Light vs. Dark Side

zhorzh · Post by **zhorzh** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 6:48 am

So i'm about to start the game.
How did u guys find the Light/Dark side ?
Im not talking about various feats/bonuses/skills.... but just in general did u like light or dark side more ?

I know it depends on your gameplay style and all that...but some general views would be helpful.

I played the KOTOR I 3 times over and have found the light side being somewhat stronger overall (MHO).
So 4 you guys that have already finished w/ both sides:

what is it then ?

Exil · Post by **Exil** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:20 am

i only play good....cause i cant be evil in games i feel bad.
i wish it was like that in real life.

Macleod1701 · Post by **Macleod1701** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:24 am

Haven't tried DS yet as I want to complete each character type on light first but in general the LS is the way for me, kinda hard for me to be too bad all the time.

Ergophobia · Post by **Ergophobia** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:10 am

I'm playing LS now, nearly finished the game. I think I'll enjoy another time of light side better than going dark side... it's simply a little harder (you cannot cast Storm all the time) and it gives you a better feeling overall.

Lowkei · Post by **Lowkei** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:07 am

I would lightside is best in terms of story and gamepaly, but if you wanna get loads of money and kill alot then go darkside. Hope dat helps

Admo · Post by **Admo** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 2:17 pm

I don't like the way darkside works, you can't just be a nasty, offensive force-power wielding bad guy. You have to be downright evil whenever you can, and you only get obvious bad lines to say to people. No REAL oppurtunities to be underhand or only half-cruel.

Prefer light-side anyway, I think its probably better by the end of the game, when you have an uber-saber, Force Enlightenment is probably the best power in the game if you have Master Valor/Speed/Aura, which is easily possibly even with a Guardian/Weapon Master, makes you an incredible melee fighter.

EDIT: Plus there's more than enough loot to build a VERY nice saber or any other melee weapon by breaking down and constructing new upgrades.

Jon_Irenicus · Post by **Jon_Irenicus** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 2:18 pm

It's easier to play dark side first (to finish the game once) and chase the story playing light side the second time around. I've played both games (KOTOR 1 and 2) like this and it agrees with me well.

Dark side is too powerful in terms of combat and you can always fall back on force lightining to wipe out lots of enemies. Storywise, you'll be "STFU DIE DIE DIE" most of the time, so you'll miss dialouges.

Still, first tiem around is "scouting" for me when playing these games, trying to see what items are available, what upgrades, classes, NPCs, planets, etc... So I can make up with the knowledge from DS to patch up LS 8and weak combat)

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:04 pm

[QUOTE=Exil]i only play good....cause i cant be evil in games i feel bad.
i wish it was like that in real life.[/QUOTE]

It's pretty sad, but I have that same problem. I tried to play the first one on dark side after completing the game as light side. I felt guilty the whole time, and still was more in a "gray area" than pure light side. *sigh*

So, anyway, I prefer light side, as a rule. Still, there seem to be tangible benefits to playing on dark side in KoTOR2.

Admo · Post by **Admo** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:32 pm

You have a point - Dark Side edges it in taking out large groups, but one-on-one light-side owns in my opinion, superb buffing powers, they can last it out in the larger battles but its only toe-to-toe they really show their stuff.

Jon_Irenicus · Post by **Jon_Irenicus** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:15 pm

Well, the DS classes generally use the same thing when fighting groups of enemies (force storm and sometimes insanity) and they differ greatly when fighitng a single character.

I think it's pure melee with Marauders, especially if they go heavy armor style. If you go robes (and you can, since marauders don't require that much defense, the bonus vitality from fury soaks up everything) they can fire up plauge before combat, speed up and start whacking away. Used as such, I think marauders are better than jedi weapon masters, because of fury vitality and strength bonuses and the damage bonus, you already have everything you could with enlightenment.

Assassin is kinda fun, since you have a great number of choices. Whack away with saber after plauge and speed, finish up with force crush, or do the exact opposite. Of course playing Sith Lord is a joke, sicne high wisdom means plauge coupled with crush is deadly enough.

dragonemp · Post by **dragonemp** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:59 pm

1 on 1, nothing can compare to force crush..... but your PC is too strong anyway, even the weakest ever can eat anything alive in game..... so any build could work.

Darth Zenemij · Post by **Darth Zenemij** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:06 pm

I still remember the first time I went D/S through KOTOR 1.I killed the Duros in the sith base and I felt so bad,yet so good....But off topic,D/S is better that way you can go aroud killing people out of random and just be as stupid as you want to be,like those sudden urges to that make you just want to hurt someone at your'e work/school just take it out on the peeps at KOTOR 2.I found it a easier that light side,having you take the secret box to some dumb hutt all the way on tatooine,just to find out that it is some random Rakata in some jail and makes you guess riddles and you end up dieing anyway some how.But yeah I love the dark side.Till the end

Darth Moudi · Post by **Darth Moudi** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:27 pm

[QUOTE=Exil]i only play good....cause i cant be evil in games i feel bad.
i wish it was like that in real life.[/QUOTE]

Yeh. Same here. Even though I'm playing one dark ass Sith Lord I kinda regret it. I havent played a Jedi Weapon Master yet. Is it worth it. I've been a good Sith Lord, a good Sith Marauder, Jedi Master and Jedi Watchman. All good. I just like to play Sith Lord because I like the title. By the way how are you supposed to get new dialogue?

