LogFAQs > #878682770

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Still, I'm of the opinion that games need to abandon this morality-ending bullshit altogether, because not a single game has done it correctly. ME and the Paragon/Vanguard stuff came the closest, but ME3 made it all for not anyways.

The problem with BioWare was that every morality system they ever had is basically echoing Knights of the Old Republic.

And the problem there is, KotOR was basically coming from two separate places - it was already starting off broken because it was rooted in Lucas' childishly simplistic view of how morality works when the Force is involved (which is one of the weaker parts of the GOOD movies, let alone the terrible ones), and on a technical level, KotOR was mimicking how Baldur's Gate handled morality (ie, with a very simplified version of D&D's alignment system, where everyone was basically on a scale from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil - where 1 was EEEVIL and 20 was Saint, and you'd gain or lose a point or two for everything good or bad you did). The end result was simplistic as fuck, and often a bit awkward if you didn't want to be a literal saint or a sadistic serial killer. And since they tied the high-level powers into alignment, it meant that you were effectively being punished for trying to be neutral, or even just deviating too much from the "correct" path as determined by your Force alignment.

Jade Empire was pretty much the exact same system, only with different names and the attempt to make it SEEM different making the Closed Fist logic even more broken (a problem Mass Effect inherited, because they NEVER really knew how to handle Renegade right - it basically became "anything that doesn't qualify as Paragon", with Paragon being "goody two-shoes"). And Mass Effect started out mostly as just Jade Empire morality with a paint job.

Ironically, the Dragon Age games are the only major BioWare titles that deviated from the KotOR model when it came to "morality" - which it did by copying everything from KotOR2 instead. They dropped the idea of "alignment" per se in favor of "influence" with your companions, which generally just had the effect of making most of your choices seem a bit weaker and encouraging people to game the influence system.

Dragon Age 2 probably got closest to what I tend to want out of an "alignment" system in games - a tangible effect from your dialogue choices (choose mostly Sarcastic responses and Hawke's ambient dialogue will switch to Sarcastic, some other characters may talk about you differently, you may get special reaction options not normally available - choose mostly Diplomatic or Harsh options and you'll go that way instead), but one NOT tied to either powers or arbitrary Persuade option bullshit, meaning you can pretty much pick whichever options you want, whenever you want, and aren't locked in to certain choices for game reasons. Plus there's always a bit of free-flow - my original Hawke started the game somewhat diplomatic, turned sarcastic, and then spent a lot of the late game bitter and terse, all motivated by events in-game.

(The fact that they kind of dropped that in DA:I is one of the many reasons so many characters in that game felt bland as shit, and there was so much less motivation to see "different" Inquisitors).

My problem is I see morality (or "choice" mechanics) the same way I see alignment in D&D (no matter how much Shadow hates it). It doesn't matter if loads of games get it wrong, the CONCEPT itself DOES have storytelling possibilities, and I'm usually willing to suffer through mediocre or merely "good" ones in the in the hopes that someday we'll get an actual great one.

Because otherwise, you've got a game like Fallout 4, where you have tons of dialogue choices, but it feels like literally nothing you say ever matters.


---

"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family