Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Hmm, Jedi Knight:

1 - Male, so we get the full David Hayter experience naturally

2 - Mirialan, it's not easy being green, but you get decent ink at least

3 - Light Side; yeah it's the "boring" option but it's kind of hard to bring myself to vote for being a real rear end in a top hat with a Jedi Knight. However...

4 - F, Nothing says you can't be SARCASTIC about it. If there's anything about the Jedi Knight storyline that's held true so far in my playthrough, it's that you wind up surrounded by Republic morons. Obviously the best thing to do is inform them of their meatbag moron status, so they may at least make adjustments if possible. Rules-wise, I asked that we be light side, not good little worker drones; if it's a stupid rule, break that sucker. Oh, and form attachments like mad as a proper gently caress you to the prequel Jedi.

EDIT: Also, for the smuggler playthrough, if at possible take the "talk your way out of trouble" options at every opportunity, they are funnier than hell.

MadDogMike fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Feb 10, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Catsworth posted:

Glad to see the Republic party formed! :dance:

Now I'm curious what advanced classes they'll all end being? I'd recommend trying to have at least one tank-able and heal-able option. It'd be neat to see the opposite classes but that's hardly a requirement.

Well Brainamp, you said you've picked already but PLEASE tell me you picked Commando. Sure, Vanguard is a decent tank and all, but given the difference in weapons used I have no idea why anybody goes with it over the Commando's option (giant gently caress-off-and-DIE assault cannons forever!). Smuggler at least has cool options either way (though I've been less than fond of healing with one myself), and at least one of the Jedi I hope will take their tank spec.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Ferrosol posted:

: Haven't you come to save him? I begged at the temple gates for you. The Flesh Raiders took him a week ago. They came at twilight. One of them was just... covered in blood and scars. He dragged my son away. Listen. Our scouts saw Viyo--my son on Tythos Ridge. That's where the raider's have their camp.

: I refuse to get involved in this. Is everyone on this planet a moron? Can no one solve their own drat problems without crying to the nearest Jedi about it? Miss Jedi my space cat is stuck in a tree can you get it down? Miss Jedi I need half a dozen droid AI's can you get em for me? Miss Jedi old Master Jaspers needs a sponge bath can you help? I've had enough!

If you do solve this quest the DS way, please get a video of it; the guy getting flung away bit is so wrong it's hillarious.

Dolash posted:

One of the many ways in which KOTOR 2 was an effective deconstruction of Star Wars is Kreia suggests the Force isn't really understood by anyone, and probably doesn't care about the different codes and rules built up around it. Every Star Wars writer afterward should've embraced this idea, but instead it just looks like it's the writers who don't agree on how the Force works.

Of course, Kreia herself shows a marked level of not understanding the Force herself, so who knows. As for the marriage/no marriage for Jedi thing, I've always figured when the Jedi go into the "don't form any attachments at all because you might go Dark Side" zone they're basically acting out of fear of the Dark Side, which raises the obvious problem with that approach. It's kinda pointed that Luke, the apparently greatest of the Jedi, said "screw that". Their enforcement was always flaky anyway whenever they were stuck with trying to enforce it on "galactic hero" Jedi as opposed to "younglings we cheerfully mindfuck and screw out of the order anyway". Maybe Anakin effectively cutting that attitude out of the Jedi (along with their internal organs, naturally) was another way he brought "balance to the Force".

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Ferrosol posted:

: Unbelievable! To tell the truth, I didn't think it was possible. I think you're more than qualified for the job of leading Republic soldiers in battle. Here's your certification. Congratulations. Amazing!

Sadly, given the demonstrated quality of the average Republic troops in this game, this probably overqualifies one for the job of leading them. You certinly won't do WORSE than their usual commanders.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Cythereal posted:

The latter. This guy is not quite right in the head.

As noted previously, Republic troops can't be GOOD at their job; actual skill and competence must be balanced with some other factor like insanity. Or a cheerful willingness to horrifically slaughter POWs and wounded like Todessa here.

