Jump to content

NatashaTerenzio

Members
  • Posts

    137
  • Joined

Reputation

10 Good

Personal Information

  • Location
    Nawlins, ya'll.
  • Homepage
    http://themindofdcs.com
  • Occupation
    Author, Small Indie Publishing House Owner, Script Witer, etc etc.
  1. Hi all! So I use to play A LOT of SWTOR back in the day when class stories were all the rage. I still play on occasion but anyway, I wrote a novel length fan fiction that I have now turned into an Audio Drama with professional voice actors and sound effects and stuff and I'd love to share it with you all! Legacy A Star Wars Audio Drama features original characters created by me, and many of the companions we love and hate from the game. Legacy tells the story of Laresa a Jedi turned Sith. She and her family must fight against the insanity of the Emperor, a hidden enemy who wants to destroy the Force, and members of her own family who will never accept her as a Sith. We're three episodes in! ( Fair warning, there are spoilers for some of the class stories.) You can find it where ever you listen to your podcasts or by clicking this link. Hope you'll check it out!
  2. This. Yes. Your entire post. Thank you. I'll be off playing Dragon Age and Witcher 3, mourning what could have been, and slightly perturbed I spent 30 bucks (sub at KotFe first drop, then at the end) and nine hours of my life on my that ********.
  3. But they don't. Because who you actually are as a character is never reflected inside the gameplay. I'm an RPer and a writer so I can make up plenty of stuff in my head but if to see the results of my character's choices I have to go RP or write fan fiction then what am I playing the game for? (Which I'm not. I let all the chapters build up and came back when the end dropped just because I was curious and had time. I should have just watched the **** on youtube and saved myself 15 bucks. I won't make the same mistake with this new 'expansion' their dropping in the fall). My character is a Sith but isn't completely darkside. Prime example, she and Vetter were buddies. Got the shock collar off immediately, made the right choice inside of Vette's story arc, got the whole you are my sweet sith convo. When my Sith meets up with her finally their conversation is in no way a reflection of that relationship. Arcann pissed my Sith off enough with this endless **** talking and freezing her in Carbonite for years, thus taking my Sith away from her children, and stabbing her with a lightsaber that there was no way in hell she would let him live. That pause in the cinematic wouldn't have happened. She's not a **** talker either so I always choose the conversation option to attack target. She'll brag to your dead body. But if Bioware wasn't actually going to let me make the choice to kill him why even offer it? And while my Sith can understand Senya as she's a mother herself, she does not suffer betrayal, or someone like Arcann either. My Sith shot at that ship, only to have that actually choice removed as well. So again, why give it? Just Theron can be slightly angry about it? LoL Wut? Ultimately Koth was the only person in my alliance who left. Jorgan was alive, mostly becuase we're in the middle of a war, my Sith wasn't going to kill an elite solider with actual combat experience (though there should been a better punishment option then death, but she might have cut his face, so he always had a scar to remember her by ). Kaliyo was alive. My Sith was respected by the rest of the alliance. She was firm, cold, no nonsense but not unreasonable. But who she was literally didn't matter at all because all 16 chapters made her out to be a *********** idiot, not someone who has survived the trials of being a Sith, and who deeply understands betrayal (holy **** Baras and Quinn). A poster in another thread said it best, these 16 chapters weren't about the Outlander. They were about our companions, and mostly about Valkorian's family. We are literally an observer to events and a sidekick. What we say or do has no effect on the outcome.
