10,000 dark side points for dark 1 is absurd and ruins your story.

[SuperJoule]

What's the big deal? Well, it ruins the story! Yes, I know I could do extra work to get diplomacy, and run diplomacy missions while I level, but it really shouldn't be that way, ESPECIALLY IN THIS GAME. Your story decisions should make the impact, not some mindless grind. Otherwise, what's the point?

 

Hi!

I know your feeling, but you don't need only diplomacy anymore, all craft matt missions gives you light or darkside points.

 

Also, when you get to 10k the lightside points gets removed for each point, getting you to effect 10k and 0

[grania]

To my surprise, tonight I have the "dark me" confronting my new warrior about how I'm filled with the "stench of the light". WHAT?!?! I'm a murder machine!!! This makes no sense!

 

Oh yuck Yeah I just leveled one recently. Knew it was coming so I had to work my butt off just to get dark 1 first. It wasn't really that much fun, playing that way. Doing every daily I could do for several days before I could move along in the story.

[Tsillah]

What are you basing this on? There has been no official mention that they no longer care about the class stories or anything of that nature.

There would never be an official mention of that, because there is no way that will be beneficial to admit. So for you to imply that it's only true if they say so is utterly naive to me. I go by what they do, not what they say. If they wanna prove me wrong, then please.

But for me it's a simple conclusion that after they revamped the 1-50 experience and streamlined it, that was a way of saying that basically that's how it needs to be and they leave it like that. Anything they've done afterwards shows that they've moved on and are no longer spending any effort on it and they have pretty much disconnected the rest of the game from the 1-50 experience.

 

They simply wouldn't intentionally damage one of the main pillars of this game (class stories) for a feature (arguably a minor feature) that primarily rewards cosmetic items. The very thought is absurd .

Hah, and what are you basing that on? Because clearly they've damaged various pillars of this game on multiple occasions. Shall we talk about raiding or pvp for example? Or even story and how they went from 8 to 2 to 1 story, ignoring romances, taking away core companions for years etc. etc.?

 

They have a history here that speaks for itself.

[Andryah]

Diplomacy is now the worst tradeskill to use to grind LS/DS points. Its natural alignment is completely masked by whichever side you picked so there's no way of knowing which is which unless you've got a cheat sheet that maps mission name to DS/LS.

 

Diplomacy historically being the only crew mission that provided side points...... was not good game mechanics.

 

Most, if not all, crew missions in 5.0 do in fact provide side points consistent with your D/L setting, with some providing a very small number of opposing points in some cases. That IS an improvement in game mechanics, as these produce rapid point yields, and you can generally run a full set of 8 companions on them at one time as well, which means you can rake in thousands of points per hour if you are working the system for raising points.

 

My characters that I run crew missions on for materials were in fact all rank V in dark or light by the end of the first week of 5.0.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Andryah

[Mackdi]

OP I see your new to MMO's. Maybe mmo's arent for you.

 

Happy grinding everyone!

[Jagaimee]

You seem to be missing the point. We're not talking about farming points when you're at / near max level. We're talking about your class story for levels 1-50. You simply do not gain enough light / dark points to rank up from doing your story to trigger the special light / dark options during natural story progression.

 

You shouldn't have to halt your story progress just to spend hours farming light / dark points. This is not how the class stories are meant to be played and its not how they are played by the majority of people.

 

Sorry. I misunderstood; I see the point now. (It was really late at night when I wrote my last post, in my defense. XD)

[Ralei]

OP I see your new to MMO's. Maybe mmo's arent for you.

 

Happy grinding everyone!

 

U WOT M8?!?!

 

It's a recent, unintended change.

[Anduhar]

OP I see your new to MMO's. Maybe mmo's arent for you.

 

Happy grinding everyone!

 

You're either trolling or you don't understand what is being discussed here. The grind isn't the problem, the problem is that you no longer get to see the special light / dark options during natural class story progression due to the changes to light / dark alignment.

 

There are ways to fix the issue without reducing the grind by making the light / dark options require point amounts instead of ranks. And I'm sure if they thought about it they could find other solutions as well that don't drastically reduce the grind. The bottom line is that you shouldn't have to halt your story progress to spend hours farming light / dark points in order to play through your class story as it was meant to be played.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Anduhar

[LostScot]

You seem to be missing the point. We're not talking about farming points when you're at / near max level. We're talking about your class story for levels 1-50. You simply do not gain enough light / dark points to rank up from doing your story to trigger the special light / dark options during natural story progression.

 

You shouldn't have to halt your story progress just to spend hours farming light / dark points. This is not how the class stories are meant to be played and its not how they are played by the majority of people.

