Infamous 2: How not to do moral choice. (Spoiler free.)

[Kahunaburger]

In every other case - FO:NV and ME2 jump to mind as having a particularly bad system - it undermines any actual choice the game might possess.

New Vegas? you're kidding. New Vegas had an excellent morality system. It tied all of it's morality to the Factions. The end. There is no "Good" and "Evil" as dictated by arbitrary laws, unclear to you. There is just: "Democrat", "Autocrat", "Capitalist", and "Anarchist"..... and imo that beats good and evil right out of the fucking water!

And if you're referring to the Karma system....why would you refer to it? It literally had ZERO impact on the game. It just felt like a feature from Fallout 3 that Obsidian forgot to delete. Hence I finished the job by getting myself a mod that hides all the Karma noises and pop-ups.

That's not the morality system of the game. It's a glitch.

Exactly. The morality system (karma) turned what is a complicated question about security/liberty/democracy that is still debated into a simple question of good vs. evil. Don't get me wrong, I think everything but Karma is awesome in that game - I just think Karma as a morality system is actively counterproductive for the good stuff.

 

[Kahunaburger]

A lot of the choices were actually fairly gray, but the mistake was placing good/evil labels on everything, which took out any potential thought that would go into making a decision.

I would say that Mass Effect has worse moral choice, however, because the game flaunts dialogue as its main draw, but if you want to succeed in the game you're going to just be spamming the same option over and over.

Haha seriously. Someone needs to tell Bioware what an opportunity cost is, because you can't actually say "you can pick whatever dialogue option you want" when you punish players for not consistently picking the same dialogue option.

 

[Joshica Huracane]

In every other case - FO:NV and ME2 jump to mind as having a particularly bad system - it undermines any actual choice the game might possess.

New Vegas? you're kidding. New Vegas had an excellent morality system. It tied all of it's morality to the Factions. The end. There is no "Good" and "Evil" as dictated by arbitrary laws, unclear to you. There is just: "Democrat", "Autocrat", "Capitalist", and "Anarchist"..... and imo that beats good and evil right out of the fucking water!

And if you're referring to the Karma system....why would you refer to it? It literally had ZERO impact on the game. It just felt like a feature from Fallout 3 that Obsidian forgot to delete. Hence I finished the job by getting myself a mod that hides all the Karma noises and pop-ups.

That's not the morality system of the game. It's a glitch.

Exactly. The morality system (karma) turned what is a complicated question about security/liberty/democracy that is still debated into a simple question of good vs. evil. Don't get me wrong, I think everything but Karma is awesome in that game - I just think Karma as a morality system is actively counterproductive for the good stuff.

Yes, but the Karma didnt actually affect anything. You could ignore it, couldn't you? The only thing that had an affect on gameplay was your standing with the factions..

 

[Kahunaburger]

In every other case - FO:NV and ME2 jump to mind as having a particularly bad system - it undermines any actual choice the game might possess.

New Vegas? you're kidding. New Vegas had an excellent morality system. It tied all of it's morality to the Factions. The end. There is no "Good" and "Evil" as dictated by arbitrary laws, unclear to you. There is just: "Democrat", "Autocrat", "Capitalist", and "Anarchist"..... and imo that beats good and evil right out of the fucking water!

And if you're referring to the Karma system....why would you refer to it? It literally had ZERO impact on the game. It just felt like a feature from Fallout 3 that Obsidian forgot to delete. Hence I finished the job by getting myself a mod that hides all the Karma noises and pop-ups.

That's not the morality system of the game. It's a glitch.

Exactly. The morality system (karma) turned what is a complicated question about security/liberty/democracy that is still debated into a simple question of good vs. evil. Don't get me wrong, I think everything but Karma is awesome in that game - I just think Karma as a morality system is actively counterproductive for the good stuff.

Yes, but the Karma didnt actually affect anything. You could ignore it, couldn't you? The only thing that had an affect on gameplay was your standing with the factions..

