I have always really enjoyed SWTOR for its game play and stories. It is one of my top MMOs to be honest. That said, the Eternal Throne and Empire stories are a mixed bag. The content is really enjoyable the diminished grouping abilities are really problematic. On top of that, there are several really bad bugs within grouping that should no longer be happening this far into their lifespan. For instance, the Dragon's Maw storyline keeps your friend's in the Zakuul disguise, making them essentially useless in combat. I've been disappointed to find out this but goes back several years without a correction. There are other instances like this. I get that the story was built in a way to not have the story be shared, but at least make grouping more functional. I don't mind repeating a storyline with my friends as long as we can actually help each other.

I gotta come clean, I haven't done much high level story content since version 2.0 when level 55 was the max level cap. That being said, I play this game everyday because of their repeatable, dailies, heroics. When needed, enter unranked warzone, starfighter, and also, when needed, to level up faster, I'll use flashpoint spam when a guild I'm in has Flashpoint Profiteer guild perk.

 

I've used Ossus story skip to bring my mostly retired characters from 2.0 back up to playable daily repeatable speed. I just skip past Fallen Empire, Eternal Throne, all together.

I don't get to pick story save flags, that specify story choices, or any type of customization of choices matter dialogue wheel selections. So I can't customize, I won't care about it, I'll stick to the default choices made for me with story skip, if that's the way it's going to be. Look past it, and move on. There's stuff to grind, conquest points to put on a leaderboard.

I need alts that can run, high level story-gated repeatable areas. This game goes for a spread focus, multi character operation, most of what's done is not on one toon. It helps a lot to have more than one character, five, ten, maybe even twenty depending on what you need to do. heh heh or even more. I'm just glad I got a story skip in the first place, or I would be locked out of most of the end game high level areas. I guess I should be thankful and stop complaining, who knows if it'll be removed or discontinue updated skip end points in the future

( I don't know if I should say this, but I think people would pay cartel coin to pick their story, companion options in an automated story skip but allowed customization that wasn't default stock choices like ossus story skip is right now)

 

The content is really enjoyable the diminished grouping abilities are really problematic. On top of that, there are several really bad bugs within grouping that should no longer be happening this far into their lifespan. For instance, the Dragon's Maw storyline keeps your friend's in the Zakuul disguise, making them essentially useless in combat. I've been disappointed to find out this but goes back several years without a correction. There are other instances like this. I get that the story was built in a way to not have the story be shared, but at least make grouping more functional. I don't mind repeating a storyline with my friends as long as we can actually help each other.

how did 'grouping' enter your vocabulary like this?

what mmo(s) are you from where people talk about 'allowing access to same class story' as the verb 'grouping'

 

- do you have examples of games that do 'playing main story in a group' correctly?

 

-what do you consider, 'actually helping.'

Edited July 7, 2022 by Falensawino

how did 'grouping' enter your vocabulary like this?

what mmo(s) are you from where people talk about 'allowing access to same class story' as the verb 'grouping'

Normally, I'd interpret "grouping" as meaning "making a group to play content". And there aren't many MMORPGs that have separate class stories anyway. (SWTOR, obviously, and the other one I know of is FF14, which has a little light-weight story for each class, but a single main story.)

- do you have examples of games that do 'playing main story in a group' correctly?

It's not strictly an MMORPG, but it works well (as an essential mechanic)(1) in Guild Wars 1. It's a bit variable how well it could possibly work in SWTOR given the lightly branched nature of the story, whence the difference between "Personal Phase" (including class-specific phases) and "Group Phase".

-what do you consider, 'actually helping.'

In the context given (KotET Chapter VI: The Dragon's Maw), there's a bunch of fighting in the second half, and OP describes how the accompanying player (a spectator because the whole mission happens in a Personal Phase) is stuck in the Zak Knight disguise, and cannot help out by fighting. That sort of "actually help".

 

(1) It doesn't have to be a group composed only of players, of course. There have been "henchmen" (assistant NPCs) for the whole life of the game, and "heroes" (loosely similar to SWTOR companions) ever since the Nightfall campaign launched.

yeah i am not talking about people playing the story elements of my game, but its rather annoying that to have several parts of my story force solo play so that my friends, family and allies can't join in to help and vice versa. the person could be in my story element purely as a spectator like they were in the original lower level content for my class. For instance i am playing in the latest update and my wife was able to play in the first part of it, but suddenly i have to do an hour long solo flashpoint. Allowing them in as a spectator and to help with fights would not impact the story. Instead it merely serves as a function of making the game more brutal. 

I have played several mmos going all the way back to meridian 59 and eq1. Generally the ones i have enjoyed didn't force solo combat and adventuring on the core storylines

the high end adventures could have been treated exactly as class missions were in the core storylines

 

just my 2 cents. again i love the game but this is a fustration

Afaik, in most instances, you can do a 'solo' flashpoint in veteran mode and it still counts towards the story progression. The veteran mode can be done with a combination of humans and companions. Thus, your friends and family can assist you. (You need to 'manually' enter the FP in vet mode at the entrance or whatever.)

Sadly that's no longer true for the post-KotET flashpoints; you can only advance the story in those by doing the solo/story difficulty.

Yeah, the later ones have a fourth mode called {SOLO-STORY}, only accessible when on the purple mission. I'm not sure why they do this these days. Maybe to avoid the annoyance going through the same story twice? (like when doing the same class story, both players will see the same stuff twice).

27 minutes ago, ThanderSnB said:

Yeah, the later ones have a fourth mode called {SOLO-STORY}, only accessible when on the purple mission. I'm not sure why they do this these days. Maybe to avoid the annoyance going through the same story twice? (like when doing the same class story, both players will see the same stuff twice).

The first one that did that (Umbara) had a mega spoiler (the identity of the traitor) in Solo/Story, but not in Story, Veteran or Master (where the traitor is replaced by an anonymous masked figure).  To avoid that spoiling the story if one drew Umbara in Group Finder, they differentiated the two by that method.

its unfortunate that they want to force solo on people, especially if those people are willing to repeat a mission to help each other. while the story is entertaining, its a let down that my wife and I essentially are playing 2 solo games at this point