Romance Review: Base Game Guys for Gals

A couple of months ago (wow, this has been sitting in my drafts for a while!), Intisar wrote a blog post in defence of the romances with Doc and Corso, after they'd been panned pretty hard in one of Swtorista's livestreams. I had thoughts on this that I wanted to share in reply, but I figured that I might as well do so in a blog post of my own. It just took longer than expected to get it out...

I'll open by saying that I'm far from the most knowledgeable person when it comes to the in-game romances. Unlike many players, I'm not tempted to hit absolutely every flirt option I see, and in general the concept of romancing an NPC in a video game has less appeal to me nowadays than it might have had maybe fifteen years ago. I've also just been really inept at virtual romance in the past. My first post about companion romances on this blog talked about this at some length, including mention of my akward attempts at romance in Dragon Age. However, that doesn't mean that I don't have opinions on the stuff I have seen, and I thought I might as well compile them all in a single post.

This will only talk about romanceable companions by the way - flirting with random NPCs you encounter along the way can still be fun and memorable, but it just doesn't quite have the same weight in my opinion. I'll also limit myself to the base game companions, and more specifically to those available to female player characters, because almost all my characters are female. It's only more recently that I've dabbled a bit in also trying to level a couple of male characters, but none of them have made it far enough in the story to see their major romances. Something to explore over the next decade I guess. Anyway, here's what I've got to say now:

Republic

Trooper - Aric Jorgan

My main is a trooper and she's never kissed anyone. As I mentioned in the post linked two paragraphs ago, I wasn't instantly sold on Jorgan, and by the time he kind of started to grow on me and I might've considered a romance, I had missed my chance. So all she's done is flirt relentlessly with Jonas Balkar, and I could see something developing with Rass Ordo depending on how things go with him in the future... we'll see.

Anyway, on the subject of Aric: I obviously made alts later and have romanced him since then, though it's been a while since I played through those conversations, and I've got to admit they haven't been particularly memorable. In this post from 2016 I wrote that Jorgan kind of acts like a clichéd action hero in the sense that he likes to let the tough guy hang out most of the time, only confessing his feelings under certain amounts of pressure. It's hard to picture him in a proper committed relationship where he'd actually have to act like a normal person most of the time. And yeah, I don't really have much more to add to that. I kind of want to get my Vanguard through Fallen Empire at some point, to see whether the reunion with Aric in chapter eleven adds any more depth to the relationship.

Smuggler - Corso Riggs

Ah, the frequently maligned Corso. I'll come out right away and say that I like him. Honestly, even if you don't want to romance him, taking him along everywhere and watching him squirm by intentionally pushing all his buttons is hilarious. However, even as a romance he's got some things going for him. Like Intisar says, he's the kind of guy who'll always have your back no matter what's going on. He's kind of old-fashioned in his protectiveness and ideas about loyalty... and yes, this is where the problem with the sexism comes in.

I can't really blame anyone for being put off by this, but to me it ultimately wasn't that big a deal because unlike many sexist ideas in real life, Corso's sexism is utterly toothless. He'll always pipe up about how he thinks that a lady shouldn't do this or that... but ultimately he never tries to stop you, ignoring his objections doesn't diminish his affection for you, and if you push back on any of his silly complaints, he never has a good comeback. His ideas about ladies don't come from some deep conviction, but rather from a place of being a young bumpkin growing up on a backwater planet who just repeats what he's been told growing up, which ultimately just means that he's kind of naive, which I don't find that big of a deal personally. Plus he does show some growth over time.

Jedi Knight - Doc

Next we have Doc, the other guy Intisar went to bat for, and I agree with him, though for different reasons. I get why people might find him unappealing if they're looking for a character who'll be their one true love - but I always loved Doc for offering a more casual romance option. Doc flirts with every woman he meets from the moment you first encounter him, so you know exactly what kind of guy he is. And that can still be fun! There's something attractive about a man who finds something nice to say about absolutely every woman he meets, as long as you don't let yourself get dragged in too deep.

Ultimately, Doc's brave, easygoing and optimistic, and some days that's just the kind of pick-me-up you need after a hard day of saving the galaxy. I think he might also be the only companion who's actually happy if you turn down his marriage proposal. I just think he's a fantastic buddy with benefits.

Jedi Consular - Lieutenant Iresso

My first impressions of the consular romance were not very positive (again I refer you to the old blog post linked at the beginning), as I apparently flirted with both Tharan and Felix without meaning to and it all got very weird. I still don't really care for flirting with Tharan, but Lieutenant Iresso was really charming when I entered a relationship with him intentionally on an alt consular. He's probably got the most mature of all companion romances, with no major tension or drama, just two adults that really like each other and slide into being more than friends really easily.

Empire

Sith Warrior - Malavai Quinn

Quinn is another companion that is hated by many, though he didn't do badly on Swtorista's romance tier list. His betrayal in the main class story makes many people's dislike understandable I think, though if you can look past that, he's got another pretty unique experience to offer. I actually never forgave him on my own Sith warrior - she didn't hold a grudge on Iokath but also came to realise that she was kind of over him and that she preferred casually shacking up with Lieutenant Pierce.

Either way, in the earlier part of the class story, Quinn is pretty delightful to romance as he's basically the male equivalent of a blushing schoolgirl. He's super turned on by the Sith warrior's power and confidence but doesn't quite know how to deal with it at first, which makes for many a fun opportunity to make him squirm. It's an entertaining dynamic that you don't see this way round in media very often - more commonly it's the strong man whose appealing qualities make the woman blush.

Sith Inquisitor - Andronikos Revel

Andronikos is the classic "bad boy". He even gifts you a knife at one point! I remember the thing I enjoyed the most about romancing him was that he starts out very chill and views the relationship as pretty casual. I'll never forget how much I cracked up when I flirted with a guy on Alderaan and Andronikos' reaction was to approve and tell me that he was gonna go off to entertain himself with some girl from house staff in the meantime. He does get more possessive later on from what I remember, but it's still an interesting dynamic. He's easily the fiercest of the male love interests.

Imperial Agent - Vector Hyllus

Vector is the one romance that worked for me from the beginning and that I've never changed my mind about. I find it hard to make a female agent without romancing him. I just love how he's this calm, dedicated geek, and how the early flirtations with him are very low-key and playful. His love is deep but he doesn't want to make any drama about it. What's not to love?

