...Its as if they're ashamed of the gr8 work their predecessors did with original class an planetary stories, and now they just want us to get instant level 60 new character and do their KOTET over and over again...

I had that feeling, too. Almost as if they understand that pre-KOTFE content is superior to the current content they're able to put out and are trying to sweep anything vanilla under the rug with the character level boosts. I know I felt a big difference, and not in a positive way, from KOTFE Chapters with Alliance Alerts, Uprisings, and Star Fortresses vs. vanilla Class stories, Companion stories/quests, planetary stories, planetary exploration, exploration/side missions, Flashpoints and operations. I don't want to say it's for a lack of trying, because I don't know - it could be a management decision or a budget issue, resource issue, or hell, maybe they just think their content is superior to vanilla and want to give players the option to skip the garbage and get right to it.

...I mean it looks as if Ben, or Eric or the funny bearded guy never touched original class stories since 4.0. They just level synced everything and moved on....

Sometimes, I wonder if they actually touched the original class stories... period. I mean, not even played them. It's the lack of attention to vanilla content as they continue to break parts of it while offering players the option to skip it rather than fix it. Also, it really doesn't help that Malavai Quinn's first name was pronounced, Mah-lah-vee during the last dev stream.

Sometimes, I wonder if they actually touched the original class stories... period. I mean, not even played them. It's the lack of attention to vanilla content as they continue to break parts of it while offering players the option to skip it rather than fix it. Also, it really doesn't help that Malavai Quinn's first name was pronounced, Mah-lah-vee during the last dev stream.

If you didn't mention the Mah-lah-vee thing at the end of your comment I would have. I feel like that slip up needs an explanation. Maybe he was just being facetious.. or maybe he really didn't know how it was pronounced. Which doesn't give me much confidence in our devs ability to write our companions properly.

I'm dying to talk about "something I read on reddit" but can't. Most of what I read was fine but this one little detail stood out, struck me as odd. /sigh It will just have to wait until, well, it's too late basically. *shrug*

 

Sometimes, I wonder if they actually touched the original class stories... period. I mean, not even played them. It's the lack of attention to vanilla content as they continue to break parts of it while offering players the option to skip it rather than fix it. Also, it really doesn't help that Malavai Quinn's first name was pronounced, Mah-lah-vee during the last dev stream.

Meh i put that down to him being Australian or something. They pronounce things weird. Like Megan as MEEEGan and thats an actual real life name.

Meh i put that down to him being Australian or something. They pronounce things weird. Like Megan as MEEEGan and thats an actual real life name.

It just occurred to me that perhaps male warriors who don't romance him may never actually hear the name pronounced out loud. I was complaining to my husband about the ma lah vee thing and he's like "wait how is it pronounced?"

So yeah. Sorry about derailing your thread a little. I'll stop that now.

the 'funny bearded guy' is actually Charles Boyd -his name just slipped my memory yesterday. He wrote the trooper story, so he most probably knows the class and planetary stories very well. But I guess he used to be low in the pecking order when SWTOR started up, and now he's the main writer -it seems he's mega focused on his own work which is KOTFE/KOTET not on the old content.

He is righ on this as this isn't his job actually as the stories stay the same. its the gameplay that's ruined.

Thing is: no one from the current team visits the older content so they do not realize its ****ed up bad right now.

Now they even introduce 2 months of 250% xp boost which will make our characters level 50 on Tatooine -making the gameplay even more easy and tedious than it is now.

KOTET and KOTFE are good stories and I enjoyed them. But because of the fact that we need to play them on at least 2 characters (LS/DS), most probably on 3 characters -I'm fed up with them at the moment. Would gladly go back to original class stories (I do it actually) to go through say smuggler story once again (I did it 3 years ago last time).

The way I play I guess I'm this mythical "story player" whom end/group content enthusiasts seem to disregard so much. Yet I play and sub for this game for more than 4 years now. I'd love to go on and play the way I could. With abandoned original class stories, some bugged cutscenes, changed DS/LS gain and now forced 250% XP boost I'm afraid I'll not be able to.

After they butchered the story content in heroics for the 4.0 Alliance crate grind I gave up any hope of them caring about how they hurt the vanilla game. It's all hurry up and grind until your fingers bleed. I feel sorry for the new players who missed playing it before it was crapped on.

