with far greater knowledge than me lol.

 

Or maybe we should stop making any kind of game-updates so we don't get any bugs! That solves all bug problems!

They pay me approximately $10 a year or so (I forget the exact amount since I did the math) because I use a 2FA token on my account.

I'm in technical customer service, and I'm not cheap to pay (well, I wasn't when I was answering calls and I became more expensive when I was the guy that fixes the tickets the front-line reps put in; I'm even more expensive when my job is "don't make the customer make the call in the first place" as a systems engineer). Reducing the number of people who call in to those front-line techs before they call in is my #1 job today. (Not that it matters, but I worked on an MMO a long time ago. It failed to launch, and I was doing "zone development" not engine programming, so it's not very relevant to the SWTOR experience.)

Coding a hobby game in Unity when you are the only one working on it and nobody else ever has is indeed a trivial exercise. It's also not what the topic at hand is.

It can be done. It's also nastily harder than it looks (especially if you're comparing it to a Unity hobby project), and will benefit a fraction of the player base at the potential cost of breaking everyone's experience.

Better for them to direct their resources to new projects.

(I've been very wrong about studio priorities before, though. Look through my posting history and I swore up and down they'd never put in difficulty sliders for story content - then they did for Chapters. I could weasel out and say "but they didn't for Vanilla Content, this was developed alongside the major changes in 4.x" but they still did it when I didn't think they would. So I too am mortal.)

They pay me approximately $10 a year or so (I forget the exact amount since I did the math) because I use a 2FA token on my account.

 

I'm in technical customer service, and I'm not cheap to pay (well, I wasn't when I was answering calls and I became more expensive when I was the guy that fixes the tickets the front-line reps put in; I'm even more expensive when my job is "don't make the customer make the call in the first place" as a systems engineer). Reducing the number of people who call in to those front-line techs before they call in is my #1 job today. (Not that it matters, but I worked on an MMO a long time ago. It failed to launch, and I was doing "zone development" not engine programming, so it's not very relevant to the SWTOR experience.)

 

Coding a hobby game in Unity when you are the only one working on it and nobody else ever has is indeed a trivial exercise. It's also not what the topic at hand is.

 

It can be done. It's also nastily harder than it looks (especially if you're comparing it to a Unity hobby project), and will benefit a fraction of the player base at the potential cost of breaking everyone's experience.

Heh, you know, when you have a long game and you need to playtest it you have a cheat sheet or type in series of flags by hand to playtest features later in game so you don't need to play the whole thing with specific met criterias to try check if the functionality works proper over and over, so they propably have a bunch in place already... If swtor team dont use these for whatever reason they're making playtesting harder on themselves than it should be for no reason. If you've ever done any modding doing this is common place there too. If you ever looked at the modding tools for DA it doesn't take long to see how the flag system is set up an write up or edit a gamestate for yourself, and DA certainly is bigger and has more flags than my "little unity hobbies"

But you should know that since you have worked on games before

Nobody is arguing stuff should work so you shouldn't need customer support, lol. That's kinda obvious.

I dont know what kind of customer support you work in but in my country they get a pretty normal pay comparable to other desk jobs. You don't even need to call CM in this game, you'll leave a note and they'll get to it when they get to it. There is a phone number if you're really desperate though, I've heard like one person actually use the call service before.

Better for them to direct their resources to new projects.

Aaand there we have it. "Actually I just don't want them spending resources on this thing", should have said that in the first place and leave the "I'm an expert" speech aside.

Back end tools on a test server for the use of playtesting are not going to be suitable for exposing to the customer base; at least some of whom will be looking to use them maliciously.

I'd be a lot less negative on the whole idea if we didn't already know the flags database is complex and prone to bugs; or if any kind of customer-facing tool for this was built in from the beginning (as it apparently was for ME2).

Back end tools on a test server for the use of playtesting are not going to be suitable for exposing to the customer base; at least some of whom will be looking to use them maliciously.

 

I'd be a lot less negative on the whole idea if we didn't already know the flags database is complex and prone to bugs; or if any kind of customer-facing tool for this was built in from the beginning (as it apparently was for ME2).

Yeah well nobody is suggesting ripping dev tools as is and have users make their own game-states from scratch with an external modding tool. That's gonna end in catastrophe. Duh.

If you're doing a gamesave edit by yourself with external tools you can enable all kinds of flags and have everything conflict and make weird stuff happen as much as you want. Nobody thinks putting that in swtor is a good idea. Nobody.

Like I said several posts ago it would need to have proper checks made by devs to make sure conflicting flags cant be chosen. Hence plain checkmark sheet would be the simplest.

Yeah well nobody is suggesting ripping dev tools as is and have users make their own game-states from scratch with an external modding tool. That's gonna end in catastrophe. Duh.

 

If you're doing a gamesave edit by yourself with external tools you can enable all kinds of flags and have everything conflict and make weird stuff happen as much as you want. Nobody thinks putting that in swtor is a good idea. Nobody.

 

Like I said several posts ago it would need to have proper checks made by devs to make sure conflicting flags cant be chosen. Hence plain checkmark sheet would be the simplest.