Bounty Hunter - Torian Cadera

Torian is superficially attractive, but I've got to admit I never found his romance terribly compelling. I'll always remember the various conversations where he just says something to you in Mando'a with no subtitles and I was simply like: "Huh?" How am I supposed to judge whether that's romantic or not? His voice actor also uses a pretty flat affect most of the time, which to me comes across as Torian being "too cool to care", which I in turn don't care for myself.

On replaying his romace more recently I found it a bit more appealing, as I think it actually works better if your own bounty hunter isn't too weighed down by morals and approaches things with a colder "just in it for the thrill/money" kind of attitude. (My first hunter who romanced Torian was very light side and e.g. letting a potential target go for "moral" reasons didn't generally sit well with him.)

Overall Verdict

All in all, I've got to say I rank the base game romances for female characters pretty highly - even if they don't all appeal to me personally, I think it's really impressive what a wide range of love interests the writers managed to come up with for these: from shy to boisterous, from loyal to promiscuous, from goodie-two-shoes to bad boy, they offer quite a wide variety of experiences.

In fact, just writing this has made me want to do some romancing on alts just to see the ones again that I haven't played through in a while...

Day 2: Class Stories #IntPiPoMo

I'm taking part in IntPiPoMo, and this is the second of ten screenshot posts I'm making this month, each one themed around a certain topic. Today's topic is... class stories!

The last time I made a post on this theme three years ago I noted that I have a very haphazard way of playing through the original stories nowadays. Many still consider them SWTOR's most compelling content ten years later, and while I don't exactly disagree, I'm clearly not as compelled to stick with them as most! Where others might start a new character and play through their story from beginning to end, I regularly hop between different characters while only progressing them by one or two missions at a time, meaning that without my spreadsheet I'd be hopelessly lost when it comes to remembering where each of my alts sits in terms of story.

Accordingly, when I gathered screenshots for this post, I ended up with an eclectic mix of images from different classes at very random points in their personal narrative.

This may well be the earliest moment I screenshotted in any class story ever, as this happens when your bounty hunter is like... level two? Historically I don't tend to take a lot of pictures on the starter planets except maybe on Tython due to how pretty it is.

This is Zilek, my Jedi Shadow on the Satele Shan server, solving his primary task on Taris the violent way. He's actually an absolutely ancient character - I think I first created him around the time free-to-play came out, but I don't actually tend to spend much time on servers other than Darth Malgus. One thing that makes him interesting though is that he's the only male character in my giant stable of alts - for some reason I've always struggled to bond with characters of the opposite sex in MMOs. I still dream of actually making some progress with him one day though.

Here we have another one of my consulars, my dps Sage, meeting with a child of the Emperor called Stark, like the ill-fated family from Game of Thrones. I always kind of liked this guy in the sense that despite of his very brief appearance, the voice actor manages to imbue him with a lot of character and he comes across as quite a tortured soul.

And one more shot of yet another consular, this one my DvL Shadow. It's a bit hard to make out in this static image, but the giant statue on the right was being smashed dramatically at the moment I took this. I've always liked these rare, more wide-angled scenes from the early game, considering that a lot of the earliest cut scenes were just basic shot/reverse shots.

Another nice wide-angled shot, this time from the Sith inquisitor's class story, when Darth Andru's Force ghost tries to kill you on Dromund Kaas, just before old Lord Kallig steps in to intervene. Who says Sith can't make great parents? Having a ghostly ancestor come in to save your hide on more than one occasion is definitely a perk.

Another shot of another inquisitor of mine, this time taking part in the iconic activity of shooting lightning! On second thought, I'm not 100% sure this was actually from a class story mission and not just a planetary quest, but there are enough similar moments of this type either way.

What else is iconic for Force users? Flinging/smashing things with the Force! Modelled here by my DvL Juggernaut.

And finally, here's the same character striking another one of my favourite iconic poses, lightsaber raised with determined expression on her face.

IntPiPoMo count: 15

No News Is Good News (from the PTS)?

The PTS for Legacy of the Sith continues to quietly chug along. When I was playing there with guildies recently, one of them commented that there were very few people online, and I replied that that's pretty normal. There's usually a big rush on opening day as everyone logs on to check whether there's anything particularly interesting to see, but since there rarely is, they log off again and don't come back. Even the few who do end up doing genuine testing will usually only play that content for a little while and then go back to doing something else. The PTS just isn't a place to hang out.

That said, I'm surprised by how many hours I've spent there already this time around, especially considering that unlike for Onslaught, Bioware hasn't offered up any rewards for participation. According to Steam I've spent more than ten hours on the PTS so far.

Last night me and six of my guildies ran Terror from Beyond master mode on the PTS with an all-inquisitor group because scaling isn't in yet and we wanted to see what it would be like to be ten levels above the content. The answer is, we managed to one-shot everything up to Terror himself and probably could have got the timer achievement (something many of us have never managed on live) but then we wiped a couple of times on Terror and people didn't feel like pushing on as it was getting late. It was still a fun time. I played as Lightning dps, something I don't think I've ever done in master mode content; I pretty much always heal on the harder stuff.

Previously we'd also tested the new inquisitor skill trees by running the flashpoints added in Onslaught on master mode, using copied level 75 characters. I tanked Objective Meridian and healed Spirit of Vengeance and Secrets of the Enclave. The bonus boss in the latter absolutely wiped the floor with us repeatedly for some reason; it did so much damage (though we did get it down eventually). We did a run on live afterwards just to compare the experience because I was kind of starting to doubt my healing abilities, and there the boss didn't even do the ability that was causing us so much trouble, so that we took almost zero damage... it was very odd.

In terms of how the class changes felt, I can only reiterate what I said in my last post about the PTS - compared to the initial hubbub, they really don't feel like that big a deal. (Though my main class still hasn't been added to the PTS - typical that they'd save the best for last - so I guess I'll reserve judgement until I see that.)

Assassin tank didn't really feel very different at all. At level 70 they make you choose between your knockback, that cone-based AoE they added in Onslaught and that no-one ever used anyway, and Whirlwind, none of which really matter to a tank in PvE. I guess in PvP people might have to decide whether they get more use out of the knockback or the extra CC. Passives are mostly centred around increasing your AoE damage/threat or some new interactions with taunt, which I found hard to judge in terms of their usefulness.

