Stupid in game morality.

[TotallyFake]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

Yeah, that made me laugh. What's worse is when you:

Spoiler

have to choose whether or not to kill the Rachni queen. I mean, seriously, you get paragon points for letting the thing go, when you know it might still be dangerous and without even checking with your superiors! It's one of the most irresponsible things Sheperd does and you get rewarded for it!

See, this is precisely why morality bars don't work in games. The games view of good and evil will very likely be different from the players', and the only way they can counteract it is by going with choices like kill the baby or eat the box of kittens.

Firstly, I have to question your morality if you think it's okay to kill brainwashed people. They're still people, and there's such a thing as de-programing to cure them. And, if I recall, at the time you release them you aren't certain if they ARE indoctrinated.

And as for your talk of "rewarding" Shepherd, and "views of good and evil" you've spectacularly missed the point. The whole Good/Evil thing is entirely out of place in regards to discussing Mass Effect.

Shepherd is the good guy. Upholder of galactic peace, protector of damsels in distress, defender of humanity. Unquestionably, a Good Guy?. The whole point of the Paragon/Renegade bars is to determine what KIND of good guy. Is he a letter-of-the-law white knight who'll knock everyone out and take them to the cops (Paragon) or is he a bucking-authority see-the-big-picture kinda guy who'll happily shoot you down if it serves the greater good (Renegade)

The fact that it isn't black-and-white good-and-evil morality is the entire point of Mass Effect. BioWare are pre-emptively spinning in their collective graves at you both.

If i recall, you were entirely sure they were indoctrinated. And in my eyes, the sheer level of brainwashing made it a hard choice, but the right one. Maybe brainwashed was the wrong word, they couldn't even think for themselves at this point, they could barely think at all.

I'd say a lot of the morality is black and white. It usually came down to kill something or not. Perhaps good and evil was the wrong term, right and wrong would have been better i suppose. I belive killing those Salarians was the right thing to do, whereas the game gave me negative points for it.

Did you even read my post? It's not ABOUT right and wrong. It's about shades of grey. Paragon is not good, Renegade is not evil. And it's NOT negative points.

If it's about different shades of grey, then giving you points to make two little meters go up seems entirely counter productive. And it may not technically be negative points, but the game puts a negative spin on all the renegade choices, and they all seem fairly negative to me, except for the ones i disagree with.

Regardless of this, my original point still stands. Morality bars/points/whatever force the player to adhere a set of morals put forth by the game, rather than their own, and there is inevitably going to be some contradiction at some point, which will result in a break in immersion.

How does it put a negative spin on it? Garrus/Wrex will agree with you, Liara I believe will scold you sometimes. In the reverse situation they reverse the roles. The bars are simply there to keep track of which way your character leans. The shades of grey I mentioned refers to the good/evil line, there's clearly a line between sticking closely to morality (Paragon) and be willing to allow wiggle room (Renegade)

They don't force you to adhere to any morals. YOU do that, by deciding to have a light-side run, or to side with the Enclave this time around, or to play a Nosferatu, or make Dakkon cry. Just play the game as it comes, make the decision afresh at each choice.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

 

[General Ken8]

in prototype, you can surf down sidewalks using the bodies of old women as surfboards, but when you bump into a tank strike teams attack you

 

[Ph33nix]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

yeah and i saw it as a mercy kill.

Spoiler: end of mass effect

I also got renegade points for saving human lives but sacrificing the council who where dicks by holding my fleet back t oensure the death of the reaper.

 

[tsolless]

The problem with morality is that everyone has a different system and compass of morality.

I might think that it is fine to consume drugs if my doing so harms no one else, but others would disagree.
I might think that lying in order to not harm someones feelings is fin, others may not.
I might think that invading other countries where a dictator has killed people is wrong, others may think that it's the right thing to do.

It's because of this that a morality system really does not work.

What I would like to see is a game that gauges your view of morality on multiple different issues (pacifism, murder, lying, theft, drugs, etc.) and your actions regarding these issues can effect on where on the compass you fall on each individual values.
Then there are other characters and NPCs who also have gauges for each of these things and will treat and react to you differently depending on where you fall in those compasses.

Go out as a citizen and kill a murderer? If you run across a police they will each act differently depending on how they view the subject. If they a by the books kind of guy who doesn't approve of vigilantism they will likely arrest or even try to shoot you.
If they are a renegade themselves they might let you go or even help you.

Of course, this would be hard to code and develop scenarios based on how each person views the matter at hand but it would make it so that the game actually does change based on what you do and isn't in a eat puppies or give your life to save a kitten sort of a way.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

The fact that Killing everyone in the tranquilty lane yourself get's you negative Karma,While killing them with Chinese soliders get's you Postive Karma. And with the Soliders you kill them in the actual wastland.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

they attacked you, its self defence. slavery is bad because it will just lead to the slavery of a race again, killing one person doesn't put an entire race into servitude.

