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Why is the JC story bashed? (Unhidden Spoilers)


Master-Nala

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I'm closing in on finishing all the class stories. As you can see in my signature, I have two consulars and I find myself constantly perplexed at what people thought was so wrong with it. I'm interested in hearing opinions about what folks didn't like, more than just "it was boring".

 

ACT I for every single class has you doing four of the same things on each planet. The JC is searching out 4 sick masters. The JK is searching for 4 superweapons the Republic lost. The Trooper is seeking 4 traitors, and the Smuggler is delivering 4 pieces of exotic cargo.

 

On the Imp side, the SI is searching for 4 pieces of a ritual, the BH is taking down 4 bounties in the contest, the SW is searching out clues for the identity/location of padawan Jaesa Willsaam. And finally, the IA is breaking up 4 terrorist cells.

 

That's the overall structure, but it is within that structure that the differences like. The Jedi Consular often isn't even particularly focused on the Master at issue, but more on cleaning up their messes. Which IMO gives it a feel of 4 different stories. I feel the same about other classes. I think Act I drags on too long for all classes, but I don't feel like the JC story is any better or worse in that regard.

 

As we move into Act II, the JC story picks up considerably. On Balmorra, your character effectively frees Balmorra from Darth Lachris and your character is the one that gets to send her to the great Sith retirement home in the sky. Likewise on Hoth, your character is very intertwined with the story of the planet. Going into Act III, while unraveling the mystery of the Children of the Emperor, you manage to learn the most about the Esh-Ka of any class other than the SI, you effectively get to take a Voss Mystic as an Apprentice, and you save the Jedi order and Republic from Sith inflitrators.

Edited by Master-Nala
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From reading some of the comments in the past, I get the impression that a lot of them don't go past chapter 1 so all I hear is "derp space aids, why space aids?"

 

I honestly really liked the JC story, and it certainly hasn't been my least favorite so far. But it's also true that it's all somewhat subjective, some will love one story and others will hate it. Look movie reviews.

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I don't know. I can sooort-of see why people would see the consular story as 'less exciting', however I thought the story was awesome, especially if not played as a first story. for example when you have already played the jedi knight or the sith classes - you will get a lot of 'ah HA!' moments (then again the same would be the case if you played the other classes afterwards, obviously)

 

I really liked that. especially the four force-stories are all linked together, which definitely adds to it.

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I've only done chapter 1 as a Consular so far (on account of accidentally deleting the character and CS not being able to restore anymore), but honestly, based just on that, it's actually one of my favorites. The mystery around the illness, and, as mentioned above, the stories centered around the individual investigations, were all pretty interesting. It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely one of the more compelling stories. From what I've heard, it only gets better, so I suspect that once I do finish, it'll probably be my favorite of them all at this rate.
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I have only played a JC through Act I of the story, so I freely admit to not having the full picture but I do have some thoughts about this.

 

The JC storyline, at least in Act I, is about sacrifice. Your character gives up their own strength and power to shield others and is "weaker" as a result. A lot of players don't want or like that; they want to be the strongest they can be. A lot of them, and I'm going to be biased here and say that this is particularly true of those who play Sith for the most part, do not understand the idea of sacrificing for another. They'd just want to kill the infected Masters and show how bad *** awesome they are. It challenges the typical MMO approach/story of getting to be uber-strong and just smashing your way through whatever the danger is. At least for most of it, the threat is one you can't fight directly and that turns off a lot of people too.

 

There's also an aspect of redemption; the corrupted masters have done some bad things and many players feel they should be "punishing" them (back to the killing thing above) rather than healing them.

 

I may be off on that, but that's what I've taken away from people talking about this in General or even in other parts of the forums.

