The Bounty Hunter's Dilemma: Light versus Dark

[Vecsus]

Ok...so most of us on the forum got a chance to play the game during this past weekend's beta. And if you are like me you spent an absurd amount of time logged in to the game. One of the classes I played the least is the Bounty Hunter because it's probably the class I will play when the game goes live. After running through over 100 separate missions I got a pretty decent idea of how the Light versus Dark dialogue options affect your character. It's pretty easy to drive up your selected alignment if your goal is to max one out to unlock specific equipment.

But I foresee a problem when it comes to playing a Bounty Hunter. I'm not a hardcore roleplayer in games like this but I like to establish some level of consistency in how I envision my class should be played. I would like to approach my BH as the type of character that always fulfills the contract. Once the terms have been established and hands have been shaken there should be no deviation. Many mission types are pretty cut-and-dry: I get paid to kill a guy and after putting a few rounds in his head I collect my credits.

Unfortunately, the developers have thrown us a lot of moral choices. I might accept a mission to retrieve some stolen medical supplies only to find out they were taken by someone trying to save a bunch of sick kids. If I fulfill my contract I get 50 points of "dark" as a reward (for screwing over the kids). If I break my contract I get rewarded with "light". Sometimes the reverse happens but it all comes down to whether or not the original deal is honored or broken. I didn't examine this dilemma enough to determine how balanced the light and dark points would be but I foresee there being problem stacking enough of one alignment to unlock new gear without also raising the other to the point where you are blocked from certain items.

Anyone play a BH long enough to sort through this? Or am I just completely overthinking the issue because I no longer have access to the game and need an outlet. Be honest.

[crittcann]

I had the same sort of moral issues when accepting or completing certain quests, I actually felt like a dick at one point because of my actions, but I figured it was the type of thing a bounty hunter would do. Dev's did a pretty good job.

[Dald]

I had to force myself to be light on my jedi by answering in ways that I would not if faced with them myself. I'd be so gray.

[Dasani]

When I play the game, I tend to care more about making my companions happy with me than whether i'm being good or bad.

As a bounty hunter, mako loves you to be a good guy, but also wants you to get paid for everything you do. That's how I played it in beta, and how i'll play it in live. Mostly light side options.

[Maloreon]

Surprisingly this is an issue on Dark Side as well. Several times while playing my Imperial Agent (and other characters) the better reward came from choosing to side with someone that ultimately gave me light side points. I think they did this on purpose, to make us choose how much we care about being "truly" dark side or light side - even giving up monetary benefits. In hindsight, I like this. As a typical powergamer I normally hate stuff like this - but it also makes getting those dark/light points more satisfying I think. I also recently found out about how you can mouse-over the selections and see which will give light/dark side points. In most situations this is obvious (choosing to electrocute someone to death as a Sith Inquisitor lol) but sometimes it is pretty morally gray. Anyway, I suppose their system works pretty well - I can't really complain. I'm looking forward to leveling up higher and seeing some more of the choices they throw at us.

[frogger237]

I was 90% lightside on my bounty hunter I only darksided killing the guy hunting echoli??? in the beginning zone and then when i came back at 28 or so and killed the guy selling the great hunt plans to protect juda. I also chose to beat the shit out of that stuck up nobleman on Alderan still feel terrible about that....

What i hate about bounty hunters is your basically the Empires bitch(atleast thru lvl 29) i was hoping for more options like getting paid off by the republic and stuff. I also hated Tatooine because the options on the jawa jedis seems really forced, you can lie and capture a reg one for darkside or slaughter a bunch of innocents and try and capture a Jawa shaman for lightside???? WTF Once I realized this after talking to the Jawa shaman I actually ran out of the cave while he was attacking me and abandoned the quest.

[Tokashi]

My playstyle as Bounty Hunter is the person who pay me the most credits will get me do the job for them and if I can get more credits out of a deal than I will do it. I had a quest where I had to kill person X and then this person X offered a bribe, so then I took it and then I still had the choice to kill the guy so I did it because I got the bounty for killing him too, so I got double credit rewards from one quest... it was EPIC.

My main focus is dark side so most of my choices will be dark side points and I see that most of the choices that gave me extra credits were mostly dark side points.

Bounty Hunter story is so fun and I love it. I had loads of fun last weekend with the Beta testing, so I know that I will be playing this game day in and day out during the holidays, once again family and friends will think that I have been taken hostige or died.

To answer your question.

The choices are not always easy to make and even if you think you want to be the cold blooded BH who takes credits over lives, you sometimes feel it is not the right choice to make.

