Does anyone else think the Sith in Old Republic are ridiculously evil? To a cartoonish degree

[viranimus]

As someone playing a Sith Juggernaut, if anything I dont think the evil is evil enough. About the only "evil" motivation they can manifest with any degree is that of greed.

Example

Spoiler: Sith juggernaut early questline details

On Korriban, you are charged by Darth Barras to essentially kill your current master Tremel(i think) to which you get the choice of killing him, cutting off his hand or basically not complying with Baras.

So the "Evil" option is to Kill your master.... OOOOOh, so evil. Wait, What?thats the entire foundation of the Sith Culture?!?! and THATS evil?!"

Cause to me personally the evil option should have been to convince Tremel your only going to take his hand to trick Baras, and once the hand is removed, to Kill Tremel anyway, that way you can take the hand you cut off, grind it into meat, then feed it after being laced with posion to his daughter before she gets a chance to annoying you a little while later when you go to report to Baras, and take the other hand off post mortem to satisfy Baras need for proof but only after bludgeoning him with the disembodied hand.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

It's pretty ironic, huh? BioWare always claim that their games' moral-choice systems have difficult and ambiguous choices, and yet your one and only choice with BioWare villains such as the Reapers and Darkspawn is to slaughter them all like cattle. Seriously, how come most other villains can be persuaded to join the good guys, but not villains like the Reapers and Darkspawn?

Those two are actually pretty simple to explain. The Reapers are basically massive, robotic Nazi/Sith horrors that envision themselves as the pinnacle of existence/power, and desire to force everyone else by any means necessary to either accept their way/method of life/existence or be destroyed/forcibly assimilated. They don't want cooperation, they want utter obedience.

The darkspawn are simply mindless demonic creatures that live in their own filth underground that can only be controlled by either the call of a tainted Old God (Archdemon) or when Awakening's plot comes into play - the Architect. They are, in all aspects, incapable of creating dialogue with you. You could even call them "zombies".

OT: It's Star Wars, of course everything is going to be extreme light side or dark side. George Lucas built the Star Wars universe to be canonically incompatible with morally gray decisions winning out in any major way in relation to Force Users. Even KotOR II had morally extreme light side and dark side morality, it was simply more subtle than the first game considering the presence of characters such as Kreia, Atton and Visas. Both the Jedi Order and the Sith Empire throughout the entire lore of Star Wars was pretty much a decision between outright Nazi-esque genocide and racial supremacy, and Mother Theresa/Buddha with mind powers.

 

[Voltano]

The problem isn't the writing but the BIOWARE MORALITY SYSTEM. They suck at writing for it and the system itself sucks, but in their single player games it didn't really effect gameplay enough to take note.

Actually Bioware's single-player games are no different. In KOTOR, the force-powers had MP costs that were dependent on your alignment. Light-force powers were cheaper for light-aligned jedi, and dark-force powers were cheaper for dark-aligned jedi/sith/whatever. Each side had their offensive powers, but dark-aligned character's could use more AoE (Area of Effect) force powers to kill enemies than a light-aligned character. The light-side character just gets an AoE which hurts droids--a very rare enemy compared to the 'meatbags' that appear a lot in the game.

So for someone that would like to play as a spell-slinging jedi (me), I had to go dark-side so I could afford these powers. I could still use them if I were light-side, but the cost of MP was ridiculous when compared to a dark-character.

 

[Nuuu]

Keep in mind the game still has only been out for a month, there are plenty of room for changes, and from my perspective, can make a decent MMO.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Yeah they are ridiculously evil, but can't you just enjoy it? We all need to laugh maniacally once in a while.

Why does everything have to be serious business all the time? I want a volcano lair and a fluffy white cat dammit.

Oh and the people I met on Alderaan made me like Darth Vader a whole lot more let me tell you.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

SNIP

Yeah but sitting outside the galaxy being invisible doesn't really work that well in an MMO nor does 'not firing a single shot' sound very fun in a gameplay sense.

People are playing as Sith, there is no way this subtlety and non-action would work within the context of the game.

