Questionable morality system

[Trogdor]

So, I've played through the whole game now and I find the morality system pretty confusing. First of all, on a moral level I can't wrap my head around why it is 'evil' to smite the wicked. In this game, pretty much everyone you can possibly attack, will attack you as soon as they see you; it's not like you can go around attacking innocent people for their loot. The game's rationale seems to be 'you can't be like them, that leads to the dark side'. I would argue that it's socially irresponsible to leave homicidal sociopaths alive to hurt other people later. >_>

So by the time I was done with the first chapter, I already had the worst reputation possible, which in itself is baffling, because well... why would the people in shadowlair know that I had killed anyone in the prison camp? But even more baffling is that there seems to be no way back from the 'dark side' once you're on it. The loading screen informed me that certain characters would react to my 'bad-itude', and so I started sparing most of the enemies (going against my conscience in the interest of not f*ing up the story, because maybe Roy would do something nasty beyond my control). Despite being charitable, polite, honest, etc with everyone I met who wasn't trying to indiscriminately murder me, my reputation never seemed to go back up.

And so I have to wonder what was going on. The game presented me with multiple opportunities to betray/steal/extort from people, and I would have thought staying 'good' when faced with these decisions would significantly push my 'morality meter' back up towards the light side. Yet this was not the case, and so I have to wonder if there is any way to make your reputation 'good' again once you have killed x people, or if perhaps using the 'hide body' stealth skill was, in fact, killing them off-screen and pushing my rep back down despite my efforts to be 'good' again.

[kaay]

Hiding the bodies seems to have no effect on reputation, been doing it a lot and my rep is still excellent.
I played this game a lot and im still not sure about how exactly the reputation changes.
Doesnt seem to be a simple system where your reputation will move up and down on a linear scale depending on your actions.
I guess you could say its realistic because just like in real life its far easier to do bad things and get a bad rep than to get a good rep.
Also you can have an excellent rep then commit one crime and your rep will be tainted forever and no amount of "good deeds" will wash it away.
But yeah this is a game so too much realism is not necessarily a good thing.
Personally i dont mind the rep system in this game but i guess it could be a little more "transparent" so players have a way of knowing how it actually works.

[White Knight]

On the "macro" scale your opinons about good vs. evil are just that...opinions. These are touchy and confusing subjects in real life too. Consider the US and the death penalty, for example. Even soldiers have Rules of Engagement or the Geneva Conventions to consider. In this game, you have a choice to kill and harvest bodies for resources or to walk away. Killing bad people and sucking out their souls is still a pretty nasty business to be in, no matter how you try to justify it. Remember, you are the escaped fugitive and many of these "hostile" enemies are guards who are just doing their jobs.

On the "micro" side of things, the game appears to only account for your morality between chapters, as another person pointed out in one of these threads. You won't see any change until to progress to the next chapter and given the very small number of chapters in this game, your ability to move up or down on the morality scale is limited.

I played as paladin-like as possible on my first playthrough and on my second, I'm a soul-sucking badass. I haven't seen any differences at all between the two paths, other than have loads of serum of course.

I think you are right though, it is a weird system that could benefit from some tweaking.

[Trogdor]

LOL, yeah. These 'guards' who are just doing their jobs.. beating prisoners, using the Dust for slave labor, screaming 'GET HIM!! KILL HIM!!' whenever you get in a fight... And then let's not forget the rapey prison gangs and thugs mugging people in the streets. No, I don't buy it. Those guys are evil and deserve what they get.
It was also a little weird that the sidequest where you get forged ID seems to have no impact whatsoever on the story. Once you get the ID, it's never mentioned again and you have no opportunity to avoid any fights using it.
You mentioned, paraphrased, 'as one person pointed out, you won't see any change until you progress to the next chapter'. So is it indeed possible to go from 'bad' to 'good' and gain the good-side character feats? I killed just about everyone in the prison camp, then only killed a few people in ch 2 (the coin killer, faith's pimp, and the technomancers), and despite all my good deeds (in particular, keeping Honesty alive, which was a real chore) there, it didn't seem to make my rep any better than it was.
It doesn't really make logical sense either, as why would the merchants (the non-guard merchants in ch 2+3) care that you're offing the guards and gang members that are probably making it difficult for them to do business?

[kaay]

In our modern culture, killing a person because its a "bad" person is way to easily justified, and both movies and games contribute a lot to this mentality.
We spend most of our gaming time killing baddies, and we take it for granted that they deserve it.
Well, here comes a game that dares to challenge this notion.

Anyway the idea is not new, other games like Gothic 3 had a similar system that was even better developed because the implications and consequences of killing KO'ed enemies were more serious than in this game.

[Trogdor]

lol. So, you'd argue that leaving Fatso the prison rapist, who has proven himself to be 1) rapey, 2) violent, and 3) incapable of learning from his mistakes, alive is the right thing to do? So he can then later rape and attack others who may not be able to defend themselves?
That doesn't seem like the morally or socially responsible thing to do.
Also, once you've beaten the daylights out of these people, they just lay there on the ground, wounded. It's somehow 'good' to leave them there bleeding in the street? Yes, I'm sure there are space-paramedics standing by to tend to these men's wounds after you've shot, shocked, and bludgeoned them to within an inch of their life. Especially when you hide the bodies so no one can find them. Clearly the humane and good thing to do. :p

[White Knight]

Well, when you spend your days burninatin' the countryside, committing cold-blooded murder against unconscious opponents might not seem like a big deal but where I live, not many would be patting you on the back for doing that.

It's just a game and it is the way it is because that is how they made it. Arguing moral relativism as though there was a prize being handed out is kind of silly, don't you think?

Many people believe that killing anyone is generally not a good thing. Take executioners as an example. They carry out the state's will, they are the lawful agents of justice and yet they are always depicted as particularly unsavory types - never paragons of virtue.

As far as this game goes, all you need to know is this:

Beating the snot out of people = Good.
Killing them = Bad.

I don't think it is any more complicated than that.

[Trogdor]

No, I think it's worth arguing it, because the game is arguing it and this is a forum for discussing said game.
And so I disagree with... pretty much everything you just said. :p

[BGK]

The system is indeed questionable. However, devs are frenchies and as a french dude myself i can tell you that in this country, killing in cold blood a bad guy makes you pretty much as bad as him.

[Trogdor]

Well that explains things. :P

[Sofis Litzankat]

It makes little sense, there were many things about the game that needed more focus and thought to them.

[Elgar]

Originally posted by Trogdor:

(in particular, keeping Honesty alive, which was a real chore)

You managed to keep Honesty alive ? I thought it wasn't possible, I even found guides explaining that his death wasn't avoidable.

EDIT : You're right, thanks to your post I tried again and I could keep alive Honesty until the end of the quest ! Thank you ! In short, never trust walkthrough guides. ;)