268 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

But won't a choice that evaluates to the least risk of resulting in an undesirable outcome "feel right"? If so, what do we evaluate as an undesirable outcome, how probable we deem it to be and how we evaluate the risk-reward -ratio is how we arrive to the conclusion. How we make these calculations is relevant here, and its there where our morals, personal and cultural biases lie. I'd say that because of this, deep down, none of our decisions are independent from our personal ethics and biases. Our rational decision making is almost never free of individual and cultural bias, and our intuition is almost never free of rational thought. They are so dependent on each other I find it problematic to try and differentiate between the two.

I don't know about you, but I felt like sh*t after killing Mordin while being completely convinced that sabotaging the cure is the only sane and rational way to act. With other Shepards, I actually looked for a way to rationalize the cure so I could make that decision without feeling stupid. I couldn't. Eventually I ignored this problem and chose for the outcome if it felt right for that character, but every single time I resented that Bioware pushed a stupid choice just because it was the intuitively good one.

 

The conflict is ultimately about what you would prefer to work (the cure - who wouldn't want this to work, really. It feels like the right thing to want) against what you rationally evaluate to work (the sabotage). If you tell me you never experienced such a conflict, then I'll voice my suspicion that you've been deceiving yourself. What you feel is about who you are, what you rationally evaluate is how the world is. it is the point of such evaluation to be detached from what you feel as much as you can manage, else there would be no point to it, and thus there is the potential for conflict.

 

Bias comes in when you decide about whether the outcome is worth it. There can be no objective way to decide that, in some way it's always personal. Say you recognize an equal risk of things going wrong or right. Do you take the risk or do you avoid it? That's personal. The evaluation of the risk itself can be done in a reasonably objective way. Many people are biased in that as well because they want their "right" choice also to be the rational one, but more often than not it's easily recognizable as self-deception.

 

Here's another example from DAO: the Anvil of the Void decision: I can strongly suspect someone will abuse it if I save it. Do I think it's worth saving? I know my personal bias tells me to always save it for unrelated reasons, and I often do save it, but I do know quite well there will be very undesirable side effects. That's the result of rationally evaluating the outcome, and to come to a different conclusion and say there will be no abuse means to deny human nature. It's as objective as things can be, and if no abuse materialized, that would be a very big surprise. It's all a matter of going into the decision with open eyes, without attempting to deny things you might not like.

 

Rational evaluation, that means to me that people can as easily recognize the risks inherent in their preferred choices as they can in choices they intuitively reject, and that they can do that regardless of what they feel about them. Nobody's perfect in that, but I think we can aspire and should aspire to become better at it. Personally and with regard to RL, I recognize such aspiration as a moral imperative.

[Wulfram]

That said, I'd like to see a few more 'what must be done' options, where the more ruthless, even evil, choice logically produces the 'better' result. 

 

I really wouldn't.  The Trolley Problem is overdone already, and usually contrived.  And adding a bunch of variations to it doesn't really make it any more entertaining.

 

Also I don't find playing a game of "How bad an atrocity can the writers bully you into?" very entertaining.

[berrieh]

There is no practical, logical or ethical reason given in-game for why Bhelen would be the better candidate and yet picking him ushers in a golden age? While picking the honorable Harrowmont equals an age of strife for Orzammar? Neat.

 

 

I think there are a lot of clues given in game that making Bhelen king will be better for the Casteless and that he is more progressive. There are also clear indications that he murdered his father. In the end, my first warden was a City Elf who felt kinship with the casteless and chose Bhelen despite thinking, "This dude totally killed his father and Harrowmount is probably the 'rightful' King in dwarven eyes, but **** dwarven eyes because their society is terrible" and hoped Bhelen would change society. I didn't look up the choice or know it. It felt pretty well hinted at to me that Harrowmount wanted to keep the status quo and really did feel the casteless were scum, whereas Bhelen at least felt they could be made useful and that perhaps dwarven society should evolve. 

 

I think choices like that one are perfect. IF you talk to everyone, even without a dwarven background, you get most of the hints. If you play the 2 dwarven backgrounds, you see a pretty full picture. All the elements are there to be found, but you have to talk to everyone to really see it and "Good" isn't necessarily simple. What's "Good" from one perspective isn't necessarily "Good" from another. For example, later on my human noble, it was much harder to choose a King - because I wanted a good choice. And neither of them are good choices. In the end, the HN went with Harrowmount because of tradition, even if dwarven tradition was strange to the HN in some ways. 

