An idea for a decent in-game moral choice

[Azureraider]

Warning: long post is long.

Okay, I'm going to pitch an idea here. I've been thinking about morality systems in games, and I think I've come up with one that might work. I've drawn the idea from a combination of Mask of the Betrayer, Mass Effect, and Kingdom Hearts.

I think a game that bases itself around a morality question should have two elements; the choice should be ambiguous, and it should have a clear effect on gameplay. So here goes:

It?s an action game focusing on melee combat. You play a knight in your standard Middle-Earth-esque world, when you accidentally break a magical artifact you were supposed to guard. The artifact releases a world-destroying energy called ?Flux?, and a horde of evil creatures that thrive in it. Basically, the plot of the game is to hunt down the biggest sources of Flux (boss monsters) and destroy them.

The thing is, you have the power to absorb and either use Flux, or destroy it. Every enemy in the game would have a ?Flux rating?, and as it gets higher, so do they. Both you and the enemies passively suck Flux out of the environment, though you do it faster. Whenever you destroy an enemy, all the Flux it had is released into the environment, to get absorbed by you and the creatures.

The ?choice? is this: when you?ve absorbed enough Flux, you can either ?burn it off? and destroy it, or ?catalyse? it and go super-sayian, essentially. When you catalyse the Flux, you get much stronger, faster, etc, and cause a whole load more collateral damage, but the amount of Flux enemies release also increases, and you can?t absorb it. So if you catalyse the Flux, you get stronger, but now there?s a lot more Flux in the environment for your enemies to soak up. Essentially, the fight escalates as everyone gets more powerful.

The bosses are the important part though; catalysing Flux gives you access to environmental attacks that deal lots of damage, but destroys the environment and keeps the Flux in play for the boss to soak up again. Burning it off would remove the boss? access to Flux, and thus their best attacks.

The game would also keep track of how much collateral damage you?ve caused from using Flux, particularly during the boss fights. If you?ve caused too much, you?ll get cutscenes showing how much suffering and pain you?ve caused, but if you cause too little (i.e. don?t use Flux), the bad guys often end up winning, because you?re too weak to stop them.

Also, whenever you defeat a boss using Flux, you get an equippable ability for your super-mode, like adding fire damage. Kill it without using Flux, and you?ll get an ability that activates whenever you burn Flux, like healing.

In the end, you can get a bunch of different endings, based on how much damage you?ve caused, and when. What do you think?

 

[Noala]

Warning: long post is long.

Okay, I'm going to pitch an idea here. I've been thinking about morality systems in games, and I think I've come up with one that might work. I've drawn the idea from a combination of Mask of the Betrayer, Mass Effect, and Kingdom Hearts.

I think a game that bases itself around a morality question should have two elements; the choice should be ambiguous, and it should have a clear effect on gameplay. So here goes:

It?s an action game focusing on melee combat. You play a knight in your standard Middle-Earth-esque world, when you accidentally break a magical artifact you were supposed to guard. The artifact releases a world-destroying energy called ?Flux?, and a horde of evil creatures that thrive in it. Basically, the plot of the game is to hunt down the biggest sources of Flux (boss monsters) and destroy them.

The thing is, you have the power to absorb and either use Flux, or destroy it. Every enemy in the game would have a ?Flux rating?, and as it gets higher, so do they. Both you and the enemies passively suck Flux out of the environment, though you do it faster. Whenever you destroy an enemy, all the Flux it had is released into the environment, to get absorbed by you and the creatures.

The ?choice? is this: when you?ve absorbed enough Flux, you can either ?burn it off? and destroy it, or ?catalyse? it and go super-sayian, essentially. When you catalyse the Flux, you get much stronger, faster, etc, and cause a whole load more collateral damage, but the amount of Flux enemies release also increases, and you can?t absorb it. So if you catalyse the Flux, you get stronger, but now there?s a lot more Flux in the environment for your enemies to soak up. Essentially, the fight escalates as everyone gets more powerful.

The bosses are the important part though; catalysing Flux gives you access to environmental attacks that deal lots of damage, but destroys the environment and keeps the Flux in play for the boss to soak up again. Burning it off would remove the boss? access to Flux, and thus their best attacks.

