Star Wars: The Old Republic Discussion

(shrug) I guess he is an actor. But I don’t see how that is supposed to make me want to romance him. Just like with the Consular, Doc loses out a big time to the non-romanced male on the team. Honestly, they should have given Iresso tothe Knight to romance vs Doc if they were so much against an evil romance with that Sith Lord. He is a nice character with a good backstory, but next to Zenith... and coming on board later, he just stands no chance. Well, in my games.

Nadia is a romance I would only do on an evil Consular due to the awful combo of Master-Adopted Dad and a Lover and the first two obligations being forced onto the PC under protest. It’s hard to stomach it even on a well-meaning female, but bedding her after all that on a male ain’t coming from the LS, no way, no how. It’s as creepy as it gets in the full collection of the bangable padwans/apprentices.

For me the only classes that make sense for KOTFE/KOTET are the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior.

As Crutch stated, its the connection they have with the Emperor/Valkorion.

The Imperial Agent is my favorite class story, but him getting force powers, taking on Arcann etc just seems really silly. Same goes for all non-force classes.

But that's the stuff the AWESOME romances are made off! LOVE CONQUERS ALL! The protagonist is that special, to break the evil spell on someone who is a Sith nad could not feel a thing for 300 years... awww... Doc? No, thank you.

Well, I am telling you how I feel about Nadia's romance. I never played my DS male Consular to as far as to get her rammed down my throat, but I had the full blast of her story-line as a female Consular. So, yeah, not on an LS Jedi for me... TBH, I am happy with it remaining a "never".

And nope, I am not looking for a corruption story. My male Sith's romances were LS & sweet, and I actually quite enjoyed it, as odd as it is. My DS males were Smuggler, Hunter and IA. The male Knight, Trooper, Warrior, Inquisitor were all LS. I did not finish DS male Consular. The ladies were usually the opposite, except the Knight, that I kept LS, but never finished her run, 'cause Knight's story/gameplay is not really my thing.

Overall, I think I've enjoyed side romances more than the main romances in SWTOR, though some did click with me.

lol well if you're that sappy about it, you have no business giving me grief for Nadia

And I never felt Nadia was pushed on me either. My consular recognized her gifts and potential and was more than glad to train her. What developed he wasn't really expecting, but it feels right so... something something, will of the Force.

Oh no. You said LS Sith...

If you say so

Now that's creepy

The last line of the Sith code does not say "The Force shall free all". At best in some (older) versions it's "The Force shall free me". Put the Jedi and Sith codes side by side, you'll notice the former are general, collective statements while the latter is personal- all about me, me, me. You can argue that Sith are more nuanced than "rawr I kill you dead and kick puppies and eat babies at every opportunity" but make no mistake- they are dark side. You can RP what you want in your playthroughs, but just know it's heresy. But hey, that does it for some people.

For me I have one vision for each class, realized through my mains (pics on first page). If I replay the stories, it's with clones of those mains. I also have only one Shepard. I tend to craft a character and set it in stone as much as any NPCs. The game by its nature treats me as a variable, no reason to do it to myself too. I'll maybe vary some smaller stuff, watch the rest on Youtube.

Do not, I repeat: DO NOT do the new FP right now.

You need to do the solo mode to complete the story portion connected to it, and the way the solo mode is right now... waterboarding is probably more humane than having to play it.

The trash mobs are not THAT bad, but the bosses are fucking horrendous, with probably 5 times more HP than warranted for solo mode. The first boss took me probably 10-15 minutes of just slooooooowly whittling down its HP, and Temple HAD to be switched to heals, otherwise it was literally impossible on my tank Guardian in addition to slow as fuck. As a group it probably works fine, but the solo mode badly needs rebalancing, maybe adding the OP droid you get in other FP's when you go in solo.

Maybe it's less frustrating if you're playing with an Agent and already have Temple at a high influence level from playing pre-KOTFE content with her, but it was a thoroughly unenjoyable experience with my Guardian that has fairly decent gear, both with my default tank spec and also once I did a field respec into Vigilance to do a bit more damage since Temple simply HAD to heal instead of being on DPS duty.