 

I prefer choices that are like this - not exactly good/bad per se, but with pluses and minuses to each side. 

[Jerkules17]

I never have a problem with the good guy choices having the most positive/best rewards(aka the reasons I play games power fantasy being the paragon),but when it comes to shades of gray/grey that's tough,and I guess it depends on the person's personality. For me I almost always end up as a knight templar for the greater good of sorts in games of gray/grey morality.

 

Unless it's a gray/grey to black morality like Fallout 3's mission with the tower I'll pick the sociopath choice,since it in my point of view is the best option to a pragmatic choice. It doesn't bother me if the game(npcs,like 3 Dog) calls me a monster,I'm doing what's right at least in my point of view,since I dislike cannibals. Sadly games like Skyrim encourages you to do everything unless you want to have a failed quest in your log. Which I end up having in my log.

 

As for the Molag Bal mission your not really doing anything wrong killing the guy in self defense,and killing a champion of another evil prince. Think of it as helping one villain fight another villain,there's no innocent victims involve minus you(depends on the player though).

 

Still Dragon Age choices almost always are gray to grey in terms of morality,even in the Mass Effect series some paragon choices can screw you over. AKA no good deed goes unpunished.   

[Fast Jimmy]

Something I suggested in another similar thread was actually to make some of the outcomes for "moral" choices more random. Maybe not for major plot centric choices, but, maybe to take a simple example, a group of refugees are under attack, and you have to option of sending troops to protect them or conserve your forces and leave them to their fate. Sometimes, doing the "right" thing and sending the troops will work, they'll save the refugees, and bring them to the Inquisition's stronghold, thereby giving you more human resources. But then next time you play through the game, you again chose to send troops to help, but they are overwhelemed and not only to the refugees die, but your forces are weakened.

I was a proponent of randomization of consequences in the past. Now I'm not so sure. It does lend itself to meta-gaming abuse, as the player can either reload until the dice rolls in their favor or, in the case of a set value for each playthrough, find out the choice is set for the bad outcome and reload to choose the alternate.

Not that avoiding meta-gaming should be the primary goal when developing these options, but it lends itself to a definitely better outcome if a player games the system, which means the questions of morality become loose, as there is a clearly better option on the table, even if it requires further hoop jumping to make it happen.

[Fast Jimmy]

I really wouldn't. The Trolley Problem is overdone already, and usually contrived. And adding a bunch of variations to it doesn't really make it any more entertaining.

Also I don't find playing a game of "How bad an atrocity can the writers bully you into?" very entertaining.

That's fair, but it may be worthwhile to also think that playing a game of "how many wrongs can the hero magically right without ever making a mistake or having negative consequences" very entertaining, either. At least not for everyone.

[Wulfsten]

Well, well, if it isn't one of my pet peeves addressed in a thread again

 

My main observartion in this regard is that a pattern of intuitively "good" choices leading to better outcomes makes the world feel artificial. That's because pragmatic actions - the ones where you sacrifice your principles for better results to some degree - are usually taken in the real world because they *do* work, as a rule, and because results are their primary and only benefit. If they rarely worked, nobody would take them.

 

In Bioware's stories the downsides of the pragmatic choices are often pushed up to eleven, usually by associating gratuitous evil that has nothing to do with the risks instrinsic to the choice. DAO's Anvil of the Void - as such a pragmatic choice that works - is one of the best examples. The risk inherent in saving it is the possibility that it will be abused, and it would be perfectly appropriate to show that the outcome is two-faced in the aftermath. What we get instead is having to side with a power-hungry madwoman who would sacrifice anyone and anything, including her lover, to get at the Anvil. 

 

Meanwhile, also typical for Bioware's stories is to push the intuitively good as the "right" choice even when it's not nearly as good when you stop to think about it for even a moment. The genophage choice in ME3 is the primary example here - how pushy the game is becomes rather apparent by giving you three opportunities to reconsider if you choose to sabotage the cure. Meanwhile, If you take the lore at face value and use the numbers provided,  attempting to cure the genophage appears to be an outright insane proposition. Yet, it is the right one which has the best outcome unless you've already been an evil bastard and killed Wrex in ME1. While sabotaging the cure makes you feel like sh*t for all the right reasons for a change, the whole setup is an example for punishing the thinking player over the one who just follows their intuitions. I resent that.