  4. Pride and Egotisim have nothing to do with this. I am 35 year old professional and this is a VIDEO GAME. I play for story, and because it's Star wWars. Yes, I will read guides. Yes, I know what a rotation is (I don't always properly use it, but I know it). Yes, I have a general understanding of my class. However, I absolutely don't use keybinds, I do move using A and D, I don't kite because I very easily get turned around and loose where the hell the enemy went, I absolutely do backpedal sometimes, when I get swarmed with enemies and crap hits the fan I sometimes panic and then I'm frantically button mashing. Because of this I SKIPPED HEROICS. Because of this, I DON'T DO OPS/RAIDS. Because I'm just not that good at them, I'm not going to make anyone else suffer, I understand where my skill level has maxed out. I'm okay with it, I've got a real life I'm not going to invest time and effort to improve my gaming skills when I have other adult things to do. HOWEVER. The end game content changed so that the Herocis I was skipping, because as you say, I am not skilled enough to play them, are now something that's needed to level up my alliance. Where does this leave someone like me? In a crappy place, that's where. But then I got a companion that could heal me no matter my lack of ability and it was great! I was having FUN. Now I can do everything I was skipping. That is now gone. Now, I can still do some of the heroics, I absolutely can. But it gets real tricky in some instances, I die often now, and on my alts where I don't have the gear I've got on my main or influence level it's going to be a tedious and difficult grind that to me simply isn't worth it. So you're right I am going to stop playing. My issue is that if Bioware is going to scream a game is solo friendly it should be solo friendly. If you want players to actually play their alts again like they were doing levels 1 - 50 give me a reason to do so. Right now, for me I have ZERO reason to go through this alliance grind on any other character because of the difficulty level + plus time invested is simply not worth it. Yes, companions needed to TWEAKED, but they went too far. Waaay too far and even worse, they handled the whole situation so terribly I will not be giving them money again. I've got time left on the sub, I'm going to finish it, finish decorating my stronghold becuase I haz plans for it and that's it. So please, please, with the condescending ******ish attitude towards people, you're not helping and you're also the reason some people hate asking for help.
  5. Let me attempt to give you a full review from the casual gamers perspective. I am not one to parse, so I will leave others to give you the hard numbers. Level: 65 Average Item Rating: 216 Discipline: Sith Marauder Carnage Companion: Before 4.0.2 Pierce influence 12 for H2 grind, Lana Influence lvl 30 for Star Fortress Heroics Pre 4.0.2 Experience: Let me start out by saying that I really enjoyed the story line of KotFe. I loved the humor, the cut scenes, and I was really dragged in by the content. I was excited about the prospect of 'choices matter' so I was really looking forward to jumping on my alts who I have largely neglected since you ditched class stories after level 50. I get bored very easily with end game grind, it's not my thing so I really liked that you gave the Alliance grind a story purpose. Even better, with the way companions are setup I can do H2s without an issue! I've never done this before because I'm not really a go get a group person. I understand there is content setup for groups and I don't begrudge that it's an MMO, so for the most part I simply didn't play it. But! Now I can play it, and it has purpose because I gotta get my alliance levels up and WHOOP this is awesome! Here's the amount of time I was prepared to invest: In addition to my Sith, my main, I have a level 63 Smuggler, a level 57 Bounty Hunter, 50ish area Consular, 55 Imperial Agent, and I was pondering re-rolling my Jedi Knight and playing through the whole story again. Now that's 5 alts I'm prepared to invest time into playing, and doing the grind with because it's fast moving because the new Companions are effective. With my 5 alts and the fact that I'm a 35 year old professional with a very busy life, I'm going to be playing this game from now until when the next story chapter drops which will (hopefully) suck me in s'mere so now I'm going to be playing star wars again! This accounts to at least 4 more months of subscription money plus additional monies in the cartel market because if I'm playing in game, I'm also buying cartel coins. PVE Content Specifically: Planetary Heroics for Alliance Grind: Nice. I can breeze through this. This is great. Companions are not stupid, though Pierce you are sometimes dumb who are you healing, you are healing nothing. Fine I'll come kill that guy you heal me, Lana does this so much better. Minor grip, if this is how it is, I will happily plow through this on my alts amount of time required to complete task + reward gain = worth it. H2 Star Fortress: wow this is challenging. Just about as much as I can stand. Looting