It still has to make the changes on the back end - a horrible mess of interlocking dependencies. If this was a clean-sheet design, no problem. Approaching a decade of overlapping design decisions and layers of cruft that was never designed in from the beginning, and is provably fragile?

Not worth the effort.

It still has to make the changes on the back end - a horrible mess of interlocking dependencies. If this was a clean-sheet design, no problem. Approaching a decade of overlapping design decisions and layers of cruft that was never designed in from the beginning, and is provably fragile?

 

Not worth the effort.

"they still need to make changes on back end", who said it would require no work!? You just don't want them to work on this one feature. Otherwise all and any future changes requiring system tweaking "wouldn't be worth the effort". Gosh.

Not worth the effort for you maybe if you don't do anything with it. Like strongholds are not worth the effort for me because I'm not interested. But not for anyone? gimme a break.

**Cough**

With the fall expansion coming, just putting this back out there again.

**Cough**

 

With the fall expansion coming, just putting this back out there again.

I still haven't (and won't) finish KOTET, so ofc I'd love the option to tapestry skip these expansion stories.

TBH, I just want a light/dark option for each story. It's not like there's any other differences. Maybe Loyalist vs Traitor? Idk.

I like to skip as much as possible but still romance some characters. Can someone please confirm or comment on if it will work like I describe it?

Arcann romance

If I want to romance Arcann I can skip Kotfe but I have to play everything from Kotet until Ossus?

Theron/Lana romance

If I want to romance Theron or Lana I would play Kotfe chapter 1-9 for the romance login. Correct me if I am wrong but I think I read somewhere that skipping to Kotet would cancel the romance?

Can I jump from Kotfe chapter 9 to Iokath and play the flashpoints (Copero/Umbara/Nathema) with the story cutscenes? I know that I can play the flashpoints anyway but I am asking for the story parts of the flashpoints like e.g. marrying Theron/Lana at the end.

Elara/Quinn romance

For Elara/Quinn I would skip Kotfe and maybe just play or start Kotet chapter 1 to get Ossus unlocked and then go straight to Iokath. Can I skip from Iokath to Ossus or do I have to play after Iokath the flashpoints (provided that they have the story cutscenes if I skip Kotfe/Kotet)?

Thank you!

I like to skip as much as possible but still romance some characters. Can someone please confirm or comment on if it will work like I describe it?

 

Arcann romance

If I want to romance Arcann I can skip Kotfe but I have to play everything from Kotet until Ossus?

 

Theron/Lana romance

If I want to romance Theron or Lana I would play Kotfe chapter 1-9 for the romance login. Correct me if I am wrong but I think I read somewhere that skipping to Kotet would cancel the romance?

 

Can I jump from Kotfe chapter 9 to Iokath and play the flashpoints (Copero/Umbara/Nathema) with the story cutscenes? I know that I can play the flashpoints anyway but I am asking for the story parts of the flashpoints like e.g. marrying Theron/Lana at the end.

 

Elara/Quinn romance

For Elara/Quinn I would skip Kotfe and maybe just play or start Kotet chapter 1 to get Ossus unlocked and then go straight to Iokath. Can I skip from Iokath to Ossus or do I have to play after Iokath the flashpoints (provided that they have the story cutscenes if I skip Kotfe/Kotet)?

 

Thank you!

The alert mission for the Arcann romance appears after KOTET I believe. If you skip to Ossus it'll assume you did the dialog but didn't romance him.

Chapter 9 of KOTFE for the Lana and Theron romance but if you skip to Ossus you'll miss out on the marriage option for Lana and Theron.

Edit: If you do the Traitor Arc after completing KOTFE Chapter 9 it might work but I'm not sure on this.

Again if you skip to Ossus you'll miss the chance to romance Quinn and Dorna. That said with these two you can start right at Iokath in the 'Fractured Alliance' mission on your ships terminal.

The alert mission for the Arcann romance appears after KOTET I believe. If you skip to Ossus it'll assume you did the dialog but didn't romance him.

 

Chapter 9 of KOTFE for the Lana and Theron romance but if you skip to Ossus you'll miss out on the marriage option for Lana and Theron.

 

Edit: If you do the Traitor Arc after completing KOTFE Chapter 9 it might work but I'm not sure on this.

 

Again if you skip to Ossus you'll miss the chance to romance Quinn and Dorna. That said with these two you can start right at Iokath in the 'Fractured Alliance' mission on your ships terminal.

Thank you - yes Ossus autocompletes Arcans alert so I am rather sure I have to do Kotet and then Iokath. Not sure if the flashpoints are needed but it is not a big deal to do them.

I am currently playing a character where I skip Kotet and do directly Iokath. So far in Iokath my Theron romance is recognized and still intact.

You probably do not want to understand.

You are welcome to skip everything.

Then live with the final decisions that the system automatically makes for you.

If you already have tens of thousands of chars, it should not really matter.

For laziness you should not be rewarded. Since I do not care how many chars have been pulled through by Kotfe / kotet.

I already got 18 through and? If I want a story where I want to make my own decisions, I play them another 18 times.

It's not about laziness, it's about a bad story trope. It's about lazy writing where the devs didn't write a story that encompassed all classes. They wrote a story for force users, JK, JC, SW and SI. Who are the lazy ones here? The story was for force users and if you can't understand that, well that's on you.