Gunfighters in space

I think its fair to say that "gunfighters in space", with the secondary "secret agents in space" are my two favorite science fiction tropes, which by strict Campbellian definitions aren’t even science fiction anyway.  Maybe the combined “secret agents who are gunfighters in space” would be my ideal approach. This shows up in particular in my choice of character classes that I’m playing in SWTOR. While my “main” most advanced character is a Jedi Knight Guardian, created long before 7.0 when there was some ability to split origin story and mechanics, he’s a pretty typical Jedi Knight. The next most advanced character is a Sith Warrior Marauder, also created long before 7.0. I’ve only not played Ziost because I know that shortly after I do I’ll lose all of my story companions and have to go on a lengthy process to get them back again; the biggest problem with the Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne expansions. (I can never remember which title belongs to which expansion, so I may have the order of those backwards.) I believe that those expansions make more sense with either the Jedi Knight or Sith Warrior origin story, however, and fit less well with even the other two Jedi and Sith classes much less the other four classes. None of my tech class characters have advanced so far; the farthest, in fact, of them is still stuck in the Hutt Cartel expansion. I simply don’t like the expansions as much, and the decision to abandon class specific stories with class specific companion interactions being a major part of the story was a mistake. None of the more recent story updates that are meant to be generic enough that any character can fit in them are really very compelling. Not to mention the ridiculous and indiscriminate flirt options that started to poison the interactions, and the even more recent “all story updates are actually about our favorite alien girlboss NPC for this cycle that you get to follow around and tell her how awesome she is”. I’d rather play the base game over and over again with new characters than spend too much time exploring the expansion material, which is really kind of sad.

Two of the more advanced, in terms of story progression, characters that I have are Jedi Sentinels playing the Jedi Knight story, which were created prior to the 7.0 launch, but not too much prior to it. I didn’t gain legendary player status (having finished all eight original character stories) until we were in the 6.x Onslaught age (although with characters who were created prior to that) and all of my subsequent characters are either 6.x or 7.x in genesis. I actually went a little bit crazy after 7.x launched thinking of concepts that mixed and matched origin stories and mechanics, so I created, for example, a powertech smuggler and agent, a mercenary smuggler, a sniper trooper and bounty hunter, a vanguard bounty hunter, a gunslinger trooper, and more, all as part of a “craze” of character creation after the launch of 7.x. This is why I’m in the place that I am with loads of characters that need playing and which aren’t really all that far advanced in level or story progression. I should have kept my cool, played the characters that I had, and then created new ones later when I was ready to play them instead of getting started with so many characters all at once and then stalling on their progression. That said, what’s done is done, and I like all of these characters, and think that once I can fly them around the galaxy taking video and screenshots of them in various settings that I’ll be glad that I created them. And if the story progression is relatively slow, that’s OK. There doesn’t need to be any big hurry to get through these.

How am I feeling on the new mechanics? My first playthrough of every class I picked one mechanical option, and for the second, I picked the alternative that I hadn’t played. This has been somewhat lost in time as some characters have come and gone in the meantime, especially after 7.x launched and gave us much more options. But let me go through each class, talk about which mechanics I played the first time, and what I think about the newer mechanics that I’ve done since.

