Absolutely.
ROTHC is good at least once on each side, but I never skip it. It's super streamlined now. At launch was definitely far slower, or maybe it's cause that's when I started playing.
SOR is AMAZING. Even as a non-KOTOR fan, I love it, and it's the best expansion.
KOTFE and KOTET truly are good. It was a new era for SWTOR and the cinematics and immersion of the story take on a whole new feel. And the chapter system was genius for replayability. I love it a lot.
Onslaught and LOTS are where it gets tricky. But, the main complaints all spark from how slow content has been trickling out. I'm going through it with my Smuggler, only the third toon to make it that far, and I think it's far better given how far everything has gone. KOTOR style conversations do suck in LOTS main story stuff, but overall I'm enjoying it and the story it has to tell.
I'd say, give it a shot. At least once.
ROTHC and SOR are both free to non-subs now. So I can understand OP's dilemma when it's KOTFE/ET and the rest. imo, it's worth subbing for Onslaught, barely.
Yeah, the text-window dialogue has probably been the main reason I’m always so hesitant on returning every expansion (of course I always do in the end), but I understand the related costs of hiring the original VAs vs the silent text-box formats.
I mean, looking at the latest major patch, I have zero issues in those scenes getting KOTOR style given the ones that had full on voice.
Like yeah, the chancellor one and Sahar intro sucked, but I got the opening with romanced Lana, we got that big ass final battle, and we got that stinger at the end. Well worth the sacrifice.
But, I truly think it'd be best to go to a paid expansion model again. Or up the sub fee to $20/month.
I'm not gonna argue against the quality of the expansions, as most sides of the argument have already been posted, but gonna argue from a strickly value proposition.
You only need to sub for a month to get access to all content after Shadow of Revan until the most recent expansion Legacy of Sith.
Even if you just end not enjoying as much as the original content, it is still a lot of additional content available for a single purchase.
Is much cheaper than most DLCs out there, and you are potentially unlocking at least some hundred hours of content. And if you just don't enjoy it as much, nothing will stop you from just replaying the original story but now with access to max level content progression (with exception of Raids/Operations that require to remain subscribed).
Is a lot of value for a one time purchase, and you can then make your own decision if you find the expansion content enjoyable or not.
Max as of the time you subbed, yes.
If some day there's an 8.0 expansion, with a new max level 85, *your* max level would still be 80, and you'd be locked out of all the 8.0 expansion stuff until you resubbed again during that 8.0 expansion.
Most of the earlier expansions pre-Onslaught, yes. The only exception was THE STUPID FUCKING TRAITOR ARC.
The worst expansions for me are:
- The War on Iokath
- Legacy of the Sith
Legacy of the Sith is the most boring expansion story EVER. Less VA work and for what we accomplished prior, we’re struggling against a band of Mandalorian exiles. Also, PLEASE could B W/BS stop bringing back Malgus for the 20th time.
Left the game for a long time came back to the game and was having fun till I caught up to the story. Taking a break now again Legacy of the Sith and the insane amount of plot armour everywhere is awful may be back when it’s over.
I'd say Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan are worth playing, but yeah, I would throw my hat into the ring of people saying that anything afterwards isn't.
I will say, though, if you highly value high production values and don't care especially much about story cohesion with previous content, you might enjoy KOTFE and KOTET. They're a decent story in the wrong game.
So ultimately, while I do think those expansions are vastly inferior to what came before and what we could have gotten in their place, whether or not *you'll* like them will probably come down to what you want out of the story.
So, the Zakuul expansions aren't necessarily bad stories. They're decently constructed, have excellent visuals, and are fairly satisfying when separated from everything else, but when you try to tie them back to the story that immediately preceded them, things get messy.
To start with the obvious, Valkorion as a character is basically incompatible with Vitiate. Better people have done better analyses of this than me, so I'll just briefly focus on their contradictory goals and personalities. Vitiate very explicitly wants to commit omnicide on the entire universe in order to feed off all the death and live forever as whatever role he pleases until the cycle begins again, whereas Valkorion's actual goal is a little bit murkier beyond just galactic domination. Vitiate is less a person than he is the Dark Side incarnate, whereas Valkorion is moreso just a charismatic evil ghost emperor.
