Any pop diff? I kinda wanna play rep but ive always heard imps are a stronger in pop and average skill.

As a "legendary player", meaning I've played all 8/16 classes/advanced, I can't say there's really any substantive difference in Rep Vs Imp, overall. You will find people swearing that class "x" is so much better, or fun, or kewler, but that mostly comes down to what class suits your playstyle, and you enjoy - what "clicks" in other words.

 

As far as PvP is concerned, there may be "best" classes/builds, but overall you'd probably do best with whatever class you play best.

 

Try playing many classes. I went through 5 or 6 other classes before trying Gunslinger, which turns out to be my favorite class. My two main characters are both 'Slingers. 🙂

 

As far as population is concerned (which I can only guess is what you mean by "pop"), there may still be slightly more Imps than Reps, but it's very close. I don't think that's enough of a factor to make a decision on.

Edited December 12, 2019 by JediQuaker

Any pop diff? I kinda wanna play rep but ive always heard imps are a stronger in pop and average skill.

 

I'm also a legendary player and will say I agree with what you've already been told. Having played a lot of different classes and specs I will say that I do not think either side has any real statistical advantage. The classes are mirrored in such a way that most differences come down to cosmetics and animations rather than different powers and capabilities.

 

PVP is generally not segregated in terms of Rep vs. Imp as if you queue for unranked you are going to see teams made up of a mixture of Republic and Imperial classes, as the finder does what it can to fill the matches so PVP will happen. It used to be segregated a long time ago if I remember, but it has not been for a very long time.

 

Any disparity that is perceived between PVP capabilities and one side being "better" than the other is in many cases just "The Horde Factor". That is to say that those who want to murder "people" and PVP oftentimes gravitate towards the evil faction, so you see more people on that side who are "into it". In reality though PVP is just generally a mess and most people are scrubs, it's such a broken mess I mostly just farm medals when I do it and then goof off and don't even really try. I am not going to give a full analysis of the situation, other than to say that there seems to be no segregation between pre-made groups and solo PVPers, thus a side that even has a few coordinated duos and trios will have an overwhelming advantage, and yeah there are probably more people who are working/queuing together from the imp side/classes on average. HOWEVER long experience accross numerous MMOS has lead me to realize they likely dont have any real skill, one reasons why they don't segregate queues is if PVP "teams" kept slamming into each other most would quit as the best teams would dominate, and in reality the people who do this want to win, and that means farming uncoordinated pugs.... establishing segregation into an established PVP environment is generally feared as chasing away the most dedicated PVP players.

 

I know a lot of people will disagree with the above, but that's my analysis, and I've been doing this since MUDS and things like "Dark Sun: Crimson Sands" which predated Ultima Online (which I was a terror in, and I consider it one of the few ACTUAL PVP MMORPGs to actually exist in it's original version... that game and things like Shadowbane would have bought your current 'hardcore PK' to tears).

 

At any rate as I generally don't take PVP seriously I won't say any more about it, I don't build for it, I don't respect the PVP system here, and feel it cannot be fixed without re-making the entire game which will never happen. As a result I just goof off for the benefits, and usually just click down 20 losses or whatever when I bother since it's not worth the frustration to make any real effort in SWTOR... that said some people do swear by it, and consider it the best part of the game, I generally don't take those people too seriouisly either. Unlike some I don't knock them (fun is fun, do whatever is fun for you) it's just that having experienced some actual well designed PVPRPG type games I recognize this is not one of them, and personally can't bring myself to find it worth serious effort. Fix the game (which will never happen) and then maybe I'll care enough to try and "git good" again. Nowadays I just sort of laugh at the whole thing, like most MMORPG "PVP".

 

At any rate, if you read this far I will say the biggest difference between Pub Side and Imp Side from a practical perspective is probably going to be the quality of writing and content. The thing is in this game it's not an evil vs. good factional divide as all classes can be good or evil. You can play your Jedi as a complete psychopath and the stories provide chances to display that, and you can make your Sith the nicest guy in the galaxy for all intents and purposes... that's the beauty of it in practice. The thing is the original devs and writers were not shy about who they favored and where they were putting their effort. Simply put the Imps have much better writing and story content in general, I think more effort went into the animations, costumes, stories, and well... pretty much everything. People being people opinions are going to vary but if you ask around on fleet among legendary players who did ALL stories you will find a general consensus that the Imps simply have better content for all styles of play. You will hear more people talk about how awesome the "Slave to Master Of the Dark Council" story for the inquisitor is, and how dull the political slog of the Jedi Counslar story is and how bland the antagonists are. You will hear people praise NPCs like Jaesa and Vette, while rolling their eyes when characters like Kira or Nadia are mentioned (comparing mirrored love interests here)....

 

If you are new I suspect starting Republic first, you will want to see all 8 stories, and chances are you should see the Republic ones first, because otherwise they will seem unusually bland and terrible when you compare them to the writing on the Imp side.

 

Likewise early on the "universal" content has the imps immersed in the stuff people actually cared about from KOTOR and dealing with the Revanites on Dromond Kass, in comparison the Pubs are fixing cranky old machinery under Coruscant.....

 

Given that this game is VERY story based, and the stories actually cross over in some weird ways (I will leave you to discover how on your own) I actually suggest picking your favorite character type out now... and then playing that one LAST and making it your main hundreds of hours later. This is the opposite of other MMORPGs, but it's how I think most people will be happiest if they are in for the whole experience.... this way you can gloss over the side stuff and major grinds while experiiencing the story with most classes, and then do things "perfectly" with your main when it comes to overlap content and not burn yourself out by doing the grinds a bunch of times.... of course few people ever seem to listen to me, and that's fine, I suppose whatever your comfortable with will work.

 

Oh one other thing I will point out again is the difference in quality beyond writing. See when it comes to animations and executions the Imps just have it down all over the Rep classes. This ranges from the spectacular lightning effects vs. the lackluster telekinetic rock throwing (pebble beam!), to weird things like Jedi Knights doing an "ultimate move" that has them stupidly present their back to their enemy. I've heard all kinds of analysis over the years going back to day #1, and while again, not everyone agrees, it seems to be a general consensus that the Imps are just cooler. Even beyond moves and animation, they went all out with some of the crazy Sith costumes and Bounty Hunter Armor and all of that (though Agents are sort of a loser here), in comparison the Rep side looks tend to be kind of "meh". They could have gotten creative with the Jedi at their height, but rather they basically came up with what seems to be 4700 variations of undyable brown robes and "well it's Storm Trooper/Clone armor but for the good guys!"... the one edge I do give them is that I think the Smugglers tend to be more fashionable than the agents, but that's only qualified when looking at armor specifically designed for them.

 

Much like PVP the problems I mention are not fixable without re-doing the entire game, which is not going to happen. Truthfully me (and a few others) who had an eye on things pre-release and were in towards the end of beta saw this coming. I was one of those people saying that if they wanted to balance things the first thing they needed to do was either make the Pubbies cooler, or the Imps less cool.... I mean the game wasn't even out and people were commenting about who the awesome faction was likely going to be. Unless your intent on being "the good guy" go Imp.... (and this is coming from a guy posting as his Jedi Counslar, who he just knocked you might notice).