ZeldaTheSwordsman

Welp, looks like it's unfortunately time for me to be my complaining self again. A lot of the changes listed are objectively good, like all the tidying up of wonky camera-work, misaligned textures, etc. And the more logical clothing choices, and correcting Bolook's skin color, and so on and so forth. However, the readme, the changelog, and the description give no indication that this is anything other than an all-or-nothing patch. And because of one of the changes, "Swapped the class skills for Consular and Sentinel", that unfortunately makes it a complete writeoff in my eyes (unless someone's made mods to revert that and some of the other subjective stuff?). That's not only a major warp of the gameplay, it's also a subjective one: not everyone agrees with the notion that "Zomg they mixed up the Consular and Sentinel class skills" (I for one have no idea where the actual hell people got this from, and I think those who preach it are straight-up wrong; personally I think it would be better to give Sentinels Stealth and Security as class skills instead; by default, no Jedi class has those as class skills and the Sentinel getting them would be in line with the Sentinel answers to the quiz questions - especially Security). That change is not a "fix", it's a subjective opinion, and it should therefore be an optional add-on rather than forcibly lumped in with everything. Lesser subjective things include removal of the screen blur when using Force Speed (some people actually like visual flavor like that, and it's not like this is a competitive PVP shooter so idk why anyone was moaning about it enough for it to be worth removing in the first place), and speeding up the spacewalk and the seafloor walk (I will withhold my opinion on the people who asked for this, and instead simply say that not everyone minds the slowness; for my money, it adds to the immersion). There's probably other things I missed on this first pass of the changelog that probably shouldn't be all-or-nothing, but those are what particularly stood out at this time.

I'm amused that one of the signs seems to show a Flare-S Swoop. Overall I'm enjoying the mod, I felt it was very nice

Excellent work. Your skin matches the artwork perfectly, and having that extra detail on T3-M4 makes for a pleasant visual enhancement while playing.

I'm sorry, but in its current state I cannot recommend the mod. It's a tragedy, because M4-78 adds very vital content to KotOR II. But the current version of the mod suffers from questionable design choices, and annoying bugs. The initial "clear the radiation" quest has multiple instances of the character being abruptly teleported to elsewhere on the planet after exiting dialogue. There is no warning, no option to refuse, nor even a transition. It's a very jarring and disruptive mechanic that greatly detracts from the experience. Moreover, it's entirely unnecessary due to the planet already having escort droids for fast travel. It feels like a developer shortcut that got left in without testing how it would affect ordinary players. Said quest also has issues if one chooses to play as T3-M4: all of his responses to dialogue are untranslated droidspeak onomatopoeia. While this is consistent with his adventure in the warehouse, it proves somewhat problematic here. In the warehouse, his choice of response (when you had a choice at all) was of little consequence. That is not the case on M4-78 - what you say actually matters here, and the untranslated droidspeak thus reduces players to blind fumbling. Either his responses should be translated in-game, or players should be provided an external cheat sheet. Moving beyond that, two of the planetary sidequests are broken. The "Deadly Upgrade" quest will reinsert itself into the player's journal after completion the instant the player sets foot in the Research and Development area, with the journal entry acting as if the player killed the malfunctioning assault droid themself regardless of their actual choice (which, given the assault droid is an egregious damage sponge if the player fights it, was probably to fetch CS-28). The quest "Fixing Droids" on the other hand is missing a key item - the developers deleted the placeable where the item spawned, and did not set a replacement location for it. They have also yet to publish the item code, so currently you can't even work around that with Kotor Savegame Editor or the cheat console. I have yet to get this far myself due to the other issues, but the final combat encounter reportedly also suffers from a bug where one of the enemies fails to enter aggressive mode. So for the time being, I must unfortunately say to give this one a miss. If a patch or a v1.6 release is made that resolves these issues, that opinion will probably change. But right now, the rough edges are too sharp.

Hmm. I don't know that I agree with you about the computer panel positions, they seemed reasonable to me. Perhaps some comparison screenshots to highlight the difference are in order. I have some important questions: 1. What was the reason for reverting the Industrial Zone to a single module? 2. Does this fix the issue of one of the key items for the "Fixing Droids" quest being MIA in v1.5? 3. Does this fix the journal bug with the "Deadly Upgrade" quest?

If my reasons weren't your problem, why did you say the following? Those gave me the impression that my reasons were, in fact, one of your biggest problems. Now, I could certainly have worded my statement better. But at this time I stand by the idea of pointing people towards v1.3 (which hopefully will have an installer made for it soon so that it can be hosted here instead of a personal website and the inherent instability thereof) and my opinion of an update from the modders or an outside patch being unlikely by this point (lovely though that would be). You can say "A patch could possibly be made in the near future" all you like, but based on the time and what I saw in the bug reports thread the odds of that are very marginal. The modders are burned out on it, and the remaining bugs (which are noteworthy) are all day 1 bugs for this version that no-one else has addressed in the intervening time (almost a full three years). Based on that, it seems more useful to me to warn people of the bugs and direct them to a more stable prior version (something that already exists and has been proven not to have the bugs in question) than to just express hope for a patch for this one.

