Light & Dark Choices - My ONE Issue wtih TOR

[MichaelSean]

First off, let me say that I love the game and I plan to play it for a long, long time to come. But here's my one big issue and, to me, it seems like a pretty major one - light side and dark side choices.

 

Bioware went to a great deal of effort to create a story where you have to make good, evil and morally ambiguous choices. AWESOME! Then they wreck the entire concept by making the best gear in the game accessible by making pure light or pure dark choices. So, in essence, they put your character on rails after going to all this effort to make choice a part of the game. They establish choice, then remove the choice for players who don't wish to be gimped.

 

What if I'm a Jedi Knight who is, by and large good, but maybe has a bit of a flirtatious streak? Can't do it because it costs me light side points.

 

Or maybe I'm a bounty hunter who is, mostly, in it for the money. But, if I want access to the really good dark side gear, I have to always make the dark side choice.

 

This seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in the structure of the game. Moral choices aren't moral choices if you gimp your character by deviating from one strict path or the other.

Edited December 29, 2011 by MichaelSean

[dukaso]

Turns out this is an MMO, despite what everyone will try to tell you about it being a great single player game.

[MichaelSean]

Bounty Hunter may be the best example of a need for neutral gear on par with light or dark side gear. Let's take the first few levels as an example.

 

(SPOILER ALERT!)

 

On the mission where I have to decide whether to turn the young Sith protege over to his mother or father, I may decide that the Sith need a good recruit, so I'll chose to shoot the dad and turn the kid over to his mom.

 

But on a mission just a few levels later, I have the option to either kill an imprisoned smuggler and keep the other prisoners slaves or let him live and release the slaves. In that instance I may wish to release the slaves. Can't do it, however, because then those two missions cancel one another out and I don't make progress toward the primo gear.

 

So, really, there's no choice. There's only the illusion of choice. Bioware needs to fix this otherwise, you're not playing out the story in your own way, you're simply slavishly making every dark or light side choice, rendering the story irrelevant.

[kottonmouth]

I agree, there is no real choice. The story isn't really YOUR OWN, if you want all the best gear. You just choose to fish dark or light side responses, it makes the whole thing uninteresting.

[Qoojo]

My agent is early teens and I have stopped playing him due to this. He would only take the dark side choices when someone tried to killed to him. Otherwise, it was light side choices, or the choice that befit his task and job as an empire agent.

 

I would say do away with alignment restrictions completely, and have meaningless cosmetic changes for alignment. The only other option is to take diplomacy to get more points for the alignment that you want.

[ChuangTzu]

Get urself some modable orange gear and keep upgrading it!

 

Problem solved.

[JCommando]

Not to mention theres a cap for each side so if you make too many choices you're gonna be screwed by not getting to Dark Side or Light Side V over time.

[Kindara]

First off, let me say that I love the game and I plan to play it for a long, long time to come. But here's my one big issue and, to me, it seems like a pretty major one - light side and dark side choices.

 

Bioware went to a great deal of effort to create a story where you have to make good, evil and morally ambiguous choices. AWESOME! Then they wreck the entire concept by making the best gear in the game accessible by making pure light or pure dark choices. So, in essence, they put your character on rails after going to all this effort to make choice a part of the game. They establish choice, then remove the choice for players who don't wish to be gimped.

 

What if I'm a Jedi Knight who is, by and large good, but maybe has a bit of a flirtatious streak? Can't do it because it costs me light side points.

 

Or maybe I'm a bounty hunter who is, mostly, in it for the money. But, if I want access to the really good dark side gear, I have to always make the dark side choice.

 

This seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in the structure of the game. Moral choices aren't moral choices if you gimp your character by deviating from one strict path or the other.

 

You dont have to make pure light or dark side choices :/ Its actually pretty hard to be pure neutral by end game especially if you've ever repeated flash points or any dailies that involve choices.

 

I've made plenty of good choices simply in order to extort money out of people as a Bounty Hunter but made way more evil... because it simply suites me personally as a bounty hunter to Kill more People than I save. I'm dark side 1 and over half way to dark side 2. The gear that these choices truely effect are mostly drops or player made and aren't until what tle last 15 levels of the game.

 

Neutral is a lie. There is no such thing only players think they need to be that in order to optimize quest credit pay outs or impress their companions (thats what gifts are for).

 

Welcome to Role Playing games you either pick a side or get saddled in the middle as a nobody.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Kindara

[Sorgrim]

An idea just occurred to me. Couldn't Bioware also make gear that requires a relatively neutral alignment? This would accomodate more custom tailored playstyles that would vary between missions, judging on the choice you want to make.