 

My Sith Juggernaut is 2 months old, just hit lvl 70 a couple of days ago. He's at Dark IV, only 3k away from Dark V, and I'm still only on chapter 1 of his class story. I've achieved this by doing class / planet missions, exploration missions, H2+ missions, a handful of flashpoints, 1 warzone and 1 galactic starfighter battle. When I say I'm still only on chapter 1 of my class story I don't mean I've skipped a lot of it, I mean I'm literally still only at Alderaan in terms of planetary progression.

 

Everything people have cited as giving light or dark points applies to my progression - killing mobs, conversations (without specific light/dark choices), completing any type of missions, crew skill missions (and not to excess as some prior posters have suggested needs to take place), to be honest I've not felt like I've had to farm dark points at all.

 

I'll readily admit that when I rolled this new toon I was a bit concerned about the 10k points needed to reach tier I. When I hit tier I after only 3 planets' worth of missions I realised my concerns were ill-founded.

[Ralei]

My Sith Juggernaut is 2 months old, just hit lvl 70 a couple of days ago. He's at Dark IV, only 3k away from Dark V, and I'm still only on chapter 1 of his class story. I've achieved this by doing class / planet missions, exploration missions, H2+ missions, a handful of flashpoints, 1 warzone and 1 galactic starfighter battle. When I say I'm still only on chapter 1 of my class story I don't mean I've skipped a lot of it, I mean I'm literally still only at Alderaan in terms of planetary progression.

 

Everything people have cited as giving light or dark points applies to my progression - killing mobs, conversations (without specific light/dark choices), completing any type of missions, crew skill missions (and not to excess as some prior posters have suggested needs to take place), to be honest I've not felt like I've had to farm dark points at all.

 

I'll readily admit that when I rolled this new toon I was a bit concerned about the 10k points needed to reach tier I. When I hit tier I after only 3 planets' worth of missions I realised my concerns were ill-founded.

 

Ok guy. That's great. Come in here, tell us you didn't level your story to 70 in a thread about leveling your character to 70 by story.

 

If I wanted to level by heroics and flashpoints and warzones, I wouldn't care about how my dark points screw up my story, now would I?

[Aeneas_Falco]

Take gathering skills.

 

If you have toons running crew skill missions while you play you won't really notice a difference. I played through a Consular again recently and was at Light V on Voss.

 

I understand the complaint. You shouldn't have to take crew skills or grind alignment points just to avoid your class story not recognizing the actual choices your player character has made, but it's the best solution right now. Who knows if or even when Bioware will make adjustments to alignment gains and how they're recognized within class stories.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Aeneas_Falco

[Anduhar]

My Sith Juggernaut is 2 months old, just hit lvl 70 a couple of days ago. He's at Dark IV, only 3k away from Dark V, and I'm still only on chapter 1 of his class story. I've achieved this by doing class / planet missions, exploration missions, H2+ missions, a handful of flashpoints, 1 warzone and 1 galactic starfighter battle. When I say I'm still only on chapter 1 of my class story I don't mean I've skipped a lot of it, I mean I'm literally still only at Alderaan in terms of planetary progression.

 

Everything people have cited as giving light or dark points applies to my progression - killing mobs, conversations (without specific light/dark choices), completing any type of missions, crew skill missions (and not to excess as some prior posters have suggested needs to take place), to be honest I've not felt like I've had to farm dark points at all.

 

I'll readily admit that when I rolled this new toon I was a bit concerned about the 10k points needed to reach tier I. When I hit tier I after only 3 planets' worth of missions I realised my concerns were ill-founded.

 

You're obviously an exception. The vast majority of people don't hit 70 before they finish their class story, in fact, they're usually around level 50 when the finish because that is how the class story and leveling progression is designed. The revamped 1-50 leveling process is meant to be done by playing though your class story and planet story arcs. Everything else is unnecessary and can be skipped. If you're choosing to play through a bunch of extra stuff, then that is your choice. The natural progression of your class story / leveling (the way it is meant to be played) does not net nearly enough light / dark points to rank up and trigger the special light / dark options.

[LostScot]

If I wanted to level by heroics and flashpoints and warzones, I wouldn't care about how my dark points screw up my story, now would I?

 

I cited a handful of flashpoints and 1 warzone - handful in this case is less than 5.

 

As for the H2+ missions they're easily solo-able by any class with a companion so there's no excuse for missing out on additional story content that is often fundamental to the overall planet story missions. Now the H4+ missions on the other hand... Haven't done a single one of those.

 

I'm sorry you didn't like my "other side of the coin" experience of the situation but please understand I am not trying to say your opinion is wrong. I merely pointed out that I too was concerned with the new experience but I've seen enough of the new levelling experience now to realise that my own initial perceptions were ill-founded.

