Ardrossan
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Posts posted by Ardrossan
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Believe it or not, I don't even remember that as an option. My consular doesn't give much consideration to DS choices, so I guess I don't either when I'm playing her.
They don't call it a mind crush, but the animations are the same. You can start off by bluffing the scientist, which Iresso half-heartedly goes along with. The scientist will take the bluff, but I guess a DS consular believes in follow-through, and it looks like needles of light are stabbing him in the head.
The truth is, I can absolutely still see him being attracted to a DS consular (certainly compelled or fascinated), but love is a much harder leap. He's a good person, but he's certainly tempted at times to give in to darker impulses, and I think he appreciates it when the JC helps him get past those moments and keep to a higher standard. In those times, she gives him a kind of support he needs to be his best self (the very thing he gives her, which I think healthy love is based upon).People say it's a boring romance. True or not, I don't find it coincidental that it's one of the only romances in this game with generally equal power dynamics, where neither partner has to lose their agency [Risha's romance requires her to essentially give up her bid at becoming Queen], and there's no creepy moments [ie. Nadia or Vette]
Speaking of compelled, there's no conclusive use of this in the game, but I tend to wonder if the SI isn't using some kind of mind trick to force Ashara to fall in love with him. Perhaps it's a DS option that got cut, and they left the corresponding dialogue in, but it would explain why players are so confused that Ashara thinks they're going to reform the empire even though the SI never says anything like this.
I strongly suspect that if the Eternal Empire story hadn't been massively truncated, and every LI at the very least got their rightful return chapter where they receive special story focus, we could've seen a very dark ending to Felix's story. It probably would've happened in an expanded / modified verion of the KotET Nathema chapter, given that this already has two strong links to Iresso: Jarak, and uniquely interesting holocrons. I suspect such a story would've given a DS choice to recruit Jarak and sacrifice Iresso, or an LS choice to save Iresso and imprison Jarak. Even some DS consulars who had affection for Iresso probably would've been swayed by the DS option, if it was written compellingly enough. That's really the worst ending for his story I can imagine: going through years of hell, having the hope-spot of a romanced consular show up to "rescue him," and then have that hope turn to ashes as she decides something else is more important than his life. Now there's an "evil woman."
That would be great, though idk that I'd want to play through three or more expansions of Eternal just to get there.
Sacrificing oneself vs. others, that's the key. Brilliant, it's so clear when you put it like that.
Some of the most relaxed, confident characters one can play in this game are DS. They have room to be confident because they're never going to run out of other people to sacrifice. If something goes wrong, there's another path to take, and more people who can be made to pay. But for a LS character who believes people are means, not ends, there's only one person they're allowed to sacrifice, and that's themselves.
Exactly, yes. LS and DS in this game isn't really explained in detail, and becomes particularly stretched when applied to NFUs. This definition is how I usually handle alignment questions. To that extent, pub characters actually have the best range of DS options, particularly the smuggler, who can callously sacrifice lots on named NPCs on the road to building an empire.
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Most people can differentiate honest opinions or reviews of a game versus an angry rant of "THE GAME IS DYING IT SUCKS" kind of posts. People ought to do some research on the game before letting a ranting post they read decide for them if the game is worth playing or not.
Also, I just want to point out that many people that are considered "doomsayers" are some of the most passionate players, and many of them didn't start out as malcontents bent on hating the game. In fact, most people that are critical of SWTOR don't hate the game at all, they just are angry and expect better.
I agree with the latter paragraph; however, I have also seen many supposedly reasonable critics on this forum heap praise onto the 'THE GAME IS DYING IT SUCKS' folks, which to me, undermines the former's credibility as reasonable voices. I don't think most people CAN actually differentiate between the two. The game's ardent defenders will attack anyone speaking out against it [and there's a sub-category that are not so much defending as conservatively denouncing any suggestions on how BW can do better], and the critics, otoh, will trip over themselves rushing to congratulate every illiterate SWG fanboy bemoaning how this game killed their obsession.
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I also agree with posts asking for these weather effects to be added to existing planets. Most especially, I would like to see improvements on Dromund Kaas. It would really benefit from some variable wind and rain. Sandstorms on Tatooine would be amazing, too.
I'd like to hear the glaciers cracking on Belsavis. Acid rain on Quesh. A blizzard on Hoth. An EM tornado touching down on Makeb. And a lot of this stuff needn't happen directly where the PC is, it could be out in the [draw] distance.
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Except that the first time you deny being an Imperial is during Chapter 1, long long before you are offered the chance to be a Mandalorian.
Yeah, Steve is correct. But iirc you have a choice to say this; you can say something different.
