Games that limits your "fun" options in order to stay in character or to get the "golden ending"

[DioWallachia]

You know what i am talking about: An Action RPG game ala Deus Ex or System Shock 2 with TONS of options. If you play more on the offensive and murdering everything in your path, you get the bad ending even if you get the most fun doing what the game gave at your disposal. If you play nice (as in, you solve problems in non lethal ways) you get the good ending even if the process is tedious and its CLEAR that the developers wanted to shoehorn a moral of "dont sucumb to power" at the expense of 90% of the gameplay.

Last game i played that did this was Dishonored, and one that did it right was IJI. Mainly because, even if you dont get to use anything exciting on a "good" path in both cases, Iji at least doesnt become a bloodthirsty hypocrite and her sanity remains intact (most of it) at the end of the conflict, Corvo in the other hand, has no character to speak. So there is a chance that players MAY give a fuck about sacrificing their fun in order to care about the well being of a fictional being.

I am kinda interested to see your examples where lossing the fun aspect of the game still pays off in something that is worth preserving or achieving or makes sense in the context of the story.

 

[Olikar]

You know what i am talking about: An Action RPG game ala Deus Ex or System Shock 2 with TONS of options. If you play more on the offensive and murdering everything in your path, you get the bad ending even if you get the most fun doing what the game gave at your disposal. If you play nice (as in, you solve problems in non lethal ways) you get the good ending even if the process is tedious and its CLEAR that the developers wanted to shoehorn a moral of "dont sucumb to power" at the expense of 90% of the gameplay.

I think playing a game like Deus ex with stealth and non lethal take downs is much more enjoyable than simply killing everyone.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Mass Effect 2 anyone? Go in the middle and you fuck over your chances to make everyone happy, since the only way to talk down the rivalries is to either be a saint or throw the biggest tantrum in history to make them stop.

 

[WoW Killer]

Mega Man: Zero. Might have been the second one, I can't remember. Anyway, there were all sorts of upgrades you could buy with the crystals you pick up. But for every mission you were given a rank, and for each upgrade you had purchased your rank would be reduced. In order to get the very last super upgrade (which would only be usable in a NewGame+), you would have to have gained a high enough ranking in every mission through the game. In other words, you'd have to play all the way through a really boring version of the game, using none of the neat and fun upgrades, just to get a NewGame+ where you had everything available.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

? I don't recall Deus Ex 1 or Human revolution punishing you for mass murder by changing the ending...

I spend the last 3/4 of the first game killing anything that crossed my path since the non-lethal options were useless. They never called me out on it as far as I remember.

In Human Revolution, as far as I know, they only change a few lines in the epilogue, where Jensen sounds more like a douche as he tries to justify his behavior.

Neither of these really changes the ending to punish you, as far as I know...

I WILL admit, though that lethal means in Human Revolution are rewarded less than if you use non-lethal takedowns. But on the other hand, non-lethal tactics tend to be less efficient and more difficult than lethal ones, so they kinda had to make them more appealing.

 

[Racecarlock]

You know what i am talking about: An Action RPG game ala Deus Ex or System Shock 2 with TONS of options. If you play more on the offensive and murdering everything in your path, you get the bad ending even if you get the most fun doing what the game gave at your disposal. If you play nice (as in, you solve problems in non lethal ways) you get the good ending even if the process is tedious and its CLEAR that the developers wanted to shoehorn a moral of "dont sucumb to power" at the expense of 90% of the gameplay.

Last game i played that did this was Dishonored, and one that did it right was IJI. Mainly because, even if you dont get to use anything exciting on a "good" path in both cases, Iji at least doesnt become a bloodthirsty hypocrite and her sanity remains intact (most of it) at the end of the conflict, Corvo in the other hand, has no character to speak. So there is a chance that players MAY give a fuck about sacrificing their fun in order to care about the well being of a fictional being.

I am kinda interested to see your examples where lossing the fun aspect of the game still pays off in something that is worth preserving or achieving or makes sense in the context of the story.

None, really. If you're doing something you enjoy, you're having fun, so completely upending that in order to stick to some rigid story completely wrecks the freedom the game says it has in the first place.

Even COD understands that it's audience wants to shoot people, so it doesn't begrudge them for shooting people, so if you advertise a game on the basis of killing and looting, then telling the players they're evil for doing so after the fact reeks of being disingenuous. I mean, forza doesn't punish you for driving, does it?

 

[The Wykydtron]

Definitely Dishonoured, although had a solid concept behind it the fact that there were two and only two ways of downing people non-lethally got so boring so fast.

There are a load of cool things like traps and bombs that I never used once since I was trying for a minimal kill run.

I can't think of much else, I haven't played many binary good/bad moral choice games in a while thinking about it. I guess LoL takes up too much of my time. LoL and BlazBlue. Ragequit a LoL game cuz of the most ungrateful and dickish AD Carry ever? Boot up BlazBlue for stress relief.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

assassin's creed... so what if your ancestors didnt kill civilians air assassinations are the fastest way to jump off a building

 

[Legion]

Definitely Dishonoured, although had a solid concept behind it the fact that there were two and only two ways of downing people non-lethally got so boring so fast.

