Hey

The Esseles and The Black Talon both have great stories available and voice chat, options, within the mission

They are really great and fun to play through

I havent made it too far or to ops yet but the ones following are good and fun too, but they follow a similar but 'cutscene-less' progression of bosses and an end boss, with maybe a few quick options

it seems like the first 2 are the best to me

do any of the ones later on get to be a bit more involved? if not, in my opinion that would be great to focus on for any to be developed next

Maelstrom Prison (Republic)

Foundry (Empire)

D7 (Both)

False Emperor (Both)

Black Talon ans Esseles were realy good the first times, but when you have done them about 100 times the VO scenes are a plague. I like story, but i like to participate in the story, not sit and watch npc´s chatting while you and i give canned answers.

Imo the story should involve alot less of theese VO sceenes and more stuff like in D7 ex. where the story is less VO and more stuff happening around us.

When an alarm goes that we have entered the FP. When some boss tells the group "you should not have come here, i will crush you" We dont realy need the option to talk back to him. The story is still there.

Also, when we do get VO they should be kept short, 1-3 answers imo. Black Talon and Esseles have some of the longest VO. Yes we want story, but we dont (I dont) want to sit and watch the story, we want to take part in the story. That´s were especially the first FP on each faction went too far imo.

The midlevel factionspecific FP are alot nicer. They have a good story, even better than the first FP´s i think, but alot less VO. Some of the story is told us while we run along killing stuff.

The Ilum FP are also quite good, especially if your on republic side. I know the sith is a renegade and needs to be killed, it just feels better as repuclic than as an imperial. We realy could use a renegade republic boss FP. A general gone rogue doesn´t sound like it could never happen. Look what happened to formar Havoc squad.

There are FP duos later with a quest you can pick up at the fleet ship responsible for FP missions (I know the empire's is Call to Arms, can't remember the pubs one, something like Jedi Prisoner).

They are Flashpoints that constitute a larger story, for empire its Boarding Party and Foundry. For Republic its Tarl V and Maelstrom Prison..

Later on there is the Crystal Ball quest you get when you finish your class storyline on Illum that leads to Battle of Illum and False Emperor flash points.

The Esseles and BT as others have said become worse than watching your own death after the 100th time. Personally I think half the flashpoints are just crap and half of them are great.

The Good:

The Foundry

(this is just poetry in motion, one of those great bits of storytelling u wish more people could see)

The False Emperor

(this is amazing too plus feels REALLY Star Wars-y with the fall of the old empire)

Directive 7

(Though the main level isn't the most exciting, the final boss is intense and a lot of fun)

Maelstrom Prison:

(I don't think this is as good as The Foundry but the story is still pretty cool plus the bosses are quite interesting as well. Final boss brings closure to the Esseles/BT storyline too)

THE BAD:

The Battle Of Ilum

(This is dire. The final boss is quite cool and it adds a bit more of the story leading up to the fall of the empire)

Taral V

(This is awful. So boring...hate it)

The others like Athiss, Cademimu, Mandalorian Raiders, Boarding Party etc are all pretty standard affairs and can be fun if you're in the mood for them. No great storytelling though.

I've done my first 2 ops this week and you'll be pleased to know the Eternity Vault I found extremely engaging . Only problem is if you decide to queue up for the first time through Group Finder, u may get a nasty shock if you choose to be healer or tank. EV makes the flashpoints and heroics look like kiddy games in comparison . The last boss has falling floors, EMP explosions, flying electric balls, lava haha the whole whack. I think I need to watch it played out so that I can get used to it myself as I still haven't been in a successful run of this yet

Black Talon ans Esseles were realy good the first times, but when you have done them about 100 times the VO scenes are a plague. I like story, but i like to participate in the story, not sit and watch npc´s chatting while you and i give canned answers.

 

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Also, when we do get VO they should be kept short, 1-3 answers imo. Black Talon and Esseles have some of the longest VO. Yes we want story, but we dont (I dont) want to sit and watch the story, we want to take part in the story. That´s were especially the first FP on each faction went too far imo.

+1

It was cool. Now I groan everytime someone wants to watch the cutscenes in BT. BT can be finished in like 15 minutes if ppl skip, or 30+ minutes if they watch.

Now I just focus on the parts that are poorly done. The worst part is they still have the error in the VO/text where they want you to come back to the ship you're already on. Satele (sp?) goes on and on about how they're coming to help and you'll get beat down..blah blah blah...there is no sense of impending doom after that.

Here's what happened. Bioware spent a bunch of time and money to create immersive level 10 flashpoints with interesting story consequences. Especially Esseles where you can

But it apparently would have been too expensive to do something similar for the rest of the flashpoints. Say what you will about Jedi Prisoner and Empire equivalent, they don't really match the level 10s for story content. I honestly think Bioware intended to hook us with those level 10s as well; pretty disingenuous of them I'd say.

Meanwhile, Bioware gave us this social point system, and it took them forever to tweak it so that social activities actually gave you social points, instead of only dialog participation. So before they changed it, people would run Esseles/Black Talon over and over and over for social points. Now we are all sick of them.

i never ran BT or Esseles for social point, and overall i dont think that many did. Also in social runs you allways spam spacebar, so you dont get bored of VO dooing social runs.

Yes story is great, but if we dont actively participate in the story it´s just boring. Watching VO is not active imo. Especially since extreemely few answering options have any effect on the story. Only in BT can we pick an answer and get a different route in the FP. Rest of the VO answers have no impact on the FP, only a tiny bit on the story.

Dark/Light side choices in all other FP than BT doesn´t realy matter. Yes, some poor engineer gets to live or die or whatever, but it doesn´t matter if he lives or dies. We never see him again in that FP.

VO are fine for social points or story, but it have to be kept realy short. We dont need a VO for the boss in some FP to taunt us. He can do that over the intercom or whatever. Why would we waste time taunting him back via VO. That only gives him more time to build up a defence.

I think The Esseles and BT are just longer with more of a story because they're technically the TRAINING Fps. If anyone says you need a healer or a tank for either of the normal modes they're lying. I see them as a way to show people who don't like WZs etc the other parts of the game. TBH that's what I thought when I did them when I started as after those 2 are done the groups get stricter. If you're tanking as a DPS you're gonna get ur hand slapped.

I was booted many times for being the tank (tbh I'd no idea there were roles though as this was my first real MMO and because the roles didn't exist in the level 10 fps I thought peeps just had some sort of superiority complex lol)

Maelstrom Prison (Republic)

Foundry (Empire)

D7 (Both)

False Emperor (Both)

Yeah, this is basically it.

FP stories are really wanting, for the most part, which is a shame.

And of course, ops don't have any dialogue at all (which is probably a good thing or it would take for fraking ever to get everyone to stand in the circle)

""And of course, ops don't have any dialogue at all (which is probably a good thing or it would take for fraking ever to get everyone to stand in the circle)""

Tbh to me I think the Ops are actually amazing (well the ones I've done so far). The only thing that really ruins them is if you are like me and don't mind using group finder, or joining big groups on the fleet who you don't know -90% of the time it's full of a***holes who have no time or patience for mistakes (surprise surprise, it's usually the DPSers who can't understand why the tanks and healers are having trouble at all).

The Ops don't need dialogue convos but tbh, after playing a few ops, I wonder if the flashpoints even needed them. They just slow things down and there's plenty of conversation in the eternity vault that u just hear while you're playing. I love the ops because they are STILL challenging. It can be intense when you're trying to group heal 8 bodies while the floors are falling below you, or everyone's getting fired into pools of lava etc and those who can't tank or heal well will get left behind .