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literaryscribs · 13 days ago

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Feeling a bit irky because of physical pain and I'm trying to do research on some stuff. I saw people being ableist about Neve over the past few days, basically calling her disability "ugly" and how she's "not a whole woman". So there's things upcoming about that when I get time between work and setting things up for other job stuff for the year. Today it's about SWTOR and namely, power. Power levels of the protagonist to be precise.

I occasionally browse around the internet since not all swtor update news gets forwarded to me, every now and again I run into topics that annoy me with how short sighted they are (or at times actively racist/sexist/ableist etc). I've got one post planned regarding Koth's character and one for Arcann/Vaylin. But after listening to someone complain about the Traveller from Genshin Impact's power level inconsistencies between what's displayed and what's stuck in a cutscene, it got me thinking to a post I ran into this morning.

Quote:

"I wonder if there is reason why my sith warrior just gets thrown around and gets sh*t thrown at him whilst hes supposed to be on a similar if not higher level of a sith compared to his enemies.

Going through KOTFE/KOTET for the first time and it also happens a bit during the normal campaign but i find it very odd he just keeps dodging these objects thrown at him instead of showing his superiority and blocking it with the force or something a bit more forcey then just dodging.

Im the emperors wrath, i supposedly have no equal as far as i understand it.

Its probably something to do with plotlines etc. but its a bit immersion breaking seeing my chad sith dodge sh*t instead of using the force for a change" Ignoring the 'chad' thing because it's kinda stupid, there's several flaws in the game's design vs player expectation. I haven't played SWTOR since vanilla, I joined during the 4.x period just after Anarchy in Paradise had been released. But I did START in with the vanilla story and progressed until that point and this's where the flaw in the game design comes in. The main issue that the original dev team faced was that the main protagonist grew in political (and to a extent physical) power too quickly. Sith Warrior started on a elevated pedestal to be an apprentice/Lord during the prologue and by the end of the arc in Act 3 they're filling a spot as the Emperor's Wrath which was abandoned by Scourge after he went rogue from the Empire. (Which ironically should have the Empire absolutely buzzing with the news but it's not). Sith Inquisitor starts from either a fallen family if human/sith iirc or is a slave and spends most of the prologue being lucky that their rivals for Zash's apprentice role were picked off long before the main showdown where your brawn and cunning wins over the overseer's favouritism. You go from apprentice to a ambiguous lord and then take over Darth Thanaton's seat by force. Only because it's a kill or be killed situation as you force yourself to be a battery of sorts via ghosts and genetic manipulation. Kinda sorta becoming akin to Vitiate himself but in a different way. Bounty Hunter already has somewhat of a track record, likewise the Agent. However other than optionally becoming a Mandalorian the only 'power gain' so to speak is taking out a Jedi with the help of a companion and either making the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic step down or killing him. The Agent spends most of their story as Cipher Nine until the very end of the third arc and from that point they don't receive any real tangible power. Even if you hand over the black box for freedom from Imperial Intelligence or retain it. Unless power of blackmail is counted. On the other end we have the Jedi Knight who was somewhat of a prodigy. They spent most of the acts being a Knight before being promoted to Master for taking out 'Vitiate' after already being taken over and doing evil acts for a unknown period of time. Jedi Consular is labelled Bar'senthor and a Jedi Master by the end of the first act and is a member of the council at the very end of Act 3. They're gifted and display immense force power pretty often in the cutscenes, particularly during act 1 despite being made 'weaker' as they shield other jedi masters from a force plague.

The trooper is promoted across all acts, including the prologue and makes it to the rank of Major at the start of Act 3 while the smuggler goes from to a privateer to eventually being the Voidwolf themselves. Which doesn't have any impact on things on the story going forward, even if you keep it for yourself. Just stuff regarding Nathema down the line.