There are a load of cool things like traps and bombs that I never used once since I was trying for a minimal kill run.

I agree with this one.

A non-lethal run means you have to get up close and get them quickly, or use a dart gun with tranquillisers which you can have a maximum of ten darts at a time.

Lethal you get to do whatever the hell you like, plus get given a ton of abilities to make use of. It's so much more fun as there is more variety.

Obviously non-lethal couldn't have quite as much, but they could have added a bit more to make it more enjoyable. You can't even upgrade to get more non-lethal darts, but you can get an upgrade for normal ones. Or like Splinter Cell where you can do an instant non-lethal take down by hitting them in the right spot.

The game acts like you should be non-lethal, but encourages you to be lethal by making it more varied and exciting.

 

[MightyRabbit]

One of the things I really liked about Mass Effect was that I was free to be both the peaceful, by-the-book Paragon and the risk-taking win at any cost Renegade without any penalty other than the future conseequences of my actions. And so I was very annoyed when it was all but impossible to have every squad member survive in Mass Effect 2 without a full bar one way or the other. Suddenly I had to choose between characters I liked and the ability to play Shepard as a character and not a biological plot point initiation unit. I was very pleased when Mass Effect 3 changed this back to allow me to dip more into Paragade territories again.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You know what i am talking about: An Action RPG game ala Deus Ex or System Shock 2 with TONS of options. If you play more on the offensive and murdering everything in your path, you get the bad ending even if you get the most fun doing what the game gave at your disposal. If you play nice (as in, you solve problems in non lethal ways) you get the good ending even if the process is tedious and its CLEAR that the developers wanted to shoehorn a moral of "dont sucumb to power" at the expense of 90% of the gameplay.

I'm a pretty hardcore fan of both of those games, and neither of them have their endings change based on your kill count. System Shock 2 only has one ending, and all three of Deus Ex's endings (not counting the super-secret Easter Egg ending DANCE PARTY!!!) are a mixture of good and bad regardless of your actions during the course of the game.

The only example I can think of in either game where your kill count comes under fire is in the earlier levels of Deus Ex where Paul scolds you for killing NSF troops (which makes complete and total sense for him to do that if you know the game's story). Even then, very little changes. A few lines of dialogue, and some non-lethal munitions. It's not like you're really penalized at all should you choose to be lethal, since the story doesn't change whatsoever if you decide to slaughter the NSF, and you're even cheered on by Agent Navarre for it.

Bioshock and its Little Sisters probably would have been a better example, and even then, the choice of whether you kill them or save them has very little impact on the majority of the gameplay.

 

[Tallim]

It only really affects you *if* you are trying to completely non-lethal the game (i.e. for the trophy/achievement) You can still get the "good" ending while killing in Dishonored. You can kill quite a bit in fact but you need to spread it between levels and it helps to do side missions.

I think one of the devs said that generally if you kill less than 20% of the people on a level it will be low chaos aand doing missions that are marked as (nonlethal) actually lowers the chaos rating a bit so technically you can kill more.

However I agree that none of this is particularly transparent and it heavily implies you need to be Mr Goody Two Shoes to get your "good" ending.

Personally I think the High Chaos endings are better.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

I think it's much more interesting when moral choices in games aren't presented as equally viable the whole way through the game. It just seems weird to me when you get equally appealing rewards whether you choose to be "good" or "evil." I never choose to be evil in those games because it just seems pointless.

Note that I'm mostly thinking about Star Wars type games here. The best of all options for me is still a game without absolute good and evil.

There's certainly room for games where the differences are purely aesthetic, but I really think it's more interesting if, for example, the "good" choices make the game more difficult to play while the "evil" choices give you plenty of rewards or more powerful abilities throughout the game but result in a bad ending, or prevent you from getting the most powerful upgrade at the end, or something. Basically, being a good guy is higher risk but higher reward, and being a bad guy makes everything easy but it all comes back to bite you in the end. (Or maybe the final boss does more damage to you based on how much damage you've done to others during your playthrough--hey, this brainstorming is kind of fun.) As long as it's all appropriately foreshadowed, of course.

This isn't some kind of religious morality thing for me either, it's just the fact that doing what's best for yourself and others is usually much harder--and less fun--than just going for what seems most appealing at the time (like choosing a salad over a sundae, or ending a mutually toxic relationship rather than keeping with it for the sex and companionship, or trying to love yourself and improve your low self-esteem rather than blaming everyone and hoping someone else will fix it for you, or spending some of your free time volunteering rather than faffing around online all the time...you get the point). It also results in more replay value for me, since I can do a good run and an evil run just to see how it all plays out, or even more depending on how many shades there are, and it will feel like a different game.