The game would also keep track of how much collateral damage you?ve caused from using Flux, particularly during the boss fights. If you?ve caused too much, you?ll get cutscenes showing how much suffering and pain you?ve caused, but if you cause too little (i.e. don?t use Flux), the bad guys often end up winning, because you?re too weak to stop them.

Also, whenever you defeat a boss using Flux, you get an equippable ability for your super-mode, like adding fire damage. Kill it without using Flux, and you?ll get an ability that activates whenever you burn Flux, like healing.

In the end, you can get a bunch of different endings, based on how much damage you?ve caused, and when. What do you think?

Maybe, sounds good but perhaps a little over powered in the Catalysation area

 

[Noala]

Perhaps if it was harder to absorb the Flux, rather than outright can't

 

[Azureraider]

Well the idea is that using Flux makes you hella strong, but causes a lot more Flux to get into the environment, making your enemies stronger. So you have to deal with them quickly, or they'll get too powerful.
I should've said that Catalysing doesn't last forever, and causes your Flux to bleed out as well.

 

[Noala]

oh I see, so what would happen to the Flux if the enemies killed you?

 

[Azureraider]

You'd go back to your last checkpoint, and the Flux would reset to the amount there was originally. Otherwise you'd just end up making a fight that the player found hard the first time around even harder.

 

[Noala]

ah right, so it's generally give the boss his awesome moves and you have awesome moves or neither of you have awesome moves but you have environmental damage?

 

[Azureraider]

The boss would start up full of Flux. Deal enough damage and you'll knock some of it out of him. Once he loses enough, he loses access to his nastiest attacks. In every boss fight, they'll be special, environment-based attacked only accessible while Catalysing, like maybe throwing a cow at it or something. But that'll cause you to bleed out the Flux you took from him, which he'll soak up and use to power his best moves.

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

I think the whole moral choice thing would be much better served if it was less obvious that it was there. rather than making a choice to be a saint or a dick at one critical point in the game, why don't you have the game keep track of how you play...like if you kill a lot of civilians then thats evil side points. basically your normal in game actions determine wether your good or evil and the only way to tell which side your heading down (other than common sense) is how other charcaters (like say team members) treat you. Good characters flock to good actions baddies to bad actions.

Its not too different from what we have now but if it isn't shoved in our face evertime a dialouge tree comes up we might actually be surprised what we turned out as

oh and don't have a good and an evil path choice gives us shades of grey and more than two possible outcomes based on our desicions.

 

[Noala]

(OT: is this your first few posts?)

so its more of an exchange of awesome moves?

 

[Azureraider]

I think the whole moral choice thing would be much better served if it was less obvious that it was there. rather than making a choice to be a saint or a dick at one critical point in the game, why don't you have the game keep track of how you play...like if you kill a lot of civilians then thats evil side points. basically your normal in game actions determine wether your good or evil and the only way to tell which side your heading down (other than common sense) is how other charcaters (like say team members) treat you. Good characters flock to good actions baddies to bad actions.

Its not too different from what we have now but if it isn't shoved in our face evertime a dialouge tree comes up we might actually be surprised what we turned out as

oh and don't have a good and an evil path choice gives us shades of grey and more than two possible outcomes based on our desicions.

Well yeah, that's the idea. Making the 'choice' a gameplay decision rather than 'Press A to hug orphan, Press B to kick orphan'.

(OT: is this your first few posts?)

so its more of an exchange of awesome moves?

Yeah.
It's more a choice between bringing him down to a level where you can hope to defeat him, or dropping a church on his head.

 

[Terminate421]

It sounds less like a moral choice system and more like Metroid Prime 3.

 

[Jedoro]

Vaguely reminds me of Bioshock, where you can

Spoiler: Just In Case

free Little Sisters for other rewards or suck the Adam out of them for your Plasmids.

 

[valleyshrew]

You think this is a long post? I've written posts that were 15,000 characters and didn't think they were particularly long. It took me less than 60 seconds to read. Have we really gotten that impatient that 60 seconds is too much time to waste reading a single post?

 

[Lord-Ling]

One way to make the game more compelling would be to sometimes give us 3 or 4 options rather than always just 2. But just every once and a while. A lot of games become too predictable because they always have 2 options.