Sorc had more changes going on, but still the overall rotation felt largely the same. The only thing that bugged me at level 75 was that the utility to move while casting Innervate and other key abilities isn't unlocked until 80 now, so I was constantly interrupting myself by moving at the wrong time. Here the proposed choices at 70 are between your friendly pull, Volt Rush and immunity bubble, which is a bit more tricksy. The pull is super situational but where it is useful it's extremely useful - yet, can you really justify choosing it over the bubble? I'm kind of hoping they still change that one.

The changes to passives I found very hard to judge once again. A guildie was playing Madness and cackling about Shock finishing all your dots at once or something like that, which does sound pretty OP, but I didn't see anything as exciting in Lightning or Corruption. Not everything seemed to work properly either... as a healer one option was supposed to allow me to follow up a Dark Infusion with another instant cast but that never seemed to trigger, and as Lightning there were multiple effects that looked like they were meant to be passives but actually gave me another button to press on my bar that didn't really seem to work properly either... it's a bit hard to form strong opinions based on that.

In general I'm surprised by how much I've enjoyed these test runs on the PTS with my guildies though. Stuff like running an unscaled operation offers a different view on content that hasn't been available in the live game for years. And as far as the class changes go, it does kind of feel like the goal of the pruning is simply to make sure you don't need more than two full action bars for your combat abilities and I'm OK with that. That's still plenty of buttons to press.

What Will Combat Styles Mean for Me?

As mentioned in my post about the expansion announcement, there's still a lot about the new combat styles feature that we don't know, especially relating to how changing between different styles will work and whether there'll be any sort of limitations on when and how often you can do it, but it does seem pretty clear that you'll be able to swap between the existing advanced classes with everything that entails - including both their weapons and abilities - and I see no reason to assume that e.g. older characters will be excluded from this feature (though I did see that line of thought floating around on Twitter as well).

With that said, what is this going to mean for my stable of alts?

The thought of Shintar the Commando being anything other than, well, a Commando seems kind of absurd. I mean, it's in the blog name! And I've always had a giant assault cannon on my banner! That said... no, I don't think I'll change her play style, though depending on the ease of swapping, I might experiment with using Mercenary style some time. Same basic gameplay, but two blasters. Plus I mean, all tech-using classes have canonically always had at least one blaster anyway, considering the ever-present oddity of wielders of big guns and rifles suddenly holstering their weapons in cut scenes to threaten their enemies with a small blaster instead.

Looking at my alts, I honestly can't see myself making a lot of changes to them either, because I've never been fussed about weapon choice and if I made them one specific advanced class over another, there was usually a reason for that. Still, I could imagine some use cases for swapping combat styles:

One is for Force users whose alignment doesn't match their faction. I have thought occasionally that it's a bit weird that my Sith Sorcerer is still shooting lightning all the time, considering how much of a goodie-two-shoes she is. So I could see myself changing her to Sage for the more appropriate visuals. I think on a low-level character it would feel a bit strange to use opposite-faction Force powers, because you'd think that would be very alarming to your fellow Sith or Jedi, but if you're already the Commander of your own Alliance, I reckon you don't have to worry about hiding your true nature anymore if you don't want to. The same would apply to my light-sided Juggernaut tank.

I've said before that I'm terrible at playing dark-sided characters, so there aren't many contenders for a transition the opposite way among my Republic alts. The closest is probably my somewhat ruthless Sentinel, but I'm not sure she's evil enough.

Speaking of my Sentinel though, that does bring up another interesting line of thought. I've made alts of every single advanced class over the years because I simply wanted to know what they played like, but I can't say I actually enjoyed them all. Sentinels and Marauders look cool with their two lightsabers, but the play style has never appealed to me at all. My second least favourite is probably Sniper/Gunslinger.

So the question here is: Would it be worth speccing out of the advanced classes that I don't like very much? It has sometimes struck me as a bit of a shame that I find myself avoiding playing these characters purely because I don't enjoy the way they play very much, even if their story choices would make for some interesting content to experience. But at the same time, I specifically created them because I wanted to have a Sentinel, a Sniper and so on. Is that still going to be that meaningful when we can all swap combat styles though? Something to think about at least.

And of course there is always the option of new alts. As if I need even more of those! But then, there could be synergies with other things I want to do. For example I've talked about how I like to play healers in lowbie PvP, but just how many times do I really want to start over as a consular or inquisitor? Now I could level up through the knight and warrior stories to add more alts to the stable while having a bit more variety in my story content.

Do you see yourself making use of the new combat styles feature?

Ashara vs. Ahsoka

I'm continuing my marathon of The Clone Wars and finished season five recently. Instead of talking about the season in general, I wanted to talk a bit about Ashoka this time, the show's poster child - she features pretty prominently throughout season five, and the last arc of the season is all about her. Without spoiling anything, I can say that it hits pretty hard on an emotional level and makes it more relatable to me why so many people love the character.

I don't just want to talk about Ashoka though - rather I'd like to contrast her with Ashara, the SWTOR companion that was clearly modelled in her image. SWTOR and the Star Wars expanded universe in general have this obsession with relentlessly rehashing concepts and copying whole characters from previous material and the fans just love it. That's why (class story spoilers incoming I guess) Jedi knights get a visit from their dead master's Force ghost at a crucial moment, and why smugglers are best buds with a Wookiee and get a chance to hook up with a princess. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise then that the character of Ashoka received a homage in the form of a young and headstrong, orange-and-blue Togruta companion with a name that also starts and ends with A.

As someone who had never seen the Clone Wars, this was something that largely went over my head at launch except on the most superficial level... but let's just say that at this point I can see what Bioware was trying to achieve with the character of Ashara - I'm just still not sure they actually succeeded.

Asohka in the Clone Wars starts out as a fairly generic young padawan. A bit snippy perhaps, but still inexperienced and keen to learn. After a brief struggle to get her and Anakin on the same page, they become a pretty good team, and in a slow and subtle way you can see her learning from him as the episodes go by, as she becomes more confident and begins to trust in her intuition, while also developing a slightly independent streak.

She seems to believe in the Jedi order as a force for good, but just like for her master, some of the Council's decisions don't feel quite right to her. This comes to a head at the end of season five (spoilers for real now), when she's framed for a crime and expelled from the Jedi order as a result. While her name is cleared at the very end and she's asked to rejoin, she's too hurt by the betrayal she's experienced and leaves, in order to digest the events she just experienced on her own terms.

