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extrapenguin) wrote2021-02-07 11:25 am
extrapenguin) wrote2021-02-07 11:25 am
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SWTOR Sith Inquisitor thoughts
This post is not a game review of Star Wars: The Old Republic, nor is it a guide for people interested in playing or an instruction manual on what sorts of characters I require in exchange gift fic or whatever. Instead, it's my thoughts as a player on the class quest and world storylines, and some general roleplay notes I went for with my character.
I started playing SWTOR on the 17th of January; I finished the class story on the 6th of February after ~85 hours of active playtime. I started out as free to play because I wanted to test the thing out before committing any actual money to it, but I am subscribed now. Free to play character creation gives access to only three species: human, cyborg, and Zabrak. I of course picked Zabrak, because really, what's the point of playing as a Sith if you don't look like Darth Maul's grandmother? Some time despairing over the horn and hair options of the character creator later, Midwan Asp:
Also pictured: Talos Drellik, one of the Sithquisitor companions.
Firstly, the name is pretty nerdy/Sith-aspirational: "midwan" is the (legends canon, but then again, SWTOR is legends) Sith language word for power, chosen because of all the Sith words on that page, that sounded the most appealing as a female name, while "asp" is a category of venomous snakes.
Secondly, I chose Sith Sorcerer (vs Assassin) with the Lightning specialization, because yes I do want to rain lightning down from the skies, that is my favorite magic playstyle, just look at my Path of Exile account: [insert screenshot of like 15 Witch characters, one for every new hardcore league, all specced for Storm Call]
Before we go further, have a screenshot album.
Basic story: Lord Zash asks Korriban to take in a batch of Force-sensitive slaves and make them compete against each other so that the survivor will become her apprentice. There's a ghost on Dromund Kaas, see, that she saw could only be tamed by someone of a humble background. Turns out the ghost is the Sithquisitor's ancestor! Chapter one is searching for artefacts of Tulak Hord for a Force ritual, except oops, the purpose of the ritual is for Zash to take over your body! Then you defeat her in combat, only for her boss, Darth Thanaton of the Dark Council, to try to kill you because Zash violated Sith etiquette and so did you. Chapter two is learning a forcewalking ritual to bind ghosts' power to you and then finding a bunch of ghosts before confronting Darth Thanaton unsuccessfully. Chapter three is healing your body and mind from the ghost-binding (after your fourth ghost, you're informed that the maximum limit for ghosts is one. oops.), followed by Thanaton challenging you to a Sith duel. Of course, because you are a video game protagonist and Thanaton's just some chump, you first beat all his apprentices, then wipe the floor with his ass, whereupon he flees the site of your duel to ask his colleagues on the Dark Council to deal with you, so you get to wipe the floor with his ass again. And. Who doesn't fantasize about kicking an asshole's butt in front of all his colleagues, thoroughly humiliating him before them, and then being given his job posting?
Because they give you Thanaton's seat on the Dark Council, too. Say hello to Darth Nox, everybody! :D
Chapter 1: Find the artefacts of Tulak Hord! The plotline's a reasonably simple fetch quest times five (though the first comes on Korriban already IIRC). Balmorra's colicoid pit was fun, and the worlds felt nice.
Chapter 2: Find ghosts and bind them to you! This felt like a downgrade on Chapter 1, especially in level design – the planets felt larger and emptier – though at least it was short planet-wise.
Chapter 3: Prep for kicking Thanaton's ass! This had my absolute favorite planets, Belsavis and Voss, and Corellia's class story was great. I got to zap around in a Rakatan instant transit system around an ancient Rakatan prison! Voss was super cool, too, with the Voss Force traditions and the Voss/Gormak split and I got to poke around in the spirit world in a manner that was a real mindfuck. The music was good, too. And Corellia's class story with the Korriban coda was a fitting climax to the Sithquisitor plotline. Definitely ended with a high note.
What's not to love?
Basically all of them were "please contribute to the war effort on this planet" but all the planetary story Sith going "ah, you bright young thing, I remember when I was as passionate as you! :D" and praising me were super endearing, and there was some variation to the precise nature of the stories, so, eh. As above, my favorites were Voss and Belsavis, though I also liked the flow to Corellia and Balmorra's. Some of them, like (IIRC – I didn't keep notes) Tatooine and Taris, were a bit disjointed/the pacing didn't seem to work that well with the Sithquisitor story? I distinctly recall Taris and Alderaan feeling like they took forever.
As this was my first character, I did lots of regular missions ("kill 20 droids in x location" etc) and exploration missions. By the end, I'd just gather all the regular missions, then do them on my way to the next big (class or world story) objective and then abandon them when I left the planet; almost everything was designed to harmonize with the questlines. One of the ones on Voss was super cool – the task was to go to a bunch of obelisks and read the short vignette inscribed, and it really gave depth to the main objective of the Voss Imperial questline.