Have the dialogue tree or whatever go through multiple paths (up to 8 paths) before coming back to the 2 options. For example, you want the player to decide wither to kill or spare the villain. Give the player 4 options (kill, spare, ask to turn good before sparing, taunt before killing), then have the player talk to villain back and forth for a bit, but in the end it still comes back to the 2 options kill/spare. This is more fun, engaging, morally complex and makes the decision feel more though out rather than a spur of the moment occurrence like choosing between coke and pepsi. As opposed to the player just walking up to villain and killing/sparing in under 5 seconds. This is easy to implement from a design perspective since the dialogue is self contained and won't affect the overall gameplay.


When it comes to doing good make sure that the good option has no benefit (or dramatically smaller benefit) other than a nice animation and the character still being alive. The whole point of being a good guy is that you do good because it is the right thing. If the reward is the same for both options then it is a business decision, not a moral one. "Darkwatch" did this where if you save the lady you get agility powers, but if you kill her you get speed powers (or something). So where is the Morality? Bioshock did this too. When you kill a girl you get 10 units of Adam. But if you save 1 get nothing, until you save 3 where they give you 30 units of Adam. So why would I not be nice, why would I not be evil. My choices there have no consequence.
---But make sure that you are not eliminating content based on players actions. Often times gamers don't kill people not because of morality, but because the good option means more quests later since the guy is still alive to give quests. Make it so that if you do good you get no bonus but some side mission, and if you do bad you get the bonus AND a different set of equivalent side missions.


Make sure that choices have consequences, mainly that there are wrong answers. If you are too nice then everyone dies and you get no bonus. If you let the bad guy live he kills you buddy and steals your weapon. In lots of games they present me some kind of choice like 'don't tell the truth about your friend's lie' or 'let the villain live' and I always choose yes because I know that I can beat the enemy no matter what because the game will circle around some way and balance out.



When it comes to the ending make it so that somehow you see every single solitary decision you have made in the game. I want a small screen shot about what the people I saved are doing. I want to see what happened to the village I burned down and what the survivors are doing (this is the ONLY reward you should get for being good). And even if they are just red-shirts that are dead, have a camera pan over a grave yard where their names are listed (make it dynamic so that you can use the same picture and just replace the names.) If you ever played Metal Gear Solid 3 remember when you go down dead-people ghost lane and how you saw every dude you had killed and how you killed them. Make the ending of the game like that.
---Having a rewarding and very different ending (not just in terms of actual plot, but in terms of little things) will make the player want to play again. Hell, have some of the minor plot bits intertwine, they don't even have to affect the main story (add them in at the end of game development)
----So like for example "The player saved Bob from the dungeon (see Bob running from cave), but could not save his sister (see sister getting killed). This made Bob sad (see Bob bury his sister). The player burned down the evil village of Springfield and it was awesome (see village burning), but he spared Ashley just because (see Ashley running away from village). Ashley met Bob and they talked about how cool the player was, got married (picture of marriage BUT if the player saves the sister then the sister is in the picture too) and had 2 kids (picture of 2 kids) who wanted to be like the player so they became knights and killed monsters (picture of 2 knights killing stuff)." But the player killed Sammy, who was a mom, because she had 20$ on her and a nice sword (picture of Sammy being killed and player holding sword up), which was really mean because her kids were left orphans and they died or hunger (picture of kids dying on the streets) And the player let the villain live (picture of player sparing villain) who then returned to town and started killing people again (picture of villain killing people). The villain even killed Bob and Ashely (picture of Bob and Ashley being killed). But the player also spared the slightly corrupt cop(picture of player sparing slightly corrupt cop) who actually did change his ways (picture of redemption) and was able to help catch the villain and kill him (picture of cop killing villain)
--------------Now that is an ending that people will remember. That is an ending that shows what the player's actions did. And it won't take much development time as all of these actions can occur in a side village or something that doesn't intersect with the main story line a second time. And all the effort that it takes are some pictures. Be sure to do this at the end of development so it is consistent.

 

[Racecarlock]

Hmm. Got some concept art? I'm not sure if using too much flux on a boss should cause a bad ending. How much is too much, and how much is too little? How are we supposed to know that?

 

[Azureraider]

Hmm. Got some concept art? I'm not sure if using too much flux on a boss should cause a bad ending. How much is too much, and how much is too little? How are we supposed to know that?