Diplomacy historically being the only crew mission that provided side points...... was not good game mechanics.

 

Most, if not all, crew missions in 5.0 do in fact provide side points consistent with your D/L setting, with some providing a very small number of opposing points in some cases. That IS an improvement in game mechanics, as these produce rapid point yields, and you can generally run a full set of 8 companions on them at one time as well, which means you can rake in thousands of points per hour if you are working the system for raising points.

 

My characters that I run crew missions on for materials were in fact all rank V in dark or light by the end of the first week of 5.0.

Unfortunately the rapid alignment gains don't kick in until much later in a character's existence. By the time a new character reaches Tatooine by focusing on class story they will only be at a level that can craft with 3 companions at a time. Unless the account has access to a bonus companion, they will only have 2 or 3 companions available to them in total (depending on class), so they might only have 1 or 2 companions to craft with. Add to that, the alignment gains scale according to mission tier. The low level tiers that a fresh character would grind on give very few points. About 10-15 for tier 1 if memory serves.

Now, my question is, since it is so much easier to stay neutral, does an inquisitor need to be truly neutral to be Darth Occlus, or just showing as neutral when you hover over the progress bar?

It just occurred to me that perhaps male warriors who don't romance him may never actually hear the name pronounced out loud. I was complaining to my husband about the ma lah vee thing and he's like "wait how is it pronounced?"

I know that during the Class chain on Balmorra, at the very least you hear his full name pronounced by Baras while he's introducing Quinn as your contact, and during your first conversation with Quinn on Balmorra, he introduces himself using his full name.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know that during the Class chain on Balmorra, at the very least you hear his full name pronounced by Baras while he's introducing Quinn as your contact, and during your first conversation with Quinn on Balmorra, he introduces himself using his full name.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So much for that theory, lol. Thank you Edyn~

It just occurred to me that perhaps male warriors who don't romance him may never actually hear the name pronounced out loud. I was complaining to my husband about the ma lah vee thing and he's like "wait how is it pronounced?"

 

So yeah. Sorry about derailing your thread a little. I'll stop that now.

I'm fine with a Quinn derailment in any thread

It's the lack of attention to vanilla content as they continue to break parts of it while offering players the option to skip it rather than fix it.

I feel the same way. The vanilla content is the best content....taking parts of it away or lessening the experience of it is the LAST thing Bioware should be doing. But, they're doing it.

Since the op is mostly talking about alignment for story purposes, does the game differentiate between the levels for story or is rank 1 of either alignment enough?

If it is the case that rank 1 is sufficient then perhaps bioware could lower the cost just for rank 1, if bioware really wanted to keep the max points the the difference could always be added to one of the higher levels wo that the total points needed for rank 5 stay the same overall.

When they rescaled the alignment meter, they should have rescaled the alignment gains for (non-repeatable) conversations. It's dead dumb for your story choices not to matter to your alignment, but your crafting to do so.

Possibly also give bonuses for the first run-though of repeatable content.

Since the op is mostly talking about alignment for story purposes, does the game differentiate between the levels for story or is rank 1 of either alignment enough?.

In the cases I've encountered, rank 1 is enough, but I don't know that all class stories are like that 100%

When they rescaled the alignment meter, they should have rescaled the alignment gains for (non-repeatable) conversations. It's dead dumb for your story choices not to matter to your alignment, but your crafting to do so.

 

Possibly also give bonuses for the first run-though of repeatable content.

Yes.

I can understand why the limit for rank 1 is so high IF YOU'RE 70. You don't want people switching sides constantly to whoever is winning for extra cxp and tokens.

When they rescaled the alignment meter, they should have rescaled the alignment gains for (non-repeatable) conversations. It's dead dumb for your story choices not to matter to your alignment, but your crafting to do so.

 

Possibly also give bonuses for the first run-though of repeatable content.

Yes very much something like this. If you aren't going to change the alignment tiers back then make the conversation gains scale up by 10x (or whatever the tiers scaled up by) as well. I want to feel like my choices are effecting my character. Being a murderous Sith shouldn't be giving less dark side points than Treasure Hunting or just killing enemies.