End of the day, you have to ask yourself. Are you a cold blooded, do not care about people, BH or are you a BH with some honour that knows what to say YES or NO ? if you are a BH with some honour than you will get a mixture of Lightside points and Dark Side Points.

Ahhh man, I fell in love with MMOs again!!!

Thank you Bioware for giving me FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

[Veluren]

I tried taking my bounty hunter dark side but after I shot that kid's dad while he watched I felt like an utter bastard, the rest of the starter zone consisted of how much they deserve it, screwing a smuggler by destroying his chance of trading with a hutt and getting advanced medicine to the empire, eh, considering the opponents they'll face I don't think meds will help them much, but stealing energy at the risk of having a man's entire family killed? Too much for me honestly.

He wound up leaving as nuetral with a slightly higher edge on light side.

[Lasica]

I found the bounty hunter very easy to play light side. I think I only made one dark side choice the whole time I was playing that class and I still got out of Hutta well rewarded for my efforts with a stack of credits. I found the Jedi Knight options ok and didn't have any trouble with those. The Trooper... they were bad, especially the one where the medical supplies were stolen by refugees, I choose to return them to the soldiers there, as soldiers need medicine more than refugees who the soldiers are fighting to protect.

[Tarien]

Are you guys crazy? I made every evil decision I could, dark side all the way! So hilarious killing everyone so that I could make more money or just because I could. That's how a BH should be played, a true cold blooded mercenary killer for hire!

[Vecsus]

Are you guys crazy? I made every evil decision I could, dark side all the way! So hilarious killing everyone so that I could make more money or just because I could. That's how a BH should be played, a true cold blooded mercenary killer for hire!

So you have no problem betraying your employer? Don't you think that it would eventually be bad for business if word got out that you are untrustworthy? Unfortunately, the devs can't program that into the game. Despite our ability to travel between star systems reputation for treachery fails to travel from one side of town to the other. Good thing there is no Angie's list or any other sort of employer feedback tracker in the game.

[Osskssa]

The thing about the BH that i noticed is even if your being good (which i was during the beta cos i want to go darkside at launch) your still a bad ass!

[WoWGoneBad]

well i did the BH up to bout 17

and I made sure I wanted to be the most credit hungry dead bounties killing badass in the galaxy. and for that I was very pleased that ALL the choices for my BH were all DS and really made me feel like a complete selfish credit hungry deadly killing BH

if that is what you are looking for then you will not be disappointed at all but Mako will have some very bad feelings towards you so if you want complete devotion from your companions be prepared to take some LS options from time to time

[Deleted]

On a side note, isn't there some sort of code that most of the better and respected bounty hunters follow? Something to do with always fulfilling a contract no matter what, or some such. I may be wrong, of course - but I'm sure I read something about it.

[akaTheDude]

So you have no problem betraying your employer? Don't you think that it would eventually be bad for business if word got out that you are untrustworthy? Unfortunately, the devs can't program that into the game. Despite our ability to travel between star systems reputation for treachery fails to travel from one side of town to the other. Good thing there is no Angie's list or any other sort of employer feedback tracker in the game.

ROFL please tell me you are trolling....this is a GAME, not real life

[Drihan]

On my Sith Warrior, I LOVED going completely dark with some smartass convo options, it was hilarious. If I'm going Empire when launch hits I'll stick to purely dark side options, light side if I'm going Republic.

[quras]

well i did the BH up to bout 17

and I made sure I wanted to be the most credit hungry dead bounties killing badass in the galaxy. and for that I was very pleased that ALL the choices for my BH were all DS and really made me feel like a complete selfish credit hungry deadly killing BH

if that is what you are looking for then you will not be disappointed at all but Mako will have some very bad feelings towards you so if you want complete devotion from your companions be prepared to take some LS options from time to time

As a BH I played very similar to you. To hell with Mako, She's expendable is the way I looked at it.

[Stir]

ROFL please tell me you are trolling....this is a GAME, not real life

A ROLE PLAYING GAME.
Meaning that its point is to mimic RL situations, emotions and choices as correctly as possible, while settings may alternate between realistic and fantastical.
For the player, it's a game. For the character, it's real life. The character is fictional, of course, but that has no bearing on the argument.

I love both the Bounty Hunter and Smuggler stories because I can play the mercenary character. To quote Mal Reynolds: I do the job... And then I get paid.

[Deadlycaster]

i knew this might be a problem so i just decided to go full on dark side on my sith warrior, that should take care of any and all problems :P

[Naaruminded]

If you're wanting to fulfill quests to honor your personal "code" you can certainly do that.

To get specific LS/DS tier gear you will need to pick up Diplomacy to drive your alignment that way quickly to get / maintain that tier.