Rewarding 'bad' choices.

[Doomguy132]

In many games, there are points where the player has to make a choice between doing something 'good' (like keeping an NPC alive.) or an 'evil' choice (the player slaughters the Scientist like in Half Life.) Now, usually there is little incentive to do the bad choice, because the game often punishes the player for doing the 'wrong' thing, and the player is rewarded for having a sense of morality.

But what if we reversed this? What if the game encouraged the player to do negative actions with the promise of goodies or such? Would the player be so willing to to do good actions when the game doesn't encourage it? To be honest, I would like to see this implemented in a game, because I want to be someone who always does the right thing, no matter the consequences, like a true hero.

 

[smwScott]

One of the things that I initially liked about Mass Effect was that decisions often carried the illusion of weight. It seemed as though sometimes doing the "right" thing would be irresponsible because it would expose a wider population to greater risk. However in practice it turned out to be pretty possible to have your cake and eat it too in pretty much every case, which I found very disappointing.

A game which actually gave you difficult decisions and forced you to face the consequences would be amazing. I want to see a game that doesn't just revolve around "good" and "bad" but rather just presents you with a situation and let you handle it how you see fit, without assigning an arbitrary morality judgment to your actions.

 

[Que-Ever]

Well, if you run over hookers, you can get your money back.

 

[Pesmerga]

Oh ****ing lol.

 

[Krynn72]

I think this good vs bad shit needs to gtfo of our games entirely. We need to be allowed to make choices that are not clear-cut right vs wrong. This Dark Side / Light Side, Paragon/Renegade stuff is absolute crap.


IE: Do what Deus Ex did.

 

[Adabiviak]

AVPII had a little of this, I think. As an alien, your 'health packs' were sketched out scientists who were too scared to run. You had to kill, then scratch them to get health (or a bite with the inner-mouth would get even more health).

 

[Pesmerga]

Although not really a "bad choice" as far as morality goes. Killing little sisters in Bioshock gave you more Adam, although that never really mattered because at the end of the game you had every Plasmid and weapon upgrade available.

 

[Operational]

But what if we reversed this? What if the game encouraged the player to do negative actions with the promise of goodies or such?

Overlord is like that apparently. Black & White also did this to an extent.

 

[Asknoone]

'Choices' in games kind of suck. I hate the whole concept of non-linear storytelling.

 

[Jintor]

It's certainly more difficult. Bioware for instance keeps going "Oh we're not going the traditional dark side vs light side choices, no way!" but they always end up doing that. Karma meter for sure.

If games were to more openly reward atrocioties or 'bad actions', then there would be a moral panic and we'd start World War G.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

'Choices' in games kind of suck. I hate the whole concept of non-linear storytelling.

I believe that you lost that argument when we had it previously.

 

[Mech Man]

Overlord is like that apparently. Black & White also did this to an extent.

Actually overlord gave you more for doing the right thing. It made me a little dissapointed with the game but i still love it.

 

[VirusType2]

for me it depends on the game. I think it's cool to be able to make decisions that change the outcome of things, but honestly, i haven't seen a game that does it right yet.

This reminds me of something - I remember a few times in Morrowind, I ended up killing someone that was vital to the main quest-line. The game puts a notice on the screen telling you what you have done and tells you that you can continue your game like this, with the fate of the world doomed, or reload your game.

 

[Kadayi]

I recommend having a look at The Witcher. The game is full of decisions points that have an impact upon the events in the game, but the consequences of those decisions cannot readily be viewed as either good/or bad and often don't come to fruition until much later on in the experience. You can't decide, see what occurs and then easily reload if the decision doesn't gop the way you expected. A number of times when playing it, I found myself really having to really think hard about what choice to take, because there were pretty convincing arguments on both fronts.

One of the great problems with games that centre around 'good' and 'evil' is that 'evils' motivations aren't that well thought out most of the time, if at all. They are evil for evils sake, rather than their 'evil' actions being a resultant of rational motivations on their behalf.