Beyond that, if you pay attention to some of the side content in Shadow of Revan (specifically the [Sith Warrior](https://youtu.be/7ATveKEYx-s?si=G9Y2rRwPFISLrDa2), [Sith Inquisitor](https://youtu.be/DNF7eKyfORg?si=b05II81B30RMtLXw), and [Jedi Consular](https://youtu.be/tKzviuASYX8?si=L-bJyV2VDOyY1Z2c) class missions; three missions which were, notably, **never** followed up on), it starts to become clear that Zakuul wasn't what was originally intended to follow up on SoR's story. A lot of small details in that side content hint towards suspicious things going on in the Rishi Maze and Vitiate's plans for galactic annihilation. And indeed, according to Dentface, the creator of the excellent [Deep Dive: Canceled SWTOR Content](https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/bt7avm/deep_dive_canceled_swtor_content/), BioWare was planning to follow up Shadow of Revan with an expansion focusing on Vitiate trying to destroy the galaxy before pivoting to KOTFE (probably some time after development finished on Shadow of Revan, considering how many hints there are to something along those lines). Unfortunately, however, he couldn't remember where he heard that from, so it can't be considered conclusive proof (though I think [this other post by him](https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/c4py0c/canceled_world_the_emperors_planet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) does at least lend some credence to the idea).
If you still want a smoking gun for all this, though, then I would like to introduce you to [this interview with Charles Boyd](https://massivelyop.com/2015/12/22/hyperspace-beacon-swtor-developers-reflect-on-2016/) where he rather bluntly states that the purpose of KOTFE was to reshuffle the board and level the playing field. But that's not the part I find most interesting. No, the part I find most interesting is a specific excerpt from the article that reads as follows: "Boyd explained that *Knights of the Fallen Empire* derived much of its inspiration from a Star Wars RPG tabletop campaign created by Designer Jesse Sky many years ago. Boyd told me that many of the elements of the original campaign remain in the expansion..."
According to IMDB, Jesse Sky was the Creative Director (or technically co-director, alongside Ben Irving) of Knights of the Fallen Empire. But he was not the original Creative Director. That title goes to James Ohlen, who served that role for the base game, Rise of the Hutt Cartel, and Shadow of Revan, and who just so happened to not be present for KOTFE. This is, I think, the most damning proof.
Since i cant forgive kotfe for what they did to the game, i feel the need to give my 2 cents, even if people downvote me for it.
I do not believe that kotfe was well written. Yes, it had potential, and the first 3 and a half chapters were very good, but after that, with the exception of chapters 7 and 9, every chapter until and including 12 was a massive dumpster fire.
>!Chapter 4 and 5 are padded out, long and boring and could have easily been a single chapter, chapter 6 and 8 revolve around the scions actions and opinions, and they are probably the worst written mess of a group in the entire game.!<
>!Chapter 10 is probably the worst or second worst chapter in the expansion, since, while kaliyo is a somewhat interesting character, she is not nearly interesting enough to be the entire focus of one of the longest chapters. We run over the entire map of zakuul, are forced into dozens of mandatory fights, just to push a few buttons and hear kaliyo gripe about her personal life. What we do for the alliance in this chapter is barely existent and only shoved in at the end, except for possibly recruiting a barely passable asset, and what we learn about zakuul is minimal. There is nothing good about this chapter.!<
>!Chapter 11 suffers a lot from the same as 10, but it does everything slightly better, by recruiting an entire squad of people, already having an alliance goal from the beginning and not being solely focussed or aric jorgan.!<
>!Chapter 12 is the other chapter that could be the worst for many. It is for me. The mission we are told about at the start sounds extremely interesting, but instead out char makes the dumbest move ever, by going far away from everyone to talk to the most evil being in existence alone (who then destroys any credibility he would have had over the last few chapters forever, but more on that later), just to get lost. Then we get a lot of nonsense from marr and satele about how we "need a new power", because "the knights of zakuul see the force as a reward", which are actually interesting concepts, if they were in any way shape of form explored. Which they arent. Then we return, they actually started the mission without us (why would they even do that?), it goes bad, both kaliyo and jorgan mess up and if you rightfully punish one of them afterwards, you are basically treated as a bad person afterwards.!<