 

Another problem Bioware has often failed to address is this: pragmatic choices are justified only if they yield better results than the principled ones, as a rule. If the principled choice works without a downside, and the pragmatic one works with a downside, who in their right mind would ever choose the latter? Of course we don't know that in advance, but if I'm thinking of taking the principled choice for no better reason than I must suspect Bioware has given it the better outcome, then something is wrong.

 

What I would like to see in DAI is this:

 

(1) A somewhat realistic portrayal of the consequences - good and bad - of the choices you make. If a pragmatic choice makes people feel you're sacrificing too much and they trust you less, that's perfectly appropriate. Maybe some companion will leave over it, that's also ok. On the other hand, it should have a tangible benefit with regard to what you wanted to achieve with it over the principled choice. Not always, of course - invariable decision patterns are bad - but as a rule.

 

(2) Principled choices should not only not always have the better outcome, sometimes they should have a really bad outcome. Just as you can't know the outcome of a pragmatic choice and it can sometimes backfire, the same should apply to the principled choice. Neither should happen often, or the player will feel deceived, but it should happen here and there. The main point is that intuitively good decisions should not be protected from backfiring just because they are intuitively good, while pragmatic choices should not backfire more often just because they're pragmatic.

 

(3) People feel strongly about morality, but morality is not just - and for some not even primarly - an emotional matter. Particularly when things get difficult, we use moral reasoning to find the most acceptable alternative. Thus, the story should not punish the thinking player over the one who just follows their intuition. The intuitively good and the rationally good are often at odds, particularly when it comes to intangible evils. I resent being punished for rejecting the concept of intangible evils because they don't hold up to scrutiny.

The main issue, as Wulfram states below, is that Bioware ultimately has little interest in presenting a realistic moral landscape for players to inhabit. They want their players to be heroes and feel good about doing the right thing by heaping praise and material rewards on them for doing so. Then, they also want to give the players an evil path to let them “cut loose” a bit and have fun being a cartoonishly evil troll.

 

Every once in a while, they do want to present a moral question that seems perplexing, because they understand that some of their audience enjoys this kind of complexity, and they want to be seen as a high-brow RPG that really engages with moral issues.

 

But the most important thing to keep in mind is that Bioware is interested in providing a good player experience to the widest possible section of its audience. And it correctly infers that the wider section of its audience does not want to fret and doubt every decision they make in the game. They want the player to be able to decide “right, I’m doing a good-guy playthrough. I am a hero.”, and then they want the player to go ahead and confidently be a hero, with at most a couple of wrinkles along the way.

 

So while I would definitely welcome more moral complexity and a dialogue and decision system that didn’t basically make you choose two diametrically opposed solutions to any given problem, this is what they have decided people will enjoy playing the most. And I don’t necessarily think they’re wrong.

 

It would be nice to see a DLC at least where they could really go to town and present a range of interesting moral problems without threatening the core game’s audience, though.  

 

I really wouldn't.  The Trolley Problem is overdone already, and usually contrived.  And adding a bunch of variations to it doesn't really make it any more entertaining.

 

Also I don't find playing a game of "How bad an atrocity can the writers bully you into?" very entertaining.

[Fast Jimmy]

I think there are a lot of clues given in game that making Bhelen king will be better for the Casteless and that he is more progressive. There are also clear indications that he murdered his father. In the end, my first warden was a City Elf who felt kinship with the casteless and chose Bhelen despite thinking, "This dude totally killed his father and Harrowmount is probably the 'rightful' King in dwarven eyes, but **** dwarven eyes because their society is terrible" and hoped Bhelen would change society. I didn't look up the choice or know it. It felt pretty well hinted at to me that Harrowmount wanted to keep the status quo and really did feel the casteless were scum, whereas Bhelen at least felt they could be made useful and that perhaps dwarven society should evolve.