Of course my experience with games that have binary morality is limited to BioWare games (mostly Star Wars ones, since Paragon and Renegade aren't exactly the same kind of thing as Light Side and Dark Side), so that's really all I can say about it. I've never played a game like the kind I'm talking about.

 

[unstabLized]

The most recent one that comes to mind, Dishonored. To me, the non-lethal way was kinda boring, but when I did my second, lethal playthrough, oh my god I was having so much fun that I thought the game ended too quickly and that I skipped over some levels. That game is just too much fun once it releases you in the wild.

 

[DioWallachia]

I'm a pretty hardcore fan of both of those games, and neither of them have their endings change based on your kill count. System Shock 2 only has one ending, and all three of Deus Ex's endings (not counting the super-secret Easter Egg ending DANCE PARTY!!!) are a mixture of good and bad regardless of your actions during the course of the game.

The only example I can think of in either game where your kill count comes under fire is in the earlier levels of Deus Ex where Paul scolds you for killing NSF troops (which makes complete and total sense for him to do that if you know the game's story). Even then, very little changes. A few lines of dialogue, and some non-lethal munitions. It's not like you're really penalized at all should you choose to be lethal, since the story doesn't change whatsoever if you decide to slaughter the NSF, and you're even cheered on by Agent Navarre for it.

Bioshock and its Little Sisters probably would have been a better example, and even then, the choice of whether you kill them or save them has very little impact on the majority of the gameplay.

Deus Ex and SS2 are examples JUST to make the reader undertand what is what i meant for Action RPG. Deus Ex CAN be completed even WITHOUT using ANYTHING at all:


Same goes for IJI, who even if you put all the points in HP upgrades, you can still complete the game.

System Shock 2 in the other hand, if you dont use weapons in a later point, then you practically CANT progress. Even the most hardcore Pacifist wont be able to progress later on:

 

[DioWallachia]

The most recent one that comes to mind, Dishonored. To me, the non-lethal way was kinda boring, but when I did my second, lethal playthrough, oh my god I was having so much fun that I thought the game ended too quickly and that I skipped over some levels. That game is just too much fun once it releases you in the wild.

The problem with Dishonored, apparently, is that tries to be like Thief 2 but you dont have a feedback like the Visibility Gem and one no longer listens to sounds next to a wall to know where the guards are. I supposse that is why there is the X Ray vision on Dishonored that makes up for the lack of those.

Sadly, i havent played Thief 2 and i needed more people who DID so i can understand how polished is this version of stealth is. That, and i want to explore this notion that "You have to sacrifice 90% of the gameplay or even you AGENCY over the plot JUST to get the good/canon ending"

 

[DioWallachia]

It only really affects you *if* you are trying to completely non-lethal the game (i.e. for the trophy/achievement) You can still get the "good" ending while killing in Dishonored. You can kill quite a bit in fact but you need to spread it between levels and it helps to do side missions.

I think one of the devs said that generally if you kill less than 20% of the people on a level it will be low chaos aand doing missions that are marked as (nonlethal) actually lowers the chaos rating a bit so technically you can kill more.

However I agree that none of this is particularly transparent and it heavily implies you need to be Mr Goody Two Shoes to get your "good" ending.

Personally I think the High Chaos endings are better.

But that is the thing, you see. If you are doing it because "whatever, at least i get a trophy" rather than AGREEING with the concept of "Power Corrupts so i better dont go under that direction" then the game failed.

My question is: It failed because it was badly written and the context of the story didnt provide a reason of WHY dispaching a few guards or more guards is evil? OR maybe is that gamers will NEVER sacrifice their Hedonistic pleasures and the catarsis factor just because the story saids so?

Let me fire the big gun and ask: If you are confronted with the option of removing you agency over your Player Avatar (as in, the game stops being a game from now on and becomes a movie for the rest of it, to the point that even the User Interfase dissapears) so the avatar stops being manipulated by you and retains its Free Will and its happyness

OR

Fuck this fictional being that has no reason nor say on what i should care for, and sure as HELL that it am not going to sit down and let YOU take all the fun. The mere idea of a FICTIONAL being asking the player itself for "please, dont brainwashme into a obedient tool" is already too stupid to believe since this creature was WRITTEN to be that way. It never had Free Will and never will.

Press X for ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL and the game plays as normal with all the fun still intact. Your Avatar however, no longer speaks, nor feels anything anymore, whatever personality it had it is now gone forever.

 

[DioWallachia]

Even COD understands that it's audience wants to shoot people, so it doesn't begrudge them for shooting people, so if you advertise a game on the basis of killing and looting, then telling the players they're evil for doing so after the fact reeks of being disingenuous.

Unless they NEEDED for that kind of audience to pick up the bait so they get bitchslapped with some facts later on the game. Spec Ops: The Line did just that.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Mass Effect 2 anyone? Go in the middle and you fuck over your chances to make everyone happy, since the only way to talk down the rivalries is to either be a saint or throw the biggest tantrum in history to make them stop.

I'd say it's the biggest offender. Makes you feel like you failed horribly if you so much as fart in the wrong place.