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Questions About The Quality Of The Story After The Class And Faction Stories


Notoriouser

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Are the DLCs as boring as everyone claims.? I've had numerous people claim the writing really goes down hill after the core stories. I really find it hard to doubt as Bioware has undeniably lost it's saving grace, it's writing and character creation since this games original stories was created in 2010ish. We can see this from their recent single player releases. Also I have to assume that the budget is not as healthy as it once was, as EA is funding it and they do NOTHING out of passion, and I don't think this game has overall lived up to their undoubtedly lofty expectations.

 

I find it hard to convince myself to progress past Illum due to the fear that stories i have came to love will be **** all over by the shambling corpse that is Bioware these days. the countless post I've found with people confirming my suspicions and the only detractors falling into what seems like fanboyism haven't helped. I'm asking for people that have played them both to give me an honest assessment of how the DLC stories hold up to the core stories.

 

If you can these particular points.

 

- Are Vaylin and Arcann as much of mary sues as I've heard?

 

- Are the stories really as lazy as I've heard? I know that the stories have factually less class and faction specific content, but how far does the degradation reach?

 

- Do they ever fix the utter laziness that is the light saber combat in the cut scenes? I love my Sith Assassin but when I see him impale himself with the bottom of his saber staff it hurt me inside. That's a relatively small issue, but irritates me to no end.

 

Thank you.

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Suck it and see. Really. All you'll get here is a glimpse of people's biases and opinions, whereas what *you* want is an assessment of *your* opinion, because ultimately, for you, that should be the only one that matters.

 

Regarding when stuff was written:

* Makeb (follows Ilum) was *released* in 2013. It is two quite different stories, one for Imps, one for Pubs, and the writing was probably roughly finalised in mid-2012.

* The story around 3.0 (Shadow of Revan) was released at various points in 2014, so written in 2013, most likely. It is one main story, told slightly differently in the earlier parts, with a shortish class-specific segment that ties back in to the class story.

* The first part of Knights of the Fallen Empire was released in late 2015, so written late in 2014, early in 2015, most likely. The story is roughly the same for everyone, but (like all the other story outside the class stories, contains references to your class story and/or class.

* The rest were written after that, except that the KotFE/ET story was damaged by changes in plan after the first parts of KotFE were released.

 

Mary Sues? No, not really. (Arcann is a guy, and would therefore more properly be a Marty Stu, if he *was* that type of character.) The origins of the term are in Star Trek fanfic, and it usually refers to unrealistically capable protagonists rather than Big Bad type antagonists like Arcann and Vaylin. They are just over-powered enemies.

 

Laziness? Again, no. It's more "constrained by budget" combined with damage from a big huge change of plans.

 

Cut-scene laziness? Sort of, and sort of not. The ways people hold dualsabres in particular are much better, with far, far less of the "two-handed grip pointing up and forward, with the second blade pointed down and back between the wielder's legs" thing. That one always makes my ... er ... man-parts, if you get my drift, uneasy. Still only the mainhand for dual-wielders, and Troopers and Agents still threaten people with the Magic Invisible Service Pistol.

 

That said, at one point Arcann channels Darth Lachris in the finale of the Consular story on Balmorra, with a specific move that it the only move I've seen in *all* the Star Wars media I've seen that seems to fit what lightsabres actually should be - a blade with essentially *no* mass, but one that cuts in all directions and as a result can be moved freely in any direction and turned any way you like to cut or block or whatever. Epic move.

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The class stories, Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan expansions are amazing and epic storytelling. Especially the epilogue of Shadow of Revan (the story on Ziost) is simply phenomenal, so you should definitely play all the content up until Knights of the Fallen Empire.

 

Personally, I absolutely hate Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne. The story setting breaks with everything that was going on at that point, we are thrown in this family drama that I absolutely did not care a single moment about and we are cut off from our class identities and original factions in a railroad story experience, which has no variation or difference between the various playthroughs. In short, skip KotFE and KotET.

 

However, from the Iokath story update forwards, things are getting better. The Traitor arc (which is Iokath, the Umbara FP, the Copero FP and Nathema FP) is an interesting story that starts to go in the right direction again, as to what SWTOR used to be. Then we get Jedi Under Siege which is simply epic. The story on Ossus is exactly what we used to get with the class stories and what the core of the game's story has always been about. The Onslaught expansion manages to continue and carry on the epicness of Jedi Under Siege and brings the story back to where it was supposed to be.

 

So, in short: after the class stories play Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan. Skip Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne and start either with Iokath or Jedi Under Siege.

Edited by Ylliarus
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The type of stuff Arcann does are worth watching and playing through at least once. I don't know why anyone would skip something they haven't experienced at least once before. That said, the pacing and some plot elements can make the experience of the eternal throne expansions feel disappointing but the potential of the expansion and it's characters and plot is pretty good I'd say. It starts off strong in my opinion but can lose you as it progresses. Still, you would want to see it through once you've started. There is no enemy in the game quite like Arcann.
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There is no enemy in the game quite like Arcann.