[LostScot]

You're obviously an exception. The vast majority of people don't hit 70 before they finish their class story, in fact, they're usually around level 50 when the finish because that is how the class story and leveling progression is designed. The revamped 1-50 leveling process is meant to be done by playing though your class story and planet story arcs. Everything else is unnecessary and can be skipped. If you're choosing to play through a bunch of extra stuff, then that is your choice. The natural progression of your class story / leveling (the way it is meant to be played) does not net nearly enough light / dark points to rank up and trigger the special light / dark options.

 

I'll be the first to admit that I don't see the point in skipping all the exploration quests - they add to the overall story within the game and increase immersion in this fictional universe. I'm glad that my choice of playstyle lets me explore story options that might not be available if I chose to skip a load of content, but then that's partly why I play the way I do. Each to their own, aye mate!

[Ralei]

I cited a handful of flashpoints and 1 warzone - handful in this case is less than 5.

 

As for the H2+ missions they're easily solo-able by any class with a companion so there's no excuse for missing out on additional story content that is often fundamental to the overall planet story missions. Now the H4+ missions on the other hand... Haven't done a single one of those.

 

I'm sorry you didn't like my "other side of the coin" experience of the situation but please understand I am not trying to say your opinion is wrong. I merely pointed out that I too was concerned with the new experience but I've seen enough of the new levelling experience now to realise that my own initial perceptions were ill-founded.

 

My goal was not to level to 70 the fastest or to get dark points the fastest. I know your way is the fastest. This is not what we're talking about.

 

If I wanted to do flashpoints, heroics, and pvp, I would do it on my already 70's to get gcxp. I've done them all 342352346 times i don't want to level that way.

 

What I'm talking about is starting a new character to go through the story. If I'm going through the story, and the balance of my dark side points don't match the actions in my story, then it completely invalidates my story, because my story depends on my darkside points.

 

Your "flipside" is irrelevant to the topic. All that needs to happen is to get those class and planet story rewards boosted to give the appropriate amount of points relative to where you should be in your story. It was balanced when the game came out and now it's been overlooked to accommodate an endgame mini - game. They just need to fix it.

[Edyn]

I just wanted to throw in here since I'm also currently working on a SW playthrough. I did planetary quests, sidequests, Flashpoints, always had my DvL setting thingy set to "Dark," and made majority dark choices. By the time I reached Tatooine, where...

 

 

... you confront your reflection, I was still gray, and thus received a good lecture from my reflection about not being a dark Sith.

 

 

I'm thinking, "Really? After all that brutal crap I've pulled from Korriban to now? Sheesh... high standards." Even if I'd made, say, 5 - 10 Light choices, with the DvL set to Dark and the amount of Dark choices from Korriban to halfway through Tatooine, I should have been knee deep in Darkness, but nope. Luckily I was able to hit Dark I just in time to...

 

 

...have a nice, Dark conversation with Jaesa on Hutta.

 

 

I agree with the OP - this is pretty sloppy. I've said it in another thread, but either BW doesn't know about the impact this DvL nonsense (that, by the way, I know of no one who actually cares about/participates in it) has on vanilla gameplay or they just don't care.

 

[Edit] Side Rant Below...

 

 

Like GC/CXP, I feel like this is what happens when the devs put time in and implement crap that no one even asked for or wanted. They implement something no one wanted while breaking the things they previously had and never complained about (Light and Dark alignment, a token-based gearing system, Ravage, etc.) So, now we've got content that no one is using or they are forced to use something inferior. I mean, I care for this DvL garbage so much with it's awful banner spam that I'd gladly trade the whole thing just for a fix on the item preview window bug that's been around forever.

 

Tl;dr Please stop jacking with crap that isn't broken and no one complained about or asked for [GC, DvL, Ravage) and put those resources into fixing known issues and adding what people have been requesting (OPs, FP's, bug fixes, planets (not instances), PvP maps, character customization, etc.)

 

Edited February 3, 2017 by Edyn

[TPooFlinger]

1st level alignment should be changed back to what it was, 1k right? 2nd level can be put in between what is 1st and 3rd, and leave the rest. IIRC, 1st level alignment is enough to have your alignment matter in game.

[Edyn]

I'd also like to add that just after my SW...

 

 

...exposed the darkness within Nomen Karr and turned Jaesa to the Dark side...

 

 

...as soon as I exited the cutscene, I got blasted with a DvL banner saying the Dark side is going weaker. Just, ugh...

[Aeneas_Falco]

They definitely need to tune the early alignment levels. 10,000 points is too steep to get out of neutral and I imagine still being stuck in neutral is what is breaking the story for some. It should be 5000 points at most to hit Light or Dark 1, then maybe have 10000 points between Light or Dark 1 and tier 2.

[Hebruixe]

I think it's safe to state that BWA have moved on from the level 1-50 experience in favor of their new story lines and endgame such as it is (DvL in this case). A real shame because the level 1-50 experience is still one of the best parts of the game and they shouldn't detract from it really.

 

Sadly true.

