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extrapenguinOnslaught, Echoes of Oblivion, and Spirit of Vengeance. And with that, Sith Inquisitor Midwan Asp is all caught up with current content! Thoughts below.
Onslaught continued Jedi Under Siege (Ossus)'s return to the Empire-Republic war, which, yes! Very good! I loved it. This time, on two planets: Onderon and Mek-Sha. Onderon had the same constant texture re-loading problems for me as Ossus did, but Mek-Sha didn't. Both felt a bit light to me plotwise, though at least part of it is the lack of side quests. (But wasn't Makeb longer despite the similar lack of sidequests? IDK.)
I hear that saboteurs (characters who chose to join up with the faction they didn't start in) had some hilarious options; for my Imperial loyalist, it was a relatively straightforward romp. Onderon had an idiot King a member of the Dark Council was manipulating into seceding from the Republic and firing on the Republic fleet; I was the muscle, basically, killing the King's cousins and framing the Republic Senator for it and assisting in the assault on Iziz. We got Jakarro (from the Forged Alliances/Shadow of Revan expansion) back, and while I wasn't much of a fan of him to begin with, I liked him well enough here. I also went full on "gotta catch 'em all" and recruited him into my alliance, of course. :P
Also, I got a Czerka Crate-O-Matic (and accompanying achievement) from the login rewards! It's a useless item, but I was thrilled to be able to live vicariously through my video game character and hide inside a box of appropriate size.
Mek-Sha had the Imperial goal be ... convincing Mek-Sha's leaders to sell the Republic fuel! And then sabotage the fuel systems to make the ships blow up while they're refueling. There were two undecided leaders of whom we had to convince one; I was a bit disappointed that it was a straightforward "do favor for leader, ask leader to vote in favor of the Republic" deal, rather than reverse psychologying one leader into voting in favor of the Republic by working on the other leader (as these two were rivals). Oh well! There was an entertaining explosion. The storyline also contained an opportunity for Midwan to express her (negative) opinion on slavery to Major Anri, whose return sparked great joy.
After that, Onslaught finished up with an assault on Republic shipyards in Corellia. This was a flashpoint, and it was decent enough I guess? Like all the recent solo story flashpoints, there was no GSI Combat Droid anymore, just me and Major Anri at the start, and then me and Darth Malgus at the end, facing off Tau Idair. I hear she's a major player on the Republic side, and she's been there on the loading screen for as long as I've been playing, but ... she is wearing half a robe. WTF. Anyway, the thing ends with her, defeated, pulling down the ceiling before anyone can actually die. The Empire gains its objectives, yay, much celebration!
The best part of Onslaught, however, wasn't any of the plot. No, it was returning to the fold. I reclaimed my seat on the Dark Council (by electrocuting the sod who'd taken it over), I joined the alliance into the Empire (good riddance, and if you're complaining, Theron, you can always leave), and I got to tell people to call me Darth Nox again! What a wonderful day. I think a tear actually appeared in my eye.
I was too busy having emotions to screencap things, so have Midwan running away from a collapsing Corellian shipyard as if it were the KotET expansion.
Then we get to Echoes of Oblivion, which I guess is part of Onslaught story-wise, though it's really more of a capstone to KotFE/KotET/the Jedi Knight class story. Anri was in the building when it collapsed and got pulled out by ... Scourge and Kira! (Side note: I was delighted when they turned up, all "hey it's those people! :D" so I suspect that KotFE/KotET would've sucked less had I known the companions who turn up.) Turns out they were busy killing Valkorion/Vitiate/Tenebrae's original body, which unleashed some sort of blowback on them? So when Satele Shan and her students came to un-coma them, Tenebrae started sucking out their life force to possess them, and now they need my help.
After some hilarious traipsing through a large ship with Kira and Scourge bantering at each other, we get to meet the Scions of Zakuul (or whatever, those prophet dudes) and the ... Emperor's Hands or something. Valkorion cultists and Vitiate cultists, basically! Then we kill their leaders and go into Satele's mindscape.
Midwan Asp, Kira Carsen, and rocks.
