178 réponses à ce sujet

[upsettingshorts]

File this under things I have been saying for literally years. Though Mass Effect with it's blue/red morality system was by far the bigger target of my frustrations of this nature. Dragon Age has been better, but in many of the examples in which it bucks the trend, the consequences are not felt by the player, only read by them removed from their context and immediate relevance.

 

Basically, I'd really like it if the entire concept of video game morality was changed to recognize that being the good guy/gal is a reward in of itself. This is especially true in a universe where characters react to you. If your character is seen as a savior for doing good deeds, that has real value. Your character can walk the streets among those he has saved and feel their appreciation. This is the experience of Paragon Shepard. And it comes cheap because Paragon Shepard always wins just as easily.

 

I'd prefer it if decisions broke down more along the lines of ethics versus expedience. That means Paragon - to borrow a term from Mass Effect which never applied to Dragon Age, but can stand in well enough for "good guy" options of all sorts - paths are harder, more challenging, place more restrictions on the player, or provide fewer (if any) tangible rewards in things like gold or loot.  Renegade - again borrowing - should offer more, perhaps darker, options, better rewards, and a more likely shot at victory.

 

This would have the effect of making the decision largely academic at low difficulty levels. But the higher you raise the bar for yourself, the challenge of maintaining your character's own self-image and dedication to principles gets harder and harder.  You and your character would as a consequence be faced with the same dilemma: What price am I willing to pay for victory?

 

In my opinion, the current way games - including BioWare ones - tend to do morality choices is to present them as little more than flavor. Good flavors, to be sure. But video games present us with opportunities other mediums do not, and to place us in situations where we can truly relate to our characters' choices on a meaningful, if not essentially the same, level is something they can achieve with the right scenarios.

[Bob from Accounting]

Until the advent of time travel or alternative means to look into the future, it's, by definition, the best path to take.

[Bob from Accounting]

 

Basically, I'd really like it if the entire concept of video game morality was changed to recognize that being the good guy/gal is a reward in of itself. This is especially true in a universe where characters react to you. If your character is seen as a savior for doing good deeds, that has real value. Your character can walk the streets among those he has saved and feel their appreciation. This is the experience of Paragon Shepard. And it comes cheap because Paragon Shepard always wins just as easily.

 

I'd prefer it if decisions broke down more along the lines of ethics versus expedience. That means Paragon - to borrow a term from Mass Effect which never applied to Dragon Age, but can stand in well enough for "good guy" options of all sorts - paths are harder, more challenging, place more restrictions on the player, or provide fewer (if any) tangible rewards in things like gold or loot.  Renegade - again borrowing - should offer more, perhaps darker, options, better rewards, and a more likely shot at victory.

 

This would have the effect of making the decision largely academic at low difficulty levels. But the higher you raise the bar for yourself, the challenge of maintaining your character's own self-image and dedication to principles gets harder and harder.  You and your character would as a consequence be faced with the same dilemma: What price am I willing to pay for victory?

 

This is an interesting idea, but I think you're seriously kidding yourself on how difficult it would be.

 

This is a video game. A video game. Not a Olympic event. Not an examination. What 'price' the player is paying is a 'price' paid by sitting on a couch, eating chips, enjoying interactive entertainment in an air conditioned room.

 

As it should be. As it must be.

 

It's never going to turn into work, and it shouldn't. It's going to be a challenged designed to be beatable by mediocre and even poor players. Any teenager or even child who plays games on a regular basis will be able to do it.

 

You don't earn success and competence for the player character. You never do. You never have.

[wolfhowwl]

Quite the contrary. It seems to me 'power fantasy' would be a story where a supposed powerful and competent character is dragged down to failure. Such a failure elevates the audience up. Makes them better in comparison. It's completely natural people looking to fiction for a 'power fantasy' would delight in seeing a powerful character lose horribly. Look at the success of reality television and tabloid magazines.

 

Now, a heroic story, that's entirely different. It brings the flaws and shortcomings of the audience only further into the light. Which I imagine might be very offensive to some of the same people.

 

Your psychoanalysis is as fascinating as ever, David.

 

However not having the game universe warp so every idealistic choice pays off in the player's favor is hardly dragging  a "powerful and competent character" down to failure. It's keeping them grounded in reality by facing the realistic consequences for their actions.

 

They may have trusted someone who shouldn't have been or they made a reckless gamble and it didn't pay off. Idealism doesn't always pay off and a "powerful and competent character" can handle it. Sometimes being good is hard.

[upsettingshorts]

This is an interesting idea, but I think you're seriously kidding yourself on how difficult it would be.