[JediAkemi]

Oh, by the way, if you're still Grey when you get Jaesa, she gets confused because she can't tell if you're Light or Dark, and you can choose whether to corrupt her or leave her Light.

As I recall, she didn't like not being able to tell so she attacked me.

My proper Juggernaut was always intended to be (pale) Grey so I got to choose... and I chose Dark Jaesa, resulting in one long hilarious exercise in "My Gods, what have I done?".

 

But yeah, they really need to make it easier to shift alignment around with just our class stories like in the old days.

[Ralei]

Oh, by the way, if you're still Grey when you get Jaesa, she gets confused because she can't tell if you're Light or Dark, and you can choose whether to corrupt her or leave her Light.

As I recall, she didn't like not being able to tell so she attacked me.

My proper Juggernaut was always intended to be (pale) Grey so I got to choose... and I chose Dark Jaesa, resulting in one long hilarious exercise in "My Gods, what have I done?".

 

But yeah, they really need to make it easier to shift alignment around with just our class stories like in the old days.

 

That's good to know, I didn't want to take any chances. I still would rather play the ds version of meeting her, though.

 

And also, thanks for your tip about warzone points and also hovering over the diplomacy icons, I would have never seen that.

 

I just did several warzones to get to Dark I, I didn't realized they gave 1000+ a pop, that's kind of insane and makes me wonder why they can't just tune up the class stories a little bit, because they're pitiful in comparison. I have to believe it is an oversight.

[JediAkemi]

That's good to know, I didn't want to take any chances. I still would rather play the ds version of meeting her, though.

 

And also, thanks for your tip about warzone points and also hovering over the diplomacy icons, I would have never seen that.

 

I just did several warzones to get to Dark I, I didn't realized they gave 1000+ a pop, that's kind of insane and makes me wonder why they can't just tune up the class stories a little bit, because they're pitiful in comparison. I have to believe it is an oversight.

 

Glad I could help

 

Have fun with Dark Jaesa *hugs*

[jstankaroslo]

I sadly agree with posters who say BW abandoned original class stories.

This DS/LS gain rate is just a part of it. There are also end bosses scaled back to level 12, unbalanced combat overall (especially uber companions), no engaging and challenging levelling content with removal of H4s and nerfing H2s.

Its as if they're ashamed of the gr8 work their predecessors did with original class an planetary stories, and now they just want us to get instant level 60 new character and do their KOTET over and over again.

 

I mean it looks as if Ben, or Eric or the funny bearded guy never touched original class stories since 4.0. They just level synced everything and moved on.

Now they have their hands full with this GCP or unnasembled something and its unlikely they're gonna commit their precious time to fixing original class stories experience.

 

I LOVE the original stories and loved the gameplay. Now u just can't go back and do them, I'm so sad what's been done to them.

All dramatic encounters, with music, setting, warnings, preparations are roll over half of the rotation -they end before even getting into them.

Cutscenes bugged.

Weapons on companions changed, but not in cutscenes.

Decent animations like ravage look funny instead of awesome (especially my BT3 Jugg looks as if he's directing an orchestra with a little stick, not waving a sword).

And now this: major impact on the gameplay with messed DvL system.

 

I bet they'll be looking into their metrics and assume less people are playing the original content because its old. Not because they ruined it.

 

Same with difficulty modes -I'd LOVE Master Mode on class stories. But will play it just once on KOTET/KOTFE as I don't enjoy doing the same planetary story on every character. And I bet they'll decide that veteran/master modes where bad idea as few people do them. No, few people do them because they don't wanna do the same stories over and over again.

With 8 long class stories there's much time between repeating same class story -KOTET/KOTFE is always the same, with just minor variations.

Make veteran/master on class stories and I guarantee story people will come back to the game

[Ralei]

 

the funny bearded guy

 

 

lol

 

I think Ben and the Funny Bearded guy (who wrote some of the original story) love the class stories, too. If I didn't think they had respect for the 1-50 game I wouldn't have wasted my time starting the thread. Though, I could change the title to be less of a Tequila rager now that I'm sober.

 

I LOVE the original stories and loved the game play. Now u just can't go back and do them, I'm so sad what's been done to them.

All dramatic encounters, with music, setting, warnings, preparations are roll over half of the rotation -they end before even getting into them.

Cut scenes bugged.

Weapons on companions changed, but not in cut scenes.

Decent animations like ravage look funny instead of awesome (especially my BT3 Jugg looks as if he's directing an orchestra with a little stick, not waving a sword).

And now this: major impact on the game play with messed DvL system.

 

 

 

What you've written here is correct and I wish they'd pay more attention to these things. These little issues add up and is part of the reason they appear to have such a small staff/ little funding or just don't care.

 

I know some of these fixes are probably ridiculously complicated in reality. But boosting the dvl points gained 1-50 seems easy and would solve the issue without effecting endgame.