There's three bosses, of which the first is easily the most frustrating one right now. The latter two also have absurd amounts of HP for solo content without the droid support, but the first one is by far the worst. It also has some pretty sturdy adds that I simply could not kill fast enough for it to be even remotely worth it before new ones spawn to replace the ones I kill, so once I realized that it was just ignoring everything else but the boss and hoping Temple could outheal the damage done both to herself and me. It might be OK as a group for all I know, but you need to do it solo for the story mission.

Okay, I've just done the flashpoint and a funny thing happened. As you and others have told me, the bosses are horrible. The second one was the easiest but the other two were insufferably long, I couldn't wait for it to end.
Anyway, I finished it but then I realised that I didn't do it on solo. For some reason, my brain picked the story mode so I have to do the flashpoint again... Kill me please.

I doubt I'll do it in a near future unless I'm extreamly bored and have nothing else to do.

So, I ran the new FP 3 times yesterday. It was long. It was beautiful. It had a lot of mobs. It felt like old SWtOR, imo. I loved it. I will agree that the bosses had entirely too much hp for solo mode though. Omg, I bet that first boss took me 20 mins (I was heals and my level 1 Temple was tanking), UGH!

I did see that many people had to re-run it after doing it on story mode, even though the description says "complete 'A Traitor Among the Chiss' in solo mode." I didn't encounter any bugs in the 3 runs, so I don't know anything about that.

When Umbara came out, many complained that it was too short/quick/easy and now they're upset that this one is harder and longer? I loved it No pleasing some folks, I guess.

I hope we get more locations/things to do on Copera, it was pretty!

I concede that it's probably not the best. I'm just so frustrated after two years of dealing with people narrow-mindedly putting forward the Knight as the only "real" Outlander choices in a way that really does seem to me more like they aren't paying attention to the game's various stories that it comes out pretty...confrontational. I apologize if I ruffled a few feathers. I'm used to it on the official forums, but I kinda expected people to come off as more, I dunno, "enlightened" here? And that's not a dig at you or the others; I really shouldn't just expect people to "know better". It is what it is, but in the interest of civil discourse and maybe expanding a few minds, I'll try to be more diplomatic about it.

Since I'm trying not to be confrontational about this, I don't want to spend time nitpicking back and forth with arguments. That said, there are two misconceptions that I do think it's notable to clear up first, since they kinda lead into where I'm going from here:

It was "retconned" way before SoR. The vanilla 1-50 game flat out said in the Warrior story that the Emperor wasn't really defeated. That might be what you mean by "mere details", but it was never meant to be that the Knight did anything more than break the Emperor's metaphysical collarbone. Now, I'll grant that doing that and not really getting the same sort of hit back makes it a bit better in the Knight's favor than a "stalemate" in practice, but ultimately, it's just not a big enough setback that I would call it a clean "win".

As for the other, this almost leads into where I'm going to go in detail, so let's address this:

Within SWtOR, that simply isn't the case, though. I'm going to include my standard disclaimer that I have not immersed myself in the Star Wars EU, nor am I really interested in doing so at this point. It's entirely possible that within that greater setting, your statements carry more weight. I have my doubts even about that, just because I can't imagine that the EU has that much consistency, given the sheer number of creative minds involved. That said, I don't know that with any certainty, and since I can't claim to, I also can't claim that SWtOR is consistent with the rest of the setting.

That all disclaimed, I will reiterate that talent with the Force was never portrayed within SWtOR specifically as being an especially significant difference in terms of portrayal. There are talents that the Force can provide that tech can't, but they don't create a significant gap. The Hunter beats the Jedi's Battlemaster singlehandedly in their story, and a Knight's strongest opponent (who the Knight isn't even supposed to be able to beat!) is Executor Krannis, a tough, but pointedly Force-insensitive elite soldier. And that's if we only factor in class stories...both sides show very little discrepancy at all with regards to who the hero is (maybe some mild surprise at points, but never so much so as to indicate they think it's an impossible feat). Similarly, no matter how "powerful" they're supposed to be in the Force, you're not going to a Sentinel and a Sage successfully beat Jag and Sorno in a two-on-two. This is pretty consistent with the movies, at least, too, especially the prequels. Obi-Wan gets two of his toughest fights from non-Force users (Jango and Grevious, the latter of which is explicitly better than at least four more "average" Jedi) and the rest of the order are killed off by clone troopers. I just don't see where people can see a power level discrepancy between vanilla SWtOR and KotFEET if they've followed the game up to that point.