 

Ahem... Vitiate...

 

With all due respect, Arcann is a boring villain. There is nothing remotely interesting about him, other than that he is a capricious child that bombs planets when he doesn't get what he want. It's the standard type of big bad villain that has no interesting motivation other than to rule everything with fear. We have seen that an infinite number of times.

 

The best villain in the game is Vitiate, but pre-KotFE. His Valkorion persona is not as intriguing or scary. Yet Vitiate during the vanilla game, Shadow of Revan and Ziost? Now that is some quality storytelling right there. Vitiate is enigmatic, frightening and has motivations that surpass normal human understanding. He is ancient, powerful and unknowable. What mortal can hope to figure out why Vitiate does what he does? What is going on in the mind of such a powerful entity?

 

No, Arcann is nothing compared to Vitiate. Arcann doesn't even begin to compare to Vitiate as a villain.

Edited by Ylliarus
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Ahem... Vitiate...

 

With all due respect, Arcann is a boring villain. There is nothing remotely interesting about him, other than that he is a capricious child that bombs planets when he doesn't get what he want. It's the standard type of big bad villain that has no interesting motivation other than to rule everything with fear. We have seen that an infinite number of times.

 

The best villain in the game is Vitiate, but pre-KotFE. His Valkorion persona is not as intriguing or scary. Yet Vitiate during the vanilla game, Shadow of Revan and Ziost? Now that is some quality storytelling right there. Vitiate is enigmatic, frightening and has motivations that surpass normal human understanding. He is ancient, powerful and unknowable. What mortal can hope to figure out why Vitiate does what he does? What is going on in the mind of such a powerful entity?

 

No, Arcann is nothing compared to Vitiate. Arcann doesn't even begin to compare to Vitiate as a villain.

 

I'm not suggesting Arcann is a better villain, I just prefer lightsabers over sorcery. Vitiate is pretty much the same as any other with emperor in that he's heavy into sorcery and that can get boring too. Arcann provides a fresh nemesis but yes, his behavior can be annoying at times.

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  • 3 months later...

Everything about Kotfe/Kote is trash, but there's a certain icky charm to it for the first character you drag through it.

 

Everything before that is pretty good, and Ossus/Onslaught is great too...some of the best storytelling since the class stories...once you get past the 'But Muh Alliance!' residue. Just be prepared to get called Outlander or Commander by everyone, forever and forever.

 

I wish they would've just kept calling Sith 'lord' and Jedis 'master', and the non-Force users could be the Commander or whatever. The only character for whom the title ever felt appropriate was a smuggler.

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IMO when the Emperor devoured Ziost was when the story ended. All the main characters died during the evacuation.

 

everything after that point is just a fever dream that makes no sense whatsoever.

 

now if we had killed the Emperor for good on Ziost and jumped into Onlsaught soon after we'd be golden story-wise.

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Why not... play them and decide for yourself? People have different opinions. What I can state tho is the following:

 

KOTFE/KOTEET at the very least tried something new and fresh. You may hate it, but at least that arc had a lot of new stuff going on, some ambition and scope. With Onslaught - prepare for a very short, banal, unimaginative rehash of Imp vs Rep and Malgus. Bioware took criticism of KOTFEET as a sign to play as safe as possible.

Edited by Pietrastor
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I really have nothing negative to say about the new stories, I like them all. Would be cool to see like new class specific stories that weren't done in like 10 mins though. Would also love to see more stories/quests for different companions, that would be really cool.
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  • 5 weeks later...

Myself, I am playing through it all, but I get a syrupy feeling as soon as I reach the end of KOTFE, when having to do the Alliance Alerts and the Star fortress assaults. When I reach that place, the progression basically comes to an halt, and only after a gazilion rounds of Flashpoints do I feel my equipment be good enough to continue the progression.

KOTET, I find okayish, albeit I am usually lost when it comes to the storytelling. I play, but I have no idea why I really am on the various planets and places. I sort of just want to get through with it, so I can begin on Jedi under Siege and Onslaught, which I find to be a refreshing continuation.

 

I am sooo tired of be called Outlander. Let me embrace the dark forces and reintroduce myself as a Sith Lord.

This weird forced upon 'being nice' to everyone gives me a nasty itch.

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  • 1 month later...

There really isn't a right or wrong answer to this. It depends on what you like and don't like. Personally, while there are elements about KotFE/KotET that I don't like, I actually enjoy them as a whole. I feel like my characters get their own little Star Wars movies. I skip to Ossus with some of my toons, I have many, but I've also played all the story from beginning to end multiple times. I don't hate the Alliance and none of my characters have returned to their original factions.

 

Try it out on a character and see if you like it. I have found that I enjoy it more on certain characters than I do others, but again, that's just me.

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