The overall level of political or militaristic power gained within 3 years is unusually fast and left the devs in a awkward position going forward. The initial plan WAS to have act 4 continue all class stories separately but it was discovered to be too time consuming and costly to have a whole new line for 8 class stories who were already top of their classes and minimal room for more power gain in their respective spheres. Especially considering the higher up the chain you go the more paperwork, negotiations and being tied to a desk there is. It's not all sunshine and daisies. All 8 class stories had the player character start pretty high in their respective fields either by luck or skill. But in terms of raw power there were very few moments to showcase that within vanilla and even much later. Consular and I think Inquisitor got their little showboat moments but the devs at the time were careful to not display too much otherwise you'd run into a issue where powers in cutscenes didn't match what was being displayed in game. However that hasn't stopped the player base from superimposing their ideas of where the force using characters in particular 'should' be in their power level. So....lets take a number of caveats into account here.

With the exception of certain parts of the prologue chapters, none of the 8 class story characters were ever fighting alone. Even with the original system of companions being locked to certain classes at the time. Vette being dps, Dorne and Quinn being healer etc. There's only been, to my memory, one instance of the player character being 100% alone and that was during chapter 12 of Knights of the Fallen Empire where you have a backpack of healing resources and shields etc.

2. Even if you dismiss your companions to truly fight alone, the game assumes a certain canon in order to follow the story sequence.

3. With flashpoints, gsf, pvp maps, on rails space missions or operations you're fighting with other players on your side or npc crew members. It's still never you on your own.

4. As for choosing dodging instead of showing off power? it's more efficient and means you draw less attention than you would by showboating. A fair whack of KotFE and parts of KotET are supposed to be subterfuge and infiltration, not a full scale battle.

5. Baras and Thanaton were both old and egotistical sith that weren't in the best state of health and WELL past their prime. Vitiate's voice was being hampered by multiple distractions going on despite his threat, Syo as the First Son had to deal with his other consciousness banging at his mental door. Rakton wasn't really geared for a physical fight since he's a tactician and Jun Seros was also getting up there in age as well plus being hampered by emotions and the desire for revenge after the death of his friend at the hands of the Hunter. While Voidwolf was ultimately killed because of his own stupidity and ego. They're not really good measuring sticks to be used for power comparisons, raw or otherwise.

Following from point 5, what needs to be understood is that despite personal head canons, the player character themselves isn't exactly in peak physical condition either as time goes on. This can be from continued service and missions, lingering traumas (JK Rishi story), issues with their own body (Inquisitor story and to an extent Consular) or outside interference (majority of KotFE/ET)

In the case of the Inquisitor story, their body had become so messed up from a combination of genetic manipulation plus sucking up force spirits, that it was literally breaking down around them. The procedure on Belsavis merely stabilized them to enable to further use force walking without consequences, the new power so to speak still has to be actively channeled to be of any use.

It's my theory that whatever time they lost prior to the Mother Machine still remained until Rishi where the Inquisitor was investigating several machines that 'supposedly' extended their life span by one solar cycle each. Using Earth as a rough estimate and a rewatch of the quest, a solar cycle is (roughly) 11 years and Inquisitor gets zapped four times so that's 44 years regained on estimate since I'm not sure if the solar cycle is involving Rishi's sun or some other planet's. But it loosely means those solar cycles regained were simply just the Inquisitor regaining their original lifespan back. Possibly at the cost of some of their power since that's usually the case. Come the Knights arc and onwards the player character's kept on their toes a ton fighting tiring enemies that're all the same and don't suffer the same issues they do. Valkorion's also hollowing them out in the process of helping them (and probably kicked the other force ghosts out for a fresh start). They've got multiple wounds either from a lightsaber or from the repercussions of using force lightning at a extreme intensity that they aren't used to. There's also the fact (even though this's kept off screen) that they're behind a desk more often doing paperwork for the Alliance that they aren't able to actively train or look at expanding their abilities to the extent they normally would, had things been during the first acts. We don't know what Valkorion actually did to them during those 7 years of interference of him being a shoulder gremlin. You're getting kicked around a lot more in story cutscenes because your character is getting older and a certain level of balancing has to be in place to keep things fairly uniform between scenes of force users and tech. This might come to a end if my theory may possibly be correct and thanks to the Nul holocron, all classes open up to one another. Meaning no longer will there be a force/tech wall which may mean more opportunities for new classes depending on how long the story is able to keep going into future arcs besides Hidden Chain and Malgus.