As for our Jedi Knight, go Guardian; been leveling one for a while and it's not bad to solo with. The middle talent tree does surprisingly decent DPS once you get in far enough, and in any event having Kira around later gives you plenty of additional DPS. I've never had any issues tanking either, though I bought field respec so I could de facto dual spec for solo DPS or group tanking as needed. Saber color, try green-black; never seen it in use, kinda curious how it works out.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
I'd be shocked if Bourne legacy isn't already picked, but if not rectify that error pronto.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

OzCavalier posted:

Agree completely that Kilran is one of the best villains in the game. I've run Esseles with numerous people on 4 different servers, and I've never had a single person say that they thought Kilran was bland and boring (especially compared to later Flashpoint/Operation "bosses".


It's even more amazing that he's considered one of the 'best' villains, and yet you never get to actually fight him.

Apologies if this is ruining an attempt at fooling unspoiled people who can't avoid black bars, but that's not QUITE true.

Nice thing about Kilran is if you pick banter-style options he responds in kind (though I think most of them will show up in part 2). It's no wonder Ironfist has weaponized smugness, I doubt Kilran would work with anybody who couldn't keep up with him.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dolash posted:

(Todessa really did end up at the bottom of the shaft, due to a glitch that caused her to fall through the ramp to the reactor. We still defeated the boss easily with three people though, because it is very easy we're professionals.)

Uh, not to mention the Esseles/Black Talon instances are technically 2-man flashpoints (the only ones, to my knowledge), so even with 3 you have more people than required.

quote:

: At last--a real live, Jedi. How I’ve looked forward to this. A true Sith cannot go long without a true challenge.
: He’s not wrong there, though I only see one sith in this room.
: None of you will leave here alive! To destroy a dangerous foe... that is the way of a true Sith. When I carve your heart from your chest, your fellow Jedi will sense your defeat. As will my master.

Amusingly enough if a non-Jedi (at least with a smuggler anyway) is in a group with a Jedi and wins the conversation check, I seem to recall there being an option that effectively says "Well, I see you guys are busy, so I'll just get out of your way..." (though of course the Sith doesn't buy it).


Glorious.

Calax posted:

The other major way essles ends (in general with public groups) is that you can tell the ambassador that you were asked to leave her behind and she promptly flips out on the guy who did it.

Yeah, it's kind of weighted Light Side unfortunately. Your first response as shown here just ignores the issue if you pick LS. If you pick the non-LS choice you walk through mentioning the guy's plan to her, then you have either a LS choice to take her back (more or less same as shown except she chews the guy out) or DS choice to betray her. Because you have to win multiple conversation choices in order to get the Dark Side option, and most people on Republic go Light Side, in practice I have never seen the DS ending of this flashpoint even with a DS character. Can you come back to flashpoints at a higher level? Been tempted to solo this with my smuggler to do the DS choice and get the Backstabber title, which goes rather well with a scoundrel sneaking up and shooting people in the back with a shotgun. Can always repeat the thing with LS to make up the points lost.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Ordinarily I'd pick Gunslinger based on not seeing it (mine's a scoundrel), but given the personality difference you're considering I'd definitely say Scoundrel. It is fun as heck to play anyway; I'm probably non-optimized and all by going Scrapper talent tree with mine, but watching a Twi'lek girl punch down/shotgun in the back enemies has never gotten old.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Yeah, kinda wish I'd held off on making my imperial agent sometimes; Chiss is good and all as the Empire side LP shows, but the humor value of having a Miraluka sniping would have been great.

M_Sinistrari posted:

Not so sure on that since going from the lady flirt faces my former Mirialan smuggler had and my current Sith PB smuggler have so far haven't been cringeworthy compared to some facial expressions. In that same vein, so far it's been interesting to see how Corso acts around a male character. With my first smuggler, I had flirted with him once only to find out that he's coded to be in romance regardless of continuing the romance or turning him down at ever possible point. It got annoying enough that I chose to delete her and redid her with the sith option while specifically not taking anything remotely flirting with Corso and aiming for any dialog that loses rep with him, and so far he's still creepily possessive to where since he's not that good a tank, I wouldn't mind spacing his farmboy rear end.

Yeah, Corso has some "interesting" attitudes towards women (think you can lose rep with him just being mean to women NPCs even if they're jerks); got him bothered pretty bad when my female smuggler flirted with Darmas. So with that and his geeking out over space weapons... basically, he's a goon.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Calax posted:

I'm referring to one that involves the democratic process, a stupid senate aide, and the stupidest LS/DS option around.