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Sorry for the necro, saw this linked in another thread and thought it was Very Cool. I don't know that I'd call it CANON, but it's artfully reasoned out and must have taken a serious amount of plotting on OP's part.
I guess my question is, has anyone actually tried to play the story this way? Like, start 8 characters simultaneously and try to follow this timeline as closely as possible? I think it'd be difficult to keep track.
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To me, it's amusing because it's yet another thing that the naysayers used to say could never happen. Turns out it could, and why not?
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T
While I would never play a DS female consular - LS is just too deeply ingrained in my mind when I hear her voice - it does kinda make me wonder from what angle Felix still falls for someone like that.
The consular is not a very good class for going DS, but there are a few stand-out parts. There are obvious issues with doing it in Act 1 - one wonders why the Council would keep sending you after the afflicted Jedi when you just kill them instead of healing - but even in Act 2 and 3, it's a stretch. What you end up with is someone who doesn't care about people, just meeting objectives. I think the scene on Hoth with the imperial scientist, where you have the option to use a Mind Crush on the scientist, should have been written as a defining choice for starting the Iresso romance. Given what he's been through, watching a Jedi torture someone's brain with the Force should be kind of traumatic and something Iresso brings up later if you start flirting with him.
It just could have been a lot better. On Taris, that republic officer's reaction to you at the end depends not just on whether you save both Tykan and his padawan [you can also kill the padawan and save Tykan, or vice versa, for different dialogues]. What I wish they'd done, however, is have a different dialogue at the end if you save them both yet save the Junction at the cost of its crew and the artifacts at the cost of the archaeologists. The LS resolution to that quest is that he says you don't care about people unless they're Jedi, but it's a line that doesn't make much sense if you took the LS options elsewhere on the planet, but makes perfect sense if you took the DS options up to that point.
I like the Gaden-ko quest because it's not just about picking LS options, it can be tricky to get the 'join the republic option' and a DS character would be automatically excluded. If LIs were written the way Gaden-Ko's mission was, it would add a lot more depth. There's a version of Iresso that might admire you for thinking more about the safety of the republic than the individuals you screw over along the way, but he shouldn't be attracted to you. Nadia's romance is extra-creepy on DS, and I'm not sure what could be done to make it better, but they might have tied it in more closely to her Tython quest [where she'd hear masters lecture her about attachment] and her growing responsibilities to her planet. I think there's something here that dovetails nicely with your argument, Estelinda, about sacrifice vs needing something for oneself [a DS character might not need Nadia or Iresso because DS cons aren't sacrificing themselves, they're sacrificing other people] but it needs more.
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Once he volunteers, via the middle conversation option she can voice concern that she cares about him and doesn't want him harmed, but he simply says he can take it and she's more important to the mission. Then, without any further input from her, he does it. I love that he makes this choice for her. He doesn't leave it to her to put the burden on him (which is its own kind of burden), he actively relieves her of it.
As others said, that whole post was an amazing writeup of the Iresso relationship, thank you.
I just want to note here that yes, this scene on Voss has a lot of interesting differences for companions. It's a neat little quest. Nadia will volunteer for you if you're romancing her, but I prefer Iresso doing it [because when Nadia does it, it just enhances the creepy devoted child-apprentice vibe imo]. There's also a difference here for DS characters. Nadia, for instance, will harangue you that you won't even try to help Gaden-Ko. Also, as you mention, you can encourage and comfort whichever comp does it, and the scene with an LI Iresso being comforted by the Consular is very touching...but I much prefer the version with an LI Iresso being trolled by a DS consular. I think he screams something like 'You're an evil woman!" while you mock him for being weak and embarrassing you. Shouldn't have volunteered so fast, LT!
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Sniper is fine, does a lot of burst damage. Marksman and engineering are both good; I tend to prefer engineering. Operative is also fine; the major advantage is being able to stealth through combat. There are certainly places in the IA story where I miss not being able to skip fights. The aoe isn't bad but not as good as Snipers. I like the uh...the middle tree for operative, with the knives. The pvp one is also fine for pve, just don't take the healing one.
If you're leaning towards op, as far as story goes the only time iirc that an npc in your class story recognizes your class, she assumes you're a sniper. It's not a big part of the story though and you don't respond to her.
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I've heard nothing in this thread that persuades me that the story would be remotely interesting. You're a trooper taking orders? We've got that. Most players stick it near the bottom of the class stories. You're a trooper taking orders from Sith? Sounds like an IA, and iirc, they actually did this for the last part of the IA story, shortly before the PC literally fakes his own death to escape that fate. Except instead of being a cool imperial agent, your archetype for this would be Pierce. A story patterned on someone like Pierce's exploits? Set for SoR or later? Yawn.