No your character isn't uber powerful, no they aren't god tier. They just essentially got lucky over egotistical, conflicted, old and well out of their prime/element characters. A fancy title doesn't mean you're the most powerful being out there considering the in game canon says you've never fought alone without someone (or multiple people) helping you.

#swtor stuff #issues with the fandom #I saw the datamines and cut content from chapter 12 kotfe and stuff was interesting but also a big hint as to why it got delayed #Using the current class mirrors opening as evidence it's more than clear that the engine did big dummy spit meltdown #Since the original class mirror open broke a lot of things and wasn't being applied properly to new or legacy sub characters #Opening all classes to the force would've busted things more and definitely did which prompted a huge rewrite and redo of chapter 12 #Which is the cause for both the delay and the abrupt weird tonal shift since the devs WERE going for something different but couldn't #As they do actively experiment on the fly with what the engine can do and what it's capable of. Though sometimes there's issues #Like with the lighting and the excessive deep wrinkles (yes it's lighting and shadow mapping issues and those are indeed a huge pain to fix #I do hope the wall comes down because it does leave interesting ideas for story flow and potentially new classes not tied to class story #But I also know it'll be controversial because there is a collection of purists out there who don't want things to be muddied #Honestly I'm cool with it so long as we get training montage period. Actually trying and experimenting with things #Rather than just keeping to combat only #As a whole power is subjective but Star Wars has always been finicky on who's more powerful than whom #when it's only rarely come down to brute force raw power #It's mainly been who's smarter or more cunning or applies their powers/abilities most efficiently. Y'know. Actual tactics.#But being top dog means you're not sitting on a cushy chair all the time or running off to battle. There's paperwork to do. A LOT #Leave processing. Payroll. Supplies. Requisitions. Negotiations with factions or groups. Internal communications. Punishments -#- possibly even childcare + nurseries. Education. Medical matters. Experimentation. Research. Evac procedures. The list is long and endless

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tiredassmage · 2 years ago

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🖊 for Tyr 👀👀 maybe early Intelligence days thoughts?

Experienced a Thought I've been delaying acknowledging for like a month now??? Probably??? Aaauhhhh that spawned a potential emotion-busting revelation, so I MEANT to talk about this in like, a constructed manner, but then I busted out a fic musing about the latest ping pong ball of a thought to go flying across the room like that scene from the first Men In Black, so uhhhh Merry Crisis with me?!

I'm still rotating this in my head wondering if I really need to add another layer of complexity to Tyr's already botched life, but also: it's real damn good and it hurts me, so, naturally, I'm going to release that upon the world now, too. xD

Anyway. Vague context if you want it: I posted this trying not to chew on this like a stick and go absolutely insane about it, bUT it only encouraged me, so now we have this instead.

x-x-x-x-x-

DECKARD, TYR V.

Keeper stilled as his eyes landed at the top of the next file, the steady hum of air circulators and databanks blending into a yet more quiet background noise. Carding through potential recruits was a lengthy process, even with the rigid requirements of the Intelligence Academy.

Perhaps his wife was right, he considered idly. The long days and dwindling nights had long characterized his career with Intelligence. Surely it was, on some level, partially responsible for a few of the permanent lines dug in across his features and the graying, receding hair. He still hadn’t pinned whether work at the head of Operations division outpaced the weight of being in the field.

Such idle musings would do little to cull the ever-growing list of his responsibilities.

He turned away from the face of the chrono again with a sniff. Briefly, he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed aching eyes. He’d call it soon, but he’d opened this last report, so there was little sense it putting it off further. Academy leadership had urged him to take particular interest in this potential officer.

