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BioWare Forums  Forum Archives Old Dragon Age Forums Dragon Age (Old) The 'hard to be evil' issue
Dragon Age (Old)
Merkmerk
Joined: 17 Mar 2007 |
 Posted: Sunday, 18 March 2007 08:09PM |
This is primarily for those, who like me, have a hard time playing evil characters.
What makes it hard to play evil in the Bioware Infinity engine games?
For me, there's two main things
1) I feel badly when I'm mean to NPC's
2) Being mean tends to close off content. You piss off NPC's, you ruin quests, and you basically shortchange yourself for much of the games content (and rewards)
I think that if the evil/good content were more balanced, I would be more obliged to play evil characters. Most of the 'evil' options in BG1/BG2 involve simply being a mean bully, rather than really interesting twists along the lines of aligning with Sarevok in BG1 or something like aligning with Firkraag/Illithid/whatever in BG2.
With this in mind, I think I'd really like to see a more balanced and interesting alternative game for evil characters in Dragon Age - the Bodhi alternative was really cool in BG2 but she just turns on you in the end anyways, making it a cool but ultimately undefining choice. | 
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Aedan mac Gabran
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Joined: 17 Mar 2005 |
Posted: Sunday, 18 March 2007 08:27PM |
If the developers pour massive resources into making sure there is as much “evil” content as “good” content, then that will almost certainly mean less “good” content, and possibly less content overall. I most often play good, and I think that’s pretty typical, perhaps for the reasons you describe. The developers probably want to put the most time into the path that most players will follow, so “good” gets the most love.
The petty evil problem, where evil choices are simply destructive and psychotic, is a tough one to address and has been discussed at great length. Everyone wants more manipulative paths, but those are not easy to create and tend to diverge greatly from the normal path. David Gaider also thinks that no matter how many manipulative paths they include, people will still complain that the manipulative path their character would take isn’t there.
From what the developers have said, it seems the direction Dragon Age is going is to avoid “good” and “evil” altogether and instead try and include a number of interesting and reasonable paths through each plot. If some of those paths are “good” or “evil”, then that’s fine, but that won’t be the objective. I’m looking forward to see what they come up with. My hope is that there will be well supported idealistic and pragmatic paths through the game, and that if you consistently choose the idealistic path over the pragmatic, you will end up in some significantly more difficult situations. | |
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Dennis PC
Joined: 02 Jan 2007
From: Terra |
Posted: Sunday, 18 March 2007 08:29PM |
I would like it if evil really felt evil and would actually be a choice that a good character would dislike, such as the Closed Fist decision for dealing with Death's Hand and the party in Jade Empire. Also killing villagers in Fable often made me feel regret, perhaps because they were so comically cheerful. Rather than the not-so-evil choices in for example KotOR2 which were pretty much just kill, kill, kill.
I also hope we aren't forced to be good, like in NWN2 (literally they made Wolf unkillable) or heavily encouraging us to be evil (KotOR2, Force Storms and cost reduction).
Something I'd enjoy would be if there were two types of evil; one would be a greedy sort that is tempting, makes the game easier, etc., through demanding more rewards, using killing as a solution for every quest, etc.
And then there would be a different type of evil that is harder to do, where the acts may make you feel bad about what you're doing, and rewards of following the evil path are often more indirect, as would the evil itself; for example instead of slaughtering a village you might set them up to kill each other through slowly turning them against each other, or for example instead of killing a guard to get somewhere you might find a way to incriminate him for something he did not do and get him kicked out of his job, which in turn might make his family starve and you might later on come back to the town he used to work at and find them in total poverty. So it would be overall harder to follow and is for people who want their character to be really heartless and cruel, as opposed to greedy and violent. Sort of like the Closed Fist path in Jade Empire only more actively evil.
This is just speculation, though, and I doubt it will openly be there; I recall a dev stating there would be no plain good or evil system.Edited By Dennis PC on 03/18/07 20:30 | |
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Lightzy
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Joined: 14 Aug 2002 |
Posted: Sunday, 18 March 2007 09:34PM |
The importance of being evil:
Click Here
10 full pages of this very discussion, replete with a great many dev. posts.
very interesting read, I suggest it heartily, as you may find that most relevant issues have been discussed there and you may want to continue from where it left off
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Red Viking
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Joined: 20 Jun 2002 |
Posted: Sunday, 18 March 2007 11:40PM |
It can be difficult. I've noticed that, for the most part, the 'evil' dialogue in BGII for example was more akin to people who were ***s instead of those who were evil.