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From what I understand, Act 1 and part of Act 2 is really, really slow going. It doesn't start to pick up until later when things get more interesting. I've played through the story and I can say I enjoyed it. But I have played through all of the Empire storylines and began doing all the Republic ones (Smuggler, Knight, Trooper). Overall the Consular storyline was good. However, in comparison to several of the other stories that I had played, it wasn't the best.
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I'll say right off the bat, I liked Act 1. It was pretty solid. Nothing amazing, but solid. Everything was connected together, and you were unraveling this mystery of what exactly was plaguing the Masters and who was truly Parkarnas.

 

Act 2 and Act 3, however, just fell flat for me. For Act 2, it started off pretty solid. I LOVED Balmora. Such a good story there, and fighting Darth Lacharis (one of my favourite Darths) was epic. But, it didn't really connect with anything else. I didn't see the relevance of going to Quesh, of going to Hoth. There was no build up to the final battle of Act 2. It just felt like a bunch of small stories thrown together with very little attaching them to one another. Sure you got the Rift Alliance as the main motivation, but I never got to know anybody on the Rift Alliance. The same can be said of Act 3. Sure I got the Children of the Emperor now, but going from planet to planet, I just didn't feel the same connection that I felt like with the Imp Agent. With the Imp Agnet, I loved it when I was called back to HQ to talk with Watcher 2 and Keeper. And then the people you meet along the way on your journey: Darth Jadus, Watcher X, Arden Kothe, Hunter, so MANY good NPCs that just made the story come alive Sure, learning about the Esh-Ka and the Voss Mystics was neat, but it just felt meh.

 

Maybe it's because of the companions. Of the four stories I've played through (Trooper, SW, IA, and Con), I felt they were the least impressive. Same for the VA for the male Consular (I only play male PCs). He just kind of grated on me after a while. There's also the fact that I just never connected to the story outside the beginning, and even then I wasn't blown away by Act 1.

Edited by Murillio
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You should note that Quesh is a pretty useless planet. You don't even need to do anything there but your class quest and leave. The entire world is unimportant from a gaming standpoint. Maybe at some point BioWare will expand it and make it a PvP zone. But right now, there's nothing there worth doing that a few PvP matches and some FP's won't do for you already.
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You should note that Quesh is a pretty useless planet. You don't even need to do anything there but your class quest and leave. The entire world is unimportant from a gaming standpoint. Maybe at some point BioWare will expand it and make it a PvP zone. But right now, there's nothing there worth doing that a few PvP matches and some FP's won't do for you already.

 

Uh okay. Not sure if this is directed at me, but if it is, good work at picking out one part of my post and ignoring the rest. I am well aware of it's significance (or rather lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things. Doesn't change the fact that it failed to connect me with the Jedi Consular and the Rift Alliance at all. Imp Agent had a pretty significant role there for his/her class story (will avoid spoilers in case ppl are playing through that part), and the SW had a pretty major changing point in his/her story there as well.

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Uh okay. Not sure if this is directed at me, but if it is, good work at picking out one part of my post and ignoring the rest. I am well aware of it's significance (or rather lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things. Doesn't change the fact that it failed to connect me with the Jedi Consular and the Rift Alliance at all. Imp Agent had a pretty significant role there for his/her class story (will avoid spoilers in case ppl are playing through that part), and the SW had a pretty major changing point in his/her story there as well.

 

The IA and SW had relatively trivial sections in Quesh. It's just that both classes have their Act II finales on Quesh and those are strong. But in the main level range of Quesh, every class has only 1 assignment and then you're off.

 

Quesh for the JC is more about learning that the Rift Alliance isn't playing completely straight with you and you having to deal with that. From a gameplay standpoint, it's a difficult and interesting encounter, but again, I don't see why people fault the JC for something that all other classes deal with.

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Having completed all 8 stories, my personal opinion is that the storyline is alright, but I found it to be the second to last story in terms of how interesting it was. Mind you, I consider it leaps and bounds better than the last place storyline, which I consider to be horribly done(as anyone who has seen one of my SI rants can tell you).