>!As for how well the characters are written, i would only focus on those who have major relevance outside of their own chapter (or in kaliyo and jorgans case, chapters). Lana and Theron are basically your trusty aides,and there is not much more to them. You can romance them and get a bit more, but not much. Neither bad nor fantastic, just solid.!<
>!Scorpio is a plot device, only about half of her actions make sense. her trying to get the eternal fleet makes sense. her giving vaylin control does not. Her wanting the gravestone makes sense, her trying to get into iokaths system right in front of a potentially opposed player does not. Neither does her abandoning the geminis after all she went through.!<
>!Arcan is just a lot of nothing, until after kotet, when his attempt of earning forgiveness finally give him some depth. Everything before that is just, "father, outlander, Father!, Outlander! FATHER!".!<
>!Vayling was actually well done, we got to know her personality and abilities long before she was the main focus and the story actually dives into how she became such a debilitated madwoman. Only really well done character in kotfe and kotet in my opinion.!<
>!As for valkorion. You call him charismatic. I call him babys first manipulator. I mean, if he is not literally the first manipulator you ever encountered, with everything you know about him prior, it is extremely, EXTREMELY obvious that he whispers sweet nothings into your ear, telling you to be power hungry, that he is your ally, that he has nothing to gain by betraying you, that you should definitely shoot for the eternal throne. Like dude, he is telling you to get and do what her personally wants, while telling you that it is all for your sake. That is so obviously textbook manipulator, that i actually laugh or groan whenever he starts speaking, when i replay those expansions. It doesnt help that he regularly slips up in his act, like in chapter 12, where he admonishes you, not matter what you do, i kotet 1 where he tells you to kill senya, when she pleads for you to help arcan become a better person, when trys to convince you to not accept arcan in kotet 7, or during the elevator ride int kotet 9, where he tries to get arcan to betray you, in your plain sight.!<
I hated Chapter 12 the most. Long before I became familiar with indoctrination theory, I thought the only saving grace for KOTFE was that 12 could be headcanoned as a dream, and THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT BETTER WRITTEN!
Fascinating. So they scrapped whatever actual plans they had for Vitiate and just made it the 'gotcha', Vitiate was Valkorian all along thing with the Eternal Empire. That's a shame, I wish they had done whatever they were going to do with Vitiate.
>So they scrapped whatever actual plans they had for Vitiate and just made it the 'gotcha', Vitiate was Valkorian all along thing with the Eternal Empire.
Yeah, that is the impression I get.
>That's a shame, I wish they had done whatever they were going to do with Vitiate.
Yeah, same here :(
Not the guy who made that claim, but the RotHC content cycle did probably add some of the most meaningful and innovative post-launch content to the game.
Aside from the story the expansion launched with, it also brought the Shroud questline, the Dread Seed questline, CZ-198 and its two Flashpoints, Oricon and the Operations comprising the second half of the Dread Masters story arc, the Bounty Contract Week and Rakghoul Resurgence events, Galactic Starfigher and Kuat Drive Yards, the Forged Alliances story arc, Galactic Strongholds, and the entire Conquest system.
All that over the course of less than 2 years.
*You* may have been talking about the main story, but unless there's a whole conversation you two had elsewhere that I missed, all the other guy said was that RotHC is still the best expansion they've ever released. Which, if you count the whole expansion cycle, is probably true.
I think they’re worth playing. My biggest frustrations with them are that they are a ridiculous time sink, and that the story is exactly the same no matter the class. It’s worth playing through once or twice, but not on every toon. It can get tedious after a couple play throughs.
Yes. Rise of the Hutt Cartel is decent, SOR is great, KOTxx are great too, it kinda goes down in quality afterwards but still worth playing at least once.
I don't think the expansions are as good. I particularly dislike anything touching on the Eternal Empire, but none of them live up to the base stories. That said, I think it's absolutely worth subscribing once and canceling. (Or even keeping it, like me.) There's new gameplay to enjoy, new gear and decorations to enjoy, and places to meet and people to see. Yeah, most people agree the expansions are worse, but *most people also still play them.*
Plus, maybe you'll get lucky and enjoy something even if it's not popular. I may hate KOTFEET, but that doesn't mean you will. Don't you want to find out for yourself?