 

[Vrach]

I mean through a lot of these quests they aren't even goal oriented any more. They are not just evil for the sake of evil (itself a cardinal writing win) But they are evil to the point where they jeopardize their own plans and goals just to be evil.

A good example is the Black Talon instance where evil characters kill the freaking captain of the ship you are on while on the way to an important mission. This turns out to be a pretty grave mistake as his inexperienced lieutenant makes judgement errors in how to proceed which lets the enemy board the ship with sabotage droids. Its only the game balance alone that saves the mission but what kind of logic is this?

First off, that's not Sith, that's you. So if anyone's being stupid, it's you for making the choice.

At best you can call that Dark Side Sith stupid, but that's not it either, at least not for your example. You execute the captain for disobeying a direct order in combat, during a (granted, cold, but still a) war. And the order was "assault", which I'm actually mauling over whether it counts as desertion (the punishment for which is death, even in today's RL military I believe).

Second, you don't know the lieutenant is inexperienced at the time, and hell, you didn't know the captain WAS experienced. More importantly, you're not putting the lieutenant in charge, you're taking charge yourself, the lieutenant might be in charge (temporarily, until the situation is reviewed), but she is taking orders from you.

Third, this is how the Empire operates and it's how a lot of successful armies operate. Insubordination (on this level) means death, which leads to greater efficiency. Now, you may trust your subordinates to make the right calls at the right time, but that's just not how the Empire works, it's built on a strict hierarchy.

edit: Oh btw, a tidbit on the LS/DS thing. BioWare has already explained that a "Light Side Sith" is not a Republic dude by explaining that the light side actions are usually ones that a character makes for the benefit of the Empire, rather than themselves. So, going by that logic, that's one more nail in the coffin to your thought of pinning that behaviour on the Empire as the "Empire way" would be letting the captain live.

 

[Bwog]

Yes and I love it.

"Yaaaaaawn..." *Force Lightning*

 

[Dejawesp]

First off, that's not Sith, that's you. So if anyone's being stupid, it's you for making the choice.

But its not a choice. If a player wants a dark aligned character with the accompanying equipment then they must choose this course of action regardless.

At best you can call that Dark Side Sith stupid, but that's not it either, at least not for your example. You execute the captain for disobeying a direct order in combat, during a (granted, cold, but still a) war. And the order was "assault", which I'm actually mauling over whether it counts as desertion (the punishment for which is death, even in today's RL military I believe).

Even if the captain was to be executed eventually. Doing it right in the middle of a critical mission where you need his ship is stupid. Criminally stupid. His fate should be decided at a better time.

Second, you don't know the lieutenant is inexperienced at the time, and hell, you didn't know the captain WAS experienced.

Third, this is how the Empire operates and it's how a lot of successful armies operate. Insubordination (on this level) means death, which leads to greater efficiency. Now, you may trust your subordinates to make the right calls at the right time, but that's just not how the Empire works, it's built on a strict hierarchy.

He is the captain of an entire warship. It is very likely that he is at this point an experienced captain and he is certainly more experienced than his subordinates. Hence why they are his subordinates.

The Sith teach to never waste a resource and for the duration of the mission the captain of the ship is an important resource. Killing him in the middle of the mission to "make a point" makes about as much sense as a tank gunner shooting the driver in the middle of a battle for insubordination and then complaining about the tank stopping.

The choice to kill the Captain is in fact so stupid that the game has to alter the republics attack to compensate for it.

If you let the captain live the republic launches sabotage droids and boarded vessels against the Black Talon. The captain evades the droids and the players deal with the boarding party. If you kill the captain then the boarding party mysteriously vanish and the players are left to handle the droids.

And how does killing the General amount of "personal benefit"? The Empire wants the general alive but killing him is acceptable as a last resort. The player does capture him alive but then kill him in custody and for what? Just for the fun of it? That is stupid evil. Its evil for its own sake and that is poor writing

 

[Mystify]

How does this sound for a morality system that supports a balanced approach as well as the extremes:
You have your good and evil choices along the way. Some cases, the good choice will have direct, immediate benefits. Sometimes the evil choice will. If you go all good choices, you don't get all of the goodies from the choices, but you get the light side powers, or whatever the system wants to do. If you go all evil, you get the dark powers. If you did the balanced approach and did what was most beneficial(aka the greedy approach), you benefit from all of the instantaneous benefits, which should balance against the extremes.