Enslaving psychotic killers will lead to us enslaving people based on race?

Sorry, I don't understand your logic.

 

[tsolless]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

they attacked you, its self defence. slavery is bad because it will just lead to the slavery of a race again, killing one person doesn't put an entire race into servitude.

You can't just claim that slavery will inevitably lead to slavery of an entire race. This is called the slippery slope fallacy and it is illogical.

The whole self defense and slavery of slavers is another example of how morality changes for each person.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Allowing for it's existence in general has the morality system of a game shocked you, offended your own views or otherwise made you go WTF? If so what do you do?
Fallout 3 letting you gain karma for helping a girl drug a priest (in training?) with ant pheromones so he'll leave the church and marry her (or lie to his boss.) If a boy wanted the drug this would border on date rape. I can't be alone in this.

Yeah, I've had my issues with Fallout 3's karma system and the situation you highlighted is an example of one such case.

In another part of the game, if you help the ghouls get into Tenpenny tower peacefully, their leader will STILL go back on his word and kill all the humans. In the face of such a crime, if you decide to bring down the hammer on Roy and his boys after the fact you still get nailed with bad karma!

Ever consider there is no "happy ending to some situations? That no matter what happens you still will have done wrong to one party or another? You know, kinda like real life?

I forgot about that.well morality tends to be in the eye of the beholder (is there anywhere the eye of the beholder doesn't fit?) so I'm gonna go with "more or less

True that. Like in the "you gotta shoot em' in the head" quest in Fallout 3, why does killing the ghoul bigots give you evil karma, when doing so is a good thing for the ghouls? Karma is a state of mind.

Yes but realise that the targets in said quest hadn't done anything wrong(cept maybe Tenpenny) and where only being hunted for their keys right?


EDIT: idk who it was, but they said how There was no non-homicidal solution to Tranquiety Lane...But if you talked to the old lady she told you that there was a terminal in the abandoned house. If you went in there and got it to appear, you could activate the kill switch, allowing you to leave without tomenting anyone.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

The fact that Killing everyone in the tranquilty lane yourself get's you negative Karma,While killing them with Chinese soliders get's you Postive Karma. And with the Soliders you kill them in the actual wastland.

Ya this was a mercy kill, because the professor was tormenting them for entertainment

 

[Wildrow12]

Allowing for it's existence in general has the morality system of a game shocked you, offended your own views or otherwise made you go WTF? If so what do you do?
Fallout 3 letting you gain karma for helping a girl drug a priest (in training?) with ant pheromones so he'll leave the church and marry her (or lie to his boss.) If a boy wanted the drug this would border on date rape. I can't be alone in this.

Yeah, I've had my issues with Fallout 3's karma system and the situation you highlighted is an example of one such case.

In another part of the game, if you help the ghouls get into Tenpenny tower peacefully, their leader will STILL go back on his word and kill all the humans. In the face of such a crime, if you decide to bring down the hammer on Roy and his boys after the fact you still get nailed with bad karma!

Ever consider there is no "happy ending to some situations? That no matter what happens you still will have done wrong to one party or another? You know, kinda like real life?

Yeah, but the second a game allows you to freeze time to snipe a seven foot tall mutant three times in the face with a shotgun in the ruins of post-apocalyptic D.C. while on a mission from a crazed DJ to retrieve a dish from a lunar lander to help him engage in a propaganda war with a crazed computer-turned-president, real-life situations and realism (and the related exemptions get thrown out the window). Besides, why is it bad to piledrive one group of bigots and not the other? I say what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

The fact that Killing everyone in the tranquilty lane yourself get's you negative Karma,While killing them with Chinese soliders get's you Postive Karma. And with the Soliders you kill them in the actual wastland.

Ya this was a mercy kill, because the professor was tormenting them for entertainment

Then why don't I get good Karma for killing the beggers,Slaves and half dead waste landers?

 

[Animated Rope]

Most morality systems is bad in the sense that it's hard to actually be neutral. I don't want to hurt people needlessly and that makes the game think I'm a goody two-shoes.

If I had such a morality system to work on, I would only award good points if you went that extra mile for somebody without earning any credits for it. Not for doing stuff almost everyone else would, and not for completing a quest in a less cruel way that still awards the same reward.

 

[Jekken6]

Whether or not killing someone in Fallout 3 is wrong is determined by whether they're "innocents" or not. In other words, if they're not people who will attack you on sight, you will get negative karma. I think that murdering people just because they have racist views deserves negative karma, but that's just my system of morality.

As for Tranquility Lane, that was an odd karma consequence difference, but I think the reason for that is that killing them all by hand also means freaking them all out and personally ruining their otherwise perfect lives in the simulation. What really bothered me was that there was no healthier way of solving the situation, as in not killing anyone.

And EcoEclipse, those were doctors, not scientists. It was a question of a lot of people dying or just you-know-who. That's what the game is all about - either you're selfish and save those you love, or you save as many people as you can even if that means losing people you love. Emotionlessless is basically demanded by the game's moral system.