Oh, THAT one; think that's coming shortly actually. I didn't think it was entirely stupid, though the LS choice involving lying and sabotaging the quest giver instead of just telling them off was a little screwy. The DS choice was more emotionally satisfying given that drat aide though.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

The Lone Badger posted:

This is a good point. If he was a true Sith he should be thanking you.

Wow, if you could call him out on that, Mort's "you Jedi suck at your Code" thing would have a perfect mirror Republic-side.

As for the voting, Like Kira (somebody willing to agree with you how much the Jedi are idiots? Sold!), give her a Blue saber so somebody at least is rocking the Guardian look, and Keep the Bee Saber for yourself. I'd suggest red, but A. it'd look kind of annoying in screenshots vs. Sith, and B. red is the color of dark siders churned out by the dozens, you're much better than them so why ape their look? Though if some cool variation on standard red shows up feel free to switch.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Hulk Smash! posted:

:eng101: Wookiee

I like that they give the smuggler opportunities to talk his way out of fights. Hopefully it keeps up as the story progresses.

Aw, he skipped the funnier way to do it though; your better offer is to tell them "I just saw Skavak in the Black Sun area" and they go after him because he has a much higher bounty on him. Wish I could find a video of it, the last line is hilarious - a cheerful "Remember kids, shoot to kill!".

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

CommissarMega posted:

Call your ship the Miel Muwn- one way or another, the little guy is going to finish the job :black101:

Second this one; just wish you could actually name your ship in-game. Sure, most folks would never see it, but it's not like having one extra bit of text would be much of a burden on the server (especially if you just stored it local and had the client kick it up when you boarded; apart from the rare occasions when you invite somebody on your ship you wouldn't have to transfer the info to another client).

Oh, and nice excuse for the Trooper to hit the Temple, Brainamp (as folks probably noticed, only the Jedi have class quests there. Sure you can go there for the couple of planetary quests, but WHY?).

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Inferior posted:

Can you actually leave the Senator to die and go kill Wraith? Or does she always escape?

Oh yes, the choice is quite hilarious given how utterly pissed the senator gets. I think you do get some chiding from General Garza (though suspiciously mild all things considered, you'd think "deliberately left a major government official to die" would get you court martialed) and there's a news story she forwards about him dying in a tragic airspeeder accident. Renegade Commander Shepard would be proud.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Wyld Karde posted:

Well of course Jolune sounds bloodthirsty during the space combat. She's all cranky after having been woken up to deal with her droid having accidentally navigated the ship into an Imperial ambush in an asteroid belt!

Interestingly enough the Jedi Knight actually does have a few "nicer" comments; I recall hearing "Ouch! Sorry friend..." a bunch. One thing I've always wondered; I know at least some of the companions comment during the space missions, but is it just the first companions or do you get more hecklers from the sidelines as you add people? Haven't played far enough ahead to be certain.

quote:

The space combat is one of the few things I remember fondly from my time playing TOR, but I suspect that's because I deliberately avoided doing it very often to avoid getting burned out. It's as shallow as a paddling pool, but the look and feel really does provide that Star Wars space battle vibe.

It is pretty fun for a simple thing, though some of the latter missions get more frantic (especially in those awkward stages where you're leveled enough to play them but not enough to upgrade your ship's shields to kill things fast enough). Real trick is learning to spot fighters when they're far away and nailing them, helps keep you from getting shot to bits easily. I do like that once you get to the point where you easily start outclassing the early missions, they add additional bonus objectives to keep it at least slightly interesting (think this mission's extra bonus is just kill another 40 fighters or so though).

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Definitely, show off some of the heroics, LP readers should get an idea of the headaches involved. I'm still shocked I found groups to do most of them, as you say they're more straight-up violence than neat plot, and it's not like you can't find a million sources of straight-up violence in solo.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Deadmeat5150 posted:

I'm laughing pretty hard at this. It fits so very very well.

Put me down for Guns & Poses also, that one is clever.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Bloodly posted:

You get abused, you tend to become an abuser. True even in real life.

