K1 - Malak aboard the Leviathan. (spoilers!)

[SilentScope001]

Never understood why the game didn't just make YOU loose. As in: You can't win. You get ~snipped~ and fall down.

 

Obisidan did that with Kreia's being able to Force Drain you and defeat you in the Enclave, allowing her to escape. Maybe Bioware should do something similar...just having you and Malak fight, and Malak obivously defeating you.

[stoffe]

Force Plot Device is fairly believable under those circumstances. I don't think Revan was as strong as Malak was yet, hence his inability to resist being frozen/tossed in the air.

 

There are game mechanics for handling those things. Level, saving throws, skills, defense, attack values etc. An encounter where the enemy has to cheat in order for the plot to proceed isn't very well designed within the context of that game world, IMO. Not believable at all, just makes me roll my eyes when it happens.

 

If they wanted to portray Malak as a very powerful Sith Lord the player doesn't stand a chance against they'd just have needed to keep his StarForge character template and used that for the Leviathan as well, and make him use the environment better to his advantage. It's his ship you're on, after all, one that supposedly houses thousands of Sith Troops and battle droids. As it is now he's just portrayed as a half-decent fighter who cheats once he gets his behind handed to him.

 

The Bastila part was a bit odd. I'm surprised Malak wasted time in a lightsaber duel when Force Plot Device would've done the job quicker (and wouldn't damage her as much as a duel could).

 

It felt forced, and is just another reason I think that encounter was poorly made and could have been pulled off better by doing something else that ended with the same results (Revelation, Revan escaping, Bastila captured).

 

Another instance of the Jedi's strange history of thinking that numbers can win the day.

 

This part of the plot also felt fairly forced to me. Bastila had no reason at all to be there. She's an unexperienced Jedi, either a Padawan or a neophyte Knight, who's only special due to her Battle Meditation. An ability that's best used when left undistured in order to affect large scale change of the odds on a battle field.

 

Logically the best way to put her to use would be to put her in a meditation chamber on a Republic cruiser and have her distract Darth Revan's Sith forces long enough for the strike force to board Revan's flagship. A strike force that should have been made up of jedi council members and elite jedi warriors to give it the best odds of success possible, if this was their last desperate attempt to stop the Sith, given how Revan's ability, cunning and power repeatedly is described.

 

But then Bastila wouldn't be there to save Revan from Malak's betrayal, and you wouldn't have that whole Force Bond business (and it wouldn't have been quite the same if Revan was bonded to, for example, Master Vrook ). Thus the current barely credible scenario

 

Whether a pre-KotOR Revan is stronger than a mid-KotOR Malak is an interesting thing to consider.

 

Darth Revan was certainly stronger than Malak, otherwise he'd have no qualms to just challenge her openly for the leadership of the Sith, rather than backstab from afar and they go through all the trouble to cover it up and make it appear as a legitimate takeover. Malak doesn't fall back to cunning if brute force will do the trick more directly. Not his way.

 

LeviathanMalak was level 13 with a rather non-impressive array of abilities, feats and force powers. Even Darth Brandon, his apprentice, was stronger and more powerful than that when you fought him earlier. You'd have to pretty much ignore all side quests and work hard for your character to only be level 13 by the time you encounter him, so chances are he's lower level than your player character there. No idea why they didn't just go with the Starforge Malak template.

 

 

Never understood why the game didn't just make YOU loose. As in: You can't win. You get snipped and fall down. Cut scene involving Bastilla doing her hero thing and you getting dragged away by other party members.

 

Because people like to win, to be unstoppable engines of Sith-slaying righteous destruction? Because people don't like seing characters they care about on some level get their asses handed to them? Because people loathe when games put them in a fight that's rigged to be impossible to win no matter what they do, how good they are? Because people don't like their characters to be portrayed as weak when they really aren't, seeing by game dynamics?

 

Thus they went half-way. They gave the player the satisfaction of almost being able to toy with Malak in that fight, before beating them down with a heavyhanded plot device to put the story back on track.

[Vaelastraz]

Hm. They really should have made him stronger.

 

Anyone remember Kyle's first duel with Desann in Jk 2? That's the right way to show who's superior...

[SilentScope001]

Because people like to win, to be unstoppable engines of Sith-slaying righteous destruction?

 

But...wouldn't it create some sort of revenge suplot? Now that you have defeated me, I'll come and defeat you! Hahaha!

 

Though, to be fair, I could see people calling foul like in FF games where you meet up with the final boss of the game in the begining of the game, get defeated by the final boss, and then able to escape.

[Emperor Devon]

There are game mechanics for handling those things. Level, saving throws, skills, defense, attack values etc. An encounter where the enemy has to cheat in order for the plot to proceed isn't very well designed within the context of that game world, IMO. Not believable at all, just makes me roll my eyes when it happens.

 

Malak had to beat the player to fit in with the plot, though there could've been something other than Force Plot Device. Having him out-duel Consulars, Force-choke Guardians and whatnot could've given the illusion that skills matter.

 

Or they could've just given him impossibly high stats and had the duel's location change after the player loses enough health. Preferably by something other than Malak running away after he's winning, though. That part was ridiculous.

 

If they wanted to portray Malak as a very powerful Sith Lord the player doesn't stand a chance against they'd just have needed to keep his StarForge character template and used that for the Leviathan as well, and make him use the environment better to his advantage.

 

That template felt underpowered as well. But then again, most bosses in KotOR are.

 

Using the environment to his advantage would have been interesting. A far more believable way to shift the duel's location would be if he'd hurled various containers/debris at the PC like Vader in ESB. Would've been a more sensible way than having Malak play s short game of hide-and-seek.

 

Logically the best way to put her to use would be to put her in a meditation chamber on a Republic cruiser and have her distract Darth Revan's Sith forces long enough for the strike force to board Revan's flagship. {snip}

 

It would have been, though there wouldn't be a way for their bond to form that way. But then again, plot-related details are often incompatible with common sense in SW.

 

Or they could have just fired at the bridge. It looked poorly shielded enough that one or two shots could kill most people aboard.

 

Darth Revan was certainly stronger than Malak, otherwise he'd have no qualms to just challenge her openly for the leadership of the Sith, rather than backstab from afar and they go through all the trouble to cover it up and make it appear as a legitimate takeover. Malak doesn't fall back to cunning if brute force will do the trick more directly. Not his way.

 

I was thinking of Malak during KotOR compared to Revan several years before that.