is weird in the Star Fortress for some reason, not always easy to grab the yellow thingie I need from the dead droid to drain the Exarch. Lana pulls aggro I'm not a tank, crap crap Predation, smash it. Unity, crap, gotta CC that droid. Craaaap I CC'd it then forgot to switch targets, we're gonna diiieeee.... whew. Just got by on my butt hair there. Exarch. Smack down. Screw you buddy. Exarch 50% smack down. You're gonna get it. Exarch 5% **** I had you. Lemmie go to Dulfy and read this guide.... ooooh that's what's messing up Lana got it. Exarch dead. YES I AM THE EMPERORS WRATH SUCK IT PUNK. Post 4.0.2 Experience: Okay maybe the companions we're a little O.P. but maybe they'll just tweak them slightly. Let me try my heroics... Planetary Heroics for Alliance Grind This is taking way longer than it use too. Holy crap. You're not even healing me between fights anymore. What are you doing? Who you are healing? Why are you just standing there? I cannot CC that droid, and pop that DCD and then click on you and make you passive and not passive and ***. I'm in 216 gear, this is going to be a nightmare on the other alts that I haven't geared nearly this well. Well what a freaking bummer. Oh well, there goes the alliance grind on alts idea. Time invested + reward gained = no longer worth it. Star Fortress H2 - Haven't even tried it. I was just enough for me post 4.0.2. Luckily I got both achievements I wanted on my main before the companion nerf. The reason my sub has been cancelled due to companion nerf: Tedious grind not worth time invested in on alts. The grind is not impossible, it is doable, but painfully so for the casual player who does not hotkey, has a average understanding of game mechanics and has no desire to spend time getting better at a video game just to up enjoyment of it when I have real life responsibilities to contend with. You made it fun, manageable for a causal player, and as such gave me a reason to invest more time and money in. Then you took that reason away. Overall handling on situation: I am a paying customer. You are a multi-million dollar corporation. And yet somewhere the basic things like customer service and community management have gone neglected as such I no longer feel valued. This feedback thread should have happened BEFORE the nerf. (Lack of QA before this went live is also unacceptable). Post the nerf, instead of sending out people well versed in how to deal with irate customers to help appease our concerns you instead employed people to simply move threads you didn't like. This is ridiculous. You have taken away my enjoyment because of your own error, and then post your error acted like douchebags. Therefore as I have continuously done to express my dislike of how you handle things, I will once again take my money and time elsewhere. Don't expect me to resub either. Improve your business model in the simplest common sense ways. Seriously you're a multi-million dollar company. Probably more than that. Fix. It.
  6. You know, I've already cancelled my sub because of this nonsense and intended to just pop back in for the story chapters. Now, I'm wondering whether or not I'll even do that and I'm really leaning towards no, which is sad because I love star wars and have for the most party really enjoyed this game. But I've about had it with companies not understanding basic communication with customers or learning how to treat their customers correctly. I was with a hosting company for my websites since 2008 not because they were the necessarily the best, but because they had OUTSTANDING customer service. They made me feel valued, they were polite and helpful as such I gave them my money. The devs over at The Secret World are AMAZING. There is all kinds of communication with the community, you feel like they care and they listen. They go out of their way to stay in touch, as such while TSW might not be the shinning example of a MMO, I don't care, I will happily give them my money because I feel valued. There are so many different ways Bioware/EA could have resolved this, that a company with all that effen money and resources refuses to do so leads to only one conclusion: they don't care. They just don't. One community moderator or someone on the inside could have jumped in and said "hey guys we hear you, it would be really helpful if you can parse data for us and we need that feedback from highly geared characters along with the causal player so we can figure this out. We really apologize...etc" Instead, they're just quietly removing threads they don't like such as this one: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=854139&page=43 to off topic. Wow, really? So you know what, I'm an adult now and my time and money is precious. And since you have proven your silly ***-backwards business model is how you're going to do things and to hell with what we think, I will take my money elsewhere. I hope another company gets rights to make another Star Wars game and makes it better. Otherwise when I need a Star Wars fix I'll go back and watch the movies, write some fan fiction, or go play KoTOR. So long and thanks for all the fish.