Yeah, you could and I did. The issue is that a morality system that is best ignored (because it actively works against the rest of the game) is probably a bad morality system

 

[The Human Torch]

Same as with Spiderman: Web of Shadows. You can pick between fighting in the black Venom outfit or the traditional suit, and even though you can rescue civilians in both outfits, one makes you good and the other makes you infamous. I will let you guess which one does what.

And sometimes (like in Infamous 2) you get these arbitrary choices between good and evil and you are left wondering what consequences it would bring and how it would progress the story.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Personally I think that moral systems should just go away, there is no real proper or good way of doing them.

They should be replaced with a reputation/faction system like Fallout: New Vegas and Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.

 

[Zhukov]

A lot of the choices were actually fairly gray, but the mistake was placing good/evil labels on everything, which took out any potential thought that would go into making a decision.

I would say that Mass Effect has worse moral choice, however, because the game flaunts dialogue as its main draw, but if you want to succeed in the game you're going to just be spamming the same option over and over.

Grey choices, huh? Name some. Hell, name one.

As for Mass Effect, I agree that the Paragon/Renegade system is stupid. It basically just gives minor rewards for consistency. The ME games would be better without it. However, it never got in the way of something I wanted to do. Mass Effect never threw a pop-up in my face telling me that I had to go and punch 250 reporters before I could blow up the collector base, or pat 175 puppies to save Wrex.

Also, a few of the decisions in Mass Effect actually made me think for a bit. Not all of them, but a few. The Ashley-Kaiden choice. The Genophage research. The Geth virus.

Infamous 2 never managed that. At all. Ever. The choices were always a matter of, "Hmm, to be a dick, or not to be dick?" Also, many of the choices brought about the exact same result. Do I help Kuo give these guys some medicine to get their allegiance against the militia, or do I let Nix scare the crap out of them to get their allegiance against the militia.

 

[ultrachicken]

A lot of the choices were actually fairly gray, but the mistake was placing good/evil labels on everything, which took out any potential thought that would go into making a decision.

I would say that Mass Effect has worse moral choice, however, because the game flaunts dialogue as its main draw, but if you want to succeed in the game you're going to just be spamming the same option over and over.

Grey choices, huh? Name some. Hell, name one.

As for Mass Effect, I agree that the Paragon/Renegade system is stupid. It basically just gives minor rewards for consistency. The ME games would be better without it. However, it never got in the way of something I wanted to do. Mass Effect never threw a pop-up in my face telling me that I had to go and punch 250 reporters before I could blow up the collector base, or pat 175 puppies to save Wrex.

Also, a few of the decisions in Mass Effect actually made me think for a bit. Not all of them, but a few. The Ashley-Kaiden choice. The Genophage research. The Geth virus.

Infamous 2 never managed that. At all. Ever. The choices were always a matter of, "Hmm, to be a dick, or not to be dick?" Also, many of the choices brought about the exact same result. Do I help Kuo give these guys some medicine to get their allegiance against the militia, or do I let Nix scare the crap out of them to get their allegiance against the militia.

I never really thought about any choices in either of those games thanks to the good/bad labels on everything. That's the point of what I was saying.

As for one example from inFAMOUS 2? The final decision. Which, I will re-iterate, was absolutely ruined by the addition of a good/bad label. Do you take a chance by using the RFI, potentially curing the plague, which may destroy humanity if left unchecked, or do you try to salvage as many lives as you can while sacrificing everyone else? Most of the other decisions were to make friends honestly, to fight with precision and to gain strength in amassing allies, or to trick people into joining you before casting them aside, and to blast your enemies indiscriminately, sacrificing innocents in the process of ensuring victory.

 

[Zhukov]

As for one example from inFAMOUS 2? The final decision. Which, I will re-iterate, was absolutely ruined by the addition of a good/bad label. Do you take a chance by using the RFI, potentially curing the plague, which may destroy humanity if left unchecked, or do you try to salvage as many lives as you can while sacrificing everyone else?

