What some don't understand about Neutrality.

[Dannicus]

The reason 'being neutral' is something you have to work for is that the morality scale in TOR is a lot of light, a sliver of neutral, and a lot of dark:

 

 

|--------------------light side-----------------|-neutral-|---------------------dark side-----------------|

 

Basically, you must make decisions to stay neutral at all times. The real problem is that it is too easy to flop between light and dark over a few levels and gear depends on this choice.

 

A true logical solution would be to either widen the neutral zone or not make light/dark matter until level II or III. That gives a chance for leaning towards one side instead of all or nothing.

 

The best way to do it would be to require so much light and so much dark while capping at one of the levels. Like maybe this neutral gear requires 2k light and 2k dark, but I cannot hit Rank 2 light or dark or I lose out on the gear, that makes it so I require getting points but must be careful not to over extend one side. This gives you your neutral range.

[Lockyda]

for Jedi's it's really only darkness or light...

 

The sweet whispers of darkside in your ear is oh so good... must kill...

 

 

For force users there is really no grey in starwars. Thats just how the force works. Granted for everyone else in the game...

[Ranadiel_Marius]

I WANT A RELIC!

 

Then either take up artifice for the level 400 recipes or go datacron hunting to get enough shards to make some relics from them. I believe the datacron relics are better than the alignment ones anyways.

[snooggums]

The best way to do it would be to require so much light and so much dark while capping at one of the levels. Like maybe this neutral gear requires 2k light and 2k dark, but I cannot hit Rank 2 light or dark or I lose out on the gear, that makes it so I require getting points but must be careful not to over extend one side. This gives you your neutral range.

 

'Going neutral' makes zero logical sense on a decision by decision basis in any possible scenario in this game. The system is too simple to represent the kind of alignment you are trying for, and doing a mix of good and evil is actually evil in the greater scheme of things.

 

For example, if you want to be neutral, and you decide to kill some puppies and balance it with helping puppies at a later time, you are actually still evil because you killed puppies. The situations where there is a good reason to kill someone in one set of circumstances and save them in another simply aren't there in the available options because intent doesn't really matter.

 

The only reason for someone to end up neutral is because they are actively balancing their alignment externally from the decisions they are selecting. I'd love a more complex system that hid the alignment altogether (and removed alignment gear but NPCs responded to you based on your actions, such as making gear available due to reputation). That isn't in this game, and the players who are trying to be neutral are trying to force an ideal that doesn't fit into the alignment system.

 

There does need to be more gear without alignment restrictions that are equal to the alignment gear, don't get me wrong. I'm saying the 'problem' exists because players don't understand that they are trying to force a square peg in a round hole.

[Meharial]

If you end up in a situation where intent doesn't matter, then your entire morality system is borked from the get go. Unfortunately in this game it isn't killing puppies vs not killing puppies, it's killing a traitor (DS) and then letting an informant live (DS), turning someone in (LS) and forcing someone to out the Republic (LS), i.e much more complex.

 

If anything it's BW trying to shove players into square holes labeled LS and DS, and providing very little options for anything else.

[GBlues]

'Going neutral' makes zero logical sense on a decision by decision basis in any possible scenario in this game. The system is too simple to represent the kind of alignment you are trying for, and doing a mix of good and evil is actually evil in the greater scheme of things.

 

For example, if you want to be neutral, and you decide to kill some puppies and balance it with helping puppies at a later time, you are actually still evil because you killed puppies. The situations where there is a good reason to kill someone in one set of circumstances and save them in another simply aren't there in the available options because intent doesn't really matter.

 

The only reason for someone to end up neutral is because they are actively balancing their alignment externally from the decisions they are selecting. I'd love a more complex system that hid the alignment altogether (and removed alignment gear but NPCs responded to you based on your actions, such as making gear available due to reputation). That isn't in this game, and the players who are trying to be neutral are trying to force an ideal that doesn't fit into the alignment system.

 

There does need to be more gear without alignment restrictions that are equal to the alignment gear, don't get me wrong. I'm saying the 'problem' exists because players don't understand that they are trying to force a square peg in a round hole.