  7. To be honest I'm not quite sure what to do with this. I am a casual gamer, and by no means very good at this game. I usually don't do any of the Ops or FPs because I'm not that great (who pulled is usually me. Sometimes I just don't realize throwing my lightsabers is gonna pull that group too ). Thus I play 90% of the time solo and with family members. Now I'm lucky in that I sometimes play with my brother, who has explained a lot to me so I understand the basics. As such I had pretty good gear before KotFe and blowing through all the heroics it's been relatively easy for me to upgrade. Therefore right now I'm in pretty much all 216, two 208 pieces and one 220 piece because I got dragged into a storymode op and got lucky with a roll. (( so sorry for the healer in that group and much thanks for keeping me up )) This was why pre this dumb patch this was REALLY FUN for me. I understand that companions might have been a bit OP but really they could have left it alone. I was able to do all the herocis I'd never done before and now needed to do for my alliance. I was really enjoying that, and even more so because there was a story based point to it all. I was just barely able to do the Star Fortress Heroic with Lana. It was just hard enough for me and I managed with my Carnage Maraduer. Lot of CDs, predation, on those last bosses. The first time I did it, I died a lot from the final boss until I finally got the hang of it. It got much easier once I was able to get the buffs from having lvl 10 alliance leaders and got Lana's influence level up. I logged in tonight and tried three heorics, one in Voss I forgot to write down the name, the one where you go into the temple an have to kill the robot. Lights Out and Wookie Revolt. So, gear in mind I used Lana on the Lights Out quest and she's at influence 30. For the most part I was fine, I almost died once and had to pop a health pot. Voss had no issue. For Wookie Revolt I used Pierce who I have at level 13. He was able to keep me up but I am noticing the difference and I can imagine on my alts where I do not have this level gear, or influence level on my companions this is going to be a nightmare. I didn't even bother trying to the Star Fortress, if my Lana can just keep my health at 45% while under attack during the Heroics those last bosses are gonna kick my booty. So. Thus is my problem. If it's going to be impossible with lower level gear/companion influence 10 there's no point in going through this alliance grind on my alts. This is a sad thing as I really enjoyed Kotfe and I was looking forward to it. What I will end up doing is finishing up the heroics now just on my main to get my alliance to level 20 and let my sub run out. I'll come back just for the story chapters. Just a shame. They could have managed this somewhere in the middle. For anyone on the Ebon Hawk server who normally plays solo because people are mean and sometimes suck and needs help with the Heroics or the SFs I don't mind assisting, LareasVires is in the in-game handle.
  8. Unfortunately we're just never going to get the kind of customer service / community response we want. We're just not. Bioware/EA are making money off of us, doing the same song and dance they've been doing and as long as they continue to do so, they have no reason to change. I'm guilty of giving them more money then I should; I play because it's star wars and I really like decorating my stronghold and I get bored as heck with the daily grind so I buy a lot of cartel coins/play the GTN. However. I cancelled my sub and left after the nonsense that was Makeb. Came back briefly for Revan. Cancelled left again after that nonsense. Back again for Kotfe and I'm having a lot of fun. BUT - if they nerf companions so I can no longer solo the heorics or the SFs with just me and Lana, there is ZERO chance I'm going to do the grind of building up my alliance on my other characters. I'm going to log in today, and finish up my weeklies, do a punch of SF's run to get the Paladins on my main and see what happens. For me the companions have been GREAT at letting me enjoy content I normally would not enjoy. If that's gone, I'm going to be really, really disappointed. I'll end up leaving my alliance where it is, cancelling my sub until the next story chapter comes out, rinse repeat. I may finish the Kotfe story but just the story on another alt just because I'm curious whether or not they were lying when they said choices matter but there's no way I'm going through the alliance grind if I can no longer solo content.
  9. As a casual player i'm finding companions 4.0 to be really enjoyable. I can do heroics now without having to wait/find/suffer with others. I found the SF heroics to be challenging if you do them with just you and your companions. I'm not sure how others are playing where they can pull three rooms of mobs and not die. I've got Lana up to influence rank 22 my mara is in 216/208 gear and the end bosses will kill her if I let her get all the aggro. Just this evening my brother pulled too many in a Voss heroic and died and he's a pretty hardcore end gamer. So, while I can see this might be less challenging for more experienced/hard core end gamers for us causual folk it's really great. Perhaps a suggestion like the OP mentioned for those who think their companions are OP. I for one hope have my fingers crossed it doesn't change.