 

As for why I rank it so low? I really can't give any kind of concrete reason for it. I just found it less interesting than the 6 stories that I rank above it. I guess I would say that I consider it competently done, but the other 6 are well done to amazing. To some extent, it just didn't draw me in. For example:

 

 

The whole mystery of Act 1 was silly. Based off of what information the player is given, I think I was able to figure out the one responsible for everything during Coruscant(which is before Act 1 even properly begins). Meanwhile the Jedi Council is unable to figure out the obvious answer after several planets of reports that I have given? I know the guy was believed to be dead, but still. It really took me out of the storyline.

 

 

Then there is the Nadia romance....which is all kinds of hilarious for all the wrong reasons. As for the Rift Alliance, I found myself completely uninterested in them except for the guy from Balmorra(who leaves your ship way too early) and the two you recruit in Act 3. The others were just freaking annoying. Well maybe not Senator Grell, but I didn't care for him either.

 

I guess the bottom line for why it ranks so low is that I just didn't care about a lot of what was going on for one reason or another.

 

However I was playing a LS JC. I have heard that the storyline feels considerably worse if you play a DS JC. My understanding is that the game doesn't really react when the JC makes DS. You geefully kill off multiple masters of the Jedi order? Oh well, they weren't important anyways. So that disconnect may be part of why some people dislike the story so much.

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I admit all the weakness in the JC story was disappointing to me. Would've been cool if she would've gained more shielding ability and less weakness as she progressed through the story. Sort of a fight for light over the darkness, in the end shielding wouldn't weaken her at all. I really love the shadow, she's great to play. The romance with Iresso is kind of depressing too. Consulars need more funny breaks that makes me glad to play. Maybe some funny mishaps for Qyzon. Theron has some good moments.

 

Chapter 2 was a huge shift. The one where all these people turn up on my space ship. She went from healer to negotiator. It was ok. But not fun.

 

The romance with Torian on my BH was fun and sweet. Nice work on keeping it G rated. Haven't gotten very far on my inquisitors but will be fun to go through their story.

 

I'm still debating if I want to do a sage... because of the storyline.

Edited by Desri
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Technically, if you try to look on story with distance, it isnt so bad. You seeking knowledge, cure people, then you became something like jedi lord (really, this title actually existed in some age), who creating own forces by helping allies, make own "army of light".

But companions and even JC story npc pushing every good ideas back. It looks like writers was tired from other storylines. Only good companions are IMO Zenith and Holiday, of course :cool: Nadia is like spoiled 13-year old girl, but not so much worse than Ashara. Rest of them are just boring, and that lizard guy is probably worst - creepy, annoying, boring...perhaps only Skadge is worse than him.

Another big problem are little 'details' in storylines, what makes players tired or frustrated. Just start with 1. chapter: its basically just - seek crazy jedi + use power on him/her. thats all. Jedi Knight had at least some fresh sidelines of story, what helped your focus, like truth about Kira in the middle of first part.

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Having completed all 8 stories, my personal opinion is that the storyline is alright, but I found it to be the second to last story in terms of how interesting it was. Mind you, I consider it leaps and bounds better than the last place storyline, which I consider to be horribly done(as anyone who has seen one of my SI rants can tell you).

 

As for why I rank it so low? I really can't give any kind of concrete reason for it. I just found it less interesting than the 6 stories that I rank above it. I guess I would say that I consider it competently done, but the other 6 are well done to amazing. To some extent, it just didn't draw me in. For example:

 

 

The whole mystery of Act 1 was silly. Based off of what information the player is given, I think I was able to figure out the one responsible for everything during Coruscant(which is before Act 1 even properly begins). Meanwhile the Jedi Council is unable to figure out the obvious answer after several planets of reports that I have given? I know the guy was believed to be dead, but still. It really took me out of the storyline.