I think choices like that one are perfect. IF you talk to everyone, even without a dwarven background, you get most of the hints. If you play the 2 dwarven backgrounds, you see a pretty full picture. All the elements are there to be found, but you have to talk to everyone to really see it and "Good" isn't necessarily simple. What's "Good" from one perspective isn't necessarily "Good" from another. For example, later on my human noble, it was much harder to choose a King - because I wanted a good choice. And neither of them are good choices. In the end, the HN went with Harrowmount because of tradition, even if dwarven tradition was strange to the HN in some ways.

I prefer choices that are like this - not exactly good/bad per se, but with pluses and minuses to each side.

Also, it is worthwhile to take Zevran with you when you visit Harrowmont. He heckles him as a choice for King because of his traditionalist ways and impractical idealism. From the mouth of a companion who spent his life dealing with the very real life-or-death nature of politics, this is pretty illuminating, although I certainly didn't catch that on my first playthrough.

[9TailsFox]

The main issue, as Wulfram states below, is that Bioware ultimately has little interest in presenting a realistic moral landscape for players to inhabit. They want their players to be heroes and feel good about doing the right thing by heaping praise and material rewards on them for doing so. Then, they also want to give the players an evil path to let them “cut loose” a bit and have fun being a cartoonishly evil troll.

 

Every once in a while, they do want to present a moral question that seems perplexing, because they understand that some of their audience enjoys this kind of complexity, and they want to be seen as a high-brow RPG that really engages with moral issues.

 

But the most important thing to keep in mind is that Bioware is interested in providing a good player experience to the widest possible section of its audience. And it correctly infers that the wider section of its audience does not want to fret and doubt every decision they make in the game. They want the player to be able to decide “right, I’m doing a good-guy playthrough. I am a hero.”, and then they want the player to go ahead and confidently be a hero, with at most a couple of wrinkles along the way.

 

So while I would definitely welcome more moral complexity and a dialogue and decision system that didn’t basically make you choose two diametrically opposed solutions to any given problem, this is what they have decided people will enjoy playing the most. And I don’t necessarily think they’re wrong.

 

It would be nice to see a DLC at least where they could really go to town and present a range of interesting moral problems without threatening the core game’s audience, though.  

You right about “right, I’m doing a good-guy playthrough. I am a hero.” I am guilty on this. But I really liked in Witcher 2 ending

Spoiler

I reach the end now last boss battle, I am talking and I like, Why do I hunting you yes you framed me for murder but what it I just was at the wrong place at wrong time, and I am no different from you. I realised there is no reason me to fight Letho even if I wanted to.

Witcher do grey/grey and sometimes I just don't know what to do. You have side A and side B pick one oh both side are wrong

I think this what DA2 try with mage vs templars but failed. It have no impact on me I was forced to pick side, and I don't even have choice if I am mage "you say you will kill all mages and ask me to join" yes sure  . And if I am not mage touch my sister you dead. Maybe it just me but I see no reason to support organization which enslaving people. Chantry say Tevinter is evil because slaves, hypocrisy at it's finest. And it would be really nice to have just walk away ending.

[Wulfram]

That's fair, but it may be worthwhile to also think that playing a game of "how many wrongs can the hero magically right without ever making a mistake or having negative consequences" very entertaining, either. At least not for everyone.

 

I don't disagree with that.

I'm just saying that they already do more than enough of their moral choices in the format of "Will you do Horrible Direct Thing in order to prevent Even Horribler Indirect Thing?"

 

One advantage of picking a different set up for their dilemmas is that they might not feel the need to wimp out on the consequences.

 

The Harrowmont/Bhelen choice is in theory a good choice that avoids that format.  Though I don't think the implementation was so good, since Bhelen mostly comes across to me as a complete prat who thinks he is a Machiavellian genius.

[Xilizhra]

ME3 actually did have a good example of this with Legion's Loyalty Mission in ME2, where it turns out that the Paragon option of rewriting the Heretic Geth was ultimately the wrong choice as they discovered what you did and remained loyal to the Reapers, whereas the Renegade option of blowing them up actually worked in your favour.

Luckily, this doesn't actually hinder you at all if you did everything else correctly.