If a barbarian horde invade their neighbours lands because of a bad winter are they being 'evil' or simply trying to save themselves? Certainly to the villagers they overrun and enslave their 'evil' but amongst their own people their leaders were probably seen as saviours.

 

[Eejit]

Dungeon Keeper

 

[Tagaziel]

One of the things that I initially liked about Mass Effect was that decisions often carried the illusion of weight. It seemed as though sometimes doing the "right" thing would be irresponsible because it would expose a wider population to greater risk. However in practice it turned out to be pretty possible to have your cake and eat it too in pretty much every case, which I found very disappointing.

A game which actually gave you difficult decisions and forced you to face the consequences would be amazing. I want to see a game that doesn't just revolve around "good" and "bad" but rather just presents you with a situation and let you handle it how you see fit, without assigning an arbitrary morality judgment to your actions.

The Witcher. Arcanum. Fallout.

 

[Operational]

Dungeon Keeper

I thought of that but Dungeon Keeper doesn't present any choices - you play an evil character and that's that.

 

[Asknoone]

I believe that you lost that argument when we had it previously.

My good man, you cheated. Hardly a victory.

 

[Berto]

Any good RPG, like Fallout, Planescape, even KOTOR that is a bit basic as an RPG rewards you if you make "bad" choices, actually it always rewards you whichever choice you make.

 

[Eejit]

A.D.O.M. ftw

 

[Blackthorn]

I recommend having a look at The Witcher. The game is full of decisions points that have an impact upon the events in the game, but the consequences of those decisions cannot readily be viewed as either good/or bad and often don't come to fruition until much later on in the experience. You can't decide, see what occurs and then easily reload if the decision doesn't gop the way you expected. A number of times when playing it, I found myself really having to really think hard about what choice to take, because there were pretty convincing arguments on both fronts.

Beat me to it. The Witcher definitely has plenty of moments where bad decisions have definite rewards, and often both choices are pretty damn bad and it comes down to choosing the lesser evil.

 

[Tagaziel]

Beat me to it. The Witcher definitely has plenty of moments where bad decisions have definite rewards, and often both choices are pretty damn bad and it comes down to choosing the lesser evil.

Which is even worse for Geralt, who believes there is no lesser evil.

 

[Raziaar]

Heh... With Galactic Civilizations II, it almost seems like all the good benefits come from doing the evil thing when you make discoveries on planets, and the 'good' decisions seem to get the short end of the stick with penalties instead of bonuses. Neutral is usually either nothing really or slight penalties.

 

[Blackthorn]

The rewards of "bad choices" is also pretty relative to the player. Take GTA for example. You couldn't possibly classify shooting waves of civilians as a good thing to do, but the reward is it feels so damn good.

 

[Jintor]

Fallout!

 

[PimpinPenguin]

As it been said previously in this thread, The Witcher does this well. I can't say how many times i believed i was doing the right thing just to find out later i made certain situations worse. I liked how morally the right choices, might not always be best, and being an asshole on some occasions is better. For example on one Mission i'm helping this racist how hates elfs, when they come to steal back weapons that are rightly there's. So what do you do? Let them take it as you have no quarrel with them. Or kill them to protect the weapons. So i let them steal the weapons and the guy wasn't to please i let them steal them, and i though that was that. Untill several acts later a package i'm suppose to deliver to was killed by the same gang with the weapons they stole.

Even some of the basic choices i had trouble with, at one stage you have to choose who you leave Alvin a special orphan with. On one hand there was Triss who's a powerful mage, and can protect him and let him realise the potential of his power. On the downside she won't love him or care for him and he would be miserable with her. On the other hand you got Shani who will love the kid and take good care of him, but she can't protect him and won't let him realise his true potential, and she is also irresponsible as in one act she left him with a Witch accused of loads of crimes. And whoever you choose you marry, so you have to put who Geralt would be happiest with in the equation aswell. Needless to say who ever you reject will be pissed at you.