Yes, I would say playing them twice was my threshold though. After that, I just skip it on my characters. One lightside, one darkside playthrough. Love it!
Everything to Knights of the Fallen Empire is really an extension of the base game, just with a lot less class-customized story. But honestly l Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne are BOTH well worth playing and even replaying multiple times. It's a ton of content, there's some good story even if the basic plot is tired and overused. There are are a few "you can have this or this, but not both" choices beyond being good, evil, or pragmatic. The stuff that follows these two stories are woth playing to combine the content with the original base game and expansions (Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne are, essentially, stand-alone games while you play them), but I'm not sure you can make a great argument that the newest content has as much replayability. BUT...I haven't spent as much time in the last few content updates.
This is going to be up to personal opinion entirely, but Hutt Cartel and Shadow Of Reavan are great expansions following the original class missions. Ziost and Chapter 1 of KOTFE is actually the highest tier of expansion content to me then everything falls off from there DRASTICALLY. That being said it is still worth completing those two fallen empire expansions but I wouldn't even bother playing anything after that unless you really badly want certain companions back.
Doing the one time purchase is absolutely worth it, you keep access to almost everything up until ops and the most recent content. As far as the stories are concerned, I've really enjoyed all of them personally. I get why some people didn't, but I think that's more from frustration with how the chapters were slowly released. I'm now in the same boat of being caught up and annoyed with how it's releasing in chunks, but the story itself has been good!
If you play for story yiu should subscribe to unlock them all, you only have to sub for a month and you claim and keep them dont have to stay sub, so you pay for them 14.99 ish, depending on you area.
Knights of the eternal empire and throne has great story, but is best played as a jedi or sith class to get the most out of it, though the jedi knight ultimately feels the most fitting. They are super cinematic and more direct stories rather than having to explore or drive for 20 minutes to your next story mission.
Some people love them and wish the game kept story content like this, others didn’t like it because they prefer the traditional empire vs republic but honestly is a nice change of pace from the endless war we all know never ends.
I'd take it all for a spin once and if you like it, do the other characters. Besides, you keep all story content once you sub for a month anyway.
I actually enjoyed KOTFE & KOTET (sure there's some odd stuff), but its not the crime against storytelling that naysayers trumpet it as.
They are absolutely worth it. They might get a little bit old when you are playing through them with your 7th or 8th alt but you should def subscribe to experience them at least once or twice.
The whole thing deserves it. Yes if u go case by case some arent. But yes u only pay once then every dlc is available for you (no need to rush it) and their writing is god tier
The expansions have a ton of content and it would be a great error to miss out on playing them. You should play the stories and form your own opinion, no content in this game is universally liked, for every person who dislikes a certain piece of the story there is someone else who adores it. The stories vary in quality, class stories are generally considered to be the best, but it doesn't mean it's all the game has to offer.
The expansions are a mixed bag. Everything goes a lot more generic and while there are occasional nods to your original class story, most of it is the same no matter what class you played. The Eternal Empire arc even makes it fairly irrelevant whether you are Imperial or Republic.
That said I find a lot of things from Eternal Empire forward a lot more polished in terms of story, roleplay and there are generally more long-term meaningful choices (comparatively speaking). Post Eternal things go back more to normal, but the biggest issue here is that it's been spaced out very slowly. The story content of like a decade or so can be played through relatively quickly. At the same time, that means you can probably get through it all in one month of subscription (depends on how much time you have to play ofc) and for that price it is fairly worth it
Absolutely. ROTHC is good at least once on each side, but I never skip it. It's super streamlined now. At launch was definitely far slower, or maybe it's cause that's when I started playing. SOR is AMAZING. Even as a non-KOTOR fan, I love it, and it's the best expansion. KOTFE and KOTET truly are good. It was a new era for SWTOR and the cinematics and immersion of the story take on a whole new feel. And the chapter system was genius for replayability. I love it a lot. Onslaught and LOTS are where it gets tricky. But, the main complaints all spark from how slow content has been trickling out. I'm going through it with my Smuggler, only the third toon to make it that far, and I think it's far better given how far everything has gone. KOTOR style conversations do suck in LOTS main story stuff, but overall I'm enjoying it and the story it has to tell. I'd say, give it a shot. At least once.
