Customizable Dark Side Corruption

[PostmanPat_]

For me the dark side corruption from the release of the game was a neat component of the in-game story, but frustratingly simplistic. There are many NPCs in SWTOR who have variations on dark side corruption already, whether it be red eyes without the pale skin, or pale skin with orange eyes, etc. The sequence of leveling dark side is entirely linear in its appearance for player characters, however.

 

With the game's focus on customization, I think an interesting mechanic to insert into the game would be a means to allow players to adjust the appearance of their character's dark side corruption. It would certainly encourage more people to actually show their dark side corruption once they hit level 5.

[Ylliarus]

I give a full shoutout to this thread as I believe it is something players would really love to seem. There are some that would like red eyes and pale skin, without the creases, or orange/yellow hued eyes only, without any other corruption traits.

Either let this be a slider for example, or be able to have variations by choosing what corruption traits people want on their characters or not... or totherwise give all species the option to include at least yellow eyes in appearence designer/character creation. Now only humans have that option (and a few other species such as Pureblood) but I think all species should have that option.

[DAmethystDragon]

I like this idea.

 

I've had some characters that I've chosen not to show dark side corruption just because of the mix of alterations, or not go as bad as I really want:

 

- sith pureblood: the pale skin made her look less "evil" and made a weird clownish blue appear around her eyes

- cathar: I have to balance his light/dark choices to stay just under dark II...I like the bold, more yellow eyes (which I think cathar should have from the start), but making his skin/fur pale threw off the whole look of a fierce sith warrior

- human: was going for a powerful, african male look with lots of cybernetic armor pieces...making the skin turn pale made him less imposing, not more

 

Also, why not have some change for chiss eyes? Sure, they start out funky red, but they never change...a chiss with yellow sithy eyes would be very cool.

[Ylliarus]

I know right? I mean, even Chiss should be prone to Dark Side corruption and being able to choose yellow eyes for them would be great. The same goes for all the other species; some Dark Side corruption effects look amazing while others I would prefer not to see in my character.

 

But a modifyable Dark Side corruption option would please a lot of roleplayers. Many of us have chosen the Light Side path ingame, yet for RP we would love to use Dark Side corruption traits. Therefore I think there should really come an option where you can add what corruption traits you want in your appearence. Perhaps it could be linked to the appearence designer? That way you can have both systems existing, but player get the ability to choose what Dark Side corruption they want in their appearence and what not.

[Chimpopo]

Yes this please . We NEED this now.

[Ylliarus]

I am sure this has been brought to the attention of Bioware earlier, but let us try to keep them reminded this is something players really want. Otherwise, give all species the ability to pick yellow eyes on their characters like they did with humans and cyborgs.

[Morulk]

I think really this deserves attention from BioWare. I've been a huge fan of BioWare since playing Dragon Age: Origins (one of my favourite games by far) and I instantly fell in love with SWTOR because I can feel similarities between the two games. They're both excellent at immersing you in the story and your character. Giving players more options to customize their character would make the game much more enjoyable in my opinion.

 

I, for example, absolutely love the look of dark side corruption level 3 on my character, but as soon as I go to level 4 or 5 it just looks like I have some sort of deadly disease which isn't appealing to me at all. I look less like a sith and more like a walking corpse. I don't want to completely hide my dark side corruption either, because then I just look like a little innocent fresh-out-the-academy sith apprentice.

 

Of course, I can try to fight the dark side corruption by doing things in game that give me light side influence, but this is a roleplaying game (in terms of storyline/questing). I want to do things my character would do - not just things I have to choose because I'm afraid of reaching dark side corruption level 5. As I said, the game is great at character/story immersion, but when you have to break this immersion by doing out of character actions simply to make your character look the way you want, it hurts the game greatly. I clearly remember when I first started playing, choosing my first dark side dialogue option, it felt amazing that the game allowed you to do that. As soon as my dark side corruption started piling up I felt bad whenever I chose a dark side dialogue option because of the thought of never being able to go back to dark side lvl 3 without just choosing a bunch of peaceful loving light side dialogue options.

 

Honestly, there doesn't even need to be an implementation of dark side corruption customization. Just the option to lock the corruption appearance to one of the stages. A compromise, instead of either NO corruption or a lot of non-appealing corruption. This could also perhabs be a subscriber only option which might convince more people to subscribe to the game (looking at this from a buisness point of view). I personally see no reason for BioWare to not implement this feature and I think it would be very benefitial to the game. It honestly seems like an implementation that would be easy to add aswell, I'm sure the BioWare team could do this in no time.

 

If anyone from BioWare is reading this, please consider it. I would be very happy to see it implemented.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Morulk

[Ylliarus]

Going through my forums subscriptions and stumbled on this idea. I forgot how passionate I was (and am again) about this idea. It would be a great improvement to toggle the Show Dark Side corruption "switch" and pick how much corruption you want your character to display. Or perhaps a slider, where you can have for example the yellow/orange eyes and slightly paler skin (without the dark rot around eyes and mouth for example) or completely Dark Side V once you reach it.

 

Like, you would still have to earn the amount of Dark Side corruption you want to show. If you are at Dark Side II, you can pick all that you get up until that point. Once you reach Dark Side IV however, your options of how much corruption you want to show increase.

 

It would be a great improvement of the current alignment system I believe. Even if it would only be implemented for the outfit designer, for example have Dark Side I with outfit 2, while Dark Side IV with outfit 5 or something like that. It would be especially a huge improvement of the feeling of immersion for Roleplayers.

[Rolodome]

I would certainly be more apt to use it at all if I had some control over what it does. I've always found that DS corruption in KOTOR games is pretty much just Ugly I-V (or however many variations there happen to be in the particular game).

 

Which you would think makes sense cause it's called "corruption," but then... NPCs sometimes get done up like dolls with their corruption, carefully selected to construct a romanticized DS image that isn't a complete eyesore to look at. No reason we shouldn't be able to do the same (technical limitations/effort aside).

[Ylliarus]

Precisely, I mean, even some Dark Council members are looking quite fine for their power in the Dark Side they are suggested to have. Having some control over how much Dark Side corruption our characters show would be a huge bonus for gameplay I believe.