gonna watch this after work but thought i'd leave some thoughts without watching the video.
the way fallout handles morality from game to game is very different. fallout 1 and 2 are pretty neutral, the game doesn't try to make you feel bad for doing bad and feel good for doing good. i think theres like 1 or 2 things like if you kill a kid you get branded as a kid killer and everyone in the world knows you killed a kid (which i dont like). then you got fallout 3 in which you lose karma for doing bad things, even if it was to a bad person. it uses its karma system to push the player to do good things, and its easy to accidentally get karma or lose karma when you weren't expecting it as a result of a speech choice or killing someone, etc.
i really liked that fallout 4 did not have karma because i think that karma can work, but it works better in the fallout 1/2/nv reputation system where your have different standings with the people you have interacted with. it doesn't even have to be a visible score to the player, it just has to be the characters reacting in a believable manner.
if i kill someone and no one saw it, i shouldn't be vilified by every settlement i visit. no one saw me do it, and even if they did who went out and told the whole world that i did. there are games that handle morality better than fallout and they don't even have karma/reputation systems, they just do so through dialog etc to connect to the player.
[editline]30th May 2017[/editline]
and so far new vegas has had the best morality system because unlike fallout 3 it doesn't try to make me feel bad for killing someone just because they were a good character.
He's absolutely right. This moral ambiguity that can be found in games like Fallout is something that - while it exists in other media forms - has the opportunity to be discovered and explored in the gaming media in a much deeper way because of player interaction and choice.
I like how he brings up Fable, because that is a great example of a game that takes this binary good-evil system and brings it up to 110% and very much in the game series self-aware fairy-tale nature, makes an (unintentional?) satirical jab at other games such as Mass Effect where they never really embrace the binary system but instead try to cover up the flawed shallowness of it, as if they're making a game with player-choice in the center but they're ashamed of the underlying workings behind it.
Games that try and be morally black and white and don't wear it effectively like Fable does are a fucking pain
The Witcher series was pretty effective at being very morally gray and its probably the biggest thing I admire about it. When choices are black and white it really stops being choices and starts being "basically if you play this like how you would do it in real life you'll choose the 'morally correct' decision 100% of the time"
When I play a game with choice, I want the game to literally make killing a child to save a bunch of other people or some shit seem morally sound. I don't want it to feel forced either, or be bullshit like OH KILL ALL OF THEM OR SAVE THEM NOTHING IN BETWEEN
[editline]30th May 2017[/editline]
It's actually kind of funny, despite how much people shit on Fable 3, [sp]ignoring just buying real estate and making money that way, I really admired the fact that you had to either ruin your military budget and doom everyone to death but have then live very happy, or be a giant asshole and save them. It was actually really nice to see that kind of moral grayness from an otherwise black and white game[/sp]
[QUOTE=J!NX;52291952]
It's actually kind of funny, despite how much people shit on Fable 3, [sp]ignoring just buying real estate and making money that way, I really admired the fact that you had to either ruin your military budget and doom everyone to death but have then live very happy, or be a giant asshole and save them. It was actually really nice to see that kind of moral grayness from an otherwise black and white game[/sp][/QUOTE]
The problem with that is [sp]if we're implementing all the things Logan was already doing in order to build up money for the army, why is the treasury empty when you overthrow him? We're given no indication that his plan will work since the country is broke as fuck AND a horrible autocratic dictatorship under his rule.[/sp]
Karma in Fallout 3 was so nonsensical though. You could nuke a town but that would be balanced out if you gave enough water to homeless people
If Bethesda doesn't understand that NV was the best written fallout, and adapt accordingly, I see the games getting worse and worse over time.
[QUOTE=Lambeth;52292140]Karma in Fallout 3 was so nonsensical though. You could nuke a town but that would be balanced out if you gave enough water to homeless people[/QUOTE]
Karma was a shit system to begin with, one of Fallout 3's endless amount of flaws. How the fuck do you quantify morality, not to mention how values would be percieved so subjectively by every unique player?
[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52292197]Karma was a shit system to begin with, one of Fallout 3's endless amount of flaws. How the fuck do you quantify morality, not to mention how values would be percieved so subjectively by every unique player?[/QUOTE]
Karma in a world like Fallout is pretty much going to be a giant convoluted shit-show 100% of the time
I'm pretty much completely convinced that a karma system in a world where you could make an actual case FOR murder and stealing and not sound insane... could just never work
[editline]30th May 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Janus Vesta;52292101]The problem with that is [sp]if we're implementing all the things Logan was already doing in order to build up money for the army, why is the treasury empty when you overthrow him? We're given no indication that his plan will work since the country is broke as fuck AND a horrible autocratic dictatorship under his rule.[/sp][/QUOTE]
I mean, I won't deny F3 certainly had its flaws. But that's what we get with sequal-fatigue I guess
Honestly, I feel like karma systems in [b]any[/b] game are a bad idea, at least at a low level.
Instead, I think the more correct solution is a factional standing system, where actions the player take with respect to a faction affects how that faction views the player. Killing a faction's people generally doesn't make them happy, whereas helping a faction further their goal generally makes them look at you more favorably.
There are, of course, instances where such a factional standing system can morph into a karma system - particularly, in situations where there's only one faction whose views you can change with your actions.
I personally like the idea of faction webs, where factions have different relationships with other factions, and actions "pluck" the web, propagating changes all throughout. The game I am most familiar with to do this is Freelancer, and I really enjoyed the way it worked - killing a faction's ships not only pissed that faction off, but it pissed off their friends, too - and at the same time, made their enemies a bit happier with you.
[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52292197]Karma was a shit system to begin with, one of Fallout 3's endless amount of flaws. How the fuck do you quantify morality, not to mention how values would be percieved so subjectively by every unique player?[/QUOTE]
Ten Penny Tower is a great example of this
[sp]Side with the tower denizens and don't let the ghouls in? Evil karma. Convince the tower people that they can live together? Ghouls come in and kill everyone. Good karma(???). Kill the ghoul that orchestrated the massacre? Evil karma.(?????????)[/sp]
[QUOTE=J!NX;52292281]Karma in a world like Fallout is pretty much going to be a giant convoluted shit-show 100% of the time
I'm pretty much completely convinced that a karma system in a world where you could make an actual case FOR murder and stealing and not sound insane... could just never work
[/QUOTE]
Yeah but Fallout: NV exists which does just that.
[QUOTE=Xron;52292641]Yeah but Fallout: NV exists which does just that.[/QUOTE]
Fallout NV pretty much ignored karma, though. It existed in a vestigial form that gave you insane amounts of good karma for killing escaped convicts and then a little bit of bad karma for stealing dynamite from those convicts' stashes. The weird thing is that karma factors into some of the endings, but it's difficult to keep yourself from being on a higher karmic pedestal than Superman and Mister Rogers combined, so you just end up always getting the good version of those endings.
[QUOTE=Xron;52292641]Yeah but Fallout: NV exists which does just that.[/QUOTE]
even in nv it was a disjointed mess of a joke because they had no way of making it work at all
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.