Even more true when "getting angry and hating" are what turn you into an abuser. Of course Jedi tend to flip dark side under torture, how many people can resist getting pissed off at being tortured? Why the hell they tend to join up afterwards instead of murdering their would-be master is beyond me though, unless the Sith are real good at convincing new darksider Jedi they'll "have a better chance later" up until the Jedi's done so much wrong waiting they forget how to come back after they do get around to it.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dolash posted:

Now that's a vision quest! Too bad Jolune is blind, if she could've seen the colour of "Timmns"'s robes, she might've suspected something was out of place. What was that giant worm, anyway? I don't think I've seen it before.

Think they have random champion critters running around that you can get an achievement for beating up; know I've killed that one before (with my lvl 55 BH doing the GSI stuff, so not exactly a long fight).

quote:

It's actually almost a pity they didn't work some survival mechanic into some of the harsher environments of the game. Tatooine, for example, is satisfyingly vast and wasteland-like, with huge stretches of empty desert.

Gah, no, the only thing worse than driving over looooong empty stretches of terrain would be running out of supplies or whatever while doing it and dying because you can't see the drat route you need from the map. There's enough reason to despise the "wilderness" areas in-game as is.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Glazius posted:

Honestly, even without the benefits of Mort's experience, I would say that there has never been such a thing as a sane Jedi master. "Sane" is a relative term, and even in the Republic pretty much everyone outside the Jedi Order thinks that Jedi themselves are... shall we say, of exceptional mental state?

Well, the Jedi try not to be attached to anything, and what do you call somebody without any attachment to reality?

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Bahumat posted:

Not just Mort! Atronie did it too!

I like to think that both of them were practically dead even before the sith apprentices woke them up.

ToR's "Power Curve" is indeed silly.

What'd you expect from the game where "a horde of elite troopers!" = 5 regular guys and a womp rat? For a supposedly rare critter though, tarenteteks are everywhere in TOR. I admit the group assigned to hunt them down by the Jedi were established by KotOR to be idiots, but jeez.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dooky Dingo posted:

Yeah, see, I know this has probably already been debated ad nauseum by countless neckbeards all over the globe, but how exactly do the Jedi and Sith keep up their numbers? I mean, if the Jedi aren't really supposed to have relationships and they suppress their libido with the Force or whatever and the Sith are one glass of spoiled milk away from murdering everyone in their extended family, how do they keep any kind of numbers at all?
Theoretically, they would continue conscripting force sensitives from every race for their respective camps, but wouldn't that eventually just lead to the eventual extinction of force sensitives through natural selection?

Well, while force sensitivity is kinda sorta genetic, it isn't JUST genetic apparently (at least if you buy the Jedi thing that the Force chooses who is sensitive); if it was just tracking down relatives it'd probably be easier for the Jedi to find them. Wouldn't be mandatory testing at birth for everyone if it was that simple at least. Even if a Jedi/Sith ancestor was required somewhere in the family tree, given we're talking about millennia of existence for both here even the rare outlier Jedi/Sith who spawns can have hundreds or even thousands of descendents after enough generations. But Force sensitives are ridiculously rare anyway; the Jedi at the height of their power were a few thousand out of trillions of trillions of beings in the known galaxy. There was no "keeping up their numbers" to begin with really.

Alacron posted:

:sigh:
It's not the stupidest thing Lucas ever came up with, but I'd say it's up there.

I dunno, the take home message I've gotten from the movies was this whole "shun attachment" thing was in fact the mistake that killed the old Jedi off. It took Luke embracing attachment in defiance of Obi-Wan and Yoda (who fairly straight up told him to kill Vader) to win the day in the end. I think it's significant the very end of Return is Luke going to join his friends and family; I don't get an impression of somebody who's going to retreat to an ivory tower and meditate there. Let's face it, the whole business of avoiding attachment boils down pretty much due to fear of screwing it up, and doing something out of fear is hardly a smart move for the Jedi, is it?

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Oh, even better, if Wookiepedia can be believed that one trillion figure, which doesn't count transients or people in orbit, is actually a third of the total population actually there at one time. I'll grant they mention LOTS of hydroponics, and there's at least one more habitable world in the same solar system plus who knows how many orbital farms that probably help, but yeah

SynthOrange posted:

Cannibalism, the only thing keeping Coruscant going.

is about what I'M starting to suspect would be required. Who knew backbiting politics was literal? Might explain the huge number of "transients" too, as well as how the Mon Calamari got their name (insert "it's a trap!" joke here).