A frown set a bit further across thinned lips as he read over the name again.

Deckard.

High marks in weapons proficiency, infiltration, negotiation… High marks relatively across the board. Impressive. Very impressive for such a young recruit.

For the moment, he skipped the file attachments. Data first. Early twenties. Successful shadow and support on a wet-foot operation local on Dromund Kaas. Adaptable in the field. Good at taking orders.

Limited connections with family - that would make operations easier long-term.

Deckard. Fairly ranked officer in the Imperial Navy. Marriage to a testy, if moderatly influential Sith Lord some three decades back or so. He remembered the one rather well, had exchanged some mild pleasantries over the engagement… Hot headed, their daughter. She'd be about the age to send to Korriban now, he reckoned, if she hadn't been already.

The son, it seemed, had managed to dodge that ill temperament thus far.

Deckard, Tyr V. Reportedly orphaned by fleet action and charitably raised by the then-Commander Deckard - the officer had been related to the boy’s parents and had taken him rather than pass him off to an impassionate system.

That same piece of action had earned the patriarch a promotion to Captain following, if memory served him correctly.

Keeper drew a hand across his chin. The boy’s discipline and piloting training would have made him a just fit for the Navy to keep, but Academy recruitment had singled him out during early martial skills training.

His fingers hovered - hesitated - over the attached shots from Academy entrance.

Outplayed, or simply mocked by whatever forces were or were not at work in this wretched galaxy, Keeper mused with a scowl threatening his lips. A Watcher or three were always fond of telling him it’d make those lines around his eyes more permanent - a sentiment the wife often echoed.

That was the bloody thing about Ciphers - they were damn difficult to truly eliminate. Silent fingerprints left across the galaxy despite retirement or reassignment or even gross and utter failure.

Keeper closed the file and dimmed the lights in his office before he leaned back in his chair and released a long, bone-deep sigh slowly, hands steepling to touch fingertips to his forehead.

He was all but the top of his class - strong potential to be an absolute asset to Operations. An opportunity that couldn’t be passed up in a right mind.

Particularly with whispers that the military was still probing for weaknesses along Republic lines, they could ill-afford to be short-staffed. The… competitive nature of their Empire always bred opportunity. The grass was tall and there were vipers aplenty.

Duty seemed to remove the choice in the matter.

He opened his eyes and leaned forward. They had a number of sensitive operations that would need delicate, well-trained hands coming up. He’d examine this latest grouping of operatives personally, he decided.

That would show him painfully well just how much a son would manage to follow a father. Even as well-removed from a Cipher’s imprint as had been affordable by the circumstances.

He picked up the datapad once more, finished off the approval for the select few that would be moving forward to finalize their training and transition into active service. Then he stood and prepared to head home, but not before lingering a few moments longer over that last file.

He should have sent the boy much farther than Dromund Kaas.

A moot point and an ill-advised longing now, he reasoned as a finger brushed the edges of the screen. Whether or not it would’ve saved the boy from Intelligence, they’d never know now.

At the absolute least, he’d avoid mentioning this to the wife. For now. Their illustrious Emperor, even in sleep, knew she worried plenty enough as it was.

#answered #dot words #ch: tyr #i'm going insane chewing on this like a stick i found in the yard #send help idk if i can deal with the implications of this thought bUT HERE WE GO ANYWAY #smth smth maybe we've all been thinkin it maybe we haven't dot gif #what if father-son jokes but i take out the joke part #and also what if i still never let them fully communicate it #what if nine but literally his son [gunshot]#brb going to curl up in the corner of my room and tell myself yo bro check out how hard i can CRY #anyway fun fact the hardest part about writing this was confronting that i never gave tyr a middle name #do not ask me what it is i eventually gave up so i could just work on the rest of this in PEACE lmao #or what passes for it. this is NOT a peace bringing idea.#swtor fanfiction

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