what would be the perfect moral choice/karma system?

[Virtual_Dom]

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.

 

[the1ultimate]

One that made you feel guilty and relied on your conscience to tell you how good or evil you have been. Where you felt actual guilt, or good for your deeds.

Karma meters are almost always unreliable.

I kind of agree with Yatzee in his inFamous review.

I guess you don't?

 

[BaronXS]

There will never be a 'perfect karma system'. But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

 

[BoxCutter]

But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

Hopefully, I honestly don't think it will change "drastically" as some believe but it should be interesting.

Anyways the perfect karma system for me would be a system that understands humans. Every human has the capacity for good and evil within them, and every human has committed an evil act at least once in their life. I would like to see a game that really gauges how drastic the little things you do are. Sometimes all it takes to save someones life is to listen to them. Its not always so black and white, but I can understand how hard that would be to program and how long it would take.

 

[funksobeefy]

One that made you feel guilty and relied on your conscience to tell you how good or evil you have been. Where you felt actual guilt, or good for your deeds.

Yeah, in Kotor I always felt bad about being evil, but it still was a blatant good or evil choice.

Make every action you do part of it, and not have one choice affecting everything, like they are trying to do in Mass Effect, you cant just reload one check point and immediately choose a good or bad side. It would have to be a progression thing

 

[ae86gamer]

There will never be a 'perfect karma system'. But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

I hope so.

Spoiler

I killed Kaiden in ME1, and I wonder how greatly that will affect the story, if at all.

I don't really think there is a perfect karma system. If one comes out, and is beyond good, someone will find something negative about it.

 

[ZomgSharkz]

One that made you feel guilty and relied on your conscience to tell you how good or evil you have been. Where you felt actual guilt, or good for your deeds.

Yeah that's really the best way to do a karma system, although it's pretty much impossible since everyone's mind is different. The only moral choice that was close to that idea (for me at least) was in Fallout: The Pitt. I had a really hard time deciding what to do with the baby, no option seemed quite right.

 

[Curtmiester]

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?

 

[Ridonculous_Ninja]

I think it boils down to add more specification, and more choices that would need to go with it.

Add, Scheming Evil, Rampagin Evil, Paragon Good, Charity Good etc etc etc.

The only choices they ever give you in the Kotor games are kill or rob if you want to be evil, good is give them cash, or help them out.

There needs to be more persuasion, more black mail, more help them in a way that benefits you and brings misfortune down on others kind of stuff.

Why couldn't I make Juhani pretend to be good and then come with me, or threatan a merchant with shutting down his business unles he gives me some of his cut, or making a random person go into a store and steal things for me. The choices are very narrow and the system won't work all that well until we get numerous ways to be evil or good instead of just a blanket system.

And yes, I know that's all mostly dark side suggestions, but I always play evil.

Bottom Line:

Add more versions of good and evil, put in the Chaotic/Lawful balance from D&D, add some more to that, etc, etc, etc.

 

[Biosophilogical]

My only issue with the karma systems in games i have played (Fable and Infamous) is that it either, doesn't affect your powers to any significant degree (Fable) or there is no powerful middle ground (Infamous). A karma-system i would enjoy playing is one where your powers alter depending on your morality (Infamous) but the benefits are balanced by negative effects of becoming more good/evil so that you are just as powerful full good/evil as you are neutral. I think a morality system of this kind would make people happy that they can now play as neutral. 1 down side. People would complain that there aren't enough advantages for being full good/evil.

One last thing, continuing with the example of helping a child cross the road, in Infamous, leaving someone to die/cross a road as though you never came along shuldn't be evil, evil should be maiming them and walking away should be nuetral.

 

[GodsOneMistake]

One where I have a very large range of actions, more than just good an evil.
A game with the range of
Second Coming of Jesus
Saintly
Pretty good
Good
Okay
meh
kind of an ass
Evil
Terrible
Horrid
The Devil incarnate

 

[Irridium]

There will never be a 'perfect karma system'. But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

I hope so. I killed Kaiden in ME1, and I wonder how greatly that will affect the story, if at all.

I don't really think there is a perfect karma system. If one comes out, and is beyond good, someone will find something negative about it.

you should probably put spoilers on that.