It's just an idea I'm running out there to see if there's some merit behind it. But that is a good point; attacking the boss once with Flux should probably be alright, assuming you're not doing something ridiculously destructive.

Well, it wouldn't be a 'bad' ending, really. using all Flux, all the time would probably end with you thoroughly beating the bad guys, but then going into exile to atone for the destruction you caused. It's not a 'Chancellor Palpatine' choice.

Perhaps a good indication of when you've 'gone too far' in a boss fight would be a change in the music and/or ambient lighting.

 

[lacktheknack]

Personally, I prefer my moral choices to be black and blacker. Your idea is decent, but it's a question of "Good is hard, evil is easy", where the route of least suffering isn't inherently different from the evil route except that evil is easy.

Now, if you came up with a true Hobson's choice, say, cause horrendous collateral damage versus the boss not being permantently killed, and made each decision uniquely bite you later, THAT would be a choice system I'd be interested in.

 

[Sieggy]

Black and white? Why are there only two choice, a good morality gave should not have a definitive morality, but all in a shade of gray.

- Instead of you gaining the Flux or destroying it, have other options like letting your companion get it, channel it to a village power system or crystallize them back into an artifact.

- There MUST NOT be a 'good' or a 'bad' ending, save a clear one where you achieve total 100% saint Jesus completion or lose in the final boss. Every other ending would benefit and give consequences to the world in different ways. Letting the players decide for themselves which is better for the world they are experiencing in.

- A bit Deus Ex like, but seeing that YOU were the one who cased the Flux influx, it goes without saying that some people/monsters were not always a villain until they obtain the Flux. Philosopher Rousseau stated that people are born without evil, but obtain it through life. As having the 'Flux' symbolized a rebirth, they should be given the chance to be sympathized with and the hero can decide whether to kill him/her or to forgive them of their crime.

- Remember Silent Hill 2's npc? The environment makes it feels as if you're the one that is weird compared to the town. So what actions the hero thinks was for the best, may be destructive on others. Make something that will make the player think and reflect back on their actions.

- Doing good do not always net you positive things. Such as helping a villager from a Flux monster and sometime later on, he became a mobster in another town bullying a nearby village. While make some nasty things attractive: e.g. A woman is comatose because of the overdose of Flux in her, you have the option of leaving her there or sucking the Flux out of her but inevitable cause her death. Leaving her there would make her die later with no benefits but killing her now gives you permanent power boost.

 

[Azureraider]

Black and white? Why are there only two choice, a good morality gave should not have a definitive morality, but all in a shade of gray.

- Instead of you gaining the Flux or destroying it, have other options like letting your companion get it, channel it to a village power system or crystallize them back into an artifact.

- There MUST NOT be a 'good' or a 'bad' ending, save a clear one where you achieve total 100% saint Jesus completion or lose in the final boss. Every other ending would benefit and give consequences to the world in different ways. Letting the players decide for themselves which is better for the world they are experiencing in.

- A bit Deus Ex like, but seeing that YOU were the one who cased the Flux influx, it goes without saying that some people/monsters were not always a villain until they obtain the Flux. Philosopher Rousseau stated that people are born without evil, but obtain it through life. As having the 'Flux' symbolized a rebirth, they should be given the chance to be sympathized with and the hero can decide whether to kill him/her or to forgive them of their crime.

- Remember Silent Hill 2's npc? The environment makes it feels as if you're the one that is weird compared to the town. So what actions the hero thinks was for the best, may be destructive on others. Make something that will make the player think and reflect back on their actions.

Those are all good suggestions; I'm not saying that choices like that can't exist, but I was trying to come up with a method of integrating a moral choice into core gameplay, instead of having them be a separate mechanic.
I love the Rousseau bit. That is an interesting thought.

Personally, I prefer my moral choices to be black and blacker. Your idea is decent, but it's a question of "Good is hard, evil is easy", where the route of least suffering isn't inherently different from the evil route except that evil is easy.

Now, if you came up with a true Hobson's choice, say, cause horrendous collateral damage versus the boss not being permanently killed, and made each decision uniquely bite you later, THAT would be a choice system I'd be interested in.

That's a hard line to walk. When does making choices have consequences become punishing the player for not behaving a certain way?