• For the Jedi Knight, I played the guardian with my first playthrough, and now I’m at level 79 with a Sentinel (and another sentinel in the wings too.) I enjoy both well enough, although I find the use of hand to hand combat sometimes tedious, and I don’t love playing any of my jedi anymore.
• For the Sith Warrior, I did it in reverse; played the Marauder first, which is almost identical to the Sentinel, and the Juggernaut second, which is almost identical to the guardian. I think that for some classes, this mirrored mechanics with different graphics doesn’t really feel the same as much as you’d think that it does, but with the Jedi Gaurdian to Sith Juggernaut and Jedi Sentinel to Sith Marauder comparison, they really feel and look very much the same, with only a few minor graphical differences (like force choke vs force hold, etc.)
• This isn’t quite as true for the Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular. I used the Assassin/Shadow, which is the double-bladed lightsaber for both, and while they are very similar, the lightning sorcerer and rock-throwing …. whatever it’s called, I can’t even remember… is a little different. I didn’t find combat very interesting with the double-bladed lightsaber type, and combined with stories that I didn’t really love, my experience with those two characters was bottom-tier—for this game, at least. I find combat with the lightning sorcerer more interesting, but of course, it’s still not paired with great stories. Both my current inquisitor and consular are sorcerers (well, a sorcerer and sorceress.) In general, I have few of the Jedi and Sith classes because I like the mechanics a little less, and I like the stories and characters less, and George Lucas himself has overplayed the Jedi and lightsaber fighting to the point where its now less interesting to me than gunfighters in space, as mentioned above.
• For my original trooper, I played the commando with the big Jesse Ventura minigun from Predator look. I played him straight, as a trooper, and found the story was better than I expected. But the character and the trope was about what I expected, which expectation was low. I liked the mechanics well enough, but they felt very tied to the concept of an armored soldier, and I haven’t had any reason to think about using them again on another character. The alternative is the Vanguard, which is a visually much less interesting take on the bounty hunter Powertech, except with a rifle. I do have a vanguard, although I’m playing a bounty hunter for it, and using the wookie bowcaster as a signature weapon on that character. I loved the Powertech, and while the vanguard is supposedly mirrored, I find it much more dull in actual play.
• For my original smuggler, I played a gunslinger, a class that I ended up liking enough that I’ve created several other gunslingers since—although they’re doing different class stories, an agent and a trooper respectively. My next smuggler was a scoundrel, and while I like sneaking around, avoiding tedious fights that I don’t want, and bashing people in the head in a sneak attack, I actually think that mechanically this one is kind of boring. The best rotation is to just keep pistol-whipping and punching enemies up close, which is not only boring but kind of ridiculous at some point. Punching big monsters, robots and sith lords in the face with your fists is funny for a little  while, then it’s just silly. I did create a second scoundrel to play as a trooper, but I haven’t really started with him yet.
• For my original agent, I played a sniper, and I liked him as much as I did my gunslinger, and for the same reasons. I also have a sniper bounty hunter and a sniper trooper, where I feel that the mechanics also work fairly well. As you can see, my subsequent troopers are taking a different tack than the first one;  lighter armored, more like secret agents than soldiers, which actually works pretty well for the story and types of missions that we do in that class, and  a much more independent and cheeky personality; more like James Bonds’ interactions with Judi Dench in Casino Royale or Skyfall than the more overtly military approach that the writers clearly assumed. And it works well, especially when using classes like the scoundrel, gunslinger and sniper. In any case, my second agent was an operative, and he’s my first character beyond the original eight that I did that I finished. My scoundrel is direct damage, while my operative was damage over time, so although mirrored, they felt quite different, and I enjoyed combat more with my operative than I do with my scoundrel, for whatever reason. For both, I appreciate the invisibility setting that comes with the class a lot.
• My original bounty hunter was a Powertech, and I love both the powertech and mercenary, and have several characters of each across all of the tech origin stories. Those are probably my two favorite classes from a mechanical perspective, and the bounty hunter is one of my favorite stories too, representing the iconic spaghetti western gunslinger in space. Sadly, the story is sometimes a little bit too straightforward and lacks oomph, and I regret both that it’s too tied to the Imperial faction when it clearly craves to be independent (same problem with the smuggler story, by the way) and that it didn’t swing bigger and go for a home run, instead settling for a competent base hit storyline that never really disappoints in the details, just maybe a little bit in the big picture.

Anyway, Taul Kajak, my Mirialan Jedi Sentinel just finished Belsavis, including the bonus series and the little mini-mission between Belsavis and Voss, and is level 79. He’s going to go to the bench for a week or so, probably. Anstal Tane just finished Alderaan, but I still need to do the bonus series and the little mini missions that wrap up Act 1 of the story before heading to the Republic side of Balmorra to start Act II. Although I didn’t play him last night, he’s still in play this week, and I’d like to do Balmorra with him before the weekend is over with, at least. And Vant Galaide, a mercenary bounty hunter, just finished Balmorra (including the bonus series) and is tearing up Nar Shaddaa as we speak. Of the three, he’s the one I’ve had the most  fun playing, which is probably good, because I’d like to get him a little bit ahead of the rest of the pack, and maybe even get him up to Tane’s place in the story, finished Act I entirely, before I pick up someone else. Those three characters will probably occupy the majority of my playing for the next week or two at least, and then I’ll see who I want to pick up next.

Two of Vant Galaide's looks, both of which look good on Nar Shaddaa