 

 

This poster actually hit the nail right on the head. What these 'Grey' people want is a myriad of choices. Imagine if you will....

 

"So I want you to kill this man!"

 

Choices

"Kill the man"

"Kill the man that ordered you to kill the man"

"KIll them both"

"Kill the man that ordered you to kill the man, but hide his body too."

"Kill them both, and put blasters in both of there hands to cover your dirty deed"

"Don't kill the man and let the man that ordered you do it."

"Turn tale and run"

"Do nothing."

"Crap your pants in fear"

"Kill the man as grotesquely as possible"

 

and on and on, and on, to infinity!

 

It's a game guys. ANd unfortunately, it has perameters. It has classes that you can choose to be. You can choose to either play your character accordingly to that class or you can try to be a "GOOD SITH" who just works for the really bad "Sith" and the "Empire" Come on.

 

THis conversation had been brought up before, and it's still just as lame as the first one that I read.

 

I don't understand why I can't keep my red lightsaber, because I have LS points. I must pretend to be a dutiful sith,(which I am) but I want to be good, and fake everyone out.

 

It's crap. It's a reason to complain. THe reality is this. Even in the real world. You have right choices and wrong choices. SOme choices have greater consequences and some have lesser. THere is no grey. It is either right or wrong, and it's that simple. If you choose to be a Good guy, and be light sided, you will apparently be rewarded for that at the end of the game with a relic. Great. Vice Versa if you choose to be a bad guy. The choice is yours. But you have to deal with the consequences of your actions.

 

Personally for all of you LS Sith I would like to see an option for you to completely leave the Sith Order all together. Where your LS choices become more and more in line with a Jedi. SO that your superiors see it, and you have to make a choice to either leave and join the Jedi, or your character dies forever. I think that would be awesome. You know why? Because playing a LS Bad guy is a pipe dream at best. You can't be evil, and just be a little bit. You either are or you are not. Evil is different than bad.

 

Bottom line, in my mind, again, play your character according to the class that you have chosen.

 

Empire=EVIL(not bad)

Bad( yep it goes right here. The guy who doesn't know what he stands for because he can't tell the difference between right and wrong. Good luck and good gaming.)

 

Republic-GOOD(not bad)

 

Bad is the fence. ANd evil built it. For those that don't know, you build your fence 6 inches on your property line. Ergo, grey or bad, or sitting on the fence, your still not good. YOur 6 inches on Evil's side. So why not just be evil? Your already there.

 

OR you could get off of the fence, and stand up for something and join the Republic and fight for good. HAHA!

 

Nuff said.

[SithZigg]

I am fairly flexible when it comes to making those moral choices. It is mostly, "Ya, that LS choice works for me", or, "it is better than the alternative DS choice, which I definitely do not like." There has only been one, maybe two times, where I was not happy with the choices presented to me SI, but took LS anyway. Some true neutral choices would make going gray a reasonable choice.

[Nussianis]

While I agree with some of the restrictions for light side/dark side gear, IE (nothing says a light side Jedi can't have a red lightsaber, its just a color) the problem really comes into focus when you look at the flashpoints.

 

Save the engineers(Light) or Allow them to die to save the ship faster(Dark). The second dark choice could be considered gray right? well where is the dark side option? Kill everyone and end flashpoint early? No

 

I can totally see where the OP feels that the system is keeping him from getting some gear due to alignment issues, and in a way he's right. However someone else here said, look farm some operations and flashpoints and choose what side you ultimately want to be on. But from the OP point of view he wants to be neutral and feels he should get some alignment gear for being able to play that way.

 

But then a couple other points come out from this, well I tried to be neutral and I ended at dark II, now the game is punishing me because I didn't go completely dark, rabble rabble rabble.

 

If you look at the most of the post in this forum you can see there are a lot of conflicts and ways to view the system. Breaking it down however, this game is KotOR continuation. In KotOR 1 there was no real push for neutrality where in KotOR 2, neutrality was at the very core of the games story line (well until the really out of place rushed finish to it). So if we in this thread can really see both sides to the issue, so does BW. I would expect them to more than likely focus on the light and dark side in the beginning and in a future xpac start to really explore the neutrality side.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Nussianis

[Meglivorn]

I don't really understand the problem.