 

 

I don't know about you, but I felt like sh*t after killing Mordin while being completely convinced that sabotaging the cure is the only sane and rational way to act. With other Shepards, I actually looked for a way to rationalize the cure so I could make that decision without feeling stupid. I couldn't. Eventually I ignored this problem and chose for the outcome if it felt right for that character, but every single time I resented that Bioware pushed a stupid choice just because it was the intuitively good one.

Simple. The krogan are a problem in the future, the Reapers are a problem right now. And the salarians are rather less likely to hold back their forces out of spite than the krogan. The opportunity cost is significantly higher if sabotaging the cure screws up, which it does if Wrex is alive.

 

I also disagree with the principled/pragmatic dichotomy, as that's usually not what divides Paragon and Renegade choices; rather, it's either the competing philosophies of collaboration vs. speciesist isolationism, or being an overemotional brute vs. sticking to some kind of set of rules. If you want there to be more choices divided between principled and pragmatic, that's fine, but I think many people take the allegedly pragmatic options not necessarily because they work better, even IRL, but because they're more expedient.

[Wulfram]

Luckily, this doesn't actually hinder you at all if you did everything else correctly.

 

But it's a problem if you don't want to cover up war crimes in ME2

[QueenofPixals]

 

 

And IIRC, the alternative Tenpenny choice is to just murder every ghoul, so I'd say that it's more that neither option has a better outcome.

 

 

Or you can choose not to complete the quest.  That also is an option with consequences. 

[Medhia_Nox]

@Sifr:  It's interesting - I don't care that it said:  "This is the blue button option." 

I found rewritting the Geth to be far more insidious (like tech Blood Magic) than just destroying them.  Of course - I also saw them as just machines.  That is to say - I appreciated that they had individual minds more than individual bodies.  Destroying the bodies meant very little to me as I believed it meant extremely little to the Geth as their minds were the only thing that made them "unique".

[Xilizhra]

But it's a problem if you don't want to cover up war crimes in ME2

Well, that'll destroy your chances of gaining peace right there, IIRC, as you need Tali loyal.

 

I have no moral problems with this because I'm pretty sure it's hugely unethical for an attorney to make a plea or reveal information that her client doesn't want her to.

 

 

@Sifr:  It's interesting - I don't care that it said:  "This is the blue button option." 

I found rewritting the Geth to be far more insidious (like tech Blood Magic) than just destroying them.  Of course - I also saw them as just machines.  That is to say - I appreciated that they had individual minds more than individual bodies.  Destroying the bodies meant very little to me as I believed it meant extremely little to the Geth as their minds were the only thing that made them "unique".

Blowing up the station means destroying all of their minds as well; all their servers are located there.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Xilizhra:  Yes, but they're the Renegade Geth controlled by the Reapers - and up till that point I had certainly killed a ton of other beings in my battle against the Reapers - so what were a few toasters with minds.  Not big on the "Your X-box is people too." argument.

 

I've got this "thing" against mind control - which, even matters to me regardless of how I perceive a people.

 

Whatever the case - my point was really to illustrate that I don't care what morality the game tells me.  If I feel Renegade, Evil, Cruel, whatever choices make sense to me - I contemplate, then do.  

 

I'm really glad Bioware made DA:I with the capability of getting rid of all indicators of where your actions will lead.  That was an excellent choice.

[Xilizhra]

@Xilizhra:  Yes, but they're the Renegade Geth controlled by the Reapers - and up till that point I had certainly killed a ton of other beings in my battle against the Reapers - so what were a few toasters with minds.  Not big on the "Your X-box is people too." argument.

 

I've got this "thing" against mind control - which, even matters to me regardless of how I perceive a people.

 

Whatever the case - my point was really to illustrate that I don't care what morality the game tells me.  If I feel Renegade, Evil, Cruel, whatever choices make sense to me - I contemplate, then do.  

 

I'm really glad Bioware made DA:I with the capability of getting rid of all indicators of where your actions will lead.  That was an excellent choice.

At least it was only the capability, not anything mandatory.

[Tielis]

And here I was under the impression that DA is all about "no good deed goes unpunished".  Certainly seems that way, from Harrowmont to apostates.

[Xilizhra]

And here I was under the impression that DA is all about "no good deed goes unpunished".  Certainly seems that way, from Harrowmont to apostates.

Harrowmont is a horrible person if you dig down a bit, and only one decision about freeing apostates ever goes wrong.