I loved The Witcher much more than Mass Effect. Mass Effect gives you an allusion that your choices have an impact when they don't and essentially all choices have a good or a bad option which are obvious. And what ever you choose has no lasting consequence and you can reload to see what happens The Witcher forces you to face the consequence, and has lasting damage, and is not as simply as good or bad.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

What's interesting about Mass Effect is that the choices that actually significantly affect the game experience or story are the ones that aren't clear-cut good or evil. The paragon/renegade system is more to do with how you get the job done, not what you get done in the first place. I think that was sort of the point from the beginning, but people tend to think it's a binary good/evil thing because that's how it usually works in games.

I'm also becoming more and more interested in The Witcher, but the demo just didn't really do too much for me. I might just spring for the Enhanced Edition when it hits stores, though.

Really, i found all choices in Mass effect clear cut, Blue for the good answer and red for the bad answer. And loads of the multiple choices are the same, it one conversation the game gave me 5 choices, 4 were the same All Bioware did was make it look different when there not. This is further annoying when in certain dialogues my crew would call me mam'n then would call me sir in others. No choices really effects the story significantly that i found. I easily went though the game with no renegade points whatsoever.
The game forces you to take certain characters with you just to satisfy the story and because i was female i was forced to be nice to Kiaden. None of the choices made me think, and certain decision i though would have a big impact did not. I was really disappointed on when you had to choose who lived or died. All that happened was whoever you saved said a few words and that's it.

But i would really recommend getting The Witcher, the demo does it no justice whatsoever. The Game does start slow, but once it gets going it great and choices you make really have an impact and make you think hard. That Witcher actually gives you proper choices unlike Mass Effect. for me The Witcher is way ahead of Mass Effect and i know i lot of people who agree.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I wish games would make it how it is in life... bad choices give you immediate rewards (like money) but leave you in the dust once everyone betrays you because you're a dumbass. But good choices don't give many immediate rewards (besides gratitude), but you get lots of help towards the end (discounts ftw, lol).

 

[Kadayi]

I'm also becoming more and more interested in The Witcher, but the demo just didn't really do too much for me. I might just spring for the Enhanced Edition when it hits stores, though.

I greatly enjoyed Mass Effect, I thought the story was pretty compelling, (though the side quests were annoyingly repetitive), however despite not being as fancy in terms of look I'd put the Witcher above it in terms of depth of play. I didn't feel any significance occurred in my choice of actions in Mass Effect as much as they did in The Witcher, and the renegade choice (kill the ******, Kill the *******, kill ***** )was always one where in you'd be clearly choosing to play the Bastard/bad ass. In the Witcher, it's almost never the case that choices you face are so clearly defined as out and out good/bad.

Certainly wait for the enhanced edition. I believe it should be out in September now. Be aware that The Witcher is a much longer game than Mass Effect (70 hours on the box is no exaggeration), so it does take a fair amount of time for the Story to get going. The demo is nothing to judge it by.

 

[Jintor]

I think I'll try out the Witcher when I get the chance. I was not impressed with Mass Effect.

What Mass Effect did, mainly, was sideroll you. Because it wasn't what you do, it was how you did it, in the end it just felt linear. Linear, linear, linear. I mean... sure, it was cool linear, but nothing really changed. Decisions counted for the here-and-now and that was it. The stuff like what you're saying about Witcher - that's what I think I want from a single-player RPG - the feeling that yes, I am affecting the world in more than just the short term. That what I do has consequences.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

'Choices' in games kind of suck. I hate the whole concept of non-linear storytelling.

I'm not sure if I'm thinking the same thing as you, but I'm inclined to agree to a point.

In a linear game, you make the wrong choice and it loses you the game. Now, whether the right choice is "morally" correct or not is a whole other issue. The point is that you only have one path which will win you the game, otherwise it's a little bit of a cop out. Maybe someone else could explain it to me in such a way that it works. I dunno.