 

As to the information in your spoiler:

 

 

Parkanas isn't even mentioned and as far as we know the progenitor of the plague has been dead for centuries. Sure in hindsight it seems reasonable that a sith spectre was inhabiting another person, but we don't know who that is, nor in any sense why. The real mystery is why these masters and this time. And that's mostly because they left the weakest of their number behind.

 

 

I guess the bottom line for why it ranks so low is that I just didn't care about a lot of what was going on for one reason or another.

 

That's fair, but then I find myself feeling the same about the IA story. I was expecting all sorts of amazing and what I get.... was something less.

 

However I was playing a LS JC. I have heard that the storyline feels considerably worse if you play a DS JC. My understanding is that the game doesn't really react when the JC makes DS. You geefully kill off multiple masters of the Jedi order? Oh well, they weren't important anyways. So that disconnect may be part of why some people dislike the story so much.

 

I don't find that to be a particularly compelling critique either. All the masters have done terrible things. Half of them ask you to kill them. Yoda wanted Obi-Wan to kill Anakin, and when he wimped out, he wanted Luke to do it. It's not necessarily problematic to kill the masters. It's just not the best outcome.

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I have only played a JC through Act I of the story, so I freely admit to not having the full picture but I do have some thoughts about this.

 

The JC storyline, at least in Act I, is about sacrifice. Your character gives up their own strength and power to shield others and is "weaker" as a result. A lot of players don't want or like that; they want to be the strongest they can be. A lot of them, and I'm going to be biased here and say that this is particularly true of those who play Sith for the most part, do not understand the idea of sacrificing for another. They'd just want to kill the infected Masters and show how bad *** awesome they are. It challenges the typical MMO approach/story of getting to be uber-strong and just smashing your way through whatever the danger is. At least for most of it, the threat is one you can't fight directly and that turns off a lot of people too.

 

There's also an aspect of redemption; the corrupted masters have done some bad things and many players feel they should be "punishing" them (back to the killing thing above) rather than healing them.

 

I may be off on that, but that's what I've taken away from people talking about this in General or even in other parts of the forums.

 

QFT. Especially if you are a Shadow and playing your character as a type of Jedi Order enforcer, having the story force you into a healer self sacrificing diplomat can be off putting, not to mention the story just doesn't feel as epic.

 

And for me it wasn't that I wanted to just smash everything as more playing a Shadow which I saw as more a role within the order to carry out some of the secret and dark missions and thus I didn't feel the idea of being some talk it through diplomat healing others type fit my character.

 

Kind of the same reason I get sick of not finding pants to wear on the light armor force user classes. We aren't all playing these to be some behind the lines healer in a dress.

Edited by DawnAskham
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I agree Dawn. The shadow is an awesome character to play. It was sad to have to take a position that didn't go with the rest of the SW story or really support her design. It's not just smash everything in sight, it's being strong for the weak, not weak for the strong. It just came out strange in the game. The smuggler, trooper, and knight stories make a lot of sense. The smuggler story had me laughing in places.

 

In the intro movie Satielle (sp?) is a shadow turning a fight into victory for the jedi. She tosses the bad guy against a rock, throws a boulder and then uses the double-sided lightsaber. It's very inspiring for the consulars.

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I like the JC story alright, but there are some pretty obvious weaknesses.

 

I think the main one is that while the Act I of all the classes are repetitive, the JC is the worst offender. Sure, everyone has the same general thing, and each planet has a twist and fallout to deal with, and usually ends with a big moral, character-defining decision. For the JC, that big decision is always the same - to shield or to kill. Moral decisions help me color my characters - give them nuances that make them more interesting. So not only is the story more boring because you're always being confronted by the exact same decision, your character is more boring as well.

 

You could say that the BH, like the consular, is confronted by similar decisions a lot - whether to kill their rivals/bounties or not. And while the literal decision is the same, the circumstances never are. Some of your enemies are jerks, some are comical, some are nice. So while my decision-type was pretty consistent, my decisions weren't and my character gained that nuance that I enjoy. For the JC every decision involves an innocent victim and the decision to self-sacrifice - so what you decide to do with the first Jedi master is what you'll do for the next, and the next, etc.