Spoiler: I, on the other hand...

killed the entire counsel and placed Anderson in charge

It will be interesting on how that will affect the story.

 

[GodsOneMistake]

There will never be a 'perfect karma system'. But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

I hope so. I killed Kaiden in ME1, and I wonder how greatly that will affect the story, if at all.

I don't really think there is a perfect karma system. If one comes out, and is beyond good, someone will find something negative about it.

you should probably put spoilers on that.

Spoiler: I, on the other hand...

killed the entire counsel and placed Anderson in charge

It will be interesting on how that will affect the story.

Wow your a bastard lol. I hate being bad in games idunno why and I hated anderson even more

 

[SimuLord]

I'm less interested in how games handle karma meters (more options, more gray areas, and more context would be nice, but probably beyond the ken of most AI algorithms in games these days) and more interested in whether the game gives as much fun to evil players as good ones (or vice-versa), making it so the game isn't basically forcing you to choose to be good (or evil) just to be able to complete the damn game. When you give the player a "choice", then make one of the available choices a game-breaker, that's a problem.

 

[lostclause]

A good karma meter shouldn't impact on the game too much but still have a clear effect such as in the original fable where it changed your appearance which was really cool or in fallout 2 where your karma dictates some conversation options.

 

[tsfkingsport]

To make a system of good and evil the concepts of good and evil must be clear and precise. The problem is in real life right and wrong are not as clear as we would like to be. The best morality that allows the most flexibility is one in which the game does not label good and evil and there are only choices. If the designer of the game and the player both have differing definitions of good then things are going to get weird when the player does something he thinks is right and the game calls him an evil monster.

I have not played that many rpg's but I am a casual fan of western rpg's and Mass Effect seems to have the best morality system because it is not good vs evil it is how do you wish to enact your definition of good. But I still would prefer that the Paragon/Renegade meters be done away with and just have choices.

Better example of moral question I want to see in a game. Ending of Watchmen, Ozy or Rorshach, who do you agree with more? Thats the kind of question that adding a numerical value to the idea of good is just going to alienate some gamers.

PS Watchmen comes out of DVD July 21 in the United States, please do not spoil the ending for those who have not seen it.

 

[Avatar Roku]

But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

Hopefully, I honestly don't think it will change "drastically" as some believe but it should be interesting.

Apparently, based on your choices, Shepard could be dead by the end of ME2, and then you will simply use another character in ME3. Or he could live on through all three. Seems revolutionary to me. And, according to GamePro, these aren't choices that you can just load an old save to get around. Say, the event happens at the end, there were at-the-time insignificant choices throughout that led to it.

But yeah, for morality, I want the sort of system in which the game doesn't judge you. No karma meters. The only difference between alignments is how NPCs react to you, but it isn't just "he's good, I'll be nice to him", its "he made this specific choice I disagree with, I'll be an ass to him". Put in a lot of ambiguous choices like in The Pitt (Fallout 3) or Bring Down the Sky (Mass Effect) to really screw with it. That's a good system, more shades of gray.

 

[ae86gamer]

There will never be a 'perfect karma system'. But I think that Mass Effect 2's choice system will be revolutionary.

I hope so.

Spoiler

I killed Kaiden in ME1, and I wonder how greatly that will affect the story, if at all.

I don't really think there is a perfect karma system. If one comes out, and is beyond good, someone will find something negative about it.

you should probably put spoilers on that.

Spoiler: I, on the other hand...

killed the entire counsel and placed Anderson in charge

It will be interesting on how that will affect the story.

I fixed it. I opted to do the opposite.

Spoiler: I..

saved the council but still put Anderson in charge. I couldn't bring myself to kill the council.

 

[L4Y Duke]

Spoiler: I chose... (Mass Effect spoiler)

I went with the path of the Paragon, right up until when I let the Council die in order to defeat Soverign. I even Paragon'd Saren into blowing his brains out.

I think a 'Momentum' system would work. It would judge not where you are, but your average score throughout the game. That way, if you went Chaotic Neutral (I'm good! No, wait, I'm evil! No, wait...), the game would detect the repeated momentum changes and give you a Chaotic Neutral ending.