That said, I was really impressed by the "evil" choices in Jade Empire because there was reasoning behind it. For example, if you chose to keep the Dam in Tien's Landing closed, you could choose the option of arguing that it would force the town to find another way to survive instead of wallowing in self pity. That way, the townsfolk would be stronger because of it thus having something good came out of a hardship. | |
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Dennis PC
Joined: 02 Jan 2007
From: Terra |
Posted: Sunday, 18 March 2007 11:51PM | |
I like the approach of Morgoth and Sauron; they seemed less concerned with evil for it's own sake or personal greed than they were with overturning the Valar or destroying Middle-Earth, possibly through bitterness or jealousy towards the Valar in the west. Certainly they took on the role of evil antagonists, but the reason was not just so that they would be evil (although they were) it was that they were hateful and jealous towards the Valar. | |
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Torias
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Joined: 18 Oct 2001
From: Sydney, Australia |
Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 12:13AM |
I think the key for "evil" is for it to be diabolical.
The petty evil in Kotor on Taris is boring.
It's only when you get to dantooine and can actually get two fueding parties to kill each other in a big cross far that the evil cackling glee starts. | |
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Dennis PC
Joined: 02 Jan 2007
From: Terra |
Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 01:21AM | |
On the subject of alignments, don't you just hate it when you choose the option that gets the most XP in a quest or whatever, and then party members respond in a way you do not like, and you can't tell them, "That course of action got me the most XP."? | |
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Juhy
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From: Slovenia |
Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 02:36AM |
Hard to be evil? I usually find that evil is the easy way out.
Unless you go out of your way to be evil.. But thats more psychopatic that evil. :/
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Red Viking
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Joined: 20 Jun 2002 |
Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 06:28AM |
This is why I'm looking forward to Mass Effect. I was reading the Games Radar interview and Ray Muzkya stated that:
It's not black and white. It's not a simple system - it's more nuanced than that. There's no immediate, perfect answer. You know you're doing the right thing, saving billions of lives, but sometimes you might have to do literally the wrong thing to get there. These choices you make have payoffs but consequences as well. You're having an impact on the world through your actions.
So it seems like your going to have to get your hands dirty in this game. I mean, really, the most horrible people in history did terrible things in the name of the greater good. Had history turned out differently, they may have been remembered as heroes. Had the American Revolution failed, the founding fathers would have been remembered as traitors by history and not the saviors we know them as today.
So, really, say in Mass Effect and/or Dragon Age you had to slaughter 200 refugees in order to save 500 more. It was for the greater good, but the actions that you undertook were clearly evil. But, then again, is such an action justified if there were literally no other solutions?
Take another example: The Human campaign in Warcraft III has you slaughter an entire city that's been contaminated by the Plague of Undeath, which turns anyone who has been contaminated by it into a bloodthirsty undead creature who will swell the ranks of the evil Scourge, an undead army in the game.
There is *no* cure. The citizens *will* turn. You *have* to cut them down before they do.
So you're basically butchering innocent people. You have no choice but to do so and the action is for the greater good, yet the action is still evil. In fact, it was the very beginning of how Arthas, the human prince who gave the order, fell into darkness and became corrupted by the very evil he fought against.Edited By Red Viking on 03/19/07 06:46 | |
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VonChalay
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Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 07:00AM |
Quote: Posted 03/18/07 20:09 (GMT) by Merkmerk
For me, there's two main things
1) I feel badly when I'm mean to NPC's
2) Being mean tends to close off content. You piss off NPC's, you ruin quests, and you basically shortchange yourself for much of the games content (and rewards)
On those two counts specifically, I’m actually pretty optimistic about DA.
In K2 for example, I identified most with playing as a good leader (hello! ex-general here) who despised petty evil and the Jedi holier-than-thou narrow definition of ‘good’ in equal measure. So I got a stack of LS points for treating NPCs like T2, Bao Dur, Visas etc. properly like a good leader should, saving civilians from muggings and the like which were cancelled out by my killing every Jedi and saying things like “that’s what the Jedi do, they lie” (to Atton) at every opportunity. As a result, I was locked out of a prestige class, got the worst gem upgrade, couldn’t use alignment-specific items on either side etc.