Uhh... no.

The choice was: (a) sacrifice self and a tiny minority of conduits to save all of humanity or (b) sacrifice all of humanity to save self and people like self.

I see no grey.

Using the RFI wasn't "taking a chance". It cures everyone, period.

 

[funguy2121]

It is so dumb
It is really dumb
For real

EDIT: sorry, there are no music notes on my keyboard.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

In every other case - FO:NV and ME2 jump to mind as having a particularly bad system - it undermines any actual choice the game might possess.

New Vegas? you're kidding. New Vegas had an excellent morality system. It tied all of it's morality to the Factions. The end. There is no "Good" and "Evil" as dictated by arbitrary laws, unclear to you. There is just: "Democrat", "Autocrat", "Capitalist", and "Anarchist"..... and imo that beats good and evil right out of the fucking water!

And if you're referring to the Karma system....why would you refer to it? It literally had ZERO impact on the game. It just felt like a feature from Fallout 3 that Obsidian forgot to delete. Hence I finished the job by getting myself a mod that hides all the Karma noises and pop-ups.

That's not the morality system of the game. It's a glitch.

Exactly. The morality system (karma) turned what is a complicated question about security/liberty/democracy that is still debated into a simple question of good vs. evil. Don't get me wrong, I think everything but Karma is awesome in that game - I just think Karma as a morality system is actively counterproductive for the good stuff.

How did it turn the complicated question into a simple binary choice? I'm saying the Karma meter was just a random annoyance. It didn't have anything to DO with the faction system at all.

You could theoretically be a lying, stinking thief and still fight to liberate Vegas. Or you could do a lot of favors for the Followers, helping freeside, even if you're working for the "supposedly evil" Caesar. It wasn't a binary choice at ALL.

 

[ultrachicken]

As for one example from inFAMOUS 2? The final decision. Which, I will re-iterate, was absolutely ruined by the addition of a good/bad label. Do you take a chance by using the RFI, potentially curing the plague, which may destroy humanity if left unchecked, or do you try to salvage as many lives as you can while sacrificing everyone else?

Uhh... no.

The choice was: (a) sacrifice self and a tiny minority of conduits to save all of humanity or (b) sacrifice all of humanity to save self and people like self.

I see no grey.

Using the RFI wasn't "taking a chance". It cures everyone, period.

Yes, it was, because there was no guarantee that the RFI would cure the plague. That was the point. It had been designed to kill The Beast, but there was also a possibility that it would cure the plague.

 

[Joshica Huracane]

As for one example from inFAMOUS 2? The final decision. Which, I will re-iterate, was absolutely ruined by the addition of a good/bad label. Do you take a chance by using the RFI, potentially curing the plague, which may destroy humanity if left unchecked, or do you try to salvage as many lives as you can while sacrificing everyone else?

Uhh... no.

The choice was: (a) sacrifice self and a tiny minority of conduits to save all of humanity or (b) sacrifice all of humanity to save self and people like self.

I see no grey.

Using the RFI wasn't "taking a chance". It cures everyone, period.

But no one knew it would work that way. There was always the possibility that Cole would use the RFI, and cause all that death for nothing, and Humanity as a whole would be doomed anyway.

Taking the so called "evil" option was more playing it safe, saving as many people as you can. And not just ordinary people, but conduits. People who could probably survive more hardship than humanity ever could. Next stage of evolution etc.

 

[Wuggy]

The moral choice system as a game-mechanic is dumb, especially when it's executed in a way that is a) Black-and-White-choices or b) has meters determine if you're good or evil. In my opinion a morality system executed well involves you to have a variety of choices that range from full evil to full good but a lot of choices in between, and it doesn't have an direct effect on 'stats' but rather just impact on the story and how NPCs react to you et cetera.