A lot of this clearly served as inspiration for the character of Ashara, though now that I'm checking the dates, Clone Wars was only on its fourth season when SWTOR came out (gosh, how time flies), so the events of season five couldn't have influenced Ashara's story. Nonetheless, she too is a headstrong young Jedi padawan who - aside from the obvious superficial similarities - isn't quite convinced that her masters always got it right and ends up turning her back on the Jedi order.

The problem with Ashara is that she doesn't have the chance to get several seasons of character development, so her turning doesn't really feel earned. I can't help but wonder whether she wouldn't have worked better as a companion for a class other than the Sith inquisitor. (I remember reading somewhere that for the original companions, Bioware came up with all the character concepts before actually assigning them to different classes and their stories, so it wasn't set in stone who would join up with whom initially.)

The game tries to make you interested in Ashara on Taris by having the Sith inquisitor review a number of holo recordings of her interacting with her fellow Jedi, but they only really provide a very basic characterisation, and nothing ever gives her any obvious motivation for deciding to follow a Sith. I've long complained that her "acquisition story" is one of the worst and that it would have been more logical for the inquisitor to simply kill her. This has always greatly overshadowed any enjoyment I might have gotten out of having her around.

Now if I imagine her as having been meant to be more of an Ahsoka-like character, somewhat dissatisfied with the way the Jedi do things and wanting to find her own way in the Force, I could see that being an interesting angle and making her subsequent actions, such as deciding to work with a Sith, more understandable. If you don't already go in expecting her story to go that way though (because "look, it's Ahsoka!"), I maintain that it's just not given a very convincing foundation in-game.

The Best Classes to Take into Onslaught

With the recent Steam launch having brought many new and returning players (back) to SWTOR, there's been a resurgence of curiosity about many basic aspects of the game. One question that returning players with a stable of multiple characters might have is which class they should pick up first to get the most out of the new story additions since they last played.

My post about the best classes to take into the "Knights of..." expansions is one of the most popular posts on this blog, but we've had a fair amount of new story since then, with the arc about Valkorion and his family more or less wrapped up and abandoned. I think it's fair to wonder whether the storylines that have come after are better suited for a different set of classes, or if there is one class that's just best for everything, meaning KotFE/KotET and everything that comes after. My answer to the latter is "yes, and it's the Sith inquisitor", but I'd really like to go into a bit more detail than that. So get ready for some minor content spoilers and mention of companion returns post-KotET, but I'm not giving away any major plot points or anything.

First off I think that on the whole, the post-KotET content has been much more neutral in terms of which classes it's suitable for. Your character is now the commander of the Eternal Alliance (whatever you may think of how they ended up there) and they are back to dealing with the two big factions, which is easily justifiable in my opinion, whether you originally started out as a Sith or a Republic trooper.

When Bioware first eased their way back into this style of writing they seemed to struggle a bit, and the Iokath storyline that followed KotET was pretty bland and awkward as a result. This was followed by what has been dubbed the "traitor arc" since then, which again started poorly but got better as it went along. It's also probably the single most class-neutral storyline we've had since KotET, simply because it focuses very much on your personal relationship with the traitor, which depends more on how you feel about that particular character than your class choice. That said, the last flashpoint in the series, The Nathema Conspiracy, features a nice callback to your class story with a lot of different permutations based on your choices there.

From there it's off to Jedi Under Siege, which takes place on the planet Ossus, and where the current ongoing storyline kicks off. While this is still fairly class-neutral content as a whole, Bioware started to include a lot more references to the original class stories from this point onwards, which is what I will use to justify most of my rankings. Also noteworthy is that from Iokath onwards you're given the option to start sabotaging your old faction, which is something that might be greatly suited for characters that were played as never having been that attached to their original faction to begin with.

With all that out of the way, I would recommend prioritising the classes as follows if you're uncertain:

1. Sith Inquisitor

The Sith inquisitor is in the lucky position that they were a great fit for KotET/KotFE but the new content fits them like a glove as well. They basically enjoy ruling their own little faction, and whether you decide to go back and help the old Sith Empire or would rather scheme against them because it's the Sithy thing to do, opportunities for intrigue abound.

Jedi Under Siege starts with a call from your old friend Moff Pyron (who remembers you of course), and if you sided with Khem Val over Darth Zash at the end of his companion arc in the base game, you'll get to reunite with Khem on Ossus. Even better, you get to romance him too if you're into that kind of thing!

In Onslaught you're also given the opportunity to reclaim your old seat on the Dark Council if you wish (and in an appropriately Sithy manner as well).

Oh, and Andronikos and Ashara also come back in post-KotET Alliance alerts but that's really just the icing on the cake.

2. Jedi Knight

The Jedi Knight is another character that gets along well with the KotFE/KotET storyline and manages to continue into the new content quite seamlessly. You'll get recognised both as an important Jedi and a military commander, and no fewer than three of the original knight companions make their return as part of the storyline from Ossus onwards: Doc, Kira and Scourge. The latter two haven't had that much to do yet (that'll be in the content drop we're anticipating towards the end of the year), but all three are fully integrated into the storyline and reuniting with them is quite interesting. Kira can now also be romanced by female knights and Scourge is open to either gender. I haven't been able to find confirmation whether Doc swings both ways as well now...

3. Imperial Agent

The reason I rank the Imperial agent highly is mostly because of the saboteur option. You don't have to take it if you don't want to, but of all classes the agent was the one for whom it could (potentially) make the most sense to want to betray the Empire by the end of their class story. This was the sort of story thread that I think most of us didn't expect to ever get picked up again once Bioware said that there weren't going to be any more class stories, but the saboteur option has effectively revived it and even made it more "mainstream" so to speak.

Vector returns in a post-KotET Alliance alert, which is nice enough if you like him or even romanced him, and agents also get an exclusive little chat with him after the Task at Hand interlude that serves to remind you that he's still there and involved in the agent's life and decisions.

4. Jedi Consular

Similar to the knight, the consular is recognised for previous achievements on Ossus, and there are opportunities to both fight and be diplomatic.