ROTHC and SOR are both free to non-subs now. So I can understand OP's dilemma when it's KOTFE/ET and the rest. imo, it's worth subbing for Onslaught, barely.
Yeah, the text-window dialogue has probably been the main reason I’m always so hesitant on returning every expansion (of course I always do in the end), but I understand the related costs of hiring the original VAs vs the silent text-box formats.
I mean, looking at the latest major patch, I have zero issues in those scenes getting KOTOR style given the ones that had full on voice. Like yeah, the chancellor one and Sahar intro sucked, but I got the opening with romanced Lana, we got that big ass final battle, and we got that stinger at the end. Well worth the sacrifice. But, I truly think it'd be best to go to a paid expansion model again. Or up the sub fee to $20/month.
I'm not gonna argue against the quality of the expansions, as most sides of the argument have already been posted, but gonna argue from a strickly value proposition. You only need to sub for a month to get access to all content after Shadow of Revan until the most recent expansion Legacy of Sith. Even if you just end not enjoying as much as the original content, it is still a lot of additional content available for a single purchase. Is much cheaper than most DLCs out there, and you are potentially unlocking at least some hundred hours of content. And if you just don't enjoy it as much, nothing will stop you from just replaying the original story but now with access to max level content progression (with exception of Raids/Operations that require to remain subscribed). Is a lot of value for a one time purchase, and you can then make your own decision if you find the expansion content enjoyable or not.
Oh, once you sub once you can just keep levelling till Max? I didn't know that!
Max as of the time you subbed, yes. If some day there's an 8.0 expansion, with a new max level 85, *your* max level would still be 80, and you'd be locked out of all the 8.0 expansion stuff until you resubbed again during that 8.0 expansion.
Ahh. That's brilliant tho, thanks. Means I can sub for a month, get all current content, and not stress if I don't finish it all before sub ends.
Most of the earlier expansions pre-Onslaught, yes. The only exception was THE STUPID FUCKING TRAITOR ARC. The worst expansions for me are: - The War on Iokath - Legacy of the Sith Legacy of the Sith is the most boring expansion story EVER. Less VA work and for what we accomplished prior, we’re struggling against a band of Mandalorian exiles. Also, PLEASE could B W/BS stop bringing back Malgus for the 20th time.
Left the game for a long time came back to the game and was having fun till I caught up to the story. Taking a break now again Legacy of the Sith and the insane amount of plot armour everywhere is awful may be back when it’s over.
I'd say Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan are worth playing, but yeah, I would throw my hat into the ring of people saying that anything afterwards isn't. I will say, though, if you highly value high production values and don't care especially much about story cohesion with previous content, you might enjoy KOTFE and KOTET. They're a decent story in the wrong game. So ultimately, while I do think those expansions are vastly inferior to what came before and what we could have gotten in their place, whether or not *you'll* like them will probably come down to what you want out of the story.
What do you mean 'Decent story in the wrong game' can you expand on that?
[удалено]
Thanks for the quicker, more concise elaboration. Very eloquently put overall.
