I don't think it's chaotic. Just because my Smuggler doesn't mind a little illegal trading doesn't mean he supports drug use. Just because he wont take bribes easy doesn't mean he wont find it more practical to launch at rocket at the enemy fleet instead of the moon.

 

Maybe it's a bit more chaotic for the force sensitive characters, I haven't played one yet. But there were Grey Jedi in KOTOR even.

Half the decisions in the game are, dark side - kill the guy, light side - let him live. Killing some and letting others live is chaotic, and not really neutral.

I was only making the point that they exist, like I said in that same post I don't know anything about whether the jedi appear chaotic or not. I haven't played them.

 

But Neutral fits a Smuggler very well, often times you may just be picking the more sensible solution. Turning in a senator who admits to rigging the vote doesn't make it more surprising when my smuggler encourages people on Taris to keep fighting the Rakghouls because they are demonstrably not capable of negotiation.

I agree with this. My biggest gripe with the alignment system is the approach to achieving it. Far too many quets have light/dark responses that leave me scratching my head. Like the quest on coruscant to datamine the droid to expose a corrupt politician. It's light to not do it...and let a corrupt politician continue to be disingenuous and decieve people, but it's dark to get the information to expose him and at possibly save lives....

That's one of the only reasons i don't like light and dark stuff in this game. many of the choices seem odd, so i end up going as neutral as I can sometimes.

But on the Topic....part of the reason that Bio stopped using the light/dark separation was because of all the people that were frustrated that they couldn't use half the gear in the game. They actually STOPPED advancing the light/dark gear separation due to players...I find it funny how people are wishing it back now. Guess you can never satisfy the player base...

...Personally, the idea sounds great till you have to experience it. what gear are they going to limit? are you going to be locked out of that ilvl 61 item that just dropped in 'X' Ops after a month of farming because it's dark and your light V? What if you go to the GMT and want to get a relic to equip on your character, and the only ones on the GMT are light, and your a dark I? anyone remember when saber crystals were limited by class? light players couldn't use red crystals, etc. huge outcry on that one.

The reality of the idea is that it's irritating, limiting, and for the most part ill bet that a good number of the people here that are for it would start griping the first time they were locked out of a piece the actually needed because they had the wrong alignment type. I love the idea as an RP element, but it's a horrible idea from a game balance perspective.

...unless you eliminate the roadblocks to getting the gear you need with the appropriate alignment...which would defeat the purpose for having alignment gated gear in the first place hehe....

....the only option is to make alignment a purely cosmetic idea from the get go. another possibility that would be fun is giving us better advantages with fraction alignments. start adding some fractions in the game, and make then alignment focused. so a good aligned group (like the jedi council) would respond faster to a good aligned player (good player gets rep with the fraction faster), but the same player wouldn't gain rep as fast with the "cartel", or the Justicars (I could see cartels being a neutral fraction, while the Justicars would be a "dark" republic side fraction). but this would entail allot of work setting up actual fractions, with fraction rewards and more, including a "fraction rep grind"....but I think it would be fun, and worth it if they decided to go in that direction.

Of course, I think that Fraction based content would do this game a ton of justice. have a dark Jedi? unlock justicar rep, and suddenly you have a group of new daily quests across multiple planets involving "purging" evil out of various elements. jedi Council rep unlocks quests to obtain rare artifacts, or just a few odd "fight the sith" situations. Cartels are pretty obvious....and they would probably also have some nice bounties out there for those inclined (bounty = daily quest kinda thing. random NPC go kill get reward)

Some other ideas are like the more involved character changes, as mention in an above thread, as well as possible gear looks too (light characters have their gear get less dark, etc.)

Some comestic gear that is actually ICONIC to both sides that can be modded out at level 5 would be nice.

Instead of that heroics/raid gear that looks like a crack head drew it up and called it star wars.

Half the decisions in the game are, dark side - kill the guy, light side - let him live. Killing some and letting others live is chaotic, and not really neutral.

Then by your admission only half the decisions are chaotic which seems to suggest a sense of balance after all.

Then by your admission only half the decisions are chaotic which seems to suggest a sense of balance after all.

Balance is not neutral. Killing half and letting half go does not make you neutral, it makes you chaotic. Especially if the sole purpose is to have a 0 alignment.

And consulars are the inquisitor's mirror class, so where's the problem? The abilities are direct mirrors of eachother, so exchanging them when a character of the appropriate class hits a certain dark/light status would make sense as the character's connection/attunement changes.

Except the Light/Dark/Neutral in this game is the Character's Morality and isn't really what sides of the Force they fall on. In this game, a Light Sith Inquisitor is simply a Dark Side of the Force User who isn't completely corrupted by the Dark Side [aka how Count Dooku was portrayed in the movies] just as a Dark Jedi Knight is still a Light Side of the Force User who doesn't mind killing a few people if it means the Mission and the Republic stays standing.

I agree OP. This game makes little to no use of the LS/DS alignment system, other than some cosmetic features. Its pretty worthless IMO.

I had proposed a system in this thread here several months ago where you could unlock different abilities @ each LS or DS rank. These abilities would be mirror abilities from your mirror class (i.e consular/inquisitor). All it would do is allow you to swap several key abilities or animations really, so that you could feel a little more light sided as a sith, or a little more dark sided as a jedi if you so choose.

See more here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=320803

Good luck getting a reply from BW though, rofl...

Balance is not neutral. Killing half and letting half go does not make you neutral, it makes you chaotic. Especially if the sole purpose is to have a 0 alignment.

If you choose to execute criminals there is logic to your actions, hence a neutral that is not chaotic. This is why most of the older RPGs like Baldurs Gate included lawful neutral, true neutral and chaotic neutral to further describe a character's personality motives.

I personally find pure lightside is the most diffucult to do. Even the most righteous Jedi has to cut down 20 people just on his way to the toilet and back in this game. This is more of a fault in the modern design of MMOs than anything.

A lot of what made kotor feel like kotor is absent in swtor.

Light / dark side meaning something is part of it.

Not being able to fail, ever, is the other part.

There need to be quests put in that you can actually FAIL and not retry for a while. Conversation options that are just WRONG, and have consequences. Not no matter what I win.

I feel like the kid on "Big Daddy." What're we playing? I WIN!

Theres no snese of accomplishment without the possibility of defeat.