Corellia was not as good as Voss, but the planet mission felt sort of like a better version of Balmorra and Taris and kicking Thanaton's butt was very enjoyable.
The Sithquisitor is a freed slave, so one of my throughlines was that she'd have a soft spot for slaves and not be into sadistic torture of them. Another was that as an alien, she'd be pro-alien (she recommended Yudrass for promotion on Hoth, frex) and very much into reminding all the anti-alien grumblers that they are speaking to a nonhuman Sith. The third was a pragmatic streak: she'd accept surrenders if the Empire got something out of it, like that Republic guy on Balmorra who offered to tell the galaxy that the Republic was violating the treaty. Did this incur a bunch of light side points? Well, yes. I did pick the dark path, though, and ended up gaining Dark V at Thanaton's death. She's polite, too, even to the little people, and – most importantly – a patriot. She's a true believer in the Imperial cause and wants to make the Empire a better place in a dark side way.
All of that the game gave regular opportunities to engage with (polite and pragmatic Sith patriotically devoted to serving the Empire with a soft spot for slaves and aliens); something it didn't give as much opportunity for was a resounding passion for archaeology. My Sithquisitor imprinted on all those artefacts of Tulak Hord she was sent to recover and I took every opportunity in the conversations with Talos to enthuse over archaeology. (I also picked it as one of the crew skills, but, well, while that did let me send my companions on solo missions and do some scanning of various crystals, it didn't exactly lead to that many conversation opportunities.)
One of my problems with the KOTOR games was that very often, the dark side path was "I will be pathetically mean to random people for no reason, even when it distracts me from my quest" which I found stupid and unappealing. While there are a bunch of dumb choices (after massacring your way through a dungeon, killing Important Boss cleanly nets you DS points, while sending them off to be tortured forever gives you LS points because you didn't kill them???) where it's not really LS/DS but rather pragmatism/loltastic ebul, there are some better-set ones. Or it just feels like that because the story's approximately twice as long as the KOTORs (KOTOR 1: 35 hours to beat; SWTOR: ~85 hours) so there's more room for less bad choices? The game's mechanic of giving you LS/DS points based on your choice of alignment as you gain EXP also meant they could have more just-roleplay choices, which I think was a good idea.
Also, right from the prologue on Korriban, I ended up really shipping Sithquisitor/Darth Zash. "Here is the lightsaber I had when I was an apprentice! Now assassinate my enemies for me" is apparently exactly what I want in my femslash ships, especially when followed up with "Well done assassinating my enemies, apprentice! Here, have your very own spaceship. <3" My foremost desire was for them to take a field trip to some abandoned Sith temple and to evil archaeology together. As a result, I decided my Sithquisitor was passionately in love with her, even if she did sort of try to take over her body.
Khem Val is ... hmm. He's an intriguing enough character who's not a HK-47 knockoff but does press some of the same buttons. He likes killing things and his combat dialogue is "Soon I will devour you, little Sith." I liked him just fine, but I liked Zash more, so Khem's now stuck in a Rakata box while Zash borrows his body. Sorry, Khem!
Andronikos Revel is some sort of space pirate Han Solo knockoff who's the only romance option for female Sithquisitors. I did not give a fuck. There's an achievement for killing 1000 enemies with each active companion, so I grinded up to that and never used him again.
Ashara Zavros is a bit frustrating in that I want to like her, but she seems a bit younger than her 20 years and she reminds me too much of Mission Vao. Part of it is the voice acting, part of it is her naïveté. She actually goes pretty well with my Sithquisitor's patriotic desire to reform the Empire, and I guess her inner conflict is reasonable given her "I guess I'll follow you, since I have nowhere else to go" thing and it's all rationalization. I am also irrationally annoyed that she's only a love interest for male Sithquisitors, even in the expansions that made a lot of originally gender-locked LIs bi.
Talos Drellik is my favorite! "I heard you unearthed several of Tulak Hord's artefacts! I'm a Naga Sadow man myself, but I'd love to compare notes," he said, and that's it, new fave acquired, let us nerd over artefacts together.
Xalek comes in pretty late in the game – you only have him for Corellia – though he pops up earlier on. He's another alien ex-slave brought through Korriban's Sith academy, but he's a bit ... odd. I didn't really connect with him, and there's not that much time to connect with him? I think his big problem is that he's taciturn in his companion conversations and only present at the very end.
Thankfully, there are a bunch of expansions to do, as well as stuff I skipped over on the first round (flashpoints, anything requiring social interaction incl. heroics) that I might get around to doing (flashpoints at least on story mode, and I've had good luck with the chat and community, even when asking n00bish questions so maybe even in a party). The next character I roll will be a Jedi Knight, I think, so I'm not doing the exact same Imperial world missions twice in a row. But for now? Ilum.
