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metadigital
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Posts posted by metadigital
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Another problem with the KotOR engine is that there is no limit to the bonuses that can be added to your stats -- unlike, say NwN where a PC can only add 12 points to every stat. I have a character with 44 Wisdom (with a natural stat of c. 20).
Considering this particular character's Wisdom doubles onto the defence bonus, this is bordering on munchkinism.
But because there is no "higher purpose" to the game except "kill every enemy in front of you until you get the epilogue", it doesn't seem as ridiculous as, say, acting the same way in a more rounded game (like some of the NwN community modules).
Playing Half-Life 2 (again) feels more like an RPG than KotOR 2.
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bottom line, DEX is pointless, you're gonna be hit no matter what, throw it down to 10 and thow the rest between str and constitution
Thats how i played it, with master flurry, lightside guardian/weaponmaster, 2 lightsabers = ownage
That's only one strategy ... the "fighter" route. I can vouch that the "mage" route is ultimately more powerful -- if you are measuring power acording to how quickly and easily the Bosses are dispelled. In fact I rarely had to use my lightsaber. :cool:
E.g. I played a Jedi Consular (10/14/14/12/14/14) and had final stats (level 29: Consular 24 / Jedi Master 5 13/28/18/17/44/17). Naturally, I also made sure I had the Lightsaber Finesse feat.
" This was using only a singlebladed lightsaber (8-48 dmg, +3 to hit, +3/10 DS crit, Defence Bonus 1, Deflection +4, DEX +4, STR +3 and WIS +5).
The argument for two single blades must take into consideration the fact that you get more components that you can max out: emitters, lenses, crystals, etc (e.g. adding Keen and critical damage bonuses; increasing stats).
Don't forget that DEX adds to defence bonus when not using armour (and is mitigated by the weight of some armour), which makes your character harder to hit. If you can also add your WIS bonus to your Defence --
follow the sparring conversation with the last Handmaiden until she gives you the bonus
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Even though my character didn't have many Vitality Points, I never needed them because he always had first attack (Master Speed and DEX check for initiative roll) and I would cast stasis/destroy droid on the group of baddies and then force wave them ... my 789+ Force Points would regenerate quickly enough that I wouldn't even notice the battles' effect on the blue status bar. It took less than ten melee rounds to completely destroy Traya -- including showing her mercy.
Some other good items: the Circlet of Saresh (is this the only named item from the first game?) for (WIS +5), together with the Robes of Ossus, a Jal Shey belt (WIS +1 and Force Defence +14) and a Mental Boost Package (INT, WIS & CHR +1 -- there are +2 packages, but they require a higher CON).
So the "fighter" route is the easiest strategy, but not the most powerful.
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On the one hand, I agree that further level progression would seem insane, as with KotOR II, we've pretty much capped out the existing system, and we've become the most powerful force-user in the universe. ...
... But on the other hand, yet another instance of the "you were a powerful veteran jedi, but somehow you ended up back at level 1" character development trope would seem pretty perverse. (sic.)
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As mentioned above, the vitality/force progression was just silly: Traya had over 1000 HP in the final battle, and I had 600+ force points.
I have always thought that restarting at a lower level/losing levels can be explained by lack of practice/gainful adventuring (i.e. the use it or lose it rationale.)
I too found the battles very un-challenging. Buff with speed, cast a stasis and spam force wave -- repeat. I don't have a problem with loads of easy kills (look at the Jedi making short work of droids in early episodes), and some of the battles were quite well designed: I'm thinking specifically of the Oderon second party
at the tomb
. Still, there is a lot of room for improvement. I like suggestions like the Z axis and variable terrain and even adding extra skillsets so that AI might function.
Perhaps the d20 system is really creaking -- especially since we're now discussing epic characters. A 20 sided die is an approximation used decades ago for hand rolling percentages for characters that hardly ever made levels with double digits. With computers it is perfectly feasible to devise a better method (if only to use percentages, or a "d100", to decrease the incremental improvements each level -- anyone remember 18 00 strength? :cool: ).
Personally, I can't believe that there aren't any sci-fi RPGs around. (Let's not play another elf/dwarf/orc game -- there are plently already out there.) But the Star Wars RPG seems to be lacking some balance, it is true. Perhaps if there were some competition, then we wouldn't end up with half-finished rush jobs, like KotOR 2.
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Bioware better than Obsidian? Hell freaking no. Every Bioware game that has come out has been a predictable piece and very shallow and poor writing, very much unlike Obsidian and former BIS games.
Funny, sence this is how I would describe the storyline of KotOR II:TSL.
And lets face it, If KotOR's Storyline was a copy from NWN OC then KotOR II is the bastard child of PS:T.
I'm impressed you actually implied that KOTOR 2's story is predictable and shallow...wow you must have been able to really anticipate:
- The story of all the companions, EVERY DETAIL the first time through by maxing out the influence system.
- How you got to Peragus mining facility and why
- You must have predicted all to well that the jedi masters would try and strip the force from the exile again
- that you were going to end up on malachor v halfway through the game
-Kreia manipulating you during the whole game for her own ends.
Dont call it shallow...because everyone in this forum liking it or not, knows it isnt. That's why people were wondering what happened when they got to Malachor V the first time through
Hmm.
I hate to break it to you, but:
- The story of all the companions, EVERY DETAIL I found tedious. I DIDN'T -- and DON'T -- CARE about them, THEY'RE (mostly) BORING.
- I found out how I got to the Peragus mining facility and why, by the first planet of my first play-through of the game.
- I didn't predict that the jedi masters would try and strip the force from the exile again, but this plot device is totally destroyed by the fact that whether you are LS or DS, male/female and whatever dialogue option you choose and whatever choices you make in the cave, you still have the same narrow plot progression at this juncture.