I turned off ALL alignment indicators possible and always chose the answer I think my character would choose. Now I'm around 3200 lightside along with ~450 dark.

 

I much more think the problem is that the players don't want to play their characters but tweak the numbers behind it. Choosing a dark side option just for balancing out a previous light choice is not morality just indicator manipulating.

Decide what your character will be like, and choose the answers that fits him/her. And it will turn out what "side" it takes. If you play in character that's what really matters, not the indicators. If not, then the whole problem doesn't exists, you already doesn't care about the decisions just the rewarded numbers.

 

(I actually hate the morailty systems like this be it dark/light or paragon/renegade or good/evil. The indicator kills the choices, the real decisions, becouse people always want to see the the bar filled to the max and spotless...)

[Tallian]

I don't really understand the problem.

I turned off ALL alignment indicators possible and always chose the answer I think my character would choose. Now I'm around 3200 lightside along with ~450 dark.

 

I much more think the problem is that the players don't want to play their characters but tweak the numbers behind it. Choosing a dark side option just for balancing out a previous light choice is not morality just indicator manipulating.

Decide what your character will be like, and choose the answers that fits him/her. And it will turn out what "side" it takes. If you play in character that's what really matters, not the indicators. If not, then the whole problem doesn't exists, you already doesn't care about the decisions just the rewarded numbers.

 

(I actually hate the morailty systems like this be it dark/light or paragon/renegade or good/evil. The indicator kills the choices, the real decisions, becouse people always want to see the the bar filled to the max and spotless...)

 

Look up the example for True Neutral in the old AD&D 2nd Ed Dungeon Masters Guide. How druids will change sides all the time to maintain the balance. Sometimes being aware of the light/dark side nature of a choice(and you can tell without the indicators, usually) is staying in character, because striving to maintain balance is a real thing (especially in the Star Wars universe).

[Thalnar]

i think it should be an option to maybe "lock" your alignment, i.e. i can only get light side / dark side points, but can still pick the alignment choices that don't neccesarily go along my selected path. think ultima online karma lock option for necromancers at the paladin shrines.

[NekoNoTejas]

This is a completely spurious argument since in the course of playing your 'alighnment' will win out if you play true to your own thoughts. You will end up Dark or Light depending on your personality. You may not be completely at either end of the scale but that does make sense as this is fictional universe.

 

In fiction only the true heroes and villians get access to the [insert relic name here] the average person ends up somewhere in the middle where they belong, making shoes or fixing cars or baking cakes...not saving/destroying planets. Thats how fiction works thats how stories work. Most people play games as a distraction from reality not as an attempt to recreate it with some new sound effects.

 

If you want a game that somewhat reflects 'reality' play MW3 or EVE something like that...

[Malaix]

My operative is stuck in the neutral zone because of this. He is a professional, not some charity good guy or rage-o-holic sadistic sith. I get a mission and I complete it as efficiently and quietly as possible. If I am told to capture someone I capture them. If I am told someone needs to be silenced I sneak in and silence them. I play whatever role I am given be it a pirate or a no one.

 

Its stuck me right in the neutral zone. I just hope I am no punished for it.

[Shlamorel]

Why can't I do this? If I choose to follow the teachings of Darth Revan(a choice that you have to actually make as a sith inquisitor) why am I punished by not being able to fill 2 entire gear slots?

 

There are relics that do not require alignment in the game.

[Tallian]

There are relics that do not require alignment in the game.

 

I actually just saw my first one(after seeing MANY aligned ones) about 20 minutes before downtime... when I finally got to 400 artifice. So thats one slot filled(since its BoP I'm pretty sure most like it are as well),

 

So while I am not completely SOL, I am seriously behind in terms of gear.