Lexander · Post by **Lexander** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:03 pm

I finished with a Sith Lord. With 600 force points and high wisdom and charisma you can heal as much as you want and cast force lighting as much as you want.
Towards the end of the game with force potency my force lighitng was doing around 180 damage. 2 Force lightning basically cleaned a room with anything in it. As for bosses ... Atris, Sion, Kreia and Nibhisomethingus never touched me ... force crush is probably the cheapest move. ever. It did about 200 damage even to bosses and completely immobolized them.
DS is fun if you just want to kill massive amounts of things really easily ... as far as gameplay ... IT SUCKED.

The typical diologue looks like this:
Q: "So what brings you to Dantooine?"

A:
1. Gives LS points
2. Gives LS points
3. Gives LS points
4. Gives LS points
5. And now you die.

It's very biased.
Sometimes you just want to tell off some annoying merc just because you don't like his attitude not because you want LS points ... and it's not possible.
In Telos the Ithorians promise to heal you ... I was going to help Czerka out ... but I decided not to because the Ithorian was going to heal me ...
5 force points was really ... i mean really ... worth helping people out and not being a sith lord. Not.
Sometimes you'll get LS points for the hell of it ... I wasn't being a complete **** to the Handmaiden ... only being **** ... not as **** as possible ... and when the conversation was over I got LS points.

I'm playing the game again as an LS character ... it's not even funny how many more things you can say ... and not worry about getting LS points.

Struttdaddy · Post by **Struttdaddy** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:52 pm

[QUOTE=Admo]You have a point - Dark Side edges it in taking out large groups, but one-on-one light-side owns in my opinion, superb buffing powers, they can last it out in the larger battles but its only toe-to-toe they really show their stuff.[/QUOTE]
I agree...but my question is can you train your companions as siths if you go dark side? Ive got Atton already following me to the dark side, but I wanna know if I'll be able to get Mira and Handmaiden with me? Cuz everytime I do something "darkside" I loose influence with them.

ChAoS5674 · Post by **ChAoS5674** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:02 pm

Personally.... in kotor I there was a bunch of funny **** to do and say to enjoy it.... but b4 my disc bugged out on me there was a **** load of saying 3 things getting the same answer... iunno if they tested this game enough cause it's bug city... in kotor I by the end of the second planet i had full dark side... i was right at the top (if you kill the whole family and talk to the council they happen to all give you dark side) but when i played kotorII... the dark side is just boring and they dont change their answeres too much if they do... or maybe it was just a couple spots that i noticed, iunno... but i dont think they captured the same dark side humor in the last one...

Lexander · Post by **Lexander** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 1:52 am

[QUOTE=Struttdaddy]I agree...but my question is can you train your companions as siths if you go dark side? Ive got Atton already following me to the dark side, but I wanna know if I'll be able to get Mira and Handmaiden with me? Cuz everytime I do something "darkside" I loose influence with them.[/QUOTE]
I don't know about Mira, because I got Hanhar instead ... but my handmaiden was as dark as you can possibly get.
You can get influence by letting her teach you fighting techniques and some diologue will actually score you DS points and Handmaiden influence.

I recommed saving before you talk to them and if you get a reply you don't like just reload and try something slightly different.

Bao-duhr was actually the hardest character to get to the darkside for me ... I only managed to get him slightly evil. His Darkside look is the most wicked one though.

A quick question for the people that got Mira instead of Hanhar ... what bonus do you get from Keria for having her onboard. The wookie got me +2 strength +1 constitution ...

Jon_Irenicus · Post by **Jon_Irenicus** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:49 am

Every time you get influence with someone, their alignment shifts towards yours. Unfortunately, while this is easy to do when playing Light Side (because almost all potential jedi NPC influence are based on light side dialouges/actions), when you are playing Dark Side, there are problems.

If you really want an NPC to be a dark jedi, you'll need to sacrifice some of your own DS points by doing good deeds when they are in your party. Alternatively, you can try exhausting the dialouge options with the NPC, but: 1. not all NPCs can be influenced till the "make jedi" point simply by dialouge, 2. even some dialouge options with influence give you LS points.

A good tactic is to leave "random killings" that are part of a side quest and give you DS till the end and finish them up after getting desired NPCs to be dark jedis. This way to you DS point reserves to get you back to mastery when you have done good deeds to impress your followers.

Darth Moudi · Post by **Darth Moudi** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:13 pm

[QUOTE=Struttdaddy]I agree...but my question is can you train your companions as siths if you go dark side? Ive got Atton already following me to the dark side, but I wanna know if I'll be able to get Mira and Handmaiden with me? Cuz everytime I do something "darkside" I loose influence with them.[/QUOTE]

No. The only way they wont be d***s to you when your mean to people is if you started them out evil. Like if you unlocked like handmaidens force abilities when on the darkside then she becomes a DARK Jedi guardian. If you unlock her powers when on the lightside then she is not dark and will be mean to you when your being mean to others. If she does start as a dark jedi guardian then she will enjoy hurting people.

Faelyn · Post by **Faelyn** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:32 pm

On the force power useage subject:

I finished as Jedi Master with well over 550 force points and a decent charisma. I could pretty much force storm to my hearts content. Having 26 wisdom help of course.

Jedi Master is supposedly the 'use the force and don't melee' class, but I've pretty much finished all bosses sabre-to-sabre without any trouble. Did about 150 dmg per flurry with a decent sabre, so whats the point in going weaponmaster?