Of course, that all said, I still think, to not a small degree, that a character who doesn't have talent in the Force makes a lot more sense anyway. Having a canon hero who can leave the Force stuff to the Force-users, or who has to fall back on Valkorian (or at least be tempted by it) when it does become absolutely necessary actually fits the story. If the hero could have just easily said "screw it, I'll move the rocks myself" when Lana's in danger, makes the railroading of the story feel pointless. Or looking at it from the other direction, it's also still vital for a Force-user in Chapter XI to listen to Jorgan and the exiles about tactical plans for the base assault, right? Saying the Smuggler/etc. can't regard what others say about the Force is saying like the Consular should just "use the Force" to ignore all the Skytroopers.

Furthermore, a big part of what I named before is, rather than power, achievement. "Only you have been worth my time", says Valkorion to the player character. He's an immortal Sith abomination, why would he have any interest in some grunt soldier or an arms runner, I see people ask. However, this is where it seems to me like people have it backwards. Looking at it from his perspective, he already has power, he already has an Empire, he has eternal life, he has no further need for pawns. Instead, he is looking for someone who piques his interest. And when you look at it that way, the Knight who was basically raised from birth to be a sword that Jedi could stick into the Emperor and make him die. So someone like that fighting and defeating an avatar of the Emperor? I think a guy who can decimate planets would honestly find that pretty...banal, especially since the Knight never truly managed to vanquish him. Same thing for all those others who start off naturally gifted or otherwise (particularly the Warrior or the Consular). On the other hand, just a "regular person" who accomplishes, say, everything the Smuggler accomplishes by uniting the freelance criminals of the galaxy, however briefly, to a common front, or the Hunter, who reshaped the very face of the galaxy by indirectly putting Saresh into power, sending the Empire reeling from an actually-aggressive Republic military effort. That actually seems like the sort of thing that would get a cosmic monstrosity interested: pure amusement value. Nobody is a threat to Valky, so it seems like the best choice for the story is someone who would be interesting for a different reason.

So all that said, it comes down to a few major points as to who is "best".

• First, I think Republic classes are a slightly better choice, since that gives a better feel of a "united front" in the very first chapter. It's not absolutely required, but having a Republic-aligned figurehead working with Darth Marr is a little more interesting, I think, than just having a few Republic troops on Marr's ship that are along for the ride.
• Second, a big part of the KotFE story is leadership. If you really look at the Outlander's role (and heck, the role Lana got him/her to fill), it's always been about the Outlander's ability to lead the Alliance. Of the various Republic classes, the Consular is really the best here, being the most tried and tested leader, not to mention the most effective. The Knight is a one-Jedi army, but doesn't do much actual leading (even when s/he is named a commander, Var Suthra does most of the actual legwork). The Trooper does small-unit tactics, but nothing on a grand scale. The Smuggler is, granted, a little more variable, and depends on how you play that story. On the Imperial side, the only class that gets much of a leadership role during their story is the Inquisitor.
• Third, and admittedly smallest, is the fact that, in the early parts of KotFE, especially, a lot of the missions are pretty covert operations. The various classes that can have a Stealth AC, even when they aren't in that AC, tend to be portrayed as very subtle and sneaky, and feel right when so much of the story involves surgical maneuvers and manipulation.
• Finally, this last one's just a personal one, granted, is that the story cutscenes aren't equipped for certain ACs. All Force Users wield a single saber (except Shadassins) and all Tech Users wield a single pistol. So just for maximum immersion, to me, at least, the character should be an AC that wields the same weapon they do in cutscenes, and actually uses said weapon as more than just a stat stick.

