The alignment system is soemthing i looked forward to since the announcement of this game. I looked forward to telling mystory, and making the decision i wanted and at the end of the day just seeing where my character stood.

When i created my character i immediately turned off all the UI options that reveal whether or not a decision is lightside or dark side, and i just choose choices based on what I would say. Which i thought was the whole point of this game.

Apparently not, as you get higher and higher level you start seeing more and more restrictions on the gear based on alingment, and nothing caters to the person who is in the middle, or even the person lagging behind. It is clear bioware has intended level gates, by level 16 you should be dark/light 1, 25 dark/light 2, 35 dark/light 3, you get the picture. Well im 36, and im 5500 light, 3000 dark which leaves me light side 2. Which is fine for me, until i get to the commendation vendor, who only sells gear that is dark side 3 or light side 3. Nothing in the middle.

Which begs the questions, why is there no neutral gear? I dont mean grey, i mean gear that has no alignment requirement at all being sold at all levels from the vendors? As it stands now, if you want to maintain your gear through commendations and quests you have to either press 1 for every response, or press 3 for every response, there is no in between.

Bioware this needs to be changed, Alignment as far as i can tell is purely cosmetic, as it should be, and if you are making it cosmetic you need to account for all variables. You can easily fix this problem by adding in gear that has no alignment to go alongside the gear that has the dark side 1 to 5 requirements.

I really cant wait to start raiding, so i can deal with the dark / light 5 gear.

Why isn't neutrality rewarded?

Because in the whole light side/dark side conflict, there is no middle ground. It's a conflict of absolutes.

Reward neutrality and you might as well pull the system entirely.

Why isn't neutrality not rewarded?

 

Because in the whole light side/dark side conflict, there is no middle ground. It's a conflict of absolutes.

 

Reward neutrality and you might as well pull the system entirely.

There are Grey Jedi you know.

There are Grey Jedi you know.

I keep hearing about the so-called "grey jedi".

Let me ask you a question.

Are these grey jedi saving babies one day and then murdering them the next?

Or do they act like light jedi who simply don't listen to everything the coucil tells them?

Why isn't neutrality not rewarded?

 

Because in the whole light side/dark side conflict, there is no middle ground. It's a conflict of absolutes.

 

Reward neutrality and you might as well pull the system entirely.

I find that all the classes especially the smuggler and Bounty hunter could totally fit with the neutral role because they are mostly indifferent to the war that is going on and I plan on playing my Bounty Hunter in such a way. I don't want to be forced to pick light/dark because I will be gimped as far as gear goes because I am not light rank 5. This whole idea of absolutes is bologney. Bounty Hunter does things purely on the idea of getting credits and whatever pays more he/she will do and that could mean a variety of things from collecting a guys head to bringing a wife to her husband unharmed.

I keep hearing about the so-called "grey jedi".

 

Let me ask you a question.

 

Are these grey jedi saving babies one day and then murdering them the next?

 

Or do they act like light jedi who simply don't listen to everything the coucil tells them?

Well that's thinking in extremes. The Grey Jedi just do the more... questionable things. They skirt the border between Light and Dark on a daily basis, without succumbing to either.

I find that all the classes especially the smuggler and Bounty hunter could totally fit with the neutral role because they are mostly indifferent to the war that is going on and I plan on playing my Bounty Hunter in such a way. I don't want to be forced to pick light/dark because I will be gimped as far as gear go because I am not light rank 5. This whole idea of absolutes is bologney. Bounty Hunter does things ourely on the idea of getting credits and whatever pays more he/she will do.

I dunno about you, but I find the idea of killing people for money kind of dark side.

Just sayin'.

Smugglers. on the other hand, could actually be more neutral.

However, most of the light/dark gear issue stems around jedi. At least, I never noticed any alignment restrictions on gear when I leveled a trooper to 50 in beta.

Well that's thinking in extremes. The Grey Jedi just do the more... questionable things. They skirt the border between Light and Dark on a daily basis, without succumbing to either.

Like forgiving people's past mistakes and giving them a chance rather than turning them in to the authorities.

Well that's thinking in extremes. The Grey Jedi just do the more... questionable things. They skirt the border between Light and Dark on a daily basis, without succumbing to either.

But you HAVE to go one way or the other. You either channel the force through strong emotions (dark side) or through rigorous discipline (light side). You don't channel the force by having no real opinions one way or the other.

They plan on adding "neutral" type gear in the future. I'm not sure why it wasn't added with the other gear - but yeah. It's coming - just not next patch. It seems like the next content patch is going to be on the smaller side. Kind of leads me to believe they plan on doing smaller updates more frequent than huge updates less often. Hopefully neutral gear gets put into one fairly soon because like you ... When I first played I picked choices based on what I thought was right in my story/to my character. And wound up perfectly neutral.

I would dig up the posts regarding this if I could search.. Tried to grab it from google but no luck. Too many posts to find the right one.