 

This is a video game. A video game. Not a Olympic event. Not an examination. What 'price' the player is paying is a 'price' paid by sitting on a couch, eating chips, enjoying interactive entertainment in an air conditioned room.

 

As it should be. As it must be.
 

 

I don't think it's foolish to suggest that a game might have a quest in which Doing The Right Thing is Dark Souls-level hard, and Just Getting the Job Done is closer to being a walk in the park. I'm not necessarily suggesting that the former path need to be much more difficult. Our minds don't need it to be for us to sense real value in the way the choice is presented to us, and what it means for us and our character for having taken whatever path we chose.  We'd know that we'd taken the harder path because it was "the right thing to do" or taken ethical shortcuts because we felt we couldn't risk failure, or were simply frustrated, or impatient, or greedy. 

 

It's still a video game, and ultimately unlikely to be a significant character building moment for any of us players. But a choice like that would be a significant moment in building your character. RPGs are, at their best, a collection of compelling opportunities to build and experience our characters.

[Bob from Accounting]

You underestimate the medium in its entirety.

 

Quite the contrary. It's you who assumes players are mostly like you, likely heavily invested and highly skilled, for whatever that counts for. A person who expects their 'video game skills' to be rewarded.

 

Developers and myself realized the medium is made up of a much larger population. Of many players of various skills, who mainly just want to enjoy themselves and a story. Or who simply aren't that good at video games.

 

Developers want to make a product they can enjoy as well. And they should. They're not going to remove easier modes for your benefit.
 

[KaiserShep]

You don't earn success and competence for the player character. You never do. You never have.

 

Why you gotta crush the dream, bro?

[Bob from Accounting]

I don't think it's foolish to suggest that a game might have a quest in which Doing The Right Thing is Dark Souls-level hard, and Just Getting the Job Done is closer to being a walk in the park. I'm not suggesting that the former path would be impossible even on the hardest difficulty, but our minds don't need it to be for us to sense real value in the way the choice is presented to us, and what it means for us and our character for having taken whatever path we chose.  We'd know that we'd taken the harder path because it was "the right thing to do" or taken ethical shortcuts because we felt we couldn't risk failure, or were simply frustrated, or impatient, or greedy. 

 

It's still a video game, and ultimately unlikely to be a significant character building moment for any of us players. But a choice like that would be a significant moment in building your character.

 

No. This is not a chore to slog through. This is not work.

 

It's a game. It's entertainment.

 

If that's what you really want, I'm sure there are a few niche products that cater to it. But getting the 'best' story in a video game should never involve no longer having fun. It should never involve tedious work. And for most people, that's exactly what you're suggesting is.
 

[Bob from Accounting]

I think what you would end up with is something along the lines of the ending of GTA V. Yes, you have an extra challenge, but it's really no sweat compared to anything else in the game. Is that better than nothing? Eh.

[Innsmouth Dweller]

(...)It should never involve tedious work. (...)

 

EVE Online does... 

[upsettingshorts]

I think you're reading too much into my proposition. I'll resort to numbers.

 

For what I'm suggesting to work, the challenge disparity need not be as vast as you think I'm implying.  You seem to think that I'm suggesting:

 

Be a bad guy: Difficulty set to 0.  Be a good guy: Difficulty set to 10.

 

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the concept needs to be applied to the entire game. A concept like that applied to an entire game must do so appropriately and consider the overall difficulty level and the challenge of each encounter. So while an early fight against trash on low difficulties might present a 0/1 split, a boss fight on the hardest difficulty might present a 8/10 split. Or, if the moral choice being offered was perhaps crucial to the scripted narrative, 6/10. Taken over the course of an entire play through, those 0/1s, 1/2s, 2/4s, occasional 3/6s... they add up. To whoever kind of person your character turned out to be.

 

Again, we don't need the actual difference in challenge to be very big. We just need it to be different enough for our brains to acknowledge that a harder or easier path has been chosen. Accomplishing that isn't terribly demanding, and it is not the challenge to casual gamers you imagine it is.

[Bob from Accounting]

Hmm. I just mentioned the ending to GTA V? Have you played it? Did you find it satisfying? (Not so much the writing, but the mechanics of 'earning' the best ending.)

[MassivelyEffective0730]

No. This is not a chore to slog through. This is not work.

 

It's a game. It's entertainment.

 

If that's what you really want, I'm sure there are a few niche products that cater to it. But getting the 'best' story in a video game should never involve no longer having fun. It should never involve tedious work. And for most people, that's exactly what you're suggesting is.
 

 

You're applying a false conclusion here. You're saying that your idea of the conclusion is the only thing that will happen. I'd think that you'd be willing to get more out of a game by putting more into it. 