[Ieldra]

I'm really glad Bioware made DA:I with the capability of getting rid of all indicators of where your actions will lead.  That was an excellent choice.

I take it you mean mechanical indicators like a morality score, in which case I agree. However, I want to be able to make reasonably informed decisions, which includes having some information about what I can expect if I take a certain action - things not always working out as intended notwithstanding.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Ieldra:  I mean all of it.  The "pts" for morality/Friendship/whatever and the images that indicate how an event will turn out.  What I am happy about is that they didn't just decide to get rid of them... they left them as an option for those that want them and the ability to remove them for those that don't.  Win/win.

 

While I absolutely understand the desire to have some indication of the outcome - I prefer to make decisions based on how I feel about the decision over the outcome it will produce.  That is simply because I'm not a fan of the surety those indicators provide.  I like to intuit the outcome over having a solid indicator.

 

Just different approaches.  I'm glad both are available.

[Fredward]

Bioware likes to tie good outcomes with the nice decisions, it's annoying and unrealistic. DA seems somewhat less inclined to this than ME but there have been a few solid cases where the SMART (but not nice) decision completely deteriorates into a hot mess (seriously, when did blunt, straightforward Wrex turn into Varis?) and it feels like The Man Behind the Curtain is waggling his finger at you. That needs to die in a fire. The morality of choices and their viability, their logic, their consequences, needs to be separated.

[Ieldra]

@Ieldra:  I mean all of it.  The "pts" for morality/Friendship/whatever and the images that indicate how an event will turn out.  What I am happy about is that they didn't just decide to get rid of them... they left them as an option for those that want them and the ability to remove them for those that don't.  Win/win.

 

While I absolutely understand the desire to have some indication of the outcome - I prefer to make decisions based on how I feel about the decision over the outcome it will produce.  That is simply because I'm not a fan of the surety those indicators provide.  I like to intuit the outcome over having a solid indicator.

 

Just different approaches.  I'm glad both are available.

Er....have there *ever* been images that indicate how an event will turn out? All I've seen is indicators of ways to approach the situation. You could, say, be diplomatic in DA2, but that wasn't to be taken as an indicator that this would actually work out. These images come across to me as crutches whose necessity is created by the paraphrasing system (of which I still have no idea why they're so determined to keep it).

 

Also perhaps I should clarify: it should be clear what a decision is intended to achieve, and side effects that let me fail should not feel as if the reason for their presence is "but you must fail". If I choose X as my goal, then the actions I take on that course should actually go towards X in a convincing non-stupid manner. I can accept failure, but not if the reason is that the story forced me to act stupid.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Ieldra:  I actually see them more as a kind of in game intuition.  There's so much "real" information your character would be able to know that the game doesn't have time to convey (because of so many more limitations than just "lazy programmer").  

 

I think they're useful for being able to understand how someone is going to react to what you're going to say.  I just don't mind surprises in NPC reaction.

 

The paraphrasing is a horrible thing regardless of the images.  Because even if you know you're saying something that the game will interpret diplomatic... there is still room for the game to just make up what you're saying.  

 

Anyway - people who like them can use 'em - people who don't can lose 'em.  Good stuff in my book.

 

I actually guy why they paraphrase - even if I don't like it.  I think it's unreasonable for them to have every inch of text on a voiced character available.  The screen would be filled with text most of the time during conversations.  

[Jester]

But the renegade choices were often stupid and insane. Rewarding them makes no sense. 

Major renegade choices in the first game:

 

1) Killing the Rachni Queen

2) Letting the Council die

 

Major renegade choices in second game:

 

1) Saving Mealon's data

2) Leaving David Archer with his brother, so the Project Overlord can continue

3) Killing Vido with Zaeed at the cost of allowing people to die in a burning refinery

4) Destroying the Geth heretics

 

Major renegade choices in third game:

 

1) Not curing Genophage, tricking both Krogans and Salarians to help Earth

2) Siding with the Geth, sacrificing all Quarians 

 

Which one of those are stupid again?

 

Well, in DA:O being "evil" was actually often better rewarded. 

Better army (Golems, Werewolves), more gold (being greedy each time), some endings are better (Bhalen)...

And making Isolde kill Connor was oddly satisfying.