The mindscape had a lot of very thin rocky bridge growths, and let's just say I'm glad almost nothing has a knockback and that I was playing a ranged class. The environment itself was pretty – both the twisted mindscape and the foggy memories of Tython – and the running around through portals was nicely trippy. Tenebrae also did his level best to separate us all, which meant we could meet up with lots of characters from through the series!
Like Revan, who had taken up dual wielding and a second, red lightsaber in his continued deadness.
Kira was the companion at the start, but then she was poofed away. I actually clapped in delight when Darth Marr turned up, and then we had Revan as a companion for a bit! Valkorion's kids and Senya turned up to go at him (Senya growled about how I'd killed her children, which, 1. I most definitely had nothing to do with Thexan's death, and 2. I'm a dark lord of the Sith, what did you expect?) at one point, and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting someone, but hey. Reunions!
Meetra Surik, alas, didn't do much.
Then we got to the finalslideshow boss battle. All ... 10? of us (player, Arcann, Thexan, Vaylin, Senya, Marr, Satele, Kira, Scourge, Revan, someone else?) teamed up and defeated first Valkorion, then Vitiate, then Tenebrae, after which Satele gave a speech on how she'd laid a trap for Tenebrae so that Kira and Scourge would have time to return with backup, and Tenebrae and his future incarnations crumbled to dust, finally dead. Despite the slideshow nature of the thing, I actually think this was a better sendoff than KotFE.
Lest you fear SWTOR is officially over with this plotline coming to a close, there's another flashpoint! This is all about Mandalorians. During the flashpoint, we discover that a Heta Kol wishes to challenge Shae Viszla's right to be Mandalore/get vengeance on Shae for something. The flashpoint plot itself was okay I guess, though I was a bit surprised that we didn't have a companion swap for the final fight – I was expecting that Rass Ordo, whom we'd run around with before, would deal with the random backup and we'd get Shae to face Heta Kol. I actually died twice here, but not to Heta – there were two phases where she fucked off and got random adds to fight instead, and those were brutal. In the second phase, two sharpshooters spawn on the platform while two tanks (sentinels or something?) and two healers or sharpshooters come in through the main door. I survived by using my 60s crowd control on one of the on-platform sharpshooters, my 4s cc on the other, and then dpsing down the main door crowd, starting with the two healers/sharpshooters/whatever. So uh. That felt a bit overtuned, compared to how much damage the actual boss was doing! But in glorious tradition, Heta ran away to fight another day.
Also I switched my lightsaber shell from Onderonian (with the two silly bands) to Ossan. Paler gray, nicer design. Let's see if this is my final one or if I swap it again.
This means Midwan is all current with plot stuff! As am I, so I can now speculate/read others' speculation. I agree with the main thrust that there'll be some sort of expansion (or perhaps expansion announcement, given COVID delays) on the game's 10th anniversary in December, and the topic will probably be Mandalorians, given the setup with Heta and how much absolutely everyone else seems to love them. I'll play it, but I don't expect it'll become my favorite expansion. There are a few other plot threads – they put in a hook for Vaylin returning, and Darth Malgus has gone rogue – but idk if that'll be the next expansion or the one after that. I'd like to see Malgus come back into focus!
What does a Dark Lord of the Sith do once she's finished the currently available plot? Well, heroics, it turns out. I've decided to embark on a grand tour of the galaxy where I go through every planet in the order Midwan first encountered them in her class story, do all the heroics, and find all the datacrons. So far, I've done the first three: Korriban, Dromund Kaas, and Balmorra. (Well, I skipped the Balmorra datacron that requires two people to click on a panel at the same time, but all the solo content. I'll probably skip some of the jumping puzzles, too.) Odessen has a terminal where one can pick up heroics for any planet; I wasn't too surprised when I couldn't nab the Tython heroics, as those are Republic only, but Hutta wasn't available for me, despite being an Imperial planet. Oh well.
Stories from datacron hunting: on Balmorra, in the Okara Droid Factory, I missed the platform I was going for and hit the ground with 10% hp; my companion, Talos, fell from a slightly greater distance and went splat. Cue Talos saying (from beyond the grave) "That went excellently, if I do say so myself". It was hilarious.
Spot Talos's reaction and lol. (Korriban)
Some of the heroics have cool cutscenes, too! This one's from Balmorra, destroying a Republic base.
