Trooper Story: dry?

[Lunafox]

Also, I agree that Aric and Elara can be pretty bland companions, but M1-4X makes me smile and Tanno Vik makes me LOL (Yuun is a throw away companion). When I was playing my male full LS trooper and I got Tanno on my team I thought, "OMG this is going to be another Skadge. I am SOOOO gonna hate him" How wrong I was. The choices I made, made Tanno one of my favorite companions.

 

I agree, Vik was my favorite of the Trooper comps...the only one I didn't want to shoot out the airlock honestly. The droid was novel, in that he's so large and different but after awhile his 'rah rah republic' schtick drove me up the wall. So, for me, Vik was my pal. He made the story bearable.

[RarePorcupine]

I mean, you are expected to be more of a Worf than a Han Solo, so no doubt you could consider it dry. Me, otoh, see it as a warm and exciting war story filled with difficult choices. Also Brian Bloom, male Trooper VA, did an outstanding job. He actually sounds like a person, not like some kind of Archetype. Now, what is written is entirely different story.

 

But it's not everyone's cup of tea. Me, otoh, dislike everything about Agent story-even the male VA sounds...wrong. Like some kind of a snake that's best beheaded just in any case. Everything's so cold and dreary in this story /pass . It is nicely written and designed though-I'll give it that.

 

Yeah, I agree with this (w/regards to the trooper story). It feels like a lot of complaints come from not being able to play the trooper like someone who would never make it to command the top Special Forces unit in the Republic (and arguably the galaxy). If you're looking to play a standard Bioware player character, it isn't going to be the story for you (and I wouldn't want a trooper story with a character that just goes around sassing everyone, ignoring orders and so on). I enjoyed the story because it was grounded and true to its themes (you're a cog in the machine, the conflicting political vs. military perspectives, you're a "normal" (relatively speaking!) person rather than a Force-wielding superhero) - it never deludes you into thinking the trooper is really running things or is the only hope for the galaxy or anything like that (similar to the Consular story, which I didn't enjoy as much but did a really good job of touching on doing Jedi things versus action hero Knight ones and diplomacy/building coalitions).

 

Even given all of that, you're still given a broad spectrum of possible characterization and how to react to the orders Garza gives, since sometimes she'll want you to be a dutiful "For the Republic!" type and sometimes she'll want you to follow morally ambiguous orders (like with the research on Taris or the cyborgs on Coruscant). Is your trooper a goody-goody Captain Republic type? Sometimes that will mean defying orders or going against what may be the best pragmatic result. Are you a DS trooper that's essentially a thug? Sure, you get some real personal satisfaction from that, but you'll get called out on it by several characters (even if the game design limits how big of an effect it can have in the vanilla story). And, of course, you can play your trooper as someone anywhere in between - the increasingly jaded optimist, the morally ambiguous patriot trying their best, whatever.

 

I also really enjoyed the companions. Jorgan's rough around the edges but a good man trying to find his role in the Republic (I do wish they'd followed up on a brief moment he has where he contemplates what the role of the Cathar is). Elara offers a lot of insight into life in the Empire from someone who doesn't buy into the propaganda but is still very compassionate and serves as the moral compass. 4X is a little one-note but is really funny and has some great lines. Yuun's a bit underwritten since he arrives so late, but you get some interesting Gand lore and a unique perspective. Even Vik, whose inclusion is a bit odd (although I guess you can assume they had to find someone really quickly) has an interesting perspective on events and a pretty good backstory for someone who doesn't get a ton of conversations.

 

You mentioned the male VA, but I'd also say the trooper class benefits from having both genders get good voice acting, especially with the conversations with companions (Bloom has really good chemistry with Elara's voice actor, for example). Along those lines, both of the romances are both treated seriously and allowed to develop organically with less "hit the flirt button and let the companion start drooling over you!" like you get with other classes and Bioware games. I get that they don't necessarily appeal to everyone, but I really liked that it felt like the writer (Charles Boyd I think?) didn't feel the need to make either romance too gimmicky or "video-gamey", especially with how both characters don't dramatically change just because you romanced them. Yeah, Jorgan shows his sweeter/more sentimental side and Elara lets down her guard and is very affectionate, but they remain their own people rather than being treated as "serious characters that need to be "fixed" by being romanced" and they're both written as mature adults rather than NPCs orbiting the player character.

 

Is it the best story in the game? No, I wouldn't say so. But I do think it gets sold short because it's not as sexy as other stories (i.e. Force users and the agent story) and doesn't follow the usual Bioware pattern of treating the player characters as a power fantasy that can do anything they want (in fact, I wish they'd done more with that, but I can only imagine how people would have reacted had their character actually been punished for misdeeds). I think it's a great change of pace from the more generic stories like the Jedi Knight one, for example.

Edited March 10, 2017 by RarePorcupine

[CloudCastle]

Kind of late to this thread. I liked the trooper story, more than I thought I would. For me, one of the big things that makes a story work for me, is can I play alts through it and get a different story/personality feel each time around? I've played the story 3 times now and I was able to give each character a different personality and conversation style, and I made different moral choices. My play-throughs went like this:

 

1) Dark side Female Cathar - I played her as a "by the book" trooper, who followed every order of Garza's to a "T." Sometime she had to make unsavory choices and I got yelled at a lot for being heartless but in her mind she was the only one with the guts to do what had to be done to save the Republic. Garza pretty much loved me the whole story. Female VA does an amazing job for a dark side voice.