It doesn't seem to be written in the journal, no. Just the "Recent Messages" log, which Obsidian shortened for some ungodly reason. And yes, the mod does account for the droids you had to shoot when you're entering the code. You're right, it does... And being overdefensive is a bad habit of mine... Would it be constructive to offer my perspective at the time, as well as some background? 1. I play M4-78, a mod I was super-excited to get to, for the first time ever. During the first leg where you're clearing the radiation, I end up getting abruptly yanked around by conversation flags without so much as a transition scene (never mind asking me if I wanted to be teleported). On top of that, I end up feeling like I'm blindly flailing during some of the conversations, because I chose T3-M4. I make a mental note to comment about these issues, especially the super-jarring teleportation, somewhere future players are likely to see them and be forewarned. 2. Past that point however, I'm having a good time exploring the planet, learning lore, etc. Then I set foot in the R&D zone, and immediately encounter a bug with the "Deadly Upgrade" quest. 3. Having encountered a definitive bug, I come to DeadlyStream to file a report about it... and discover by reading the bug reports thread that v1.5 is riddled with bugs and unlikely to be fixed for the foreseeable future because the creators are burned out. I also discover that version 1.3, the much-more-stable immediately-previous version was only ever officially released for Steam, and is only available offsite because it never had an installer made. Said offsite link is provided within the bug reports thread for the mod. 4. Reeling from the discovery and still a bit rattled by the teleportation, I hustle to the comments, wanting to both air my complaints (since to my thinking, feedback is the main purpose of comments sections) and warn people to use v1.3 instead. I admittedly did so badly, emphasizing the gripe about the teleportation too much, and the bugginess of the current version too little. 5. The reaction I get to this is a message that, in its original form, seemed to be telling me I'm not allowed to complain because of the elapsed time since the release, as if that somehow invalidated my having a problem with the teleportation or meant my experience couldn't possibly perspective. That's how it came across to me. To me, that felt both hostile and dismissive. 6. The edited version of said message, and the reply to my response (which was to the original version of the message) both accuse me of promoting a pre-TSLRCM version when a quick look at either the current M4-78EP bug reports thread or Pa3PyX's website would show that to be incorrect. 7. Furthermore, these messages act as if I'm promoting this earlier version purely because of my gripe with the teleportation. I may have done a poor job at emphasis, but my initial comment nonetheless indisputably cites "everything in the bug reports thread" as a reason. People skipping over key information clearly mentioned in my posts (or in other people's posts in the same forum thread) is another thing that tends to feel hostile me; at best, it seems dismissive. It certainly doesn't come across as helpful... But I'm not going to dig up my argument with AmanoJyaku. While I feel I might be able to have a civil discussion about it with them now, this isn't the place. ** As an aside I just fully processed that Malkior seems to have accused me of posting the complaint in "a thread that last updated over a year ago" when A. this is a comments section, and B. the post before mine is from April of this year. For reference. Probably doesn't excuse what I did, but I hope it at least makes it comprehensible. @AmanoJyaku Complaining about a deliberate design choice isn't a bug report Also, it was actually the bug reports thread (which I hope it's obvious by this point I'm well-acquainted with, it was how I learned about v1.3 being more stable in the first place) that motivated the last part of my initial comment. That thread made it clear that v1.5 is riddled with bugs and unlikely to be fixed soon, and that for a more reliable experience one would have to download and install v1.3 instead. And I wanted to present that information here in the comments section (which is more immediately visible to people downloading a mod) to give some advanced warning and recommend the more functional version.

And why, exactly, is it invalid to give my feedback, negative or otherwise, in the download's comments section? Feedback and questions are the entire point of even having a comments section. This is a serious question and the reason I downvoted your post. Since you're done responding on this page, feel free to answer in PM. I'm not suggesting people go offsite just because of the gripe, I'm suggesting they go offsite because Version 1.5 is substantially buggy and unlikely to be fixed for the foreseeable future. Version 1.3 is the last stable build, and is unfortunately currently only available offsite (and possibly not even there, right now). And that, to me, seemed all the more reason to post here in the comments section where people are more likely to see it and be warned in advance that this version is buggy (instead of finding out the hard way like I did).

1. If downvoting isn't a valid way of expressing discontent, then why the crap is it even allowed? 2. To respond to the edited version of your first post... You would think, but not in the initial "clear the radiation" quest (which is what I'm assuming is meant by "droid quest"). You get abruptly teleported from spot to spot at certain points in that, including getting suddenly warped to the Central Zone near the computer. 3. Excuse you, but version 1.3 came out in 2017. "pre-TSLRCM build" my foot. It was just never hosted here because the modders never got around to making an installer of it for non-Steam versions. 4. Allow me to quote a very important part of my first comment that you seem to have skipped over: There are multiple significant bugs with version 1.5, including some broken quests. Version 1.3 was put up on Pa3PyX's website and linked in the bug reports thread as a more stable alternative. Although now that download seems to be broken anyway... WinRAR says the archive is corrupt, and I'm willing to believe that considering the .7z file is only 9.6MB when it should be closer to 560MB.