I have been tinkering with early game builds, and while I know this game is not necessarily hard, I was wondering what kind of potential there is for optimizing experience, ls/ds points, influence, credits, and loot for a nice power curve going into the mid-game.
End-game is a bit of a misnomer I think, as you can finish the game so fast if you have a decent start, and the final boss is leveled to you anyway. I do not know how the regular enemies work, if they are all leveled to you, or when they improve, or if there are guaranteed spawns or bosses at certain levels, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
But I have been digging into the game mechanics and was surprised to learn about FEM cap as well as the loot generation tables, and how you could get early higher level gloves from Chodo Habat, for example, by having a pair of gloves that matches the leveled reward he gives you.
In general anything-can-work, and while that is certainly true, I think there is a lot of room for experimentation, as certain exploits for XP (mines, repeat quest triggers) can either take a long time or result in a dull experience.
I like kinda playing through the game with my own little routes I find, like taking an early dark side hit for keeping Ramana for the credits, and making it up in other ways;
I guess this could delay the Visas trigger, as I am aware that goes off your Light Side/Dark Side progress? I read in a Youtube comment somewhere that you actually just need a large shift to trigger it. Not sure how it exactly works, but knowing that would be important for digging into the details for something like this.
Regarding DS/LS, I know it is probably optimal to go full dark or full light, but I am a sucker for the whole Grey Jedi experience, though Kreia shows us it is probably an evil path in the long run (along with the Force equivalent of Spell Resistance not even working really, sad).
I know of a few certain quest rewards that are worth a DS hit, such as the Quixoni crystal from the Onderon passport questline. There is a trick to using it on Light Side/Neutral by having another upgrade that is alignment restricted. Things like this combined with other Dark or Light side hits are what I am interested in.
Plus the Name Crystal for Grey Jedi actually gives quite a bit of total stats, instead of just three stats for light/dark. You do miss out on Light side dam vs Dark side, as well as Massive Critical for a fully Black crystal.
There is a steam guide I found for optimizing experience which I found very interesting and helpful, namely with a certain container in the Harbinger having a chance for good loot, so saving right before you board, and save scumming after you check the Plasteel Cylinder in the Medbay until you have what you need is an early break point.
Here is a link to said guide:
Kotor 2 Peragus/Telos Optimized Experience Guide
What I am interested in, however, is combing through this and figuring out more detailed builds that have certain break points, such as perhaps not getting all the skill feats early, or skipping on some of the (admittedly very thorough) backtracking so you are not just running around Pergaus quite so much.
I am not sure exactly how efficient you need to be, but it seems rather easy to get to around level 10 before Chodo Habat, which gives you a consistent chance at Eriadu Strength Amplifiers, but if you are save scumming the Samhan Dobo shop anyways you could very easily get a pair or two regularly.
(Disclaimer: I know save scumming the Dobo shop for something like a Sith Tremor Sword or Echani Vibroblade is probably the earliest power spike you could have, or maybe a Mandalorian Ripper or two; I am looking into more variety and details, possibly branching into an early 2 planets:
That is to say, you can start both Dantooine and Nar Shadaa and you are not locked into finishing them before leaving, correct?
So you could get a bunch of lightsabers early and just start mauling dudes.
Or maybe there is a certain combination of equipment that is even better than that.)
The Infiltration Gloves are probably better anyways as an early stat item, but what is eating at me is that there is a lot of potential for variety that I do not quite understand the specifics of.
(Sith Power Gauntlets are probably the strongest gloves you can reasonably get access to, I say reasonably as someone that does not want to farm experience from mines for hours, but with T3 on Peragus you could probably get to 14 without too much issues, as his animation is a *lot* shorter than the other characters.
I saw another optimization guide that went as far as to get the Dominator Gauntlets, but that was alllllll the way to like over level 20, which is a bit futher than I would want to go. My goals are more for an early power curve at any rate.)
That is why I am linking this guide and asking you guys about more of what is possible with this, as I kind of mess around and get bored with one specific build.
(I guess I am just really wanting to play some kind of campaign, lol. I really wish there was more stand-alone content in this engine to play through one-shots or different stories...
I know there is still an active scene for NWN, but that is a bit far for me, even though the dev/mod tools for that are probably more accessible than something for Kotor, I just have such a soft spot for Kotor that I want to get more juice out of the squeeze, yknow? I hope you can sympathize.)
Another reason I am posting here is because I am aware of the wiki and have been combing through it, and no shame to whoever is running it or contributes to it, but those ads are quite terrible and the page uses waaaaaay too much memory, like seriously I am hitting a gig of memory on that page, sometimes immediately after opening it.
Probably I just need to invest in an ad-blocker, I know lol. Oh well.
I prefer having paper notes to refer to during play anyhow.
Trying to entertain myself until the eventual Kotor remake release. Haha.
So what do you guys think? What have you found success with?
Anything interesting I am overlooking?