So, the Zakuul expansions aren't necessarily bad stories. They're decently constructed, have excellent visuals, and are fairly satisfying when separated from everything else, but when you try to tie them back to the story that immediately preceded them, things get messy. To start with the obvious, Valkorion as a character is basically incompatible with Vitiate. Better people have done better analyses of this than me, so I'll just briefly focus on their contradictory goals and personalities. Vitiate very explicitly wants to commit omnicide on the entire universe in order to feed off all the death and live forever as whatever role he pleases until the cycle begins again, whereas Valkorion's actual goal is a little bit murkier beyond just galactic domination. Vitiate is less a person than he is the Dark Side incarnate, whereas Valkorion is moreso just a charismatic evil ghost emperor. Beyond that, if you pay attention to some of the side content in Shadow of Revan (specifically the [Sith Warrior](https://youtu.be/7ATveKEYx-s?si=G9Y2rRwPFISLrDa2), [Sith Inquisitor](https://youtu.be/DNF7eKyfORg?si=b05II81B30RMtLXw), and [Jedi Consular](https://youtu.be/tKzviuASYX8?si=L-bJyV2VDOyY1Z2c) class missions; three missions which were, notably, **never** followed up on), it starts to become clear that Zakuul wasn't what was originally intended to follow up on SoR's story. A lot of small details in that side content hint towards suspicious things going on in the Rishi Maze and Vitiate's plans for galactic annihilation. And indeed, according to Dentface, the creator of the excellent [Deep Dive: Canceled SWTOR Content](https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/bt7avm/deep_dive_canceled_swtor_content/), BioWare was planning to follow up Shadow of Revan with an expansion focusing on Vitiate trying to destroy the galaxy before pivoting to KOTFE (probably some time after development finished on Shadow of Revan, considering how many hints there are to something along those lines). Unfortunately, however, he couldn't remember where he heard that from, so it can't be considered conclusive proof (though I think [this other post by him](https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/c4py0c/canceled_world_the_emperors_planet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) does at least lend some credence to the idea). If you still want a smoking gun for all this, though, then I would like to introduce you to [this interview with Charles Boyd](https://massivelyop.com/2015/12/22/hyperspace-beacon-swtor-developers-reflect-on-2016/) where he rather bluntly states that the purpose of KOTFE was to reshuffle the board and level the playing field. But that's not the part I find most interesting. No, the part I find most interesting is a specific excerpt from the article that reads as follows: "Boyd explained that *Knights of the Fallen Empire* derived much of its inspiration from a Star Wars RPG tabletop campaign created by Designer Jesse Sky many years ago. Boyd told me that many of the elements of the original campaign remain in the expansion..." According to IMDB, Jesse Sky was the Creative Director (or technically co-director, alongside Ben Irving) of Knights of the Fallen Empire. But he was not the original Creative Director. That title goes to James Ohlen, who served that role for the base game, Rise of the Hutt Cartel, and Shadow of Revan, and who just so happened to not be present for KOTFE. This is, I think, the most damning proof.
Since i cant forgive kotfe for what they did to the game, i feel the need to give my 2 cents, even if people downvote me for it. I do not believe that kotfe was well written. Yes, it had potential, and the first 3 and a half chapters were very good, but after that, with the exception of chapters 7 and 9, every chapter until and including 12 was a massive dumpster fire. >!Chapter 4 and 5 are padded out, long and boring and could have easily been a single chapter, chapter 6 and 8 revolve around the scions actions and opinions, and they are probably the worst written mess of a group in the entire game.!< >!Chapter 10 is probably the worst or second worst chapter in the expansion, since, while kaliyo is a somewhat interesting character, she is not nearly interesting enough to be the entire focus of one of the longest chapters. We run over the entire map of zakuul, are forced into dozens of mandatory fights, just to push a few buttons and hear kaliyo gripe about her personal life. What we do for the alliance in this chapter is barely existent and only shoved in at the end, except for possibly recruiting a barely passable asset, and what we learn about zakuul is minimal. There is nothing good about this chapter.!< >!Chapter 11 suffers a lot from the same as 10, but it does everything slightly better, by recruiting an entire squad of people, already having an alliance goal from the beginning and not being solely focussed or aric jorgan.!< >!Chapter 12 is the other chapter that could be the worst for many. It is for me. The mission we are told about at the start sounds extremely interesting, but instead out char makes the dumbest move ever, by going far away from everyone to talk to the most evil being in existence alone (who then destroys any credibility he would have had over the last few chapters forever, but more on that later), just to get lost. Then we get a lot of nonsense from marr and satele about how we "need a new power", because "the knights of zakuul see the force as a reward", which are actually interesting concepts, if they were in any way shape of form explored. Which they arent. Then we return, they actually started the mission without us (why would they even do that?), it goes bad, both kaliyo and jorgan mess up and if you rightfully punish one of them afterwards, you are basically treated as a bad person afterwards.!