- I did suspect that I would end up on Malachor V halfway through the game; and
- I definitely suspected Kreia was attempting to manipulate my character from the moment she woke up. (Check out some of the posts we were all discussing on the LucasArts KotOR 2 boards back before the US Xbox release date, if you require proof.)
Quite frankly, as a few have already said, there were some good points (game engine enhancements; more realistic morals resulting in murkier LS/DS effects) and some bad points to 2. My main issues with 2 are:
- it wasn't finished, riddled with bugs and ommissions
- the end was confusing not because I had failed to follow sub-plots, but because so much of it was missing and obviously forced
- it wasn't (more) fun to be a (different) character
- the beginning was ponderous to the point of turning me off (so linear and long-winded).
It doesn't matter if the story is novel; there is nothing new under the sun -- it's all been written before. I have to be entertained, to feel empathy with the characters -- feel their hurt and want to help them win. I didn't feel that. It felt formulaic. It annoyed me. The plot and direction needed a few more months' work, each; which would have given the testers time to get the bugs out, hopefully.
NwN OC is okay -- I think the HoU expansion is best (the second expansion, SoU module, really was woeful) ... I must say, though that the community of developers have created some cracking good modules which put the OC and KotOR 2 to shame.
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After KotOR2, I'm just hoping someone -- anyone -- makes a another sci-fi based RPG so I don't have to be completely disapointed with a sequel.
Something as good as NwN. The fanbase for NwN is amazing -- some of the modules they have in the Hall of Fame, in my opinion, are better than the original campaign and both expansion packs.
LucasArts, you've lost a fan with your cynical penurious attitude. I shall be very skeptical of all your future work.
What was it the Exile said to Kreia in the cave on Korriban? -- Fool me once, more fool you; fool me twice, more fool me ...
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There are so many bugs -- of every magnitude -- that it is hard to remember them all. Some quick ones (PC version):
- dialogue options that didn't disapear after they had been exausted -- e.g. "Let's fight" with Handmaiden after she has taught you everything -- on almost every NPC in the game
- the HK-50 dialogue at the end of the abandoned base on Telos, before the polar cutscene, has the voice and captions out of sync, making it very difficult to follow the narrative
- a lot (most? all?) dialogues scroll through with zero wait between screens after using the Force Speed power anytime near an interaction. This even happened to me once on the final scene with Darth Traya
- Force speed lasts longer than it should (this happened to a lesser extent in KotOR1, as well) with the added bug that when it finally switches off, the landscape remains blurred whilst your avatar moves at normal speed
- Why does the little bat guy sell T3 into the droid bay? I didn't even talk to him on the last play through, so his character was totally unknown to that story -- yet, here he is doing T3 a favour ... why?
- What is the point of the Force Breath (or whatever it is called -- the one granted when you go after Visquith in the Jar Pitt)? I have tried to use this power afterwards -- e.g. on Malachor V when triggering the gas mines -- with no effect (except the blue bubble).
Don't get me started on the whole Malachor V ending ... what a total disapointment that whole world was, what with meaningless solo quests where it wasn't clear:
- if you won the fight
- if you needed to win the fight
- what happened to that character after the fight, especially in relation to the avatar and the main story arch.
I also had to run the game with movies turned off as they caused an immediate crash. I can watch the movies en masse, just not in situ, though I can forgive this as a hardware issue and not a problem with the development of the game, per se.
If -- when ! -- I think of any more I'll post them.
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I think that the first thing they should add is the ability to change body proportions. It would be a lot more fun if you could be either skinny or overweight.
Or at least you should be allowed to chose which body type your character has. Not all Soldiers are muscle bound , and not all scoundrels are slender,like in KotOR 1.
They should add some more body types anyway to give more options then those 3 that was in KotOR 1.
How about a character that gets fitter as you gain experience? (Y'know, like Mr Incredible's progress in the movie?)
Oh, and I concur with a dark-side yoda-creature, that would be worth seeing/playing (even if it did contravene the rules!). There is a Zabrak in KotOR2, but he is an NPC. Definitley the only value in different races would be to add diffrent specialities (e.g. playing as a wookie would give 23 strength).
I'd like to be a force-sensitive Kamino!. :cool:
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You can always use a Dark power, even if you are lightside. It just costs more ... at least that was the situation in KotOR (maybe that has been updated in KotOR 2 ?)
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What's your character build?
in Star Wars: General Discussion
Posted
The more I think about it, the more it seems that the KotOR mechaniscs are fatally flawed. They have too many stats that do nothing, and the bonuses are weighted far more to the level of a PC so that the stats are ultimately irrelevant.
Case in point: what are Jedis ? Are they equivalent to Mages? Illusionists? Sorcerors? Druids? Rangers? Paladins/Blackguards? Clerics -- what domain? Ok, I'm over-egging the pudding, but I want to make the point that the reason KotOR seems unbalanced and generally lacking character (pun intended) is that it seems that KotOR is more like the old D&D -- i.e. before Gary Gyggax penned Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (and the current version is AD&D 3).
And if you remove the battles from the game (due to their ease), then all that's left is character development and story. Story, well, that didn't turn out too well, did it? A rush of seemingly pointless solo sub-quest segways that don't have any referential integrity and even less intrinsic enjoyment ... And character development is limited: ok, you have to play through the game multiple times to discover each NPC's personal narrative, but to be effective we must want to find out. I just have no interest in this story after playing through a game that I found to be a tedious, excruciating disapointment.
Jade Empire seems to be a better mix of character classes and skills, without the elf/dwarf/orc flavour.