In terms of companion returns, the consular was a bit of a black sheep during the KotFE/KotET era as no consular companions were involved in the main storyline and Qyzen was the only one that could be re-acquired via an Alliance alert. Post-KotET however, Lieutenant Iresso returns in an alert, you reunite with Nadia as part of the Ossus storyline, and Tharan comes back during Onslaught. Good times!

5. Sith Warrior

I ranked the Sith warrior as fairly high in terms of its suitability for KotFE/KotET, but to be honest I never pictured the warrior as someone who wants to sit on a throne and rule - better to leave that to someone with an interest in politics while they go out and smash faces. Ossus and Onslaught offer some nice opportunities here as you get back onto the front lines of the war and get the option to leave all that pesky planning to other people if that's more up your alley.

Quinn returns on Iokath and you get the option to finally get closure in regards to "that thing" he did during your class story. Jaesa returns in an Alliance alert after Ossus too, both her light and dark side versions. The former can now also be romanced, and the latter can also be killed if, like me, you always found her pretty annoying.

6. Bounty Hunter

You finally get Mako back in post-KotET Alliance alert, but it's a bit lacklustre to be honest. There is an interesting moment in Onslaught where bounty hunters get a slightly different reaction from an NPC than other classes, but other than that it doesn't offer anything particularly exciting for the class. The main reason I still rank it above trooper and smuggler is that bounty hunter is another class for whom the option of wanting to change sides in the war makes more sense than for most others.

7. Smuggler

Corso, Risha and Akaavi come back in two post-KotET Alliance alerts but they are short and not that great in my opinion. And while part of Onslaught takes place on a planetoid where a smuggler could feel right at home, nothing much is made of how this might make for a different experience for this class.

8. Trooper

Elara Dorne makes her comeback during Iokath but it's not very exciting. In the aftermath of Onslaught you get another little scene with her though (like the agent does with Vector), which is nice. Other than that there isn't anything going on that feels particularly tailored towards troopers.

Looking back at the final ranking, I'm kind of surprised by how similar it is to my KotFE/KotET ranking, with knight and inquisitor coming out on top once again, and smuggler trailing behind yet again. That said, I think it's important to repeat that overall, the newer content doesn't feel nearly as badly suited for some classes as KotFE/KotET did, and that there's much less of a difference between how much you'll enjoy playing through it as an inquisitor vs. a smuggler.

Got a different take on how different classes experience the current expansion and the content leading up to it? Feel free to leave it in the comments!

It's Not Easy Being Mean

I have long struggled with playing dark side characters in SWTOR. If you look at my characters page (which I actually haven't updated in quite a while, meaning that a couple of my newer characters are missing, but what's there is still broadly accurate), you can see that the vast majority of my characters are light-sided, and even those who aren't are generally described as neutral or at worst "moderately" dark-sided, meaning that they still make light side decisions pretty frequently.

I have started more than one character with the intent to make them evil, mostly whenever I felt inspired by comments about how this or that story twist is particularly engaging if you're dark-sided, but it never lasts very long. I always slip up and start drifting towards light side decisions, mostly because so many of the dark side decisions, especially in the base game, are flat out insane. As someone who always puts at least a little bit of herself into all of her characters, I simply don't want to play a psychopath.

There are some dark side decisions that I'm fine with making on my (supposedly) evil characters: Killing an enemy instead of sparing them after defeat, insisting on payment instead of simply helping someone out of kindness, or getting physically violent in the face of annoyance are but some examples. Sure, those are all bad things, but they are all based on basic human impulses (such as greed or anger) that everyone's at least familiar with, even if we do generally try to fight them in our everyday lives.

A lot of dark side options though simply do not make sense unless you are playing a psychopathic mass murderer who enjoys watching the world burn at every opportunity, such as when someone actively helps you out and at the end of the interaction you're basically given the option to say thanks or kill them just because you can. It's just... WHY.

My most recent attempts at living the dark side life have been the Assassin and the Juggernaut that I created back during the DvL event as I've finally been working on their class stories. Fortunately the built-in light/dark toggle introduced in KotET makes it easier to deceive myself about their alignments, because even if I make some light side decisions now and then, the constant trickle of dark side points awarded from simply having the toggle set to dark side easily drowns out any friendly or merciful impulses. I genuinely seem to have had some success sticking to my guns though, as evidenced by me running into some amusing conversation options that I hadn't encountered before (when you're only fighting with words, dark-siders can be quite funny, I'll give them that) and occasionally getting exasperated with the results of my own decisions.

A prime example of the latter occurred during the inquisitor story on Alderaan, where you're supposed to lure a Jedi onto the planet by having his former fiancée from many years ago contact him. I don't remember how exactly the light side version goes, but you can be nice to both of them and try to get them to reconcile after all those years (I just don't remember if it works). Playing dark side this time around though, I basically just bullied the lady into making the call, and when she expressed some nervousness about seeing her old fiancé again, I chose a conversation option that outright told her that I didn't give a damn because I was just going to kill him anyway. This - understandably - upset her, so she got mad and attacked me, causing her to die before the guy even arrived on the planet. Khem Val approved, but I seem to remember sitting back and actually saying out loud: "God, I'm such an asshole."

For the longest time I felt like a bit of an oddball for feeling so bad about playing dark side. It's just a game, right? I remember in the early days it seemed like all the big content creators were playing evil Imperial characters as their mains and poking fun at Republic wimps etc. at every corner. I actually got some comments from readers who said that they were impressed to meet someone that was so open about being a staunch, light-sided Republic player because it seemed quite unusual to them.

Recently I don't get as much of these same vibes anymore though. The current biggest SWTOR content creator, Swtorista, is a trooper main like me, and Vulkk mains a Sentinel from as far as I remember. The dark vs. light event four years ago surprised me by concluding with a pretty firm light side victory, even if the final result was still pretty close to a half and half split. Three years ago a SWTOR Facebook post revealed that 76% of players going through KotFE/KoTET had decided to save/redeem Arcann instead of kill him - admittedly that was only one specific choice, but I was still impressed by how strongly that skewed towards one end of the spectrum. More recently, I can also say that anecdotally at least, the dark vs. light "state of the galaxy" on Darth Malgus seems to see the light side winning about three times for every dark side victory. That's quite a contrast to the dark side winning within an hour of the feature's initial introduction.