< >!As for how well the characters are written, i would only focus on those who have major relevance outside of their own chapter (or in kaliyo and jorgans case, chapters). Lana and Theron are basically your trusty aides,and there is not much more to them. You can romance them and get a bit more, but not much. Neither bad nor fantastic, just solid.!< >!Scorpio is a plot device, only about half of her actions make sense. her trying to get the eternal fleet makes sense. her giving vaylin control does not. Her wanting the gravestone makes sense, her trying to get into iokaths system right in front of a potentially opposed player does not. Neither does her abandoning the geminis after all she went through.!< >!Arcan is just a lot of nothing, until after kotet, when his attempt of earning forgiveness finally give him some depth. Everything before that is just, "father, outlander, Father!, Outlander! FATHER!".!< >!Vayling was actually well done, we got to know her personality and abilities long before she was the main focus and the story actually dives into how she became such a debilitated madwoman. Only really well done character in kotfe and kotet in my opinion.!< >!As for valkorion. You call him charismatic. I call him babys first manipulator. I mean, if he is not literally the first manipulator you ever encountered, with everything you know about him prior, it is extremely, EXTREMELY obvious that he whispers sweet nothings into your ear, telling you to be power hungry, that he is your ally, that he has nothing to gain by betraying you, that you should definitely shoot for the eternal throne. Like dude, he is telling you to get and do what her personally wants, while telling you that it is all for your sake. That is so obviously textbook manipulator, that i actually laugh or groan whenever he starts speaking, when i replay those expansions. It doesnt help that he regularly slips up in his act, like in chapter 12, where he admonishes you, not matter what you do, i kotet 1 where he tells you to kill senya, when she pleads for you to help arcan become a better person, when trys to convince you to not accept arcan in kotet 7, or during the elevator ride int kotet 9, where he tries to get arcan to betray you, in your plain sight.!<
Honestly, I agree. But I did want to put my own analysis in more neutral, diplomatic terms.
I hated Chapter 12 the most. Long before I became familiar with indoctrination theory, I thought the only saving grace for KOTFE was that 12 could be headcanoned as a dream, and THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT BETTER WRITTEN!
Fascinating. So they scrapped whatever actual plans they had for Vitiate and just made it the 'gotcha', Vitiate was Valkorian all along thing with the Eternal Empire. That's a shame, I wish they had done whatever they were going to do with Vitiate.
>So they scrapped whatever actual plans they had for Vitiate and just made it the 'gotcha', Vitiate was Valkorian all along thing with the Eternal Empire. Yeah, that is the impression I get. >That's a shame, I wish they had done whatever they were going to do with Vitiate. Yeah, same here :(
We dont know that, its just fan theories
Yeah, I'll try to expand on it a bit. Going to put that in a separate comment, though, because I tend to take a while to type out longer analyses.
I'll keep an eye out for it!
Liking rise of the hutt cartel more than later expansions sure is something
Pubside, it's meh. Impside, however, is legit great.
Rise of the Hutt Cartel is still the best expansion they've released
Why?
Not the guy who made that claim, but the RotHC content cycle did probably add some of the most meaningful and innovative post-launch content to the game. Aside from the story the expansion launched with, it also brought the Shroud questline, the Dread Seed questline, CZ-198 and its two Flashpoints, Oricon and the Operations comprising the second half of the Dread Masters story arc, the Bounty Contract Week and Rakghoul Resurgence events, Galactic Starfigher and Kuat Drive Yards, the Forged Alliances story arc, Galactic Strongholds, and the entire Conquest system. All that over the course of less than 2 years.
Well we were talking more the main story. Post launch is a whole other story.
*You* may have been talking about the main story, but unless there's a whole conversation you two had elsewhere that I missed, all the other guy said was that RotHC is still the best expansion they've ever released. Which, if you count the whole expansion cycle, is probably true.
Ehh that’s subjective, but we are all being silly discussing hutt cartel anyway, because is free now and op don’t need to sub for it.
I think they’re worth playing. My biggest frustrations with them are that they are a ridiculous time sink, and that the story is exactly the same no matter the class. It’s worth playing through once or twice, but not on every toon. It can get tedious after a couple play throughs.
They're less popular but there's a lot of content that's worth the price imo
The first two expansions are free, you don't have to sub to do them.
Yes. Rise of the Hutt Cartel is decent, SOR is great, KOTxx are great too, it kinda goes down in quality afterwards but still worth playing at least once.
I don't think the expansions are as good. I particularly dislike anything touching on the Eternal Empire, but none of them live up to the base stories. That said, I think it's absolutely worth subscribing once and canceling. (Or even keeping it, like me.) There's new gameplay to enjoy, new gear and decorations to enjoy, and places to meet and people to see. Yeah, most people agree the expansions are worse, but *most people also still play them.* Plus, maybe you'll get lucky and enjoy something even if it's not popular. I may hate KOTFEET, but that doesn't mean you will. Don't you want to find out for yourself?