Another way to look at neutrality is to call it "questionable ethics" instead.

There is no choice.

You either go full light or full dark or get screwed......

Also, once I realised your non-force conversation options did sod all, i stopped caring.

Like forgiving people's past mistakes and giving them a chance rather than turning them in to the authorities.

Since when is forgiveness not light?

As I said before, so-called "grey jedi" tend to simply be light jedi who don't do everything they're told.

I dunno about you, but I find the idea of killing people for money kind of dark side.

 

Just sayin'.

 

Smugglers. on the other hand, could actually be more neutral.

 

However, most of the light/dark gear issue stems around jedi. At least, I never noticed any alignment restrictions on gear when I leveled a trooper to 50 in beta.

But there are quests that reward more if you retrieved a bounty alive example retrieving the slave that was working for Nemro's rival in Hutta. You ask the quest giver and he said he would pay more for the bounty to be alive, well to get that bounty alive you have to also save the slaves too. My Bounty Hunter does things based on what pays more and always does what is in the contract, he never double crosses. THis is creating him to be quite grey at level 12 he is 400 light and 500 dark.

The alignment gear is mostly orange, which is a shell that scales with mods. The gear is completely optional. If you don't want to go full light or dark you just don't get the rewards.

Look at the raid gear, that is epic without mods that is dark/light V, what are our options then, raid, and then hope for mods because we cant buy the actual gear?

How do you even try to be in the middle? i mean all the choices are really moving, and some really test your character. Do you want to kill this fool? Yes, but it is not proper, etc..

I mean i got to kill some bodies parents and what not.

I keep hearing about the so-called "grey jedi".

 

Let me ask you a question.

 

Are these grey jedi saving babies one day and then murdering them the next?

 

Or do they act like light jedi who simply don't listen to everything the coucil tells them?

Dude, my problem is, im not grey, im just not extreme light. I make decisions on what i feel, i only kill people i deem nessessary to kill. I am light side 2 at the moment, but the game is designed around the extremes, you have to be extreme light or exreme dark, are you telling me as a dark sith youd never make a light side decision ever, as a lightside jedi youd never kill anyone, ever?

Like i said, the illusion of choice.

My playstyle is not about TRYING to be grey, or light, or dark.

My playstyle is about making decision I WANT TO MAKE, and it just so happens that my decisions have my light side 2. but way to much dark side to hit lightside 3, as such i cannot buy any commendation gear from taris because it requires dark/light 3. And thats my problem

if it is my story, then why am i being punished for not being extreme light or extreme dark?

But you HAVE to go one way or the other. You either channel the force through strong emotions (dark side) or through rigorous discipline (light side). You don't channel the force by having no real opinions one way or the other.

Yes but channeling the force through strong emotions doesn't have to mean you evil. And channeling the force through discipline doesn't have to mean that you are good.

Edit: A Gray Jedi just seems them as two different power sources that can be tapped depending on the situation.

Dude, my problem is, im not grey, im just not extreme light. I make decisions on what i feel, i only kill people i deem nessessary to kill. I am light side 2 at the moment, but the game is designed around the extremes, you have to be extreme light or exreme dark, are you telling me as a dark sith youd never make a light side decision ever, as a lightside jedi youd never kill anyone, ever?

 

Like i said, the illusion of choice.

Exactly.

And if you're not extreme light, you don't get the extreme light gear.

And yes, I play a dark side sith, and no, I've never felt compelled the take the light side option. The dark side option, or the no change option, always seemed more fitting to the character.

As I said before, if you want the best gear regardless of the alignment choices you make, then there is absolutely no point whatsoever in the system, and they might as well yank it out entirely.

As a smuggler, it's certainly very restricting in terms of dialog options. My decisions are usually based on what I'd personally do, (who would have thought) so my alignment tends to be fairly neutral. That is, until I decided to pick the Light Side option regardless of whether or not I found it appropriate. Figured I might as well attempt to utilize alignment specific gear as the more options the better. That killed a lot of the fun for me as I'd like the freedom of choice without feeling hindered. I suppose you can't always have it both ways, but it makes the whole, "Experience your own story!" feel very contrived.

As stated by other posters, this game deals with extremes and absolutes. For example, when faced with the option to kill an enemy who moments ago attempted to brutally murder me, guess what I'll do? Kill them. Why? Because I feel it's morally justified. Why bother picking that option when it's just going to take a chunk out of its opposite number?

As I said before, if you want the best gear regardless of the alignment choices you make, then there is absolutely no point whatsoever in the system, and they might as well yank it out entirely.

It does not really require effort to just stack on LS/DS points. All it might require from you is to go "out-of-character" for a game mechanic that already has no point other than adding some flavor. It is a good point to keep it in the game, there is just no reason to not have neutral gear.

And it was already announced they would correct this mistake soon, so there is only waiting right now unfortunately.