Then you can also have the idiot joke alignment, where you are neither good nor evil, but you aren't even making selfish choices.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

Well, you can take the good side choices with what are supposed to be the "evil side." It does make a certain amount of sense of why they are so cartoonishly evil, since they literally are empowered by sorrow and hate. Being a dick=more power. Of course, the setting also is willing to show how unstable a society based around this is (the Jedi needed to do little to kill off the sith, they mostly killed themselves). The other classes, the bounty hunter and imperial agent are more subdued are at least when they do evil, it makes so SENSE (take the better deal in terms of credits is always a viable option).

You can also try screwing with the morality system to see what happens, such as going entirely neutral (balance every good with an evil option) or do things such as "always finish the job" as a bounty hunter (I.E. do every mission given to you as assigned, with morality out of the question).

 

[irequirefood]

Here's the thing:

In KOTOR II, Obsidian deliberately set out to make a clear (if rather subtle) distinction between the True Sith and the, what I'll call for lack of a better term, Classic Sith.

The Classic Sith in KOTOR II are about as evil as it gets. Each of the Triumvirate are driven by the basest of emotions: Hunger, Treachery, and the thirst for Power. They're incredibly effective villains, but only because they were deliberately used within the story setting to show how one-dimensional the Classic Sith ideology is. Sion is a great villain, but it's only when he breaks down in front of the Exile that he becomes a great character.

The True Sith, what's implied of them anyway, are far more subtle, and I believe intended as a far truer representation of what the Sith are supposed to be. They sit outside the galaxy, and are able to push it into war with itself without having to fire a single shot of their own. First by encouraging the Mandalorians to go to war, then by providing Revan with a threat he feels the need to prepare against. In doing so, they are able to throw the Republic into complete disarray, and bring the Jedi Order to its knees without having to fire up a single lightsaber.

The entire implication of KOTOR II is that the True Sith are not the cartoon villains we're used to in the Star Wars setting. Whereas Classic Sith have no goals beyond personal power and domination, the True Sith are willing to play the long game, and obviously have an ideology that goes beyond mere "UNLIMITED POWAAAAHHH!!" The overarching idea is subtlety- these guys are not mindless hate-fuelled warriors who throw lightning everywhere. They're cunning, seemingly invisible, and able to bring the galaxy to its knees without ever openly declaring themselves.

Then Bioware tries to take a hand at tackling them, and it turns out that actually, they're every bit as cartoony, over-the-top and cliched as the Classic Sith. For some reason, they're able to push the Galaxy to the brink of collapse when they sit in the shadows, but when they (for whatever reason) decide to march out in open war, they're only able to hammer out a stalemate with the Republic. Funny that. It's almost like they're not the cunning, intelligent bastards described in KOTOR II, and are the same idiotic Sith the SW universe has been selling for years now.

It's a shame. In their conception, the True Sith could have been one of the best things to happen to the Dark Side since Lord Vader himself. As it happens, they're simply co-opted into being yet another Empire-knock off, complete with Grand Moffs and Stormtroopers.

A million times this. KOTOR II still remains my favourite game because of how it differentiates from so much of the more common Star Wars stories.

As for the OP, I'm playing a Sith Marauder, and going light-side, I feel I made the right choice. Almost everything I decide to do makes sense, I'm not needlessly merciful, just to an extent that furthers the Empire appropriately. And I'm never trying to undermine/kill my master either. Which seems uncommon for an apprentice to do.

 

[Dejawesp]

Snip

Well, you can take the good side choices with what are supposed to be the "evil side." It does make a certain amount of sense of why they are so cartoonishly evil, since they literally are empowered by sorrow and hate. Being a dick=more power. Of course, the setting also is willing to show how unstable a society based around this is (the Jedi needed to do little to kill off the sith, they mostly killed themselves). The other classes, the bounty hunter and imperial agent are more subdued are at least when they do evil, it makes so SENSE (take the better deal in terms of credits is always a viable option).

