Why don't morality systems work in games?
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Frostpunk is a good game, but man does it gas itself up on being a title that makes you ask difficult questions about yourself and then fail on that ambition completely.
Still a fun game though. But let's talk about how and why I can see it doing better.
Music used:
Frostpunk - Main Theme
Frostpunk - Order
Pathologic - Most
Frostpunk - Streets of New London
Frostpunk - The Shepherd
Tropico 5 - Motika
Junko Ohashi - I Love You (Afuno FF Remix - • Junko Ohashi - I Love ... )
Just a Studio[華人球團隊] - Silicon Dreams
Sunless Sea - Undulata
Channels I borrowed footage from:
- DeLadysigner
/ deladysigner
- ACiiDzFTW
/ @aciidzftw
- SulMatul
/ @sulmatul
- IGN
/ @ign
- SvalPlay
/ @svalplay
- Keralis
/ @keralis
- Mr Mochalover
/ @mrmochalover
================
Last Minute Essays is a creative project of mine, made solely because I know people prefer listening to rambling to reading it. And there's a lot of rambling that comes out of my brain which I want to get out into the world somehow.
You can find me on Twitter - @CuteMutePrude
/ cutemuteprude
It's always morally correct to give me money
/ lastminuteessays
#Frostpunk #heartsofiron4 #lastminuteessays
ko-fi.com/cute...
I think the reason is because morality is more complex than it is.
It isn't just this thing is right or wrong.
Because sometimes what you think is bad doesn't look bad on another perspective
This. I felt anoyed a lot of the times when frostpunk told me the decision to make your poeple work longer hours is evil. I mean would letting them die because of cold/hunger be a good decision then.
It misses the context a lot of the time.
If Frostpunk was just harder, and punished mistakes more, then its morality system would work tbh.
When I was playing it for the first time, I had similar experience - I built a totalitarian dictatorship on accident, by just clicking buttons.
So when game told me that I "crossed the line", on my second playthrough I chose hardest difficulty, and decided to play as a good guy. I didn't try that much - I still have my "second" attempt unfinished, but I tried to do it a few times - and my city was not sustainable, if i did not pick child labor. That was more meaningful to me, than my entire first playthrough.
To be honest iv never had problems with labour. Quite the opposite in fact given how good autamatrons are.
You put them into the most vital being coal and food and then all those fleshy meatbags can be put into backups and building stockpiles.
Tfw you finish a game with like 3 weeks worth of coal and a month of food.
@@brentonherbert7775 Same only exception was the endless endurance mode on extreme. I would even say going child shelters/medical route is better in most playtroughs.
what made Frostpunk less of an eye-roller for me is that framing of "these people know nothing but life of toil, so let's maybe create a place that at least resembles normalcy, despite the circumstances and odds", I think those fleeting few moments when NPCs fully expect you to just replicate the oppression they experienced prior just to see you go: "well actually I WILL build a children shelter" do just enough lifting to make this particular take on "will you be GOOD or EVIL???" feel just a tad more earnest that most
anyway I need to add those other games to my wishlists haha
replacing the "we won but at what cost" with "you could've built something better here but you didn't", this obvs gets drowned out but everything else beating you over the head as you said but I find it valuable either way, oh well
See, I'd actually love that - good choices being their own reward and all that. Even if at the cost of people grumbling it will get them killed. But as it is, things are way, way too clear cut for easy number crunching by the game.
interestingly Fable III had the exact same kind of framing and while it had ugly shortcomings of its own it also had the balls to pull the rug out from under you just when you thought you could totally min-max your way to the good boy ending, a decision that wasn't popular with a lot of ppl back then funnily enough
Giving cocaine to children should be a positive rep action
It's always morally correct (in Minecraft)
"Cuno doesn't fucking care!"
Love the video. I like Crusader Kings for this, it's not as morally swampy as TNO, as you describe it, but it does create a space where I do bad things, knowing they're bad things, and feeling bad about doing them, for what I tell myself are the right reasons. Moral consequences in CK happen in the mind, not in the game telling you you did something bad or taking something off you.
I also really like the Stress system in CK3 forcing you a bit to play a character consistently, rather than just going with purely what's optimal
@@LastMinuteEssays I love that, yeah. I've noticed even new CK players just start roleplaying very quickly rather than just trying to 'win'. It's so good at encouraging that.
Too many words when you could just say that Shadow the Hedgehog peaks
I'm not a Sonic fan so I need all these words to convey the same ideas. It's a debilitating condition.
I think games often take the easy way out, games shouldn't use morality systems to call you a tool, they should use them moreso to gauge your values. The first game the comes to mind that does something like this is Triangle Strategy, which I haven't played, but, basically in that game there aren't "good" or "evil" choices, instead your choices lean you more towards one of 3 different ways of thinking, Utility, Morality, and Liberty, and (presumably) the game never calls you're a monster for leaning towards one or the other, it just gives you a story suited to your play style and values.
or maybe the game is total ass and doesnt deliver on any of these promises idk lol
You can get the best ending if you know what to do.
yeahhh... that's the *promise* of triangle strategy, but it really doesn't live up to it, especially with the True Centrist Ending where you have to reject the plans given by each morality representative (including the "hey, there's a fucking slave labour nation, let's free the goddamn slaves" option) to achieve the Ideal End That No One But Evil Bad Guys Are Mad About
Every time a non-HoI4 RUclipsr mentions TNO it feels like collective community brainrot increase by 10%
this was a really interesting video, and actually voiced a lot of the thoughts i