Now, in a non-linear game, I think the idea of somewhat arbitrary "This is good" and "This is bad" options is daft. The actions you take should have consequences, but to have some behind the scenes moral counter is silly. However, if you kill someone who happens to be the friend of someone else then that other person is not going to like you anymore. And that could have an effect on how you continue the game. As for the objective of this non-linear game, well... I dunno. If it's like GTA, then it won't have any impact because whatever you do in that game, you can always continue the missions. I love GTA, but it's story is absolutely set in stone. I bring up GTA just because it's a popular game that people tout as being freeform. I want to see more non-linear story telling experiments, (So far most games seem to have really failed at this) because... well... why not? We end up with some bad games, but then one day a group of people could get it right.


*Climbs off hobby horse* How did I get here?

 

[Jintor]

Okay, here's something that might not be clearly understood. This whole "your choices don't have consequences" thing... you do realise that Mass Effect is a trilogy, right? It was designed from the beginning as a trilogy. I would not be surprised if BioWare had the entire story planned out even now. And not only that, but the second game, at least, will allow you to import your save data from the first game; depending on what you did in the first, it will affect the second.

Spoiler

So now all this stuff like choosing who gets to be the human Counselor, saving or killing the Rachni Queen, helping to save the Salarians or letting them die on Virmire, possibly who you let live during the same part of the game, and whether or not you were a role model or an asshole... all of that, I'm quite sure, will have an effect not just on the first game (a minor one), but on the rest of the series as a whole. Imagine if, in Mass Effect 2, because you saved the Rachni Queen, her race comes back to kill the entire galaxy all over again? Or maybe, picking Udina over Anderson will affect how humans are seen by the rest of the aliens in the game? It's starting to make sense now, isn't it?

No, because Mass Effect should also have been able to have that sense of 'consequences' as of and by itself, and shouldn't have to rely on "OH IT'S A TRILOGY" to back itself up. Mass Effect is marketed and touted as an incredible single-player game with groundbreaking moral choices, not as "First in a trilogy!" - why can't the moral choices within it come back to haunt you within the same game as well? Why are the rewards the here-and-now and the here-and-now only? "OH IT'S A TRILOGY" is nothing more than an excuse for something that has always been presented as a stand-alone story.

 

[Saturos]

The first game I've played that officially allowed the player to choose between 'good and evil' and have good benefits for being said evil beastie was probably the PC version of Fable:TLC. Character wise, it was probably the best implementation of this concept I've ever seen because the character actually 'evolved' into a hideous, demonic creature if you stay evil long enough, but it didn't really change the story all that much tbh.

I normally don't like games like these though because I feel compelled to save often at certain "good/evil" turning points of the story just to see the opposite outcome later. I've never gotten used to the "freedom" that many of today's games offer for this reason too.

 

[Saturos]

Having your character change depending on the way you act is neat, but it's not like you'll see anything different playing as an evil character twice over.

If I have time to play Fable 2 one day, I hope to see different and random 'mutations' depending on the character's moral alignment. Or maybe even mutations that are functional even, like demon/gargoyle wings or something. That would be awesome indeed. The one thing that I didn't like was that the pure evil character looked too hideous for my tastes and it was the same every time.

 

[Operational]

The first game I've played that officially allowed the player to choose between 'good and evil' and have good benefits for being said evil beastie was probably the PC version of Fable:TLC. Character wise, it was probably the best implementation of this concept I've ever seen because the character actually 'evolved' into a hideous, demonic creature if you stay evil long enough, but it didn't really change the story all that much tbh.

Knights of the Old Republic did the same thing. Both games offered choices that were either clearly good or clearly evil and rewarded going to the extremes of either. KotOR2, I thought, did a good job of exploring some moral ambiguities even though the underlying system didn't change, although it makes sense to preserve the good vs evil themes in a Star Wars game.

 

[Jintor]

In any case, "it's not The Witcher so it sucks" is not a very good argument. Just because one game does something better doesn't make another game worse. While I understand your point, I never felt disappointed in the amount of freedom I was offered while playing Mass Effect, and never thought that the choices I was given didn't bring plausible implications. Maybe it's just the fact that I was viewing the game as the first installment in a trilogy rather than an entirely self-contained experience that made me less critical in this respect.

I didn't say it's not the Witcher therefore it sucks. I said that I didn't enjoy Mass Effect as a standalone game.