As for future gameplay beyond heroics, well, I took Kurebir to Ilum; she's now ready save for the False Emperor flashpoints. I liked Makeb the first time around and should really replay to compare with Onslaught, but OTOH I dislike playing melee so idk. Regardless, I'm rolling an Imperial Agent on Saturday.
Onslaught continued Jedi Under Siege (Ossus)'s return to the Empire-Republic war, which, yes! Very good! I loved it. This time, on two planets: Onderon and Mek-Sha. Onderon had the same constant texture re-loading problems for me as Ossus did, but Mek-Sha didn't. Both felt a bit light to me plotwise, though at least part of it is the lack of side quests. (But wasn't Makeb longer despite the similar lack of sidequests? IDK.)
I hear that saboteurs (characters who chose to join up with the faction they didn't start in) had some hilarious options; for my Imperial loyalist, it was a relatively straightforward romp. Onderon had an idiot King a member of the Dark Council was manipulating into seceding from the Republic and firing on the Republic fleet; I was the muscle, basically, killing the King's cousins and framing the Republic Senator for it and assisting in the assault on Iziz. We got Jakarro (from the Forged Alliances/Shadow of Revan expansion) back, and while I wasn't much of a fan of him to begin with, I liked him well enough here. I also went full on "gotta catch 'em all" and recruited him into my alliance, of course. :P
Also, I got a Czerka Crate-O-Matic (and accompanying achievement) from the login rewards! It's a useless item, but I was thrilled to be able to live vicariously through my video game character and hide inside a box of appropriate size.
Mek-Sha had the Imperial goal be ... convincing Mek-Sha's leaders to sell the Republic fuel! And then sabotage the fuel systems to make the ships blow up while they're refueling. There were two undecided leaders of whom we had to convince one; I was a bit disappointed that it was a straightforward "do favor for leader, ask leader to vote in favor of the Republic" deal, rather than reverse psychologying one leader into voting in favor of the Republic by working on the other leader (as these two were rivals). Oh well! There was an entertaining explosion. The storyline also contained an opportunity for Midwan to express her (negative) opinion on slavery to Major Anri, whose return sparked great joy.
After that, Onslaught finished up with an assault on Republic shipyards in Corellia. This was a flashpoint, and it was decent enough I guess? Like all the recent solo story flashpoints, there was no GSI Combat Droid anymore, just me and Major Anri at the start, and then me and Darth Malgus at the end, facing off Tau Idair. I hear she's a major player on the Republic side, and she's been there on the loading screen for as long as I've been playing, but ... she is wearing half a robe. WTF. Anyway, the thing ends with her, defeated, pulling down the ceiling before anyone can actually die. The Empire gains its objectives, yay, much celebration!
The best part of Onslaught, however, wasn't any of the plot. No, it was returning to the fold. I reclaimed my seat on the Dark Council (by electrocuting the sod who'd taken it over), I joined the alliance into the Empire (good riddance, and if you're complaining, Theron, you can always leave), and I got to tell people to call me Darth Nox again! What a wonderful day. I think a tear actually appeared in my eye.
I was too busy having emotions to screencap things, so have Midwan running away from a collapsing Corellian shipyard as if it were the KotET expansion.
Then we get to Echoes of Oblivion, which I guess is part of Onslaught story-wise, though it's really more of a capstone to KotFE/KotET/the Jedi Knight class story. Anri was in the building when it collapsed and got pulled out by ... Scourge and Kira! (Side note: I was delighted when they turned up, all "hey it's those people! :D" so I suspect that KotFE/KotET would've sucked less had I known the companions who turn up.) Turns out they were busy killing Valkorion/Vitiate/Tenebrae's original body, which unleashed some sort of blowback on them? So when Satele Shan and her students came to un-coma them, Tenebrae started sucking out their life force to possess them, and now they need my help.
After some hilarious traipsing through a large ship with Kira and Scourge bantering at each other, we get to meet the Scions of Zakuul (or whatever, those prophet dudes) and the ... Emperor's Hands or something. Valkorion cultists and Vitiate cultists, basically! Then we kill their leaders and go into Satele's mindscape.