  10. Is there a list anywhere of what constitutes at bronze/sliver/gold decoration?
  11. /signed And for the most part I absolutely loved Kotfe. But, why they would do that scene the way they did it makes ZERO sense. Really even if we can't restart Chapter IX a response from the devs in the near future about whether or not you'll get another chance to lock in the romance option with your companion would be awesome. But they can see threads on it: This One And This One And This One And This One And This One And this One
  12. ::Stands and applauds:: Critical thinking dictates that you take in the entire scene. That's really all that needs be said, the entire scene. If the wording conflicts with the visual queues, if I have to stop and take twenty seconds to logically figure out what the hell Bioware is trying to actually say it is a writing/cinematography fail. If your only argument is 'the wording says' you are deliberately ignoring all previous arguments for absolutely no reason. If you made the 'right' choice great, glad you did. Others did not and would like things made more clear which is in no way a unreasonable request. Furthermore, really thinking about it why Bioware decided to do it this way is utterly baffling. They added another step for no reason. Explanation: Not taking the flirt options just leads to a conversation with Lana. And I believe I did get an option to flirt with her inside of that conversation but there was still no lock into romance pop-up. Which doesn't make any sense given the context of the story with my main and Lana leading up to that point. I'd been flirting with her through SoR and the previous KotFE chapters. There was a very emotionally charged scene where she and I shared a kiss after some stuff I won't spoil that logically should pretty much lock you into a relationship right then and there. But instead afterwards we get some strangely setup ambiguous bar scene dialogue wheel instead of a simple dialogue option that says: I want to talk to one of you. You should then be able to select which one you want to talk to. Which should then lead to locking in romance options (depending upon story choices). Done. Easy. Additionally it would be nice if the Flirt option wasn't the only way to lock in romance. I don't always choose flirt inside of the dialogue wheel every time it pops up because sometimes it just doesn't make sense for my character to say at that point in the story. I shouldn't have to worry whether or not I'm going to miss out on the romance if I don't spam the flirt button every single time. Why not just have something inside of that scene in the dialogue that evolves into: Lana: I haven't been ready to commit to my feelings for you but you almost died (again) and now I've... Or something similar. Then the pop up to do you want to start a romance with said companion and done. This makes sense. The way Bioware did it ::throws up hands:: just, why?
  13. First, I need Vaylin's armor stat. Second, I'm cautiously optimistic about KotFE. I've re-subscribed (at least I will for certain months) for this expansion. I love the idea of the return to story I just hope it has that re-playable factor that levels 1 - 50 did. I love the idea that what we've done with our companions will matter, but I'm hoping what we did previously in our class stories will also matter. I know that might be a tall order but still. Before you wanted to have eight toon's because you wanted to see what happened in each storyline. Even if we're all the Outlander now I'm hoping it will have something that makes me want to play it through on my Sith Warrior, and then my Smuggler, and then my Jedi etc etc. Not what I did with Revan which was play through it once, go meh and leave. So, excited but cautiously so.
  14. No, disappointed because it didn't hold a candle to what I would expect for a class story. Not my fault they set the bar so high with the first 50 lvls. Thanks! I hope you enjoy it though. I am sad panda. So. There's a thing called internet etiquette. You certainly don't have to agree with what I wrote, but you don't have to be rude either. Just because you're posting on a forum doesn't mean there isn't a human being on the other side of it, so unless you actually talk to people like this when you're face to face with them (in which case wow dude) try to remember that. And I didn't pre-determine anything. I pre-ordered and re-subbed because I was super excited about the new expansion. I am simply let down and wanted to post because if anybody else had the expectations I did (and I think rightly so considering what class stories USE to be) I think they might be disappointed. I won't be resubbing now, because there is no point for me to replay the same story. My full review is up and has been posted. Does contain spoilers you've been warned! Shadow of Revan - A Disappointment Yes. This. Maybe the others were more interesting which is possible I'll have to go watch the videos, but I thought the Mara's was just utterly lackluster. But that's just my two cents.
×
×
  • Create New...