A few months ago, a former Cinematic Designer from Bioware also commented on Twitter that in Mass Effect, something like 92% of players chose the "nice" options - which is a different game, mind you, but I still think a lot of people were surprised that with so much effort put into letting players choose their path, the vast majority went for the exact same goodie-two-shoes options anyway.

It has given me some comfort to know that there are more people like me who just enjoy playing the good guy most of the time - though it does make me wonder why SWTOR got such a reputation for everyone wanting to play an edgy dark-sider to begin with...

Character Boost

I've never been a fan of level boosts in MMORPGs. I don't have any "moral" objections to them, along the lines of "back in the day we had to go up in levels barefoot and uphill in the snow, so you must too or it won't be authentic", but to me they just feel like they're promising an experience that probably doesn't actually come true for a lot of people, namely that of skipping the supposedly "boring" part and jumping right in where the fun begins.

Obviously I'm biased because I generally enjoy levelling, but my point is more that even if you don't, time to level isn't the only thing standing between you and that mythical fun at endgame: there's also knowing how to play your class, feeling invested in your character and the game, and more, and none of those things are included with the price of that level-up token.

Plus there's also the issue of players who don't even have the slightest idea what their buttons do jumping straight into endgame group content and making life difficult for others, but I'll admit that I haven't experienced this being as much of a problem as I initially expected when WoW first made character boosts mainstream in the run-up to the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Maybe people generally have the sense to not queue for a random dungeon straight away when they can't even tell what they're supposed to do with all those abilities on their bars; I don't know.

Anyway, SWTOR introduced character boosts with Knights of the Fallen Empire and has given out at least two of them for free to subscribers since then, but I never used them because I simply didn't see the appeal.

However, this morning I found myself at the character creation screen to roll up a new Assassin to tank master mode flashpoints for our alt guild on Imperial side, and when I noticed those free tokens still waiting for me I actually paused to think. I didn't really have any particular urge to start on the inquisitor story yet again as I still have two characters that have it in progress, and I wanted this character to be ready for endgame as soon as possible. That... actually seemed like the perfect occasion to use a boost. So off I went.

I felt a bit confused when my newborn Assassin was spat out on Odessen, actually wearing the exact gear set that had been displayed on the character creation screen - that never happens - but I quickly found myself back in my usual new character routine of emptying my mailbox of several dozen promotional items such as titles, speeders, pets etc. - if Bioware ever decides to just auto-grant all these things to any new character I'll be one happy woman.

I also noticed that my new Togruta was dark sided and Deception spec by default - which made sense as it's probably the easiest to play of the three Assassin specialisations, but it meant that I had to be off to the fleet to retrain. I thought it was interesting that the game only plopped a relatively small number of abilities on my bar - I guess someone at Bioware decided that starting someone off with literally all of a level 70's abilities on their bars would be a bit overwhelming and I don't think they are wrong. It does require the player to take an interest into what else is hiding in their ability list though if they want to do more than just bumble their way through the main solo storyline.

Having retrained on the fleet, I wanted to fly back to Odessen and was chagrined to discovered that I had zero credits and therefore couldn't actually afford to do so! (Though I also noticed that I had been given three crew skills that were all trained up to 600, with Synthweaving, Archaeology and Underworld Trading apparently being the defaults for inquisitors.) Fortunately the button to launch the Jedi Under Siege intro took me back to Odessen for free.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by how well Jedi Under Siege works as introduction for a brand new character. Both Lana and Major Anri (on Empire side) spend a fair amount of time expositioning, which I think can feel a bit belaboured if you're playing through the entire proceeding and following story in one go and already know what's going on, but as a starting point for a new character it's not bad. It reminds you of just where you are, and it throws several talking points at you that invite you to think about how your character feels about certain things, such as the big factions, loyalty, slavery, Sith politics etc.

It did feel a bit weird to basically be given the option to go saboteur mere minutes after having created the character to be a specific faction, and I took it out of curiosity more than anything else, but I have to admit that it didn't really feel earned. I don't know if I'll continue down this path on this character or just stick to tanking group content.

Speaking of that, gameplay-wise Jedi Under Siege also makes for a much better tutorial than KotFE or KotET ever did in my opinion, as there is relatively little combat but the mobs are on the slightly tougher side, giving you a chance to practice rotations and cooldown use. The final mission in the library could even be considered a very basic tutorial for group content, because while Malgus is utterly OP compared to a random pug, dealing with a large number of silver and gold mobs that have annoying abilities such as stuns and stealth detection gives you a feel for the sorts of things you're likely to encounter in flashpoints later on. Of course in my particular case it helped that I already know how to play a Shadow tank (for a given value of "know" - I'm not exactly very good at it), so I only had to figure out which Assassin ability mapped to which Shadow one.

All in all, it was a much more pleasant experience than I had expected as someone who's always frowned on character boosts. I guess I managed to find that rare sweet spot where it really does work (experienced player who wants another max-level alt for a very specific purpose).

Lowbie Life

One of the great things about keeping a blog about my gaming is that it allows me to reflect on what I like and didn't like, not just based on how I feel at any given moment, but also by looking back on the things I enjoyed in the past, what sort of plans I made based on that and whether I stuck to them.

One thing I've noticed is that there's a part of me that, intellectually, really dislikes having too many alts. I do like alts in general, but past a certain point I feel that I can't give them the attention they "deserve", which makes me feel a bit bad. (I'm not claiming that this makes rational sense.)

Also, SWTOR's narrative focus makes me feel awkward when gameplay and story don't quite match up - such as when I have a max-level Jedi whose class story still treats them as a padawan fresh from Tython. Making more alts instead of actually progressing the existing ones through their stories makes that worse too.

On the other hand though, I clearly enjoy the low-level experience on a visceral level. Whenever I do end up playing a low-level character on a whim it's usually a blast, not least because there are goals aplenty and progress is fast and easy to achieve.

So what happens is that I abstain from making more alts most of the time, for the reasons explained earlier, until a particular set of circumstances results in me creating a new or at least dusting off an existing lowbie for some reason and suddenly I go: "Wow, this is fun! What a surprise!"

The latest iteration of this occurred the other week, when my guild was trying to win a planet in that week's Conquest event (we succeeded by the way), and in order to contribute as much as I could I set myself the goal of reaching my personal target on all sixteen of my characters in the guild. This included logging into two lowbies that I rarely play since they were created for the express purpose of doing lowbie PvP with friends, and there hasn't been much of that happening lately.