To say nothing of the mechanics and how they'd be different from the trooper's.
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Massively should understand better than most how long you can drag out the death of something that should have been put out to pasture years ago.
oh snap
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Who said anything about quitting the game?
Your post suggested that the paranoia over the end of this game is unfounded, but then you posted a link for an entirely different BW game. So it was a bit of a mixed message.
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The kid thing is an interesting touch as well for those so inclined. I think a lot of players would dig that. Good idea.
Have you seen what children look like in this game? Even if I wanted my characters to have children - which sounds like an awful mechanic no matter how they do it - I definitely wouldn't want children that look like anime-like soulless abominations. And that pic is probably the best looking of the bunch; the ones from the gree water plant mission [which i can't find a pic for] legit look like tapping the water line changed them into mutants. If I could do anything, I would add a line where our PC can hypothesize that this is the origin story of cthons. It would work especially well for a consular.
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Cancer jokes are what passes for wit on the internet.
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I'm pretty sure I was drunk the first time I played this game. It was early 2013, I had played k1 and k2 countless times and I just got a nostalgia sense to play this game since it had just come out on F2P. I made a trooper with a very stupid name, and I did so badly that first night during the intro class missions on Ord Mantell, that the next day I saw that my armor was in the red zone of hopelessly broken.
I was drunk quite often after I started playing in earnest. In fact, for quite awhile this game was my go-to place for getting drunk and screwing around online, which was problematic in more ways than one - when I played through Hoth on a smuggler for the first time, I remember landing on the planet, and then I blacked out. The next day I saw I'd played through the class story there but had no idea what happened, it was just a blur.
I also remember being frustrated at the many entitled idiots on this forum who were continually outraged over the existence of F2Pers [it's somewhat less awful nowadays]. I couldn't tell them off because I wasn't a sub, but I once attempted to pay a sub 200k [the max limit] to post my angry rant on the forum. He didn't take me up on it, and I didn't know about the reddit page at that time. Also I wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the time, because I was pure F2P back then and I couldn't securetrade anyway. I was frequently a very angry drunk in-game.
I had many misadventures that I don't care to remember [but regrettably do], and when I stopped drinking, I was concerned that continuing to play this game would make me relapse. But it was a baseless fear. I suppose this game is addictive enough on its own.
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It's a good question. The arguments to explain it away are also interesting, but raise a point for me about timeline: I never got the sense that the timeline for all eight characters doing things at the same time made any sense. Yes, they do interact in interesting ways, but I think someone would have a tough job actually making a complete timeline of the class stories and where they fall before each other and in which places.
And I think some of the dialogue reflects that. Remember when the JK gets woken up from his brainwashing and he asks Orgus how long he's been out? He doesn't get a straight answer. It's intentional, because if he got a straight answer it would be easier to plot out a sequence of events happening before and after in other class stories. Perhaps originally that was the plan, but I think at some point the writers just threw up their hands and decided to make it purposefully ambiguous.
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You can actually romance Torian even if you reject the Mandalorians - there are videos on YouTube. He won't try to teach you the language but will ask why you turned down Mandalore. What seems to turn that romance off is later. He asks you if you two can raise your kids Mando, and if you say no (or say you're not planning on having kids) that seems to turn things off and he won't propose.
I got to the why you turned down mandalore convo and it just stopped. he had nothing else to say, literally.
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There is a choice just after meeting Risha to suggest throwing her off the ship. I forget what she says in response, but Corso has a pretty negative reaction to it - even though he doesn't like Risha - and would probably fight you if you were able to go through with it. Then you'd have no crew [though killing Corso and Risha would certainly make up for it, on some playstyles].
The OOC reason you can't kick Risha is because she's one of the five companions and you can't kick any of them off.
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I don't care for Torian. I've had difficulties getting the romance to start, and eventually I realized it was because if you aren't Mandalorian, he automatically puts you in friend zone category. Unlike any of the other romances, it's predicated on a certain playstyle - if you don't accept that choice, you won't get Torian's romance, but of course, you haven't met Torian the first time around, so it's not obvious. IRL it makes perfect sense that a potential partner would disqualify you for not fitting into their culture, in-game it's an annoying mechanic.
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Most of these are for KOTFE/KOTET
1. Have the option to exile Arcann, imprison him, or turn him over to one of the factions for a trial. I spared him mostly because it wasn't worth killing his mama, but the kid still needs to own his crimes.