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Bahumat posted:

Agreed. Screw that drat maze.

On the 'Forcequake': It's true, that particular power is one of the best for cackling maniacally to yourself as you murder things. It's even worse as a Sith Sorcerer, who get the equivalent in the mighty Force Storm, which is basically the same thing with lightning. Like all the Sorcerer abilities in fact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYCr-HQZSBo

Yeah, just got it on my Sorcerer, as if I wasn't addicted to going UNLIMITED POWER already :science:. Interesting to hear Force Quake is the Counselor version; ran into it on enemies before (on Tatooine, actually, if memory serves) and was wondering. I do like that for the most part NPCs of a particular class seem to have abilities that said classes have as PCs, not as much NPC-only stuff as I would have expected.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

PoptartsNinja posted:

The real question is: how did he get it on? Did someone build it around his head? It looks like there's no way he could get his chin through that neck hole.

Then again, I'm one to talk. I think Mort probably has to assemble his helmet every time he leaves the ship.

Obviously it's magic the Force at work. Or, looking at the thing; maybe the front part is a (really stupid) mask bit he attaches to the helmet, it doesn't seem to quite match the rest of it anyway.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Inferior posted:

The low res graphics are making everyone look disconcertingly muppety.

The Teraan siblings' plan is endearingly naive- let's use these ancient financial records to prove your great grandfather owed our great grandfather a sack of credits! Then everyone will pay us what we're owed and we'll be rich and powerful again! They haven't really been paying attention to the whole civil war thing, have they?

I dunno, Alderaan does rather put the "civil" in civil war; if nothing else, it makes dandy blackmail material.

Also, if you play a female smuggler, it's the brother who comes onto you like a rash here. Suffice it to say I started clicking my Dirty Kick button during the conversation out of reflex...

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

PoptartsNinja posted:

No, not even a little. The nascient force-users on Balmorra were too weak for the Sith to bother to train, which is pretty much a death sentence. Your options in that mission are: "Let them go and tell the Imperials the caves are empty," "pretend to let them go but tattle to the Imperials," or "murder everyone."

Uh, everybody in that quest was an adult; I don't remember going all Anakin Skywalker when I did the DS option. Not quite the same thing as killing children (though still obviously evil as hell).

Dolash posted:

I had the exact same thought when I got the quest to destroy the eggs, there's definitely a failure to understand one another for being too alien between the Killiks and the other sentients that allows both groups to commit atrocities due to a lack of empathy. Even the Jedi and Sith never get "murder each others' children" quests (kidnap and indoctrinate, sure, but that's for their own good). The fact that the Imperial Agent has a Killik-joiner companion just complicates the matter even further - is he a victim of brainwashing? A bridge between races who could enable understanding?

Quinine's not exactly the sort of character to get contemplative about different standards of intelligence and empathy gaps, though, so he kicked those eggs over like it weren't no thang. Fuckin' bugs. He might not be able to defend his actions if anyone called him on it, but honestly, how many moral philosophers are there running around the galaxy at the moment?

On one hand, I get the obvious moral argument. On the other hand, even the nice Killik-joiner companion's bug group was cheerfully prepared to slaughter a compound full of (at least some) innocent people and/or use them as egg incubators. I'm pretty sure Vector is the only Killik-related person to even consider, y'know, TALKING instead of just "singing the Song of Swarming" and taking what they want, and his group was still prepared to indulge in the aforementioned slaughter of a compound of innocents (though to his credit not him). So if you have a race that kills/eats/turns into Aliens-style "babysitters" people and steals your territory, or at their nicest brainwash people into helping commit said acts, AND you can't apparently negotiate with them, I'm not terribly shocked even the "good guy" Republic has concluded they all need to get wiped out. Atrocity begets atrocity, after all.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Bruceski posted:

I kinda like the overall Alderaan politics. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in the other thread but here's the history:

--Alderaan opinion starts forming to resist the Treaty of Coruscant (not sure if just for "screw the Empire" reasons or if Alderaan would end up in their hands) or secede if it passed, headed by Gaul Panteer, the crown prince.
--To prevent this and support the Treaty, House Ulgo kills Panteer.
--The Queen dies in a shuttle crash (no idea who was behind it but it happened a few days after the assassination so I'm sure SOMEBODY did) and with Panteer dead there's no heir.
--Alderaan's nobility winds up in chaos as everyone jockeys for position and starts making a case for being king.
--The Empire brings House Thul back from exile and gives them secret support, intending to rule through them as a puppet.
--Ulgo warns everyone this is happening, but nobody cares.
--Ulgo seizes the crown and attempts to unite Alderaan in fighting Thul and the Empire.
--This goes about as well as can be expected, and everybody instead turns against Ulgo, with the Empire and Republic fighting a little war on the side with their puppets/"allies" depending on who you ask.

So Ulgo basically did all the wrong things for the right reasons. Plus a bit of power and greed on the side, I'm not calling them saints.

Pretty sure they did secede actually (hence why the Empire is there without it restarting the war right then in Chapter 1) and I thought it was implied Ulgo took out both the prince and queen, but otherwise that's about it. It's fairly coherent really, it's just with all the annoying backtracking one has to do on Alderaan quests being mainly justified by various noble plots, most people would rather be able to play cut the Gordian Knot instead of wandering here, then way over there, then way over there...

My, Jolee is certainly Ms. Friend to all Animals, isn't she? Wonder if you can get her a tauntaun or varactyl mount, it'd be perfect for her. Assuming she's tall enough anyway; I grabbed the tauntaun for my smuggler and it looks like she'd have no way to actually see things when using it.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dolash posted:

In that sense, it's an accurate representation of being an errand-boy for nobility and helps explains all the revolutions and rebellions.

It's more an issue how they lie to you then come clean; if they'd bothered to not be secretive THEIR time wouldn't have been wasted either. Ah well, at least during annoying Alderaan quests there's always one comforting thing to keep in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djZFHTa6TfA

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Glazius posted:

How is anyone still trusting Skavak with anything? How many betrayals does it take before you go on the galactic blacklist? Or is that not really a thing?

I assume he has a habit of leaving most people he betrays dead (present company excepted thankfully). As for the rest of the time, I guess if it was that easy in the Star Wars universe to track down and tie people to their crimes, bounty hunters wouldn't be so popular.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dolash posted:

I really liked that House summit scene. It's neat that there's some continuity about the number of noble houses and their activities.

And goodness, but Jolune's spreading herself thin. After all the talk about the healing ritual taking the strength out of the healer, though, it might've been nice to see some consequences of that by now. Maybe that's coming up. I am reminded of the part near the end of KOTOR 2 where you've either reunited or murdered the Jedi masters, and the meeting you have after that. Probably won't be anything that drastic, though.

Personally I'm now curious (having started a DS Counselor as opposed to LS Jolune) what happens if you just keep killing off the masters. Wonder if you somehow wind up "weakened" anyway to keep the story train going. I admittedly went Dark Side primarily to mess up the traditional Jedi=Good story, like playing a kazoo loudly during an classical music concert; I just HAVE to see if the endgame is them thanking my hilariously evil (complete with visible Dark Side corruption enabled) Counselor for bringing peace to the galaxy or something.

Doctor Reynolds posted:

Trask Ulgo saved your life. True hero 'till the end. :colbert:

Interestingly enough, the Darth Bandon guy whose head Quinine delivered was the one who killed him too, which explains why they wanted said head I suppose.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Ferrosol posted:

I don't know the Eradicator attacks by Darth Jaedus comes pretty close. Although most of the casualties for that happen off-screen.

Also I somehow doubt you can side with Angral, blow up Tython, and have it celebrated as a holiday by the Republic (I still die laughing every time somebody mentioned "Eradication Day" in my DS Imperial Agent playthrough; you get the feeling everyone in the Empire must wear a terrified fake smile for the "celebration").

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
I gotta give this to Old Republic, while some of the stories eventually falter later on (Bounty Hunter I'm looking at you) I can't think of any of the Chapter 1 storylines for the classes that didn't end interestingly. The intergalactic stakes for the Smuggler may be low overall (at least as far as I've played thus far), but taking down Skavak is one of the most satisfying of all of those storylines though. Though I'm jealous (assuming it's real) of the tagline I've seen by somebody on the official forums that's a screenshot of the combat log saying "Skavak defeated by Dirty Kick (X damage)"; now THAT'S the perfect capstone to end things on :).