You can also try screwing with the morality system to see what happens, such as going entirely neutral (balance every good with an evil option) or do things such as "always finish the job" as a bounty hunter (I.E. do every mission given to you as assigned, with morality out of the question).

But there's more to the "dark side" than hate and anger. There's love, passion, sadness, desire. The "dark side" spans all aspects of a person with focus on emotion, good or bad. The "Dark side" is about acting on emotion. Bioware makes the dark side all about baby killing when its really about harnessing the power of your emotions running rampant.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Welcome to the Star Wars setting.

This seems remarkable appropriate:

Spoiler

OT: That's pretty much just how Star Wars works, sadly. That's why I read 40k, where everyone is evil, so there's not as much contrast.

 

[Vrach]

First off, that's not Sith, that's you. So if anyone's being stupid, it's you for making the choice.

But its not a choice. If a player wants a dark aligned character with the accompanying equipment then they must choose this course of action regardless.

Yeah, it's a choice, there's light side equipment as well, not to mention the countless unaligned gear. Choice having consequences doesn't not make it a choice, quite the contrary actually. But if your argument is "well, one choice yields ridiculously better results than the other (in terms of gameplay)", well then, that's just bollox, it's simply not true.

Not to mention, choosing that option doesn't instantly make you a light side character, you can make other dark side decisions to counter it. Even if, hypothetically, you're a goody two shoes who chooses a light side option every single time, you can take Diplomacy and run enough dark side missions to sway your alignment for gameplay purposes, if you seriously think you NEED that gear and have no option (which is really, just silly).

I for one don't whore my decisions for points, I choose based on what I think is right for my character. And, for what it's worth, I cut that captain down without a second thought, because that's what my Sith character is like.

At best you can call that Dark Side Sith stupid, but that's not it either, at least not for your example. You execute the captain for disobeying a direct order in combat, during a (granted, cold, but still a) war. And the order was "assault", which I'm actually mauling over whether it counts as desertion (the punishment for which is death, even in today's RL military I believe).

Even if the captain was to be executed eventually. Doing it right in the middle of a critical mission where you need his ship is stupid. Criminally stupid. His fate should be decided at a better time.

You don't need him, you need his ship. His ship is not attached to him in any way, nor is he the only or even the most competent person to command it.

You're disposing of an incompetent, insolent leader in a manner that both transfers the command of the vessel to you (something which you're fully capable of handling) and inspires your surrounding troops not to question your orders (nor the orders of their superiors in the future) further - a message that will be sent even further than that vessel by soldiers talking, insuring obedience in your army. No, stupid is a very far fetching word for that decision.

Let's try this another way, have you ever played the Total War series? Well, if you have, you'll know that there are military situations where you need to send your army/units on what's essentially a suicide mission/battle. But see, thanks to moral, they're not gonna be happy about that and are gonna be running away at some point when they realise they don't have a shot. Now, as a leader, you know, that for the sake of the bigger picture, for the sake of your empire, you need that army to do it's best, fight tooth and nail to the last man and listen to your every command. But that doesn't come naturally to armies. What the Sith Empire does, the way it treats its military, it results in a very determined set of troops. Because they know, if they back down from a fight, even if it's a suicide mission, they'll be cut down by their own superiors.

You remember the Russian Red Army? You remember the "not a step backward" motto? You remember the officers ordering deserters shot in the back during the actual battle? We're talking about one of the most powerful and fearsome armies in the world of the time. That's what the Sith Empire is like, only, I would say, with a lot more finesse, doing those things out of discipline, instead of desperation.

Second, you don't know the lieutenant is inexperienced at the time, and hell, you didn't know the captain WAS experienced.

Third, this is how the Empire operates and it's how a lot of successful armies operate. Insubordination (on this level) means death, which leads to greater efficiency. Now, you may trust your subordinates to make the right calls at the right time, but that's just not how the Empire works, it's built on a strict hierarchy.