[Qyntech]

My operative is stuck in the neutral zone because of this. He is a professional, not some charity good guy or rage-o-holic sadistic sith. I get a mission and I complete it as efficiently and quietly as possible. If I am told to capture someone I capture them. If I am told someone needs to be silenced I sneak in and silence them. I play whatever role I am given be it a pirate or a no one.

 

Its stuck me right in the neutral zone. I just hope I am no punished for it.

 

That's the crux of the problem for me as well with both my agent & my smuggler.

 

Non-Jedi/Sith classes seem particularly prone to the issue: Agents,Smugglers, Bounty Hunters especially... they operate in more of a grey area, less from some devotion to higher calling of dark side/light side and more the situational ethics that are based on a character's personality.

 

Heck, sometimes, I find my character deciding to do something just because some bugger rubbed him the wrong way--or doing something because a quest character had a pretty face (something my smuggler has a hard time resisting)--

...like choosing to give stolen medicine back to needy refugees over Republic soldiers because the former choice involved an attractive/exotic female Cathar instead of an uptight Sergeant.

...

[NephilimNexus]

You know in Fallout 3 there is a perk that you can only get if you have neutral karma (it gives a bonus to speak/negotiation).

 

There is also a few companions who will only join you if you're neutral as well.

 

Something to be learned, here, Bioware.

[LogicalPremise]

I am not understanding the problem. At all.

 

People are saying two things:

 

1) I don't like the way it is handled because it limits my access to gear or forces me to make choices inconsistent with my character.

 

The reason such gear is locked to certain levels of light or dark is that they are indicative of items that can only be used by people who have subverted themselves into beacons of light or dark. A normal person or a weaker Sith or less noble Jedi doesn't have the strength of will to use or master them. Does it limit your character? Of course it does. The only persons who could use this sort of gear would have to be .. somewhat imbalanced. A normal person does not see any sort of emotional attachment as dangerous like a Jedi, and a normal person does not value hatred over other emotions as do Sith.

 

People feel like they should be able to get ALL the gear but want to make any choice they like -- then you might as well say that there should be no items with any kind of LS/DS limits and a padawan Jedi can use a horrid Sith relic. It's non-sense.

 

2) There should be a way to keep neutrality

 

I think that the whole LS/DS thing is BS, but that's beside the point. The ugly reality is that these are extremes. Why should I get darkside points for innocently flirting with a pretty Twi'lek? (And BTW, who ever nailed a girl after dropping cheesy lines like that IRL?)

 

The problem is that LS choices and DS choices as they are mapped make very little consistent sense. The larger problem is that appearently I can murder, maim , kill, and vaporize things as long as I am careful to have my pack of companions busily running lightside diplomacy missions and act occasionally nice and from the force's point of view I am not dark side.

Edited April 9, 2012 by Sireene
use of retarded - due to age of post, no action

[Heimskringla]

The problem I have with the alignment system as it is is that I feel like I am choosing options just so I get enough points to keep my alignment where I am capable of getting relics and having the appearance I want. Sometimes I grind flashpoints just so I have a buffer that will allow me to make the occasional light choice on a dark character without losing access to the gear I have with alignment restrictions on it.

[Malaix]

The problem I have with the alignment system as it is is that I feel like I am choosing options just so I get enough points to keep my alignment where I am capable of getting relics and having the appearance I want. Sometimes I grind flashpoints just so I have a buffer that will allow me to make the occasional light choice on a dark character without losing access to the gear I have with alignment restrictions on it.

 

Pretty much, you can't really grade morality, at least most of it, and if you can, it is usually because you have encountered "stupid evil" or being an evil obnoxious jerk just for the sake of it. Even when it hinders you.

[Nussianis]

I do want to point one thing out of lore. This time period with was all about being LS/DS. It wasn't until Luke came around and restarted the jedi order that there was balance. Gray Sith/Jedi were shunned from their respective orders. So again this is something I don't think that will/could be explored fully until an actual xpac.