Oh, and for disturbing Bioware plotlines, apparently the female smuggler can offer to sleep with Skavak or something here (there was a Flirt option anyway). I have no idea if it's some sort of "trick him and shoot him" line or if it goes all the way into just wrong territory since I bantered a bit then shot the bastard instead, but... yeah, just wrong.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Inferior posted:

It feels like the Jedi Knight story was the first one Bioware came up with- you are the Chosen One on a mission to defeat the Biggest Bad in the galaxy, now assemble your team- and a lot of the other stories reference it in someway. I think the JK story was what KOTOR3 was originally intended to be.

Yeah, the core story there (not to mention it being centered around a combat Jedi type) definitely feels like it was probably KOTOR 3, the stakes are some of the grandest in the game, and I can see how the JK storyline could easily have handled the planet-hopping aspects the original KOTOR series seemed to follow. Though I'm interested to see how a Dark Side JK goes through this one - just finished the storyline with a LS Knight yee gods the final boss is a bitch; even at 55 with 156 gear and forewarned enough to upgrade T7, I died for the first time ever playing the storyline because of the difficulty interrupting an insta-kill ability and having to single-target adds down at the same time and I'm curious how the DS version differs. Given KOTOR liked to significantly change-up the ending between light and dark side versions, I'm wondering if the JK storyline does the same thing. Or maybe the Sith Warrior storyline would have been the dark side ending for the hypothetical KOTOR 3; if Kira's background had been the original PC's in KOTOR 3 you'd have an excuse to wind up on either side.

Dolash posted:

The eternal tragedy of SWTOR is that all hats swap out the hair model, so the only way to wear a hat is to go bald. But yeah, the uniform's moddable. The game really does offer a pretty great selection of moddable equipment, most of which is pretty easily available from the Galactic Trade Network.

Yeah, I do like the moddable options a bunch; my BH main is still wearing the armor I got from Black Talon thanks to that. Though my irritation with hats is cutscenes seem to override the "hide headgear" option for companions a lot, leaving them wearing some of the more hideous headpiece options during said cutscenes. I wound up unlocking an efficiency scanner from the cartel packs for all my characters (shown here for those unfamiliar) just so I could slap something on all my companions that wouldn't obscure their faces. That's also a nice touch they added fairly recently; it costs a fair bit of real money, but it's nice if you get a rare drop out of a cartel pack to be able to unlock it for every character on your account. Buying the various crystals that way let you generate an infinite number of 'em, so I could slap one into everything I or a companion owns and get some pretty ridiculous stats at low level too.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Hahaha, nice touch with the banner this update.

CesiumCanoe posted:

As long as you're at least level 15 you can participate. There are bounties on 8 different planets - 6 planets per faction including the bounties on shared planets. Keep in mind, as you increase in level the lower-level henchman bounties become unavailable to you (can't remember if that applies to kingpins as well). Each planet will give you one of four possible henchmen and each planet has a different kingpin. You can do one henchman and one kingpin per character per day. You get reputation with the Bounty Broker's Association, which allows you to get some Bind On Legacy gear and HK-51/Treek customizations as well as the usual pets and vehicles.

http://dulfy.net/2013/06/28/swtor-bounty-broker-association-reputation-rewards/

I think it's a neat event and a great way to do something different for a week. There's achievements and titles for capturing and killing all available henchmen and kingpins, so if you're into achievement-hunting that's something cool to do.

Yep, the titles are kinda amusing (especially for Bounty Hunters; I was running around with "Hired Gun [PC name]; For Hire" as my BH's title for a while) and if you don't care about the rep (or are max rep) the rep items are actually worth decent cash at low level. The level limit is only on the first planet (Ord Mantell or Hutta); can't do the henchman quest there after level 27, though you can still do kingpin there when unlocked. They wound up doing that because too many high levels were lazy and kept going to those planets and lagging things up for the lowbies I believe. So they all just go to Coruscant/Drommand Kaas now instead *sigh*.

