what would be the perfect moral choice/karma system?

[z121231211]

I think one that makes it harder to get evil or good. Instead of having a score between -500 and 500 they should have a sortof level system which the more evil you try to be, the harder it is to get more evil, and the easier it is for your good actions to take you back a level. You would have to be absolutely perfect to get the max good level and do genecide to be the most evil. Gray areas would be very easy to get.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I liked Mass Effect's system quite a lot. It didn't really matter which way you went except for some different story elements and the 2 achievements. I dislike the karma systems that make the game vastly different depending on if you go good or evil, like KOTOR.

I think Yahtzee put it well, it's pretty silly when your "moral choice" is between eating babies or helping old ladies across the street.

 

[Ridonculous_Ninja]

I think one that makes it harder to get evil or good. Instead of having a score between -500 and 500 they should have a sortof level system which the more evil you try to be, the harder it is to get more evil, and the easier it is for your good actions to take you back a level. You would have to be absolutely perfect to get the max good level and do genecide to be the most evil. Gray areas would be very easy to get.

That's what most systems are.

It's just that all the choices are so blatant and repetitive.

 

[ScarlettRage]

How about we don't have a karma system and just let me do whatever I want without the game telling me what I am doing is right or wrong?

SECONDED IT!!!
NOWNOBODY SHALL STOP ME
MAWAHAHAHAHAHA

oh yeah, i forgot to take my pills,brb

 

[z121231211]

I think one that makes it harder to get evil or good. Instead of having a score between -500 and 500 they should have a sortof level system which the more evil you try to be, the harder it is to get more evil, and the easier it is for your good actions to take you back a level. You would have to be absolutely perfect to get the max good level and do genecide to be the most evil. Gray areas would be very easy to get.

That's what most systems are.

It's just that all the choices are so blatant and repetitive.

What I was trying to get at is that the first time you do it it's a +5, second time +4, etc. So you would have to do increasing evil or good choices to get farther on the scale.

 

[Skarvey]

I agree with Yahtzee, the system of moral choice is too polarized between pure vomit inducing benevolence and almost cartoonish villainy. The problem is not only in the all good vs. all evil mechanic, but in the implementation of it in games, especially in moral grey areas where you're not fully good or evil, NPC's reaction to your character is uneven and often fundamentally flawed.

The problem is that these karma and moral choice systems do not in any way mirror what we consider them to be in real life. As characters, we influence the world around us by being good or evil, but we never get anything back. In any given game with a moral choice system, I can punch a pedestrian in the face, and chances are good that he or she will run away from me. I'd like to see a game where they punch back because that would be true karmic justice.

Conversely, I would like to see a game where I'm actually rewarded for my good deeds, rather than giving freely of myself simply to see my good karma points go up. No one thinks like that! If I do something good, I want the game to be nice to me for it, sling some health packs my way once in a while, have some followers to bring with me in a firefight, and if I can keep them alive, hey, maybe there's a reward for that too.

To sum it up, I would like to see a moral choice or karma system that is characterized, humanized much in the style of the AI Director a la Left 4 Dead.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

I think people should judge you by hearsay, rather than a meter that keeps track of how many good/evil things you've done.

For example, if you murdered a dying mother and her 3 starving children to steal what little they had and someone saw you, you would expect people to think you are FUCKING EVIL. On the other hand, if no one knows you did this dastardly deed, why would they judge you for it?

 

[gunbladejoe]

one with a neutral choice.

 

[Syntax Error]

How about we don't have a karma system and just let me do whatever I want without the game telling me what I am doing is right or wrong?

Yeah, don't give us a "meter" or any indicator of how good/evil we've been. Doing so ruins the whole Choice System, since you're going to see whether you're tipping to either side of the scales or not.

 

[captainwillies]

the best alignment system needs proper backing from a very "advanced" game interface/world where your not just black and white but lots of grey of as well

Spoiler

full size image: http://i29.tinypic.com/10ciuit.jpg

 

[squid5580]

Easy enough. First lose the meter, silly names and all that other useless junk. Now let me play how I see fit without labelling me or hindering me by only giving good or evil skills. Now that I am playing how I want ot play let me play it. If I am a jerk to person A then they have a reason to hate me. Don't let my actions have any influence on person B if they weren't around to see me do it. Don't make the choices obvious. Allow me to decide what I deem good or evil without smacking my hand.