2. Tell Acina and Malcolm that they're both idiots and to argue for a cease fire while we figure out who is setting all three of us up for an obvious trap and make them painfully sorry they tried. Now, the rest can play out with one of them going for that throne and you have to make a snap call on which one you prevent from sitting in the literal hot seat (which acts like a faction choice), but it would be nice to be the adult in the room with both factions insisting on fighting out their grudges when they're both too bloodied to stand.
These two especially. It was bizarre on Iokath when I suddenly had to side with Acina because the Republic were sort of the aggressors.
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User's name on the youtube channel is 'bipolar gemini'.
I'm not really up on astrology, but this is certainly something one could come up with in a peak state.
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The Emperor also does a lot to screw up the Battle of Corellia because his focus is on killing people, not winning the battle.
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And yet they get assigned masters who do nothing to train them. We have skill trainers, and the game provides an in-universe explanation for them, and they're the ones who actually train us. Yuon Par - who was apparently resting for the entirety of Act 1 - and Orgun Dinn are just there. To provide emotional weight I guess, rather than being useful for learning how to throw shoryukens.
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* spoilers *
I think my second issue with the story was the main antagonist and my relationship with him. If I am his apprentice , there should have been some iota of me learning from him or something. The entire time I act superior to him and as much as he is annoyed by it he does nothing to me. Then I smash him in the end and YAY, I’m the most powerful dude in the empire (or darn close to it)
This mentions a couple problems that recur throughout a lot of the class stories. First, that none of the force using classes get anything that amounts to training from their masters. For the Jedi classes, it's because their masters leave almost immediately, and for the Sith classes, it's because the Act 1 objectives are deemed too important to waste on training imo. The SI is maybe the only class here that I'd let slide on that, because of the way the story is set up.
Second, that there's no sense of consequences for being insubordinate among any of the classes. The IA tries to resolve this early on [on DK], but of course, you can't really play an MMO where there's only one line of dialogue that keeps you from getting killed, game over. It would make more sense on a SP RPG. You can be a DS Jedi [either class] and Satele and the council will just shrug. You can refuse to follow orders throughout most of the trooper storyline and Garza will yell at you just like Baras yells at the SW, but there's no pay-off for the yelling. The trooper can do one thing near the end of Act 3 that may limit their freedom after the class story [or so Garza says] but afaik it's never brought up again.
Darkest of the DS options
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by Ardrossan
I'm curious what people think are the darkest, or most evil DS options in the game. You get more DS points for certain choices [i think becoming Hand of Jadus nets 200 pts] but there are lots of choices worth much less that are much more evil, imo. Needless to say, spoilers abound.
Here are some of my picks:
Smugger: On NS, allow yourself to be bribed by the Shanjaru scientist to abandon the rich girl Momi to further experimentation. For extra flavor, bring Corso along.
SW: Again on NS, force Vette's sister Tivva to 'service' you / the crew in exchange for buying her freedom. Then when she does it, laugh in her face and say you never intended to pay for her freedom. For extra flavor, be a male SW romancing Vette. Before affection was changed to influence, I think this ended Vette's romance, but now it will continue anyway.
Consular: On Balmorra, take Zenith's suggestion to use the brain hijacker tech to force Galthe to sign over the presidency to Tai. For extra flavor, say that this is something the imperials/Darth Lachris would do [provokes a rant from Zenith], then do it.
Agent: On Tatooine, sneak into Dragon Eyes' house and kill his wife. Wait for him to show up and react to his dead wife, get the info, then kill him too. Honorable mention: On NS, allow Watcher X to slice into the Cyborg's brain to get the info about the terrorists, then kill the cyborg.
BH: On Voss, you get accosted by some Voss commandos during the class mission. You can let them go, but kill them instead. This lands Tormen's general in hot water and basically destroys the empire's efforts on Voss. after dealing with Redrish, go back to the general and persuade him to kill himself to preserve his honor.
JK: On Tatooine, mind trick the Jawas into being a distraction for the Sand Demon. They mostly get killed. Honorable mention: On Tython, kill the twi'lek villagers who incapacitated you at Kalikori. If you're Male, iirc you can force the new matriarch to 'service' you in exchange for forgetting about this.
Trooper: On Alderaan: 'Interrogate' the Thul Noble. After taking care of Gearbox, hand him AND his rescued family over to the Organas. For extra flavor, bring Dorne along for these conversations.
SI: Again on Alderaan, persuade Lady Rist that you came all this way to help her romance Nomar Organa. Resist the urge to electrocute her. Have her meet you at the killik cave. When Nomar appears, kill them both and take the vault key. For extra flavor: there are many ways to handle this quest. My favorite is to convince Rehanna to help you, make the call to Nomar, then kill her immediately after.