[Chokis]

People keep asking, "Well how do you reward neutral people fairly? There can't be neutral tiers." They're forgetting that the game tracks your light and dark points separately. Perhaps neutral tiers could be tracked with both; for example, Neutral I could be 500 light and 500 dark. Then to prevent problems with going light or dark, neutral alignments could require the player's dark and light points to be within a couple hundred of each other.

[MichaelSean]

You dont have to make pure light or dark side choices :/ Its actually pretty hard to be pure neutral by end game especially if you've ever repeated flash points or any dailies that involve choices.

 

I've made plenty of good choices simply in order to extort money out of people as a Bounty Hunter but made way more evil... because it simply suites me personally as a bounty hunter to Kill more People than I save. I'm dark side 1 and over half way to dark side 2. The gear that these choices truely effect are mostly drops or player made and aren't until what tle last 15 levels of the game.

 

Neutral is a lie. There is no such thing only players think they need to be that in order to optimize quest credit pay outs or impress their companions (thats what gifts are for).

 

Welcome to Role Playing games you either pick a side or get saddled in the middle as a nobody.

 

You're making my point.

 

It would be just as difficult to be strictly neutral as it is to be strictly good or strictly evil. Imagine if Han Solo were an actual character in the game - mainly good, we'd all agree, but with a love of money and a bit of a rebellious streak. Where does that get you, gear wise, in this game? Nowhere. There's no top gear for those who are mostly, if not always, good.

[HalcyonicPlague]

/facepalms

 

Another thread where people complain about something that is not an issue, and of course this is the topic that is most often cried about.

 

1) You clearly do not care for the world because Star Wars is a battle been the lightside and the darkside. The SW universe is not built around neutrality (which by the way does not exist anywhere in the real world).

 

2) If you the play the game past the very beginning it is incredibly hard to actually sit in the middle. My sith inquisitor sometimes got lightside points because the options that were given were "lawl kill" or "pragmatic" and for whatever reason the pragmatic reason was lightside. I can cope with this. The vast majority of the time my options are clearly darkside.

 

3) To be neutral is to be nothing. You are a nobody. Someone who truly does not have a moral compass and just exists to exist. In the end why should you reap rewards or benefits for that? Why should you gain benefits for not committing? It is not like the game forces you into anything, never have I been motivated by gear in any of my choices.

 

4) Gear with the perks are not that much better. You're squabbling over pennies.

 

5) Diplomacy fixes all your woes. You get to play the game the way you want and now you can just go and blast your companions on mission to get the points you need to get that gear you oh so covet.

[MichaelSean]

/facepalms

 

Another thread where people complain about something that is not an issue, and of course this is the topic that is most often cried about.

 

1) You clearly do not care for the world because Star Wars is a battle been the lightside and the darkside. The SW universe is not built around neutrality (which by the way does not exist anywhere in the real world).

 

2) If you the play the game past the very beginning it is incredibly hard to actually sit in the middle. My sith inquisitor sometimes got lightside points because the options that were given were "lawl kill" or "pragmatic" and for whatever reason the pragmatic reason was lightside. I can cope with this. The vast majority of the time my options are clearly darkside.

 

3) To be neutral is to be nothing. You are a nobody. Someone who truly does not have a moral compass and just exists to exist. In the end why should you reap rewards or benefits for that? Why should you gain benefits for not committing? It is not like the game forces you into anything, never have I been motivated by gear in any of my choices.

 

4) Gear with the perks are not that much better. You're squabbling over pennies.

 

5) Diplomacy fixes all your woes. You get to play the game the way you want and now you can just go and blast your companions on mission to get the points you need to get that gear you oh so covet.

 

1) No, I care very much about the world. But, much as in life, no one is 100% good or 100% evil. Also, this is a MINOR complaint, which is why I prefaced my post by saying how impressed I was with the game overall.

 

2) Go read my subsequent posts. I'm not talking, AT ALL, about trying to be strictly down the middle.

 

3) To make good and bad choices is not nothing - it's human. You're simplistic and naive.

 

4) Perhaps, but I'm only level 20. I have a life and didn't spend the first week of the game obsessively playing to level 50.

 

5) I'll have to look into diplomacy.