So when I tally those up, we get:
Guardian: 2/4, Sentinel: 1/4, Sage: 3/4, Shadow: 4/4, Vanguard: 1/4, Commando: 1/4, Gunslinger: 3/4, Scoundrel: 4/4
Marauder: 0/4, Juggernaut: 1/4, Assassin: 3/4, Sorcerer: 2/4, Mercenary: 0/4, Powertech: 0/4, Operative: 1/4, Sniper: 1/4

Now, granted, this isn't a perfect system, and there are definitely advantages/disadvantages that any AC can bring into play. For example, I like the idea you posted about, for example, of doing a start-at-60 Sage, for example, because said class story gets the least reference in KotFEET and feels like a good "new character" to fill that role...I haven't tried it myself yet but I've wanted to (how well does it work in practice?). Or a Warrior can, mostly by coincidence, granted, keep the Alliance together and recruit every possible companion, which nobody else can do. And yes, that even includes the Knight fulfilling the prophecy like they thought they were supposed to. Or heck, even the Smuggler has a distinct "bonus" notch if playing Light-sided*. But if I break the Outlander to these most basic "what fits" aspects, then that's how things end up.

*:

Hey believe me, I know. The TOR boards are terrible. I'm there now every once in a while, and I'm coming off as more of a dick just reacting to those people. Now the idea isn't that the Knight is the only possible choice, but it is the most suitable (again based on the personal connection he has already with the Emperor). The Warrior follows and the Consular and Inquisitor can work as well since the former was also crucial in dismantling one of Vitiate's key systems (the Children) while the latter could be on his way to becoming a new Vitiate himself, what with the ghosts and the rebuilding. Where it starts to break down is for non-Force using classes. Since the is heavily Force-based and features the biggest Force Eldritch Abomination since Abeloth and that whole nonsense, rando trooper/BH #532234 just doesn't fit, nor does a spy or a smuggler. Really they should've still split into two stories one Force-user (the Emperor Saga) one not (something something Eternal Fleet/Iokath).

Yeah, no you're greatly understating the Knight's victory. The Knight is the Chosen One in this setting, not just by his story but by the Revan novel as well (despised by fanboys though it might be). The whole Voice of the Emperor thing came about directly because of Revan's assault from the novel (prior to that he just had the Sith pureblood body he was born with). After Revan, Meetra Surik and Scourge faced him, he decided one body was too vulnerable and hibernated it, preferring to possess remote bodies for the rest of his dealings. Until the class stories, never before had a Voice been struck down. The warrior kills the Voss voice (with the Emperor's consent and help) because Sel-Makor trapped him in the Dark Heart (due to his Voss Host). After that he took the Voice the Knight kills. This was definitely not what the Emperor wanted and it nearly destroyed him. Kira's quest after the class story hints that the Emperor might still live but be formless and mad- this is not unprecedented. Palpatine rose again after Jedi and upon his second defeat it's said the spirit of every Jedi who ever lived has to constantly keep his soul in the void to stop him from returning. This type of shit does not mean that the one who struck him down is useless, given no one could've achieved this, or did before. Both Luke and the Knight are the greatest Jedi of their generation with Luke being the greatest Jedi overall (and on the flip side, Palpatine being the most powerful Sith ever). But back to Vitiate, if Revan hadn't gone full retard and caused the strife and conflict on Yavin, the Emperor could not have returned.

And from a political standpoint, the death of the Emperor (temporary though it ended up being) along with the destruction of the Children, the defeat at Corellia and whatever else the trooper/Smuggler accomplished (taking down misc military dudes) meant the Empire was in full remission and final victory would've been assured if not for Isotope 5. And the death of the leader of the Sith, the most powerful of them, and the greatest threat the Empire had to offer is definitely the chief achievement there, from a practical standpoint, a morale standpoint, whichever you want to consider. So yeah. Win. Full stop.

It really does. The inconsistency is greatly overstated by its detractors and mostly stems from stuff written in the 90s before the prequels. Lucas ignored it and did his own thing, and everyone else had to adapt, and for the most part they made it work. Point is, there were systems in place to ensure consistency, things like the Holocron. Lucas was also consulted on pretty much every major project and gave props to some and others he dissed them, to quote a little Weird Al.

And TOR has been consistent with the EU as well, at least until KOTFE, which honestly barely feels like a Star Wars story. But I guess we can blame Disney for that.