As you can see it's fairly straightforward (if not simplistic) but it's nice to have an event lowbies can do also for a change. Main things of note I recall; the Imperial version did at least note if you were already a bounty hunter (pitch becomes more "show these newbies how it's done"), one of the henchmen is a droid and if you freeze him they actually thought to give him a different little case following you around, and doing the Nar Shaddaa henchman bounty with my Inquisitor put the Steve Blum voice-acting to mind-shattering levels since he voiced BH-7X, the Nar Shaddaa quest giver, AND my companion :psyduck:.

Dolash posted:

Neat to see how all that bounty hunter hullabaloo actually works! The rewards don't seem that impressive for all the grinding it appears to take, though.

Not really impressive, no. Though the grinding goes VERY fast if you're as alt-happy as me since even lowbies can do it; I finished all the achievements and maxed the rep in about 2 weeks total work over the couple months since the event started. Only real sticking point was the bosses; not counting the unlock requirements, I have to say the "can be solo'd" thing is WAY outside my experience since I've inevitably died every time I tried, so you need to hope to find someone doing your particular boss (and not only can you only do one boss a day, you can do any particular boss only once during that month's event). Your partner better be near your level too since the boss summoned matches the level of the highest person present in a group (if those 55s had actually been in a PARTY with Jolune, she would have been running into level 55 henchmen/bosses and most likely exploded in a few hits).

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
LOL, the Jedi Counselor makes Master THAT early? That's pretty funny considering when the Jedi Knight class gets it, and they have a Padawan following them around most of the game. Talk about a blatantly political move; they didn't want to make it look like they were ignoring the Rift Alliance by sending a "regular" Jedi, so they had to send a Master (while still not sending an actual experienced Jedi master; I guess seniority gets you out of obvious fetch questing).

kaosdrachen posted:

The Sith are, as usual, their own worst enemies.

Seriously, if they were to manage to keep it together long enough to actually defeat the Republic they'd self destruct within two decades at most... Oh, wait.

About the only reason they held together in the first place between the last Sith conflict and this one was spending the whole time preparing to take revenge (and thus being on an effective "war footing" the whole time) if memory serves. Also probably helped the Emperor was more active and probably stomped the more ambitious idiots down back then. Though I suppose given that even cutting back to only two Sith in existence didn't stop the backstabbing, the Sith Empire is surprisingly intact and non-stupid really.

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dolash posted:

: …Besides, one Jedi Master should be plenty.

: :smug:

: :argh:

:iceburn:

Love how the "Hero of Tython" and "Jedi Master Barsen'thor McAwesome" interacted, though to be fair if I was the Jedi Council I'd sure as hell promote the nice obedient Jedi over the murderous psychotic anyway.

Doctor Reynolds posted:

It's a good thing none of these guards are equipped with, like, a walkie-talkie.

Given enemies in this game seem incapable of saying anything more than incoherent yelling upon entering combat, I doubt walkie-talkies would help much ("Are you actually under attack or did you just stub your toe?... OK, one RAAAAAGH for under attack, two RAAAAAGH for toe stubbing?...").

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Dolash posted:

If there's one thing the galaxy's never short on, it's scoundrels.

The mistrust angle gets a lot of play in Balmorra, regarding the Republic and the Resistance, but it's pretty unfair. The Republic tried quite seriously to retake Balmorra - last time they almost broke the Treaty of Coruscant over it, this time they very clearly are. I can understand not trusting their competence, but surely they've proven their intentions?

Honestly, good intentions with bad competence alone is enough to make people skeptical. The Balmorrans are also probably distrustful because they figure the Republic is concerned more about the war as a whole than Balmora itself, which is, y'know, true really. The fact the Republic did abandon them sure isn't gonna help there; they already did sacrifice Balmorra for the "greater good of the Republic" (twice now!). When somebody's invoking that old saying about making omelettes, who wants to be an egg?

As far as "violating the treaty" goes, I'm fairly certain the chapters on both sides are supposed to happen under roughly similar time frames. So the Sith Warrior in his questline has probably re-ignited the war already, and if not, the kinds of atrocities the Empire is committing on Taris around the time of the Republic going to Balmorra (not to mention the superweapon hijinks in the Jedi Knight Chapter 1) would certainly do it.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged
Doc is a somewhat self-centered jerk himself, what's not to Like about that for R'andayn?

  • Locked thread