However, I will say this to inFamous' defence: While it has both of these critical flaws in it's morality system, it is a comicbook-y superhero game. The point is that you play either as a hero or a villain. This somewhat excuses inFamous in my mind: I can't really see, say either Batman or Joker doing "morally gray" choices all the time.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

The final decisions were extremely idiotic but it's nothing I haven't seen before in a game that employs a morality system. The thing is, inFamous uses this morality system as a gameplay mechanic, sort of like choosing your spec in World of Warcraft so actually including more choices other than good and evil would create to many variables to your powers. I guess the developer was just lazy.

 

[Zhukov]

Yes, it was, because there was no guarantee that the RFI would cure the plague. That was the point. It had been designed to kill The Beast, but there was also a possibility that it would cure the plague.

But no one knew it would work that way. There was always the possibility that Cole would use the RFI, and cause all that death for nothing, and Humanity as a whole would be doomed anyway.

I knew it would work. There was simply no way that after all that build-up they were going to say, "Whoops! MacGuffin didn't work! Everyone dies anyway. Game over. Nice try hero boy." Granted, that would have actually been interesting. But pulling off an ending like that would have required a calibre of writing far above anything Infamous 2 was capable of.

I suppose you could argue that Cole didn't know it was going to work. But he wasn't making the decision. I was. And I knew beyond the merest shadow of a doubt that choosing the good ending would save the world.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Every morality system in every game ever made is stupid. Because every choice that is signified as being either Good, Evil or Neutral completely takes away the freedom of choice.

You know why inFamous 1 and 2 had a morality system? Because it would spruce up the gameplay with some diversity. That's it. And that's all I see it as. I take far less offense to the morality system in inFamous 2 then I do to that of Mass Effect 2.

Silent Hill 2 had a good system of choice, because you were never aware of it or its morality.

 

[Kahunaburger]

How did it turn the complicated question into a simple binary choice? I'm saying the Karma meter was just a random annoyance. It didn't have anything to DO with the faction system at all.

You could theoretically be a lying, stinking thief and still fight to liberate Vegas. Or you could do a lot of favors for the Followers, helping freeside, even if you're working for the "supposedly evil" Caesar. It wasn't a binary choice at ALL.

The problem is that the morality system seems to think NCR=good, Ceasar=evil. While I personally may agree with that, it's not a good thing to include in a setting that has a degree of ambiguity. And as I said before, if a morality system is best ignored, it's not a good morality system

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

How did it turn the complicated question into a simple binary choice? I'm saying the Karma meter was just a random annoyance. It didn't have anything to DO with the faction system at all.

You could theoretically be a lying, stinking thief and still fight to liberate Vegas. Or you could do a lot of favors for the Followers, helping freeside, even if you're working for the "supposedly evil" Caesar. It wasn't a binary choice at ALL.

The problem is that the morality system seems to think NCR=good, Ceasar=evil. While I personally may agree with that, it's not a good thing to include in a setting that has a degree of ambiguity. And as I said before, if a morality system is best ignored, it's not a good morality system

Here's why you think that: In New Vegas you hang around in NCR areas, more than you hang around in Legion areas. Towns like Novac, or Primm, or MojaveOutpost are some of the first places you go to in the game and they are all NCR controlled areas. And you're obviously going to find NCR supporters in those areas. So that NCR=good opinion is just what you're hearing from biased Fanboys; everyone ELSE in the Wasteland (ask the Followers) keeps repeating that the NCR are Inefficient, corrupt bureaucrats that will suck the Mojave dry.

On the other hand, in the few Legion areas (places a lot of people don't even GO to) Caesar is, unsurprisingly, praised to be the good guy. It's just that most people don't even bother GOING to those places. That's not exactly the games fault, I would say.

So no, I disagree. It absolutely was NOT a black/white pre-made choice. Fallout 3's BoS vs. Enclave was a black/white system. This was not.