I decided that even without friends to keep me company in this particular case, doing PvP was going to be the best way to hit my Conquest target on the lowbies, and it was... so... much... fun! I really shouldn't be surprised by this, considering I myself have written blog posts on the subject before, but apparently I have a short memory. (This is another reason to keep a blog.)

Realising that all my characters on Imp side were close to the level cap, this then gave me an excuse to actually make a new alt over there so that I could have a low-level PvP alt on Imperial side as well. Thus, Squizelle the one-eyed Nautolan Sorcerer was born.

Incidentally, just breezing through my class story on Korriban was fun too - it had clearly been too long, considering that I had a couple of achievements for killing K'lor'slugs and the like pop up, and both of the Sith stories just have some great lines that are always fun to revisit. I just keep thinking about all the context given by the side quests that new players are likely to never see these days... doesn't really give you much time to get attached to the world I fear...

Anyway, I queued for my first PvP match at level 12, quickly realising that this might have been a mistake as I didn't even have the Sage/Sorc's signature bubble yet. I got into a losing Huttball and stood at the spawn spamming my single heal on people until the game was over, but somehow that was enough to get me up to twelve medals or something? Still, after that I decided to at least do the first couple of quests on Dromund Kaas next, just to earn a few more abilities.

And I can only say it again, it's been great fun. Few people play healers in the lowbie bracket, so you're a bit of a god(ess) among mortals if you know what you're doing. The limited toolkit really makes you think about what you can achieve with it, and every new ability you earn is exciting because it unlocks even more possibilities.

We'll see how long it takes for me to get distracted  and forget all about lowbie play once again...

Musings on Onslaught's Story, Part 3: Corellia & Beyond

After either helping or sabotaging the Republic fleets on Onderon and Mek-Sha, it's time for the big battle for the Meridian Complex on Corellia. Once again, spoilers abound!

On both factions, the briefing before the battle includes a lot of exposition about ships and battle plans. I couldn't help but think that to the type of player who just wants to jump straight into the action to get up close and personal, this could be a bit boring, but personally I appreciated the call-backs to weaponry developed in previous storylines such as the Isotope-5 powered ships of the Empire, and just the general effort to convey that both sides have competent leadership with an actual plan. Also, your involvement in these briefings emphasises that though the Alliance may have lost a lot of its power, it and by extension you are still considered very important to the war.

However, since you are also known for being good at kicking arse in person, you get asked to assist the ground troops, which leads to you doing the new Objective Meridian flashpoint. I think the flashpoint will deserve a post of its own later on... for the purposes of this one, it's enough to know that you spend some time fighting either Republic defenders or Imperial invaders in the streets of Corellia, until you get into the Meridian Complex itself, where it comes down to either shutting down or protecting the installation's shields.

The first place where you expect to do this turns out to have been rendered useless as controls have been rerouted to another level... by none other than Tharan Cedrax, yay! That leaves only one consular companion unaccounted for now. I'm really pleased that Bioware managed to weave his return into the main story here, and it fits well too. The encounter with him also features some pretty funny lines depending on your choices - I have to admit that I had to chuckle when I ordered him killed on my Marauder, and his last words "Holiday, I'm sorry" prompted Major Anri to go: "Holiday? What a weirdo." Also, my Sage looked hilariously put out when she recognised him.

On Imperial side you also get the option to flirt with Darth Malgus himself around this point! His response is a character-appropriate "ugh" before moving on. I just loved this.

Finally you have the big showdown between either you, Tau and Arn vs. Malgus or you and Malgus vs. Tau and some unnamed Republic soldiers/Jedi. These are both pretty well done and the fights quite interesting - though I swear the first time I did them they either bugged out in some way or I was completely zoned out because I came away thinking that they were really boring and the boss(es) had seemingly no interesting abilities.

Then I heard others talk about the fight and was confused when they mentioned all kinds of stuff happening of which I had absolutely no memory. The second time around I definitely noticed the actual mechanics too, so I have no idea what was going on there. (EDIT: On replaying the fight again last night, I think at least the first instance of me failing to notice any mechanics may have been simply due to the fact that if you have both Tau and Arn set to dps, they burn everything down very quickly, even Malgus.)

The one bit I found a bit wonky is what happens immediately after the fight, as your big feat of heroism basically consists of making a superhuman jump in a cut scene to get to the crucial console in time, which... didn't feel very heroic to me personally. Even worse, both your wounded opponent(s) and allies roll off the platform in the final moments and you just run off without as much as a: "Gosh, I hope he is/they are alright!" At least to me it didn't feel right for my character (any of them!) to have zero concern for the people that just fought by her side only two minutes ago.

On the plus side, everyone does definitely survive, and I do highlight this as a positive thing because I went into the final fight actively worrying about Malgus or Tau dying, which would have felt like a colossal waste to me considering how little time we've had with these characters so far. I didn't even want to have the option to kill either of them, not yet! So I'm glad to say that they lived to fight another day. Some enemies are just too much fun to have around for me to want to defeat them too quickly.

After securing victory for your faction in the final battle (from what I understand this is one place where you can't sabotage/betray anyone), you get a lot of honours bestowed on you. Regardless of your class, you get asked to integrate fully into the Empire or Republic or to make a conscious choice to maintain your independence. I thought that was actually an interesting question even for a loyalist, because while my trooper was instantly on board with simply serving the Republic again for example, my loyalist agent never liked being under the heel of Sith who had a 50-50 chance at best to be either competent or capricious. So while she's still definitely loyal to the Empire, it's because she cares about the people of the Empire. She definitely had no interest in going back to subjecting herself to the direct authority of the Dark Council again.

Then there are some neat rewards for you depending on your class: troopers get promoted to the rank of Colonel for example, while Jedi get offered a seat on Master Gnost-Dural's newly reinstated Jedi council. My warrior was basically offered her old job back (yes!) and I haven't played through the story on my inquisitor yet, but I heard that you get the option to go as far as to claim your old Dark Council seat back. All of this is simply awesome, period. I don't know how they are going to keep this much class specific detail straight if the story is going to stay generic, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth here.

Also worth noting is that Republic characters finally get to meet the new Supreme Chancellor Galena Rans, and she seems pleasant enough to deal with, which is nice. Republic leadership has not been painted in the best light for the last few years, and we really needed someone actually embodying the Republic's values at the helm again.