Yeah for one thing you can't just divorce the game from the universe it's set in, even if you're not aware of it. For another, most of what you point out is gameplay. Krannis isn't that tough because story, he's tough because they inexplicably made him a champ (the only champ you fight in class story if I recall), gave him plenty of mooks and set a literal time limit on the fight. Oh and they also give you an ally champ and his mooks, making me question why I'm even there (it's the same thing with the SoR Revan fight. Am I the hero, or is it a combination of Satele, Marr, Lana, Theron, Shae etc.) By contrast, the fight against the Emperor (a mere Elite) was easy, even back before level sync, god-Companions or overleveling. Are you going to claim Krannis > Vitiate?

The thing is, organics in the SW galaxy have no counter to the Force that's not the Force (except for very rare Force-blocking creatures, but neither ysalamiri nor taozins are in TOR). Forget lightsabers and lightning and all the flashy stuff. Most "average" Jedi or Sith can use the Force to exert enough force (lol) to break bone. Which means that's it. A fight against a Force user if you're not a Force user should logically have one step: you die by a suddenly broken neck, or your heart stopping if they're really good/precise. Why doesn't this happen? For the same reason the Terminator (or other killer cyborgs/robots) never crushes anyone's neck (or skull) either, it just tosses them around- because if it were over that quickly it'd hardly be entertaining. A non-Force user fighting a Force-user only has a chance with an ambush type attack and even that is a crapshoot since the Force acts as a spidy-sense. And no, Grievous and Jango are not great examples given the former is a Jedi-killing cyborg durable enough to withstand any Force attack and the latter has Rule of Cool Armor because people decided a dude with a bucket on his head that does nothing but stand there is the ultimate badass.

Then of course there's the really crazy aspects, like Force-users who explode stars, create black holes and yes, eat planets. And while they are the rarer, we still have people who hold up cave-ins with their minds, eat ghosts, survive prolonged exposure to a planet-killing earthquake machines and so on.
The railroading is pointless. Forcing every character into the same mold does tend to make the Force-users feel out of place at times (hey I can move the rock too, y'know) but that's a bad thing. Because again, aren't you supposed to be the hero? Why is Lana doing the cool Force thing instead of me? Or Senya? We're supposed to run from Vaylin, when it's like, bitch I already killed your dad once! Ok, something something carbonite. But later at Asylum? When Senya pushes you away, they might as well have been playing this sound effect:



And while you take it as "well that just means a non-Force user is best", that's incorrect, because the story is still very Force-centric. It's like trying to make Han or Lando the protagonist but make the story about confronting Palpatine on the second Death Star- obviously they couldn't do shit, so you give them an over-powered "companion", say EU Luke, to compensate, but Han/Lando is still the designated hero. Do you see how dumb that is? You want to play Han or Lando but you're forced into a story that's over their heads and doesn't fit at all, and then you introduce an NPC that boots them out of the room while they do the cool shit. It's fucking terrible! KOTFE is Return of the Jedi with Episode 4 Luke and Episode 3 Obi-wan holding his hand and doing everything for him. Arguing that Han would be a better fit in that case because ep4.Luke's useless anyway is simply ridiculous.


Erm... no. If Valkorion is so powerful, that normal people are ants to him, then an ant that conquered the ant hill wouldn't impress him one bit. By all rights, he shouldn't even notice, because ants, who cares? Certainly not more than an ant that actually stopped him and brought him closer to death than he's ever been (the way you keep underplaying the Knight's achievements does not detract from what they are).

I can agree with your first and second points to some extent. It's good to get Rep and Imp in Chapter 1 though I have my doubts that any Rep characters would take the throne by the end. The leadership thing can vary, I think. In the prequels/Clone Wars, all Jedi are apparently Generals. Are all of them really that good at war? For the most part you only hear good things though. The third and fourth are gameplay. Just because a Jedi doesn't have a stealth field generator doesn't mean they can't sneak (Obi-wan and Qui-Gon sneaking around the Trade Federation ship in Ep.1 anyone?) In fact, apart from gameplay, it doesn't mean they can't acquire a cloak and use it, like Kira does on Coruscant.

And yeah my insta60 is a sage that I consider my KOTFE main. As I may have mentioned I consider her a new character that needed to step up since the previous eight heroes vanished for reasons, and explicitly don't want class story references. If she gets the fewest that's bonus for me, though on the flip side I would be annoyed if I were taking my actual Consular through.