I started playing SWTOR on the 17th of January; I finished the class story on the 6th of February after ~85 hours of active playtime. I started out as free to play because I wanted to test the thing out before committing any actual money to it, but I am subscribed now. Free to play character creation gives access to only three species: human, cyborg, and Zabrak. I of course picked Zabrak, because really, what's the point of playing as a Sith if you don't look like Darth Maul's grandmother? Some time despairing over the horn and hair options of the character creator later, Midwan Asp:
Also pictured: Talos Drellik, one of the Sithquisitor companions.
Firstly, the name is pretty nerdy/Sith-aspirational: "midwan" is the (legends canon, but then again, SWTOR is legends) Sith language word for power, chosen because of all the Sith words on that page, that sounded the most appealing as a female name, while "asp" is a category of venomous snakes.
Secondly, I chose Sith Sorcerer (vs Assassin) with the Lightning specialization, because yes I do want to rain lightning down from the skies, that is my favorite magic playstyle, just look at my Path of Exile account: [insert screenshot of like 15 Witch characters, one for every new hardcore league, all specced for Storm Call]
Before we go further, have a screenshot album.
Class story
Basic story: Lord Zash asks Korriban to take in a batch of Force-sensitive slaves and make them compete against each other so that the survivor will become her apprentice. There's a ghost on Dromund Kaas, see, that she saw could only be tamed by someone of a humble background. Turns out the ghost is the Sithquisitor's ancestor! Chapter one is searching for artefacts of Tulak Hord for a Force ritual, except oops, the purpose of the ritual is for Zash to take over your body! Then you defeat her in combat, only for her boss, Darth Thanaton of the Dark Council, to try to kill you because Zash violated Sith etiquette and so did you. Chapter two is learning a forcewalking ritual to bind ghosts' power to you and then finding a bunch of ghosts before confronting Darth Thanaton unsuccessfully. Chapter three is healing your body and mind from the ghost-binding (after your fourth ghost, you're informed that the maximum limit for ghosts is one. oops.), followed by Thanaton challenging you to a Sith duel. Of course, because you are a video game protagonist and Thanaton's just some chump, you first beat all his apprentices, then wipe the floor with his ass, whereupon he flees the site of your duel to ask his colleagues on the Dark Council to deal with you, so you get to wipe the floor with his ass again. And. Who doesn't fantasize about kicking an asshole's butt in front of all his colleagues, thoroughly humiliating him before them, and then being given his job posting?
Because they give you Thanaton's seat on the Dark Council, too. Say hello to Darth Nox, everybody! :D
Chapter 1: Find the artefacts of Tulak Hord! The plotline's a reasonably simple fetch quest times five (though the first comes on Korriban already IIRC). Balmorra's colicoid pit was fun, and the worlds felt nice.
Chapter 2: Find ghosts and bind them to you! This felt like a downgrade on Chapter 1, especially in level design – the planets felt larger and emptier – though at least it was short planet-wise.
Chapter 3: Prep for kicking Thanaton's ass! This had my absolute favorite planets, Belsavis and Voss, and Corellia's class story was great. I got to zap around in a Rakatan instant transit system around an ancient Rakatan prison! Voss was super cool, too, with the Voss Force traditions and the Voss/Gormak split and I got to poke around in the spirit world in a manner that was a real mindfuck. The music was good, too. And Corellia's class story with the Korriban coda was a fitting climax to the Sithquisitor plotline. Definitely ended with a high note.
What's not to love?
World stories
Basically all of them were "please contribute to the war effort on this planet" but all the planetary story Sith going "ah, you bright young thing, I remember when I was as passionate as you! :D" and praising me were super endearing, and there was some variation to the precise nature of the stories, so, eh. As above, my favorites were Voss and Belsavis, though I also liked the flow to Corellia and Balmorra's. Some of them, like (IIRC – I didn't keep notes) Tatooine and Taris, were a bit disjointed/the pacing didn't seem to work that well with the Sithquisitor story? I distinctly recall Taris and Alderaan feeling like they took forever.
As this was my first character, I did lots of regular missions ("kill 20 droids in x location" etc) and exploration missions. By the end, I'd just gather all the regular missions, then do them on my way to the next big (class or world story) objective and then abandon them when I left the planet; almost everything was designed to harmonize with the questlines. One of the ones on Voss was super cool – the task was to go to a bunch of obelisks and read the short vignette inscribed, and it really gave depth to the main objective of the Voss Imperial questline.
Corellia was not as good as Voss, but the planet mission felt sort of like a better version of Balmorra and Taris and kicking Thanaton's butt was very enjoyable.