Anyway, you won and got your just rewards, time to roll the credits and do dailies, right? Not so fast!

For the first time in an expansion story, Bioware decided to not just wrap things up, but to also make it very clear where we'll be going next. (At the end of KotET Lana was worrying about trouble brewing ahead, but that was all very vague.) Back on the fleet, Tau or Anri introduce you to two people who want to meet you and who helped them out of the rubble after the battle: Kira and Lord Scourge! Finally! Now people can stop spamming each and every one of SWTOR's social media posts with "When's Kira coming back?", regardless of the post's actual subject...

Also, it turns out that Scourge was the mysterious Sith that attacked you on Mek-Sha, to test whether there was anything of Vitiate left in you. Also, it turns out that these two were the "mysterious observers" you could see in the distance from your base on Odessen just before the expansion. I remember someone on Twitter calling it (unfortunately I don't remember who it was) and me thinking that this was a weird theory, but they were completely right! Good on you, whoever you were!

For the Jedi knight, it's a great little reunion and involves some romance too: Kira is now open for some same-sex loving and Scourge can be romanced too! I was really hesitant about how to react to the latter on my knight because I wanted to romance him so badly back in the base game, but that was seven years ago at this point... since then my Guardian's gone through a lot of story and ended up with Arcann. I chose some of the flirt options anyway, just to see where they would go, and then pulled out at the last moment. I kind of thought there'd be an "I can't, there's somebody else" dialogue option or something, but since there wasn't, my knight basically just ended up saying that she thought it wasn't wise to rush into anything and that they'd talk about it again later. Cheeky minx likes to keep her options open!

Anyway, the big question with Kira and Scourge was always going to be why they hadn't shown up any earlier, considering everything you went through with Valkorion and that destroying the Emperor was literally Scourge's entire purpose in life. Surprisingly, they have a good excuse! They were busy destroying the Emperor's original body, which he had still stowed away somewhere as a sort of life insurance. (I did remember hearing/reading about that before at some point, so it didn't come out of left field for me.) Afterwards they were afflicted with some kind of disease caused by Vitiate's decaying body that knocked them out for more than a year until they were rescued by Master Satele and her new students, but then it afflicted them and they are currently stowed away on a distant transport ship, more or less comatose until someone comes to rescue them. Kira and Scourge want your help in saving them and destroying the Emperor's last legacy.

I thought it was a very interesting choice to finish on such a... not cliffhanger exactly, but obvious plot hook for the next story update, whenever that's going to come. I guess the folks at Bioware felt that making players feel too obviously "done" at the end of the story wasn't good for long term engagement. I can't say I minded though; the main story still feels like it wrapped up in a satisfying manner, and this is more of a tease of what's to come next. That said, I thought that going back to the old Emperor in any way, shape or form was the last thing I really wanted from the story, but Kira and Scourge kinda sold it to me. Of course, it also sounds very much like this next story update is then going to be the same for both factions again, which I'm less keen on, but I guess we'll see.

Bonus for Imperials only: They also get a scene that shows Darth Malgus strapped to a medical table while a doctor and a droid talk about what a nuisance it is to have to repair all those cybernetics again. The droid remarks that even the explosive device was damaged and needed taking out (forget subtlety, apparently Acina just decided to plant a bomb inside Malgus' body, dang), though the damage doesn't seem to have been caused by the debris under which he was buried... we have a brief moment of the doc going "oh noes" as he puts two and two together before we switch to a view of Malgus having set the lab on fire and demanding to be off with the medical droid. Exciting! So he's going to be on the loose as well now, another potential future plot thread. I guess we'll find out where he really stands on the subject of Republic vs. Empire when he isn't being kept on a leash by Acina or Vowrawn.

All in all, Onslaught's story has been very enjoyable to me, ramping up nicely after a bit of a weak start and finishing with an ending that once again has me excited about whatever's going to happen next. It has it all: class-specific dialogue options, companion returns, hanging out with entertaining NPCs - I couldn't really have asked for more!

PTS Adventures

I don't recall ever seeing as much excitement about the PTS as I've been seeing in the run-up to Onslaught. I don't know if it's just that I'm being exposed to more people talking about it now or whether is really is getting that much more attention, but the 6.0 PTS definitely feels different to previous public tests. I finally logged in myself the other night and was awed by the number of people just hanging out and messing around with the new gear on Odessen. It's not even like there was a special event going on or anything!

As none of the trooper/bounty hunter stuff was up for testing yet, I made do with a Sorcerer since I still consider my Sage my "main alt" and all the things we were being asked to test were Imperial only. From a healing point of view I wasn't sure what to make of the new set bonuses; the one I tried didn't really feel like it was affecting my play in any way. Of the three tactical items I saw for healing Sorcs so far, two unfortunately seemed pretty worthless due to how weak their effects were, but I made sure to say as much in the feedback thread on the PTS forum and am hopeful that Bioware will still tweak those numbers.

My guildies and I ran a master mode Hammer Station together since Bioware is apparently also changing the way level-syncing endgame content works. It did feel hard enough (the giant lobel Asteroid Beast wiped us twice as a certain someone spent way too much time goofing off), but apparently there's still a lot of tuning to be done on veteran mode and operations. Ajay on Twitter posted about suddenly being able to complete master mode Scum & Villainy in a pug in 25 minutes! Sounds scarily out of whack, but then again being able to take part in this kind of nonsense is precisely what makes it fun to play in a testing environment.

That said, I sure hope that Bioware will be able to gather enough data and take appropriate follow-up actions before Onslaught launches. We still haven't got an official release date for the expansion, but if they stick to their original September target, it's less than two months away now and public testing has only just started. Chuck and Brian said as much in the most recent episode of the Bad Feeling Podcast as well. I almost find myself hoping that the expansion will end up being delayed just to make sure that the devs actually have enough time to iron out all the kinks - looking at the current state of the PTS and thinking that this is what's supposed to go live in about six weeks or so doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

Anyway, if you're interested in giving the public test server a try yourself, here's the official article on how it all works and what to look out for. Once the next phase goes live, there'll even be rewards you can earn for the live game by participating in testing, something that Bioware hasn't done in years and that I definitely wouldn't want to miss this time around. What can I say? Sometimes, bribery simply does work.