So a lot of people seem to giving me mostly two responses:
1. Merely use HK-47 to go the peaceful route and avoid all the potentially difficult combat.
2. I optimized my character poorly.
So in response to No. 1, if it wasn't clear to everyone, I am CHOOSING to go the Dark Side path of just killing all the Sand peeps. Got tired of always going light side, ESPECIALLY in KotOR 1, where the majority of your party's interactions with the locals in each planet is too lighthearted.
And in response to No. 2, I don't want to come off as arrogant, but I have been playing both KotOR games since I was 12, on and off over the years, but I have put plenty of hours into different builds, mostly in KotOR 2, but the building is essentially the same in both games, so I am damn sure that I did not build my character poorly. I'll admit that I chose to hold off on some useful combat feats such as Improved Toughness and Dueling in favor of the skill-increasing feats because I was role-playing as a skill-focused character, but the lack of those feats is negligible. The root of the problem, in my observations, is as follows:
1. My characters miss far too often, even when I maximize their attack raitings, simply because the enemies have ridiculously high defenses, especially the Elite mooks of whatever faction I happen to be fighting at the time.
2. My characters deal VERY little damage, even with lightsabers, usually in the 1-11 range, sometimes more if I'm lucky, and only get one attack, and god forbid that those puny attacks miss completely. The enemies on the other hand, hit extremely hard, usually in the 13-29 range, and NEVER miss. Even worse, the Sand People get two attacks because of their Gaffi sticks, and BOTH attacks always hit.
3. The Sand People scenario is extremely cheap because they spawn ridiculously numerous times. I honestly do not remember having to fight up to 4 spawned groups of them in one sitting.
4. I lose so much health in EVERY encounter due to the points I listed above, but I cannot use up my medpacks, because they are scarce, and buying more would quickly deplete the few credits I gain.
So for all the peeps wondering if I just build my character poorly, I severely doubt that's the case. After all, it's not that complicated. Naturally you would usually boost the attribute which will increase your attack rating (Strength for melee and lightsaber-using party members, DEX for blaster users, etc.) I already do that, so it's not a lack of attribute points. You acquire very few pieces of equipment that boost your attack rating or increase your damage, and even when you do have them (such as crystals), it's only around 1-3 extra points of attack. It's miniscule in the long run because the enemies' high defense along with shitty roles pretty much renders these small boosts in attack rating useless.
Overall, I am not trying to complain that it's too hard, hopeless, whatever. I am merely stating that I never had this much difficulty when I played it years ago, so I am trying to understand why it's much more difficult now.
P.S. I already got past that point, and I last saved in Kashyykk after speaking with Chuundar, so all is well now.