Roleplay
The Sithquisitor is a freed slave, so one of my throughlines was that she'd have a soft spot for slaves and not be into sadistic torture of them. Another was that as an alien, she'd be pro-alien (she recommended Yudrass for promotion on Hoth, frex) and very much into reminding all the anti-alien grumblers that they are speaking to a nonhuman Sith. The third was a pragmatic streak: she'd accept surrenders if the Empire got something out of it, like that Republic guy on Balmorra who offered to tell the galaxy that the Republic was violating the treaty. Did this incur a bunch of light side points? Well, yes. I did pick the dark path, though, and ended up gaining Dark V at Thanaton's death. She's polite, too, even to the little people, and – most importantly – a patriot. She's a true believer in the Imperial cause and wants to make the Empire a better place in a dark side way.
All of that the game gave regular opportunities to engage with (polite and pragmatic Sith patriotically devoted to serving the Empire with a soft spot for slaves and aliens); something it didn't give as much opportunity for was a resounding passion for archaeology. My Sithquisitor imprinted on all those artefacts of Tulak Hord she was sent to recover and I took every opportunity in the conversations with Talos to enthuse over archaeology. (I also picked it as one of the crew skills, but, well, while that did let me send my companions on solo missions and do some scanning of various crystals, it didn't exactly lead to that many conversation opportunities.)
One of my problems with the KOTOR games was that very often, the dark side path was "I will be pathetically mean to random people for no reason, even when it distracts me from my quest" which I found stupid and unappealing. While there are a bunch of dumb choices (after massacring your way through a dungeon, killing Important Boss cleanly nets you DS points, while sending them off to be tortured forever gives you LS points because you didn't kill them???) where it's not really LS/DS but rather pragmatism/loltastic ebul, there are some better-set ones. Or it just feels like that because the story's approximately twice as long as the KOTORs (KOTOR 1: 35 hours to beat; SWTOR: ~85 hours) so there's more room for less bad choices? The game's mechanic of giving you LS/DS points based on your choice of alignment as you gain EXP also meant they could have more just-roleplay choices, which I think was a good idea.
Also, right from the prologue on Korriban, I ended up really shipping Sithquisitor/Darth Zash. "Here is the lightsaber I had when I was an apprentice! Now assassinate my enemies for me" is apparently exactly what I want in my femslash ships, especially when followed up with "Well done assassinating my enemies, apprentice! Here, have your very own spaceship. <3" My foremost desire was for them to take a field trip to some abandoned Sith temple and to evil archaeology together. As a result, I decided my Sithquisitor was passionately in love with her, even if she did sort of try to take over her body.
Companions
Khem Val is ... hmm. He's an intriguing enough character who's not a HK-47 knockoff but does press some of the same buttons. He likes killing things and his combat dialogue is "Soon I will devour you, little Sith." I liked him just fine, but I liked Zash more, so Khem's now stuck in a Rakata box while Zash borrows his body. Sorry, Khem!
Andronikos Revel is some sort of space pirate Han Solo knockoff who's the only romance option for female Sithquisitors. I did not give a fuck. There's an achievement for killing 1000 enemies with each active companion, so I grinded up to that and never used him again.
Ashara Zavros is a bit frustrating in that I want to like her, but she seems a bit younger than her 20 years and she reminds me too much of Mission Vao. Part of it is the voice acting, part of it is her naïveté. She actually goes pretty well with my Sithquisitor's patriotic desire to reform the Empire, and I guess her inner conflict is reasonable given her "I guess I'll follow you, since I have nowhere else to go" thing and it's all rationalization. I am also irrationally annoyed that she's only a love interest for male Sithquisitors, even in the expansions that made a lot of originally gender-locked LIs bi.
Talos Drellik is my favorite! "I heard you unearthed several of Tulak Hord's artefacts! I'm a Naga Sadow man myself, but I'd love to compare notes," he said, and that's it, new fave acquired, let us nerd over artefacts together.
Xalek comes in pretty late in the game – you only have him for Corellia – though he pops up earlier on. He's another alien ex-slave brought through Korriban's Sith academy, but he's a bit ... odd. I didn't really connect with him, and there's not that much time to connect with him? I think his big problem is that he's taciturn in his companion conversations and only present at the very end.
What next?
Thankfully, there are a bunch of expansions to do, as well as stuff I skipped over on the first round (flashpoints, anything requiring social interaction incl. heroics) that I might get around to doing (flashpoints at least on story mode, and I've had good luck with the chat and community, even when asking n00bish questions so maybe even in a party). The next character I roll will be a Jedi Knight, I think, so I'm not doing the exact same Imperial world missions twice in a row. But for now? Ilum.