And this is the big one. Don't make the consequences so apparent right away. Lets take Megaton for example. So my evil character decides to blow it. Gets to Tenpenny and cycles through the dialogue. Why couldn't Rivet City then come and attack? Or some other unknown consequence that wouldn't be apparent right from the get go. Finish what you start here devs. Just because you slap on "THE END" doesn't mean we get any closure.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Mass Effect 2 should have a good, in depth one. I want a karma system that really matters, one where your character will only think of answers based on Karma, so bad characters can't say good stuff (unless they lie) and I want games to change dynamically based on karma, like missions and stuff.

I disagree big time. When I make choices in games, I make them based on how I feel about a specific topic, if an evil douschbag just raped and tortured a bunch of people, I will KILL him, not just bring him in to jail to win good points.

 

[Delicious]

Lots of choices with appropriate reactions. No "Karma meter!" bullshit, just the opportunity to be good, bad, or anywhere in between.

Everyone's moral compass is different, so let them decide what is the right or wrong choice.

 

[TheBXRabbit]

Lots of games are using moral choice systems, But the choices are very binary and are basically helping a child cross the street or kidnapping him.

Could you make a better karma system? Explain in-depth.

For ex. from inFAMOUS, there is a choice whether to let a few people take some rations, or shoot a few people and keep the food for his friends. How would you improve it.

I think game developers need to add in the neutral karma option whenever any moral choice system is used. But more importantly they need to make it just as easy to stay in Neutral karma as it is to stay Good or Evil. Fallout 3 came close, but in the end if you wanted to be neutral you weren't really able to do most of the quests. Oh, and the moral choices themselves shouldn't be too obvious or easy, there need to be consequences for whatever choices you make greater than an in-game meter going up or down.

I think Mass Effect did moral choice best (at least, better than any other game I've played), mostly because in the end you're still the hero. Whatever you do will end up being justified, so rather than having your choices focus on being good or evil, your choices focus on being a Paragon or a Renegade. Or in simpler terms whether you follow the rules and achieve your goals in a moral fashion, or break any rules in your way and do whatever you have to, no matter how dirty or despicable, to get the job done.

Oh, and to solve the Infamous scenario? Add in the option to immediately grab a few rations for yourself, and leave the rest for the innocent civilians.

EDIT: I also think there should be some sort of advantage for consistency. Once again Mass Effect did this pretty well. You could always choose the middle option, but if you consistently chose the noble or cruel options, your character could become better at persuading people through charm or intimidation, respectively. If they'd just added a third type of persuasion for neutrality, it would've been pretty sweet. (But what would they name it?)

 

[Kiutu]

Its always too simple which is the problems. I like ones that are not so obvious one way, or seem obvious but are not. For example, killing an innocent is bad, but saving a town from doom is good. WHy not something where one choice involves killing an unwilling innocent which in turn SAVES the town. It saves more lives than harms, which is good, but innocent blood is still on your hands.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

"Perfection" is unattainable at this point; until we have the capacity to generate dynamic effects to our actions in games all you'll end up with is a handful of options with pre-determined responses.

That said, even with the technology we have no the current system can be improved. The essential problem isn't that one choice is "good" and one is "evil"; instead, the problem lies in the simple fact that the scenarios we are usually given are so lopsided that one will choose good time and time again unless they are specifically trying to play a game as an evil character. I can only think of two situations where a game gave me a distinct decision point that actually gave me pause, one was in Fable 2 and the other was Mass Effect.

In Fable 2, when you reach the end of the game you are given the option of either saving those you care about or saving everybody else who died constructing the spire. Neither choice is explicitly evil, but one is certainly more selfish than the other. I actually switched back and forth between those two cards for a few minutes while I struggled to make up my mind.