 

And that's what I believe. The more effort and work you put into a game, the more reward you get out of the game. It can't all be mindless just for you David. And don't pretend that you care about other people's happiness David. You're one of the most selfish posters on these boards.

[upsettingshorts]

Also, I feel one of my points is getting lost, and that is with respect to quest rewards. I don't want to bog that argument down with unnecessary examples so I'll state it plainly: I do not think the Good Option and the Bad Option should receive equal material rewards upon completion, because gratitude - as well as positive self-image - while intangibles are also rewards.

[upsettingshorts]

Hmm. I just mentioned the ending to GTA V? Have you played it? Did you find it satisfying? (Not so much the writing, but the mechanics of 'earning' the best ending.)

 

I lost interest in GTA V long before the ending.

[Bob from Accounting]

Did I mention skills?

 

I meant rational deduction, educated guesses... you know, things that do not insult player intelligence.

 

Maybe you should demonstrate it a bit more to have it insulted less. Like right now, for instance.

 

Whatever challenges are put in the game, what puzzles, whatever 'rational deductions' are necessary, they should be challenges a reasonably intelligent and through player has a good chance of solving the first time through.

 

In other words, most of the video game population should be able to do it. Which means that anyone who spends time on the BioWare forum is probably going to have a pretty easy time.

[Bob from Accounting]

I lost interest in GTA V long before the ending.

 

Understandable. The only example I could think of. Well, the player is forced to chose to kill either Micheal or Trevor, or take a third option and try to save them both. So you have to go through a big battle you don't get with the other choices. It's touted up a bit as a 'deathwish,'but in reality it's really pretty easy for the player.

 

But, there is a big battle nonetheless. Dialogue and music. There is an atmosphere there. I'm sure a few endorphins are squeezed out of the noggin.

 

Would that sort of thing fit your requirements?

[nightcobra]

I'm more of a "morality is on the eyes of the affected" (sorry if i'm not making the point across)

where the difficulty and reward of an action don't have to be tied to morality, both can be easy/difficult and with no/low/high rewards.

 

example(just what came popping into my mind):

 

becoming a king through shady political deals, dealing with difficult backstabbing diplomatic quests

becoming a king through honorable means, with the difficulty being gaining the hearts and minds of both the common people and nobles.

[upsettingshorts]

Without having played it, and based solely on your description, sure. But the value of it is undermined by the fact its GTA, and the characters aren't really our own. In that example, it's more of a question of which story I want to play out, or just an arbitrary decision to determine my own micro-difficulty level.  GTA isn't really an RPG in any sense that allows you to influence their personality, and doesn't have a morality system (under the hood or otherwise) like Mass Effect or KOTOR or Jade Empire. So a lot of the reasons I have for wanting the system I do simply don't apply. But mechanically something along those lines would be acceptable in the right game as an example of what I have in mind. The actual physical challenge of completing the extra task could vary by overall difficulty level. Keeping it relatively easy (as you suggest) on Normal or Casual would be fine and accomplish the kind of goals I'm imagining, I think.

 

"Save both of them on Nightmare" could on the other hand be very hard, the kind of thing that ends up on an Achievement list or something.

[nightcobra]

and i also like to roleplay different character mindsets even if that means i get a less than ideal ending, the main thing is that it makes sense with the character i create and it's all within the world's rules.

 

that's why the "why would i choose the other endings when this one's the best?" reasoning doesn't really hold a lot of water for me, yes it's still a valid argument but for me it's of negligible value due to my own reasoning.

[Bob from Accounting]

But mechanically something along those lines would be acceptable in the right game as an example of what I have in mind. The actual physical challenge of completing the extra task could vary by overall difficulty level. Keeping it relatively easy (as you suggest) on Normal or Casual would be fine and accomplish the kind of goals I'm imagining, I think.

 

"Save both of them on Nightmare" could on the other hand be very hard, the kind of thing that ends up on an Achievement list or something.

 

Okay. This sounds like a good, workable idea, now that you've elucidated. I have no problem with completing a few extra challenges when I make good decisions as sort of a pseudo-price so long as they stay fun and don't verge into tedium or frustration. After all, I like the game to be as long as possible.

 

Sir, you have convinced me of something over the internet. Congrats.

[upsettingshorts]

Okay. This sounds like a good, workable idea, now that you've elucidated. I have no problem with completing a few extra challenges when I make good decisions as sort of a pseudo-price so long as they stay fun and don't verge into tedium or frustration. After all, I like the game to be as long as possible.

 

Sir, you have convinced me of something over the internet. Congrats.