Midwan Asp, Kira Carsen, and rocks.
The mindscape had a lot of very thin rocky bridge growths, and let's just say I'm glad almost nothing has a knockback and that I was playing a ranged class. The environment itself was pretty – both the twisted mindscape and the foggy memories of Tython – and the running around through portals was nicely trippy. Tenebrae also did his level best to separate us all, which meant we could meet up with lots of characters from through the series!
Like Revan, who had taken up dual wielding and a second, red lightsaber in his continued deadness.
Kira was the companion at the start, but then she was poofed away. I actually clapped in delight when Darth Marr turned up, and then we had Revan as a companion for a bit! Valkorion's kids and Senya turned up to go at him (Senya growled about how I'd killed her children, which, 1. I most definitely had nothing to do with Thexan's death, and 2. I'm a dark lord of the Sith, what did you expect?) at one point, and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting someone, but hey. Reunions!
Meetra Surik, alas, didn't do much.
Then we got to the final
Lest you fear SWTOR is officially over with this plotline coming to a close, there's another flashpoint! This is all about Mandalorians. During the flashpoint, we discover that a Heta Kol wishes to challenge Shae Viszla's right to be Mandalore/get vengeance on Shae for something. The flashpoint plot itself was okay I guess, though I was a bit surprised that we didn't have a companion swap for the final fight – I was expecting that Rass Ordo, whom we'd run around with before, would deal with the random backup and we'd get Shae to face Heta Kol. I actually died twice here, but not to Heta – there were two phases where she fucked off and got random adds to fight instead, and those were brutal. In the second phase, two sharpshooters spawn on the platform while two tanks (sentinels or something?) and two healers or sharpshooters come in through the main door. I survived by using my 60s crowd control on one of the on-platform sharpshooters, my 4s cc on the other, and then dpsing down the main door crowd, starting with the two healers/sharpshooters/whatever. So uh. That felt a bit overtuned, compared to how much damage the actual boss was doing! But in glorious tradition, Heta ran away to fight another day.
Also I switched my lightsaber shell from Onderonian (with the two silly bands) to Ossan. Paler gray, nicer design. Let's see if this is my final one or if I swap it again.
This means Midwan is all current with plot stuff! As am I, so I can now speculate/read others' speculation. I agree with the main thrust that there'll be some sort of expansion (or perhaps expansion announcement, given COVID delays) on the game's 10th anniversary in December, and the topic will probably be Mandalorians, given the setup with Heta and how much absolutely everyone else seems to love them. I'll play it, but I don't expect it'll become my favorite expansion. There are a few other plot threads – they put in a hook for Vaylin returning, and Darth Malgus has gone rogue – but idk if that'll be the next expansion or the one after that. I'd like to see Malgus come back into focus!
What does a Dark Lord of the Sith do once she's finished the currently available plot? Well, heroics, it turns out. I've decided to embark on a grand tour of the galaxy where I go through every planet in the order Midwan first encountered them in her class story, do all the heroics, and find all the datacrons. So far, I've done the first three: Korriban, Dromund Kaas, and Balmorra. (Well, I skipped the Balmorra datacron that requires two people to click on a panel at the same time, but all the solo content. I'll probably skip some of the jumping puzzles, too.) Odessen has a terminal where one can pick up heroics for any planet; I wasn't too surprised when I couldn't nab the Tython heroics, as those are Republic only, but Hutta wasn't available for me, despite being an Imperial planet. Oh well.
Stories from datacron hunting: on Balmorra, in the Okara Droid Factory, I missed the platform I was going for and hit the ground with 10% hp; my companion, Talos, fell from a slightly greater distance and went splat. Cue Talos saying (from beyond the grave) "That went excellently, if I do say so myself". It was hilarious.
Spot Talos's reaction and lol. (Korriban)
Some of the heroics have cool cutscenes, too! This one's from Balmorra, destroying a Republic base.
As for future gameplay beyond heroics, well, I took Kurebir to Ilum; she's now ready save for the False Emperor flashpoints. I liked Makeb the first time around and should really replay to compare with Onslaught, but OTOH I dislike playing melee so idk. Regardless, I'm rolling an Imperial Agent on Saturday.