With no +good/+evil counter, DA should open much greater scope in our ability to play characters that would traditionally be classified as falling between the LN-NE range without significant punishment. This would already be a vast improvement.
Cheers
Edit: Just to be clear, I still liked K2 regardless not least because they did a very good job on providing significant whole alternate paths (rather than a few quests results here and there) on every planet. Czerka vs Ithorians, Queen vs General, Mercs vs Militia etc. which is a whole lot more than most games.Edited By VonChalay on 03/19/07 07:22 | |
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Randalish
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Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 10:58AM |
Quote: Posted 03/19/07 01:21 (GMT) by Dennis PC
On the subject of alignments, don't you just hate it when you choose the option that gets the most XP in a quest or whatever, and then party members respond in a way you do not like, and you can't tell them, "That course of action got me the most XP."?
No. I do not hate that. I like that. In fact, if the option to tell them you did it for the XP existed I would hate THAT. A lot. An awful lot.
If you choose actions based on what gets the most experience... that is an out of character action that should not be reflected by in-game dialogue. Never.
And of course the NPCs will sometimes dislike that because it goes against their personal beliefs. As it should be. Maybe you're not motivated by anything besides getting more XP and loot, but in a good game the NPCs will have proper motivation and act accordingly. | |
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Dennis PC
Joined: 02 Jan 2007
From: Terra |
Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 12:20PM |
Quote: Posted 03/19/07 10:58 (GMT) by Randalish Quote: Posted 03/19/07 01:21 (GMT) by Dennis PC
On the subject of alignments, don't you just hate it when you choose the option that gets the most XP in a quest or whatever, and then party members respond in a way you do not like, and you can't tell them, "That course of action got me the most XP."?
No. I do not hate that. I like that. In fact, if the option to tell them you did it for the XP existed I would hate THAT. A lot. An awful lot. If you choose actions based on what gets the most experience... that is an out of character action that should not be reflected by in-game dialogue. Never. And of course the NPCs will sometimes dislike that because it goes against their personal beliefs. As it should be. Maybe you're not motivated by anything besides getting more XP and loot, but in a good game the NPCs will have proper motivation and act accordingly.
See, the trouble is that, in KotOR for example, I need that XP or I won't be able to finish the game. I mean, I took the most XP-giving choices for the entire game, reached level 20, and just barely beat Malak. On the occasion that I did not go for the most XP... I could not even beat his weak version on the Leviathan. In other words, the choice was pretty simple... get the most XP, or don't finish the game. I felt like finishing it, so I always took the most XP. | |
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RangerSG
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Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 12:33PM | |
I don't know how you took the highest XP choices and just 'barely' made level 20 in K1. I typically hit the level cap 'before' going to the Star Forge, and that's playing in character. | |
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maiab
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Posted: Monday, 19 March 2007 12:45PM |
Quote: Posted 03/19/07 12:20 (GMT) by Dennis PC
On the occasion that I did not go for the most XP... I could not even beat his weak version on the Leviathan. In other words, the choice was pretty simple... get the most XP, or don't finish the game. I felt like finishing it, so I always took the most XP.
Umm, KOTOR was rather easy in the combat department. The problem with final Malak fight only arose if you lacked the necessary power to weaken him. That was a bad design choice, I agree, but otherwise XP wasn't much of a factor, IMHO. However, the evil path was rather unsatisfying and unbelievable there. And of course that "final choice" thingie that could completely overwrite character's behaviour in the preceding 3/4 of the game was just irritating.
I am currently playing an "evil" game of BG2 or rather trying to... and it is _very_ limited and rather annoying. Taking an evil path, where provided, and refusing to do quests without a promise of reward just cuts you off from XP, content and loot  . And asking for a greater reward very seldom results in anything worthwhile.
KOTOR2, despite its unfinished state, actually provided the best "evil path" experience that I have had so far. Things and gameplay changed significantly and there was usually a somewhat plausible in-character reason for such behaviour, although I would have preferred more "embittered by injustice, out for revenge" dialogue choices. Of course, they really goofed on the neutral path...
I would have loved it if DA provided a similar variety of choices that make a palpable difference as KOTOR2 did, though not necessarily arranged on the good-evil axis. And of course, middle path should also be viable. | |
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