Penalized for roleplaying class story content

[RustyDiodes]

I roleplayed my character through all of the story content as a good guy. Sometimes doing the right thing earns dark side points, and on rare occasions even a good guy does something wrong. After achieving level 50 and finishing all the stories, his personality & character were shown to be about 93% light side and about 7% dark side- which is a solid Light Level 4.

 

Problem #1: At level 50 there is a lot of awesome gear for Light (or dark) Level 5- but nothing for Light Level 4 at all. Sadly, this rewards people for making conversation choices based on the reward, and penalizes those of us who play the game as intended- by making choices based on what our imaginary but well defined character would actually choose.

 

So Bioware- why encourage us to play one way, and then penalize all of us who listened? Did we fall for a big prank?

"Ha ha, you roleplayed, and now you can't equip the best relics".

-DevImaginary (fake quote is fake)

 

Problem #2: Now I am forced to farm flashpoints for light side points so I can use the "good guy" gear at level 50.

 

Problem #3: Since patch 1.2, speeders are no longer allowed on several flashpoints (I haven't checked all of them yet), which makes farming light side points even more slow and painful.

 

TOR Devs- Please fix these issues! Please?

 

P.S. Adding gray gear down the road is not a fix. There are 11 alignment levels, not 3. Someone roleplaying a character as intended could end up at ANY one of them at level 50.

[Darth_Haderach]

I agree that the Alignment system needs some serious attention. There is no point in having a choice if you only have to grind points for one of the sides without regard to your character's motivation. I found myself in similar situation - I made choices as my character would. Then I had to literally pay for my roleplaying by sending my companions on diplomatic missions. (Luckily I had Diplomacy at least.) Edited April 14, 2012 by Darth_Haderach

[Rojahar]

They managed to turn what should have just been something "for fun" to see where your character falls on a good/evil scale into one more thing you have to grind for or be gimp. It basically encourages the kind of playstyle that's just spacebaring through the story and blindly choosing all light or dark.

[Asherton]

I believe you can at least "fix" it by either doing diplomacy missions, if you have that crew skill, or doing some esseless runs to get light side points.

[Captain_Zone]

Grab the Diplo skill and do some LS missions. You'll be up there in no time.

[Drakalu]

On the Empire side, there are at least two daily Heroic quests on Balmora (lvl 17-ish) that reward Light/Dark side points. As a level 50 these are easy to complete and reward around 300 points total.

 

I'm assuming there are others out there for both factions. That said, I do find it annoying as well. I roleplayed a mostly neutral bounty hunter and there is zero reward or incentive to do so. Even the Legacy Alignment power for Neutral alignment was removed from Live 1.2

[grandmthethird]

i found a similar but different problem. my sith warrior full dark np. but my bounty hunter is grey, it seemed to me when picking conversation choices that a bounty hunter is not an evil person like my sith. but does bad things when needed thus its grey. and now my smuggler seems to be going down the same route

[LastArgument]

I feel your pain - I've got 3 50s and a slew of alts on the way up...and I've never hit Light or Dark V.

 

However, I just consider it to be not a big deal. If the gear issue bothers you, there are relics from daily commendations. Yeah, it'll take you a little while but you'll get there, and those items have no alignment levels.

[Lu_Bei]

I'm pretty sure endgame relics are not alignment bound.

[RustyDiodes]

Grab the Diplo skill and do some LS missions. You'll be up there in no time.

 

I'm level 50, and have Armormech, Scavenging, and Underworld Trading all up to 400. I can't give up one of those to grab diplomacy.

[roysterer]

People keep talking about this, but I don't get it. Having been at dark IV since I got to 50 (in January), I have experienced no appreciable ill effects, except perhaps curiosity at what the extra level of corruption would look like.

[redfurry]

Roysterer: the Dark Side NPC vendor on your Fleet sells some nice and cheap level 50 relics thar require Dark Side V alignment (green quality). I have seen blue, slightly better versions of them on the GTN, not sure if they are drops or crafted.

 

OP: the relics that require alignment are the easiest to get, but by no means the best ones. As mentioned, you can get non-aligned, epic-level relics by daily commendations. Some bosses in HM also drop them. I agree that the system does penalize roleplaying a little, but I am not sure it is that big an issue.

[Ravanel]

I think the way this works is too bad. I play my jedi sentinel (second main, still leveling) as someone with the heart on the right place, but with a certain fury and an approval of violence. She is somewhere in between Neutral and Light I, as she ought to be, but I'm afraid she'll miss out on a lot of stuff later on. I refuse to go grind points, as it's boring, feels like cheating and also isn't right since she just should not have that many Light side points.

 

I don't think itemization should work like this in a game that is based so strongly on story and lore. I am not going care about items too much though - I'll just play this way as I want, for fun.

 

Didn't they at a certain point say they wanted to provide more options for people who wanted to play more neutral? I remember hearing something about it but have no clue what happened to those plans.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Ravanel
typo

[Hitomo_x]

whats your problem?

 

you need to make decisions, whats better to support roleplaying?

 

you could as well argue that its unfair that you cant use Light V stuff

if you are Dark V already ...

 

this game is about options, and there are plenty of, but you will

have to choose ...

 

like the guy who is Legacy lvl 50 but refuses to twink and moans

because he cant benefit from the legacy system ... even if he has

noone who could 'recieve' his legacy ... ^^

[Tfranco]

Those trinkets aren't the best, by the time u hit 50 you should have enough war zone commendations to get the PVP ones witch are way better even for PVE (compared to the green ones from ls ds vendor)

[RustyDiodes]

I "should have" enough warzone points? Telling me I should PvP is like telling you that you shouldn't.

 

The point is that the game rewards people for making conversation choices based on LS/DS, rather than making choices based on how the character they are playing would react to the story. This goes against everything that RPG stands for.

[Pubsam]

I "should have" enough warzone points? Telling me I should PvP is like telling you that you shouldn't.

 

The point is that the game rewards people for making conversation choices based on LS/DS, rather than making choices based on how the character they are playing would react to the story. This goes against everything that RPG stands for.

 

The point is that there are other relics available to people who don't have Dark or Light V, and that the alignment exclusive relics aren't even the best - as someone said, they are simply the easiest to get. They exist as a perk to those who reach rank V, which doesn't break my game even though I play a slightly dark Commando and a slightly light Powertech who won't reach either unless I grind (which I won't). What's so bad about that?

[MORTTUUM]

If you're really ROLE_PLAYING, why is the gear so important? If your toon answered the questions "rightly", he should feel good about it. If he answered a few "wrongly", the not being LS-5 is the repercussion...

[RustyDiodes]

Pubsam- your post basically reads: "Your problem doesn't affect me, therefore I will post in your thread to declare your opinion invalid." So, thanks for that.

 

Morttuum- two things: First, where did you get the idea that roleplayers don't care about gear? Second, this is an MMORPG- the RPG stands for Role Playing Game. I am talking about the roleplaying which is an integral part of playing my character's storyline; not the all-out roleplaying you would see on an RPG server. My focus in-game is story & PvE, and for that gear is very important.

[clintcasey]

Endgame relics are not bound to alignment. That means once you get to level 50 you can get a relic that's good for you you right away. In fact the relics you can get from the recruit pvp vendor are better than the alignment based ones which are only really useful for leveling anyway.