Fallout 3 letting you gain karma for helping a girl drug a priest (in training?) with ant pheromones so he'll leave the church and marry her (or lie to his boss.) If a boy wanted the drug this would border on date rape. I can't be alone in this.

I don't recall gaining karma for doing that. I thought the result of that sub-quest was no karma consequence, but maybe my memory is incorrect.

Actually, you can do the Tranquility Lane quest without killing anyone.

 

[For Science]

Fallout 3 letting you gain karma for helping a girl drug a priest (in training?) with ant pheromones so he'll leave the church and marry her (or lie to his boss.) If a boy wanted the drug this would border on date rape. I can't be alone in this.

I don't recall gaining karma for doing that. I thought the result of that sub-quest was no karma consequence, but maybe my memory is incorrect.

You have to go to the wedding I think.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Whether or not killing someone in Fallout 3 is wrong is determined by whether they're "innocents" or not. In other words, if they're not people who will attack you on sight, you will get negative karma. I think that murdering people just because they have racist views deserves negative karma, but that's just my system of morality.

As for Tranquility Lane, that was an odd karma consequence difference, but I think the reason for that is that killing them all by hand also means freaking them all out and personally ruining their otherwise perfect lives in the simulation. What really bothered me was that there was no healthier way of solving the situation, as in not killing anyone.

And EcoEclipse, those were doctors, not scientists. It was a question of a lot of people dying or just you-know-who. That's what the game is all about - either you're selfish and save those you love, or you save as many people as you can even if that means losing people you love. Emotionlessless is basically demanded by the game's moral system.

Fallout 3 letting you gain karma for helping a girl drug a priest (in training?) with ant pheromones so he'll leave the church and marry her (or lie to his boss.) If a boy wanted the drug this would border on date rape. I can't be alone in this.

I don't recall gaining karma for doing that. I thought the result of that sub-quest was no karma consequence, but maybe my memory is incorrect.

Actually, you can do the Tranquility Lane quest without killing anyone.

It's a computer simulation. By killing them by your own hand they will just be remade in the simulation. Therefore you do not kill anyone.

Was that what you were trying to say? Becuase punching the proffesor does not qualify as a proper ending. (Seriously don't do it.)

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Like someone else said, everyone has their own definition of right and wrong. I think giving you moral choices in a game is a brilliant addition if done properly, I love it when its only shades of grey and you have to choose the lesser evil, or do something bad for the greater good. It really makes you stop and think what to do, and immerses you further in a game to make you care more about whats going on.

But I think scoring you on your choices doesn't always work so well because everyone's going to have a different idea of what the right thing to do is (or wrong thing to do if they are trying to be evil).

 

[Amnestic]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

they attacked you, its self defence. slavery is bad because it will just lead to the slavery of a race again, killing one person doesn't put an entire race into servitude.

You can't just claim that slavery will inevitably lead to slavery of an entire race. This is called the slippery slope fallacy and it is illogical.

The whole self defense and slavery of slavers is another example of how morality changes for each person.

it sorta does. humans need to feel superior and put others down just for being them. its the instinct of a god complex that every human has. its just an example that its a slippery slope, its all about escalation. in fallout 2, no one does anything about the slavers in the den, and it escalated to the point everyone could be enslaved, anywhere.

Overlooking the (false) idea that every human has a God Complex, the concept that enslaving bad people (raiders) would directly link to enslaving an entire ethnic group (Black people) is so fallacious and utterly ridiculous I have to wonder if you actually have any sort of education in...well, anything; nevermind psychology.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

In Batman:Arkham Asylum, Batman does stupid things based on his morality twice in the game.

Spoiler

1.Not knocking Joker off the cage when he had his chance. I'm pretty sure he could've saved him if he aimed correctly.
2.Not turning into a Titan. For one, it would've made the final boss much more interesting. Then, he uses the antidote on himself, instead of the Joker, even though it was revealed that Titan eventually wears off.

That is Batman's thing. He goes out of his way to save the bad guy. It's called justice, not revenge.

OT: inFamous seemed to work well with the Karma meter, because it worked. The karma options weren't ridiculous choices like:

Kill this healthy baby to become master of evil or, commit suicide to resurrect the world.

They were: Get this man to turn the valve and be blind for a while instead of you.

When I got that decision, this automatically, was my response.

"Mu. Ha. Ha." I said as I walked off, free from a tar covered face.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I shouldn't have to rescue a character I hate. That's the worst. Doesn't matter what game it is. I should always have the option to let them die.

Also, in The Punisher, you're given a score deduction for killing people during interrogations. Never mind that these are drug dealers, death row inmates, stone-cold killers, mafia members and yakuza. And you can kill them all you like any other time.

Not to mention you can't kill innocents at all. Fits the Punisher's character, but... Some of those guys aren't really innocent!