Lit TOR: The Least Possible Commitment

It works better than you'd expect. Far better, certainly, than any of the Sith classes.

 

I'm a sorta more-often-light-than-dark Inquisitor and it works most of the time...

There are a few instances where the light side choice is just waaaay too goody goody for me, so I haven't stuck exclusively to one option or the other. (Seriously, you've just launched a surprise assassination attempt to bring down everything I've been doing... and you expect me to let you live and trust you to play nice in future? Even my JK wouldn't be that naive. )

I'm mostly just picking what fits the character though I guess. The Inquisitor is a former slave, so I usually show a degree of mercy for people in similar situations. I mostly agreed with the Revanites too... but the depiction of the light side is kinda extremist in places, which is where I've had to go for the darker choices because the sugary sweet light side options are just too cringeworthy in places.

 

Essentially, you're a good person that's devoted to your job, but working for the wrong people. You believe in the Empire as an ideal, if you don't agree with all of its policies. I've heard that you can eventually betray them, but I'm not certain on that.

 

The playing against type options are all a little forced, simply because it is impossible to change sides, so that you remain loyal to your faction regardless of events. You can't go rogue and join another side either - even though in certain circumstances it would make more sense for say a dark side Consular to run off and join the Dread Masters or something. This is a choice dictated by game mechanics and obviously the justifications are imperfect, but they do at least try. The light Sith Warrior makes a big point about trying to reform the Empire from within for example.

This is true, but I think it goes both ways. There are a number of dark side choices that are so purely, stupidly, idiotically evil as well.

 

That is also true. I usually avoid either extreme I suppose, which has so far tended to end up being more light on average (I'm Level 28 and still only mid-Light 1 in alignment, despite the fact I imagine I could be high-Dark 3 or so by now had I just clicked every possible dark side choice).

 

I think I'm dark 2 on my Inquisitor at lvl 29ish, and still completely grey on Knight at lvl18. The grey route does seem to be the nicest and most normal way to play, unless you are a rabid moralist or complete sociopath, anyway.

 

For all the cliches there are, I'm actually surprised how many times I've been faced with choices that are genuinely challenging.

For instance, today I rescued this woman who'd been captured by Killiks and become a Joiner. I could either drag her back to her domineering Imperial father, or let her stay with the Killks who she had started to believe were genuinely a source of happiness.

 

I dragged her back, just because after DNT I really can't stand Killiks

 

Most of my characters are light-sided, even my Sith Warrior, with my Jedi Consular I avoided any darkside points for the heck of it. My Smuggler didn't mind shooting first occasionally depending on the occasion and how much I hated the current enemy. I'm making mostly darkside choices with my Inquisitor though just to see how it ends differently. Often it also depends on what alignment my first companion is, so I can build up affection faster. The Sith Warrior's first companion is mostly nice (not heroic, but she doesn't like seeing dead bodies that much), so that influenced my choice too. On the other hand, I often like making the Agent's first companion mad as I can't stand her (especially as I'm playing my Agent as a somewhat light-sided anti-Sith patriot, which is somewhat possible, since early on the Agent's boss basically says they're janitors who clean up the messes of the Sith and military).

Although I almost always dragged that lady back from the killiks since I'm not a fan of bugs (and I think she was dragged off originally?).

I think I remember way back, maybe back in 2011 or even earlier, they said they might eventually offer "neutral" gear to those who have stayed neutral. Not that the gear requiring high light or dark is that great, but still, its annoying sometimes to pick up one of those things as loot and not be able to use it. Still no sign of it now, but that's no surprise with how busy they are with other problems.

Anyway, if you really want more lightside or darkside points, you can just rush through the low level flashpoints to get more desired points. The Esseles flashpoint (the very first Republic one) offers a few odd and few mean moments.

Player-"We need to lower the force fields for the bridge."
Engineer- "Well, you could vent engineering to reset everything."
Chief Engineer- "You idiot, we're standing in engineering and they're not! And they could just run around and reset a few other things rather than space us."

Although sometimes "lightside" choices can be presented as even more sadistic, depending on how you roleplay or at least how you present your reasoning to your boss, since often it boils down to lightside- don't kill, darkside- kill them. For instance

Spoiler

When the Sith Warrior is trying to drive a Padawan out of hiding, they hunt down that person's parents and can just kill them, or offer them a luxurious life on Dromund Kaas, and when you call up your boss to tell him they're coming, his first conclusion is to torture the parents to get to the Padawan, but my Sith actually advised keeping the deal, and Baras agrees on the basis that them living it up in Imperial space is going to drive her crazy and shake her convictions more.

 

It was also weird when, as a Jedi Consular, the "light side" options were to spy on a couple of Jedi teenagers in love, and rat them out to their Masters to be punished. (I ended up not ratting them out, but letting the guy padawan break it off on his own... though I would have really liked that lightsaber crystal they tried to bribe me with...)

 

Eh, you're better off just picking light side or dark side and going with it. If you're neutral, you don't get to use any relics.