He is the captain of an entire warship. It is very likely that he is at this point an experienced captain and he is certainly more experienced than his subordinates. Hence why they are his subordinates.

The Sith teach to never waste a resource and for the duration of the mission the captain of the ship is an important resource. Killing him in the middle of the mission to "make a point" makes about as much sense as a tank gunner shooting the driver in the middle of a battle for insubordination and then complaining about the tank stopping.

The choice to kill the Captain is in fact so stupid that the game has to alter the republics attack to compensate for it.

If you let the captain live the republic launches sabotage droids and boarded vessels against the Black Talon. The captain evades the droids and the players deal with the boarding party. If you kill the captain then the boarding party mysteriously vanish and the players are left to handle the droids.

And how does killing the General amount of "personal benefit"? The Empire wants the general alive but killing him is acceptable as a last resort. The player does capture him alive but then kill him in custody and for what? Just for the fun of it? That is stupid evil. Its evil for its own sake and that is poor writing

Again, you're taking command yourself for the time being, not giving it to the lieutenant.

You're overestimating the captain's worth and your analogy makes him out to be a pilot, not a captain. The captain is merely a figurehead that gives orders to the others on his warship. You're capable of this task yourself and he clearly isn't - so you cut him down, because his own worth is less than the worth of showing your troops the cost of insubordination. Darth Vader did this many times in the movies and that wasn't even out of insubordination, but simply a price for failure, which is far more ludicrous.

I can't respond to the game altering thing because I haven't played the Flashpoint enough times to try both options, but either way, the game does it because it wants the situation to be different, not because (and I want you to read this out loud, so you can hear how stupid it is) your group can't handle the boarding party because an NPC is dead.

The general's life is irrelevant. I just went back through the dialogue to ensure that I'm not talking out of my arse and the situation is following:
1)The general is not a resource. He is someone who is supposed to have intel on Empire military secrets.
He has nothing to benefit the Empire, only a way to harm it. Killing him ensures he never escapes and/or gives that intel away. Letting him live is what's stupid, the only reason for it being ethics, not logic and the Empire does not have a set of ethics that would make that an issue.

2) "The Empire wants him alive" - now that's just straight bullshit. Grand Moff Kilran himself tells you plainly that he is to be captured or killed.

 

[Foxglove]

When I look at TOR it seems to be far more about law and chaos than good and evil. Bioware just tried to force the ideas of chaos and law to equal evil and good respectively for their 'morality' system and anytime it conflicts it comes across as idiocy.

An example I can think of is the imp agent starting story (from a dim dark memory). You get a chance to either kill an informant or let him live and serve the Empire.

Letting him live is a light side option.

Failing to take into account the longer term ramifications of your actions is bad writing, like it's assuming that your character is incapable of doing it either. If I choose to support the empire because it's good for me, regardless of the fact that it oppresses and persecutes, and don't satisfy myself in the instant then I can be lily white according to Bioware. In actuality though I just end up being neutral because sometimes the choices are better aligned with 'good' and 'evil' and so I do pick up dark points too.

People and real life instances don't work like this and I found that it destroyed the immersion.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

But there's more to the "dark side" than hate and anger. There's love, passion, sadness, desire. The "dark side" spans all aspects of a person with focus on emotion, good or bad. The "Dark side" is about acting on emotion. Bioware makes the dark side all about baby killing when its really about harnessing the power of your emotions running rampant.

So does Lucas. There are moments early in the original trilogy where you get a faint whiff of this concept that fear, love, etc can lead to the Dark Side, but in action all we ever see are baby killing monsters. Palpatine, Vader, Dooku, Dark Side Anakin...these guys are ridiculous cartoons. They're always murderering and choking and leering and cackling and steepling their fingers like Snidely Whiplash. This is not a good IP for moral ambiguity. That guy with the painted face and the red lightsaber and the cybernetic apparatus and the black outfit with the name Darth Terribulus? He's the bad guy. Go get him.