In Mass Effect, I actually had a terrible time deciding what to do with the Rathni queen. Given that this species plunged the entire galaxy into a brutal war at the cost of untold billions of lives, the denizens of the galaxy would probably applaud me for exterminating the race yet again. Yet, in spite of the obvious threat presented, something stayed my hand - the queen was not overtly hostile, indeed she seemed to simply want to exist in peace. What's more, who was I, a mere field grade officer on a mad quest to stop the destruction of advanced life, to make the decision to exterminate a species. The choice I was grappling with was probably the best I've seen in video games - do I punish a species for past transgressions or let it live knowing full well what may happen? In the end, I let the queen go - it seems if I was on a quest to save sentient life it would be rather hypocritical of me to do and finish off an advanced species in the process.

 

[Zombie Badger]

The game that I think has the best morality and karma system I've ever seen is The Witcher, because it doesn't have a morality or karma system. It gives you important decisions but doesn't boil them down to some stupid, facile black and white good vs evil choice so it can give you points and hold your hand and tell you if you're doing good or evil. You have to figure out what the moral significance of your actions are yourself.

That's my favoruite as well. The way it works is that after you make a decision, you only see the repercussions of it hours later in the game. This, as well as the lack of a meter showing how good you are, makes it feel more realistic.

 

[barryween]

Mass Effect 2 should have a good, in depth one. I want a karma system that really matters, one where your character will only think of answers based on Karma, so bad characters can't say good stuff (unless they lie) and I want games to change dynamically based on karma, like missions and stuff.

I disagree big time. When I make choices in games, I make them based on how I feel about a specific topic, if an evil douschbag just raped and tortured a bunch of people, I will KILL him, not just bring him in to jail to win good points.

I'm sorry I should clarify, I just meant I don't want the "GOOD" and "BAD" answers. I mean like in your situation, a good character may say "These guys need to be killed" but a bad one will say "I'm gonna tear these ass holes a new one!" Just stuff where evil Characters will put stuff in a harsh manner, and maybe they won't have the choice of helping a Grandma across the street, unless if she pays him, I just meant slight changes to give a more evil vibe.

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

Well, first of all, in my opinion, you should only be able to influence Karma/morality to the good side if you did something good which you didn't gain from, or at least didn't know you were going to gain from. If you just gained good karma from being a mercenary who happened to fight for the good side because they were better paid, or you get good points from defending yourself and killing a bad character, then that is not a moral choice, that is a material choice. What does count as a truly good, as in selfless, act, is doing something when you know you're unlikely to benifit, and especially if being good is likely to bring you to harm. You shouldn't gain good points for slaying a bandit gang. You should get good points if you proceed to disarm and arrest said bandit gang. Evil is simpler though, if you do something bad you do something bad. This doesn't count if you defend yourself obviously (unless you kill someone who was surrendering.) but otherwise, murder, stealing and all the other evil stuff should attract evil, whether there was a reward in it or not.

Secondly, differentiate between personal morality and reputation. Your character may have a conscience, or his/her deeds may simply be kept track of by a karma/morality bar. However, just because you saved a town from an ogre that was 20 miles away and coming to destroy it, doesn't mean that town has any idea what occurred. If they did know, yeah, everyone in that town will love you (well, most of them) but that doesn't mean that the next 5 towns are going to know about it, or about you. There may have been some word-of-mouth, but the impact on your reputation there won't be quite as strong. So you may be an absolute angel in the Gods/your consciences mind/s, but a tendency to do something wrong (or just unpopular) whenever people are around will tend to result in you being regarded as a bad person in towns, making your character a victim of "all of the other reindeer." Equally, you may be a neutral or even evil character in reality, but kill all the bandits on a road or save a city from destruction and people will love you for it, even if it was just self-defence and you had a neutral or even an evil reason for doing it. Making you an anti-hero with popular support or even a villain with good publicity.

This is how I think morality should be done. Just my two cents.

 

[Macgyvercas]

okay, get this. a game that has three endings: a good one (virtuous flower child with love and a smile for all the shiny coated beasts of God's kingdom), a bad one (hybrid of Hitler and Skeletor whose very piss is pure liquid malevolence), and a neutral one (say, helping people as a day job and destroying the world on the weekends)

BTW, I am severely ripping off quotes from Yahtzee's BioShock and Infamous reviews