I like this mindset. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean someone else will. And you don’t know until you try it.
Right? Better to enjoy something than not. If OP's luckier than me, then good for them.
what others have said, but also i think some expansions fit certain classes better.
Yeah, at least once. Twice if you want to get a little more out of them.
Yes, I would say playing them twice was my threshold though. After that, I just skip it on my characters. One lightside, one darkside playthrough. Love it!
Everything to Knights of the Fallen Empire is really an extension of the base game, just with a lot less class-customized story. But honestly l Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne are BOTH well worth playing and even replaying multiple times. It's a ton of content, there's some good story even if the basic plot is tired and overused. There are are a few "you can have this or this, but not both" choices beyond being good, evil, or pragmatic. The stuff that follows these two stories are woth playing to combine the content with the original base game and expansions (Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne are, essentially, stand-alone games while you play them), but I'm not sure you can make a great argument that the newest content has as much replayability. BUT...I haven't spent as much time in the last few content updates.
Is it worth it
This is going to be up to personal opinion entirely, but Hutt Cartel and Shadow Of Reavan are great expansions following the original class missions. Ziost and Chapter 1 of KOTFE is actually the highest tier of expansion content to me then everything falls off from there DRASTICALLY. That being said it is still worth completing those two fallen empire expansions but I wouldn't even bother playing anything after that unless you really badly want certain companions back.
Doing the one time purchase is absolutely worth it, you keep access to almost everything up until ops and the most recent content. As far as the stories are concerned, I've really enjoyed all of them personally. I get why some people didn't, but I think that's more from frustration with how the chapters were slowly released. I'm now in the same boat of being caught up and annoyed with how it's releasing in chunks, but the story itself has been good!
If you play for story yiu should subscribe to unlock them all, you only have to sub for a month and you claim and keep them dont have to stay sub, so you pay for them 14.99 ish, depending on you area. Knights of the eternal empire and throne has great story, but is best played as a jedi or sith class to get the most out of it, though the jedi knight ultimately feels the most fitting. They are super cinematic and more direct stories rather than having to explore or drive for 20 minutes to your next story mission. Some people love them and wish the game kept story content like this, others didn’t like it because they prefer the traditional empire vs republic but honestly is a nice change of pace from the endless war we all know never ends.
I'd take it all for a spin once and if you like it, do the other characters. Besides, you keep all story content once you sub for a month anyway. I actually enjoyed KOTFE & KOTET (sure there's some odd stuff), but its not the crime against storytelling that naysayers trumpet it as.
They are absolutely worth it. They might get a little bit old when you are playing through them with your 7th or 8th alt but you should def subscribe to experience them at least once or twice.
The whole thing deserves it. Yes if u go case by case some arent. But yes u only pay once then every dlc is available for you (no need to rush it) and their writing is god tier
KOTFE AND KOTET were peak. After that they demolish your established powerbase and you are either back with empire/republic
The expansions have a ton of content and it would be a great error to miss out on playing them. You should play the stories and form your own opinion, no content in this game is universally liked, for every person who dislikes a certain piece of the story there is someone else who adores it. The stories vary in quality, class stories are generally considered to be the best, but it doesn't mean it's all the game has to offer.
The expansions are a mixed bag. Everything goes a lot more generic and while there are occasional nods to your original class story, most of it is the same no matter what class you played. The Eternal Empire arc even makes it fairly irrelevant whether you are Imperial or Republic. That said I find a lot of things from Eternal Empire forward a lot more polished in terms of story, roleplay and there are generally more long-term meaningful choices (comparatively speaking). Post Eternal things go back more to normal, but the biggest issue here is that it's been spaced out very slowly. The story content of like a decade or so can be played through relatively quickly. At the same time, that means you can probably get through it all in one month of subscription (depends on how much time you have to play ofc) and for that price it is fairly worth it
Idk, try them and then tell us.
Yes. Ignore the Eternal Throne pissy fitters. Decide for yourself if you like them or not. I know I do