Edited December 29, 2011 by MichaelSean

[CharagonIGN]

People keep asking, "Well how do you reward neutral people fairly? There can't be neutral tiers." They're forgetting that the game tracks your light and dark points separately. Perhaps neutral tiers could be tracked with both; for example, Neutral I could be 500 light and 500 dark. Then to prevent problems with going light or dark, neutral alignments could require the player's dark and light points to be within a couple hundred of each other.

 

This. The game already tracks your individual Dark/Light points AND the difference between the two. That's everything you need to establish a Neutral tier.

 

 

Light 1 requires a minimum of 1000 light points

Dark 1 requires a minimum of 1000 dark points

 

Neutral 1 could require a minimum of 500 light points, 500 dark points, and a maximum alignment value of 1000.

 

 

 

It's a huge oversight that BioWare forgot to put in gear for people in the middle.

[AJediKnight]

First off, let me say that I love the game and I plan to play it for a long, long time to come. But here's my one big issue and, to me, it seems like a pretty major one - light side and dark side choices.

 

Bioware went to a great deal of effort to create a story where you have to make good, evil and morally ambiguous choices. AWESOME! Then they wreck the entire concept by making the best gear in the game accessible by making pure light or pure dark choices. So, in essence, they put your character on rails after going to all this effort to make choice a part of the game. They establish choice, then remove the choice for players who don't wish to be gimped.

 

What if I'm a Jedi Knight who is, by and large good, but maybe has a bit of a flirtatious streak? Can't do it because it costs me light side points.

 

Or maybe I'm a bounty hunter who is, mostly, in it for the money. But, if I want access to the really good dark side gear, I have to always make the dark side choice.

 

This seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in the structure of the game. Moral choices aren't moral choices if you gimp your character by deviating from one strict path or the other.

 

Great post, OP.

 

I agree -- TOR is like the world's best choose your own adventure book, but if you want to actually get to the end and survive, you have to choose either option C every time, or option A every time. If you mix and match, or take option B, you don't make it through.

[Zunayson]

Okay: I guess I'm biased against Sir "OMG MY IMMERSION", because I don't care for role-playing, but if you want mental satisfaction that you're having fun through making a fictional character and taking the time to decide his tone to a certain response, then that's your "reward" for your alignment. Last time I checked, role-playing didn't REQUIRE you to be uber in PvP, or PvE or whatever. Just make a Satan Reborn character. To be honest, choose role-playing or combat. So basicaly, social or combat. Oh, here's a marvel new conecpt:

 

ARE

EE

ARE

OH

EL

EL

 

R-E-R-O-L-L. Make 2 characters. OMG IMMA GENIUS!

[ProtonXI]

Choices... having consequences? BAH GAWD, WHAT WAS BIOWARE THINKING!?!

[Anecdote]

Choices... having consequences? BAH GAWD, WHAT WAS BIOWARE THINKING!?!

 

Except that the only people getting punished would be... the people who are neutral? And that's not what is intended under the umbrella term of "consequence"?

 

It's not difficult to understand?

[Felioats]

They have said they plan to do something for gray characters post-launch. I hope they do it soon, as there have been some "dark side" choices I really thought were the right thing to do.

[MichaelSean]

Except that the only people getting punished would be... the people who are neutral? And that's not what is intended under the umbrella term of "consequence"?

 

It's not difficult to understand?

 

I agree with what you're saying but I don't see it exactly that way.

 

It's not a matter of choosing to be a strictly amoral neutral character, although players should feel perfectly free to do that.

 

I see it as a mater of not having to feel forced into making 100% light or 100% dark choices. Life is more complex than that. (Also, I guess I side with the two Padawans in love in the Tython training grounds that, love CAN make you stronger, not weaker.) You can be a GOOD person and still fall in love. In fact, if you can't, I'd say that makes you more dark side.

 

My overall point is still the same - that the game mechanics are in opposition to the morality choices. Anyone who chooses to play the game as an actual, complex person, as opposed to a robot always making the same light or dark side choices in any given circumstance, has to sacrifice the good gear in order to do so. That doesn't seem right. Moreover, it seems to nullify all the excellent work Bioware put into setting up system where one HAS to make choices.

Edited December 29, 2011 by MichaelSean

[Eegorr]

Look, I get your point, and to some extent I agree, but I don't think this is a huge problem. Decide what you want your character to be like and make those choices, and screw light-side, dark-side stuff. The rewards aren't worth it anyway and you get to play a charecter you enjoy instead of worrying if you will ever get that certain piece of gear or not. There are other ways to get good gear for your toon.

 

Peace, and enjoy playing a character. I know I am (and he's a horrible person).

Edited December 29, 2011 by Eegorr