[GhoulMonkey]

I agree with the context of this thread as a whole. I'm not saying, yeah let's make "Gray" stuff cause on the one side of the argument, I agree. That's just kinda dumb in many ways, but I respect the "Revanite" philosophy but when I do things on my Bounty Hunter for example I'm not really "Grey" I go where I want my character to go...where the credits are. I A lot of times, if I feel I'm not being paid to do something enough I won't do it and it will yield LS points or if I was paid to bring a boy back and murder his father because it was what I was -paid- to do that will yield DS points. In the black talon, for example, Kilran heavily inferred the imperial treasury would be grateful to do what was requested and he wanted the captain dead (DS points) and would prefer the General returned (LS points) which is what I tend to do even though I gave kilran a hard time because my bounty hunter doesn't really care for authority or the empire as a whole, just money. (doing those two options makes me walk out even dark/light) I've already RPed that if the republic had a bounty board I'd be working for them too. So, it becomes difficult later on to use restricted items for this reason. So while' I'm not exactly in "neutral" since I have like 750 LS points and around 600 DS points because decisions I would make as a character -myself-.

 

I'm also having a similar problem on my inquisitor, I'm doing selfish things or what I like to think as "planting" seeds of dissent for later to confuse other Sith so I can rise to power and I've already yielded quite a bit of LS from it. I'm about 800 LS and 700 DS, because I'm doing it for -me- and if I feel I'm ever questioned(even though that wouldnt happen but I like to immerse in my character) I could simply pin it on the person who assigned me the mission with enough cunning. It's not for some self righteous point of view I do this. I'm not trying to be "unique" in rolling a LS Sith because I know people want to do that like they are somehow "breaking the mold", far from it. I'm trying to RP a "Machiavelli/Sun Tzu" type character by balancing subjugation of being Feared and Loved and if you cannot have both then it is probably better to be Feared.

 

This is the issue of this thread, there has to be someway to make it work. Instead of maybe saying Dark 1 alignment maybe it could be Dark 1 alignment -or- 2000 alignment points total...or something. I'm sure there is other ways of approaching it where they can reward people who stay on one path and ways to appeal to people who like to make decisions based on how they want to play their characters.

 

Agreed entirely.

 

Mass Effect had alignment designed perfectly. Paragon points and Renegade points were contradictory but ultimately independent. Choice was about choice; when it becomes a numbers game, the very essence of the alignment systems becomes broken.

 

Mechanically, it should not be difficult to reconfigure existing aligned gear to hold a wider range of choices. Why should we not have combination of both LS and DS gear? Would it not be appropriate to have a recolored robe that's restricted to characters that have, say, at least 1000 LS points AND 2000 DS points (numbers are for illustrations only).

 

Ultimately, gear needs to support the characters; players should not worry about supporting the gear.

[ltankhsd]

Agree with the OP. By making the natural choices I would normally make or fulfilling the terms of my BH contract I have landed in the neutral zone and have no relics to show for it because of that. It's not a matter of trying to be neutral as some reading challenged people have said, it's just how it ended up. I shouldn't have to go back and run BT a bunch of times just to farm points. That goes against what they are trying to do in taking the gaminess out of the game and making it an adventure where you focus on the story.

[Frozenshiva]

You people are still complaining over this? there's only 2 slots that actually have a predominant side restriction, weapons and relics.(not counting the few and frankly useless LS/DS vendor items) And as pointed out earlier both slots actually do have items without restrictions. If you'd spend less time complaining and more time actually playing the game you'd know that by now.

 

P.S I understand that people have complaints and needs, but have some decency when you point out the inconsistencies. The point is to give feedback, and suggestions in a properly constructed way not complain over every thing you don't like.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Frozenshiva

[Malig]

Heya, just want to point out to all the people saying force users shouldn't be neutral and that neutrality is a foolish option... canonically, gray jedi do exist. In my SI storyline the character literally said," Why does it always have to be so black and white with you Jedi, why can't it be shades of gray?"

 

Point is, neutrality is something they want some people to go for, it doesn't make sense that they'd gimp the player by not allowing them access to relics. Now, I feel I could grind my points and I'm not too averse to doing that endgame... I just wish they'd make a 'grind' for everyone if that were the case, no reason to punish a player for picking the style they'd like to play.