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[levyjl1988]

I love the concept behind morale choices in video games. It in theory presents the player with tough decisions to make them think depending on the circustances of the situation. However, I take issue with how most games implement them. 

1. The Good Guy/ Bad Guy Meter. 
ie) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect Trilogy 

Rewards are handed out to the player if they go to either one of the extremes. If you go full light side/ Paragon or dark side/ Renegade when presented a morale dilemna. Faced in such a situation players would think "What will provide a boost to the necessary meter?" rather than the consequences of the choice. I dislike how those who choose to not stick with one particualr path are penalized. There is no reward for going neutral in these Mass Effect games. 

Player behaviour often dictates that majority of them attempt to maximize the most of all the things they can earn arbitraily in a video game. Games need to reward bad behavior and punish good behavior, there is an associated stigma with being good all the time. I wish from time to time games would attempt to discomfort its plaer with choices that are more grey and open to interpretation. Trying to understand both perspectives of a choice and chose the one that feels most comfortable to the player. Having players think of the reprocussions if a situation similar were to rise, what would the player do. 

Being lawfully good in games needs to come back and bit you every now and then.
ie) Tell Tale's The Walking Dead demonstrates that making choices are important. 

It works in conjunction of what story they are trying to tell, but at the same time they are quite mature with it. How these choices are made are indicated by feedback to the players on the top left side such as "Clementine will remember this". Rather than a binary method or you gained paragon points, etc. Essentially this game design mechanic is outdated to be considered for next gen consideration. There are always some form of reward attached to it, making it pointless. Players are opted to often decide before the game if they want to be good or bad at either extremes to get the best ending/weapon/ item/ skill/ etc in the end. 

Players should be more focused on the situation at hand and how to deal with it. Iguess I can understand Star Wars: KOTOR only because the world in itself is quite black and white. The grey characters, usually being more interesting demonstrating that both extremes are bad. In Mass Effect it shouldn't work this way. It feels on par with fallout 3's system with the karma system. Where it is okay to kill bandits, but not loot them is confusing to the player. Looting the body of a bandit is alright after he is dead and the player won't be penalized for it with negative karma. 

More thought needs to be put by players behavior and how they approach a situation. 


2. Achievements

Achievements in games quite often dicate how a player should play the game, where as the game tries to offer choice, achievements would subliminally dicatate and suggest what path to play rather than leaving it up to the player. This is very contradictory to what the game designers intended. making achievements based on completion of quests is better than telling them what to do inside the quest is highly preferable. 

3. After thoughts

I personally think that choices that are all bad or result in a bad consequence are the best. The Walking Dead displayed this marvously. Where it's not a game were you were always winning, but instead slowly losing bit, by bit. You never make a decision and have someone slap you on the back, hand you a beer, and congratulate you. Instead it makes you regret having to make a choice at all. 

The decision in mass effect 1 where you have to leave either Kaiden or Ashley was a great one, it showed this choice throughout the trilogy. Another one that I found interesting was talking to Kelly Chambers in Mass effect 3 if she survived. 

You are presented two choices. On the top right side was " Take care of the refugees" on the bottom right was "Change your idenetity". Now often in Mass Effect we are already acclimated that paragon choices usually appear at the top right, better paragon choices are highlighted in blue on the top left, renagade, bottom right, true renegade, bottom left. Change your identity was on the renegade side. And by selecting it, it was an astute decision, where as the top felt true but without the sketpism of danger. 

I think to make a better decision game is the removal of a points system, as choices in itself never measured by paragon or renegade. Only until Bioware truly understands this we can perhaps get a mature title like TT's The Walking Dead, the Witcher 2, Alpha Protocol, or Spec ops to name a quick few. 

Having things never work out all the time in games demonstrates the fragility of making careful decisions and seeing what happens when you least expect it benefits the storys flow and peaks of interest. 

In Dark Knight for example Batman always had to make a choice, but each choice whittles down, in the end he doesn't win, but always endures and that's what choices in games imo should be. 

Much as how Naughty Dog evolves their games with their audience, Bioware should do the same. 
Things need to be more immersive next gen. 

[Slayer299]

You have an interesting idea here, but a big problem is that the you want the next ME game to be a very dark game with very grim dark choices. Choices which are in fact *all* bad, now in TWD those sorts of choices made sense, but the ME series isn't such a grim dark world and I don't think it would work as as very good one either. It has been at *best* darker-ish with Cerberus, but those were decisions not made by the player or affected him/her directly.

The ME series has been for the most part the opposite of what you are asking for and such a switch could very well drive people away from the series instead of retaining/attracting them. TWD is a known dark game as setup by the tv series whereas ME is clearly not.