 

2) Light side male Pureblood - I was this big, scary looking guy who liked saving kittens in his spare time and was painstakingly polite to everyone. I had him always make the choices that would result in the saving of the most lives. Garza frequently yelled at him because he would often go against her orders once he got inside and saw the situation.

 

3) Neutral male Zabrak - This was the playthrough that surprised me the most because I didn't realize that many of these conversation options existed. I played this guy as a cocky playboy character, who's main goal was to choose the most heroic-looking option - whatever made him look good to the ladies. I got some really funny lines as he snarked his way through the galaxy. When I got to the Jaxo incident though, I pushed him to his limits and he was left broken and shaken...lying to Garza and with the guilt of thousands on his head. It was painful, but a perfect development for the story I had created for him. Would he descend into further darkness now or would this redeem his philandering ways?

 

I enjoyed the trooper story.

[TalonVII]

Many problems with the trooper story.

 

First off for most of the story I never really felt like I was leading a squad.

 

I mean for example the first mission on Tatooine is a great example. Could of had myself, 4X, Dorne and Jorgan. Whoever is my companion at the time helps me fend off the initial wave of bots. Say it's me and 4X. I call back and bring Jorgan and Dorne in to help secure the area. Have Dorne tend to the wounded, put Jorgan and 4X on overwatch while I talk to the civvies.

 

Then I have 4X form up on me, put Jorgan in charge of helping the town defend itself from more droids while Dorne continues to help the wounded.

 

Would of felt like I'm actually commanding a squad. Small stuff like that would of helped fill the void of not really having a squad. Ya know?

[light_senshi]

First off for most of the story I never really felt like I was leading a squad.

 

It's not just the trooper that's like this, all the stories really suffer from this. My inquisitor, before KOTFE, had eleven companions (I think)....which makes me ask: what are the rest of them doing while I'm running around with active companion. And why can't I put them to use doing other stuff...I mean other than running crew skills.

[bluehufsa]

Trooper is definitely one of the more restrictive and less extreme, less funny classes but it has its' moments and I enjoy it. Consular on the other hand, ugh! Talk about dull. Everything the consular says is in a monotone and they have zero sense of humor.

 

There's nothing dull about Consular, after you recruit Zenith you can go DS, the story becomes more interesting

[Nefla]

There's nothing dull about Consular, after you recruit Zenith you can go DS, the story becomes more interesting

 

In your opinion lol. Personally I like the plot but I hate the consular's dull, dead, monotone voice and dialogue options. I get that they were going for some calm sage librarian type but come on, put a little emotion in there and give players who don't want to play either a dull librarian or a dull psychopath something. There's no passion, no flirts, no humor (unlike the Knight who has all of this as well as the calm peacemaker attitude if you want), just Ben Stein with a lightsaber.

[SalBasss]

I liked the Trooper story just fine. Really enjoyed the conspiracy/deception of the prologue/Chapter 1, and the "rebuild the team to glory" aspect of the rest of the story. I thought it was nice - certainly could have been better - but nothing to gripe about by any means.

 

What I didn't particularly care for was the actual character (I played LS), and her development. The reason was everything that was mentioned - bland, uninteresting, basically a robot of light side choices.

 

That said, when I created a second trooper (for a crafting bonus ages ago), I space barred through the entire thing. So I haven't played the DS version yet. If I ever do, I hope I get some kind of Jack Bauer experience... although the bar is set pretty low based on everyone else's comments.

[Raphael_diSanto]

I liked the Trooper story just fine. Really enjoyed the conspiracy/deception of the prologue/Chapter 1, and the "rebuild the team to glory" aspect of the rest of the story. I thought it was nice - certainly could have been better - but nothing to gripe about by any means.

 

What I didn't particularly care for was the actual character (I played LS), and her development. The reason was everything that was mentioned - bland, uninteresting, basically a robot of light side choices.

 

That said, when I created a second trooper (for a crafting bonus ages ago), I space barred through the entire thing. So I haven't played the DS version yet. If I ever do, I hope I get some kind of Jack Bauer experience... although the bar is set pretty low based on everyone else's comments.

 

DS trooper can be pretty hilarious, imo. Robocop/Dirty Harry/Jack Bauer isn't too far off the mark.

[SalBasss]

DS trooper can be pretty hilarious, imo. Robocop/Dirty Harry/Jack Bauer isn't too far off the mark.

 

For some reason I read that as "Beverly Hills Cop" the first time around. I was halfway to getting up to tell my boss I had to leave for the day and then I realized you said Robocop.

[Raphael_diSanto]

For some reason I read that as "Beverly Hills Cop" the first time around. I was halfway to getting up to tell my boss I had to leave for the day and then I realized you said Robocop.

Haha. It can be funny, but it's not exactly Eddie Murphy funny.......

[Raphael_diSanto]

In your opinion lol. Personally I like the plot but I hate the consular's dull, dead, monotone voice and dialogue options. I get that they were going for some calm sage librarian type but come on, put a little emotion in there and give players who don't want to play either a dull librarian or a dull psychopath something. There's no passion, no flirts, no humor (unlike the Knight who has all of this as well as the calm peacemaker attitude if you want), just Ben Stein with a lightsaber.

 

I suspect what BioWare's trying to say is: "People who want passion, flirting and humor don't become Jedi Consulars" LOL

 

Edited March 19, 2017 by Raphael_diSanto