 

Further, while I didn't play a DS JC, the motivations behind playing one are pretty much limited to comical evil insanity. Not saying it's bad to play a cartoonishly insane character (my SW is one), but my SW story also lends itself to calculatingly evil, brutal but honorable, etc. Since the JC is consistently handed the exact same moral decision, and the DS version of the choice is EXTREMELY DS, it is difficult in Act I to play a gray or slightly dark JC that makes sense.

 

Also, there being no repercussion for taking the LS choice really detracts from the story IMO. Shielding master after master became a non-choice when I didn't actually have to sacrifice anything, and made a boring decision even MORE boring. I can understand they didn't include any drawbacks in anticipation of a lot of crying, but I think they should have tried. Hell, what you go through on Voss was a great example of a minor drawback they could've used.

 

So while I like my do-gooder Sage, and enjoyed Act II and III well enough, Act I really is poorly written. It's good in concept, and personally I don't think it really starts to get boring until after the 3rd planet or so, when you're practically done. I actually like it better than JK Act I, since while the decision is boring, it felt more Jedi I suppose.

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Yeah that makes sense. It's true the JK has to kill someone in self-defense early on in the game and is pursued for the rest of the chapter which was kind of weird like the BH. I'm still on Belsavis with my Shadow so I don't know what comes next although where i'm at makes me think, "YIkes! Don't do that!" It was repetitive in Chapter 1 for sure.
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I like the JC story alright, but there are some pretty obvious weaknesses.

 

I think the main one is that while the Act I of all the classes are repetitive, the JC is the worst offender. Sure, everyone has the same general thing, and each planet has a twist and fallout to deal with, and usually ends with a big moral, character-defining decision. For the JC, that big decision is always the same - to shield or to kill. Moral decisions help me color my characters - give them nuances that make them more interesting. So not only is the story more boring because you're always being confronted by the exact same decision, your character is more boring as well.

 

I think this encapsulates what I find maddening about this critique of the JC story. In absolutely no case is the decision solely about whether to kill or shield the master. Throughout the JC quests on Taris, Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine and Alderaan, while the ultimate decision is what to do about the master at issue, how you get there can be different. For example, on Alderaan:

 

 

The Light Side story has you fighting an arena style fight with the general to see if he will join the Terals. The DS choice simply kills him and denies the Terals that resource. Later on, you have to decide whether to ignore your benefactors in House Teral for the sake of the planet as a whole. Really, the master on that planet you only see for about 5 minutes.

 

 

That said, everyone is entitled to look at the story differently and I appreciate your comments.

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I didn't mind act 1.

 

But Act two is probably the most disappointing act on the Republic side.

 

I thought the attack on the separatists, aka 'Rift Alliance' was a Republic 'false flag operation', basically attacking people trying to leave and trick them into think the Empire did it, but no it was the Sith, for some reason that I am still not clear they decided to kill rather then send diplomates. I played the Empire Classes first, all of which dealt with the politics of the nation in some way, often very shady, and I thought the JC would do that as well. But it didn't they was no twist no traitors, no one who felt the Republic had let them down once too often, no the spy was the child of the Emperor ( I was playing JK as well so I knew what it was), with some unknown power to conceal itself. It was just a black and white morality piece and got boring very quickly.

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Cool children of the empire! now i have to get my jc alt to 50. I also like that Bastila is in story.

 

This was one of the coolest things I liked about the JC story. You see not only her (Bastila) but also

 

 

Vandar Tokarre, Arca Jeth, Nomi Da Boda (Sunrider right?)

 

 

which is a great reveal in this game! I loved the Consular story and have done it twice already. The only story I've found boring so far is the Trooper. Smuggler story was awesome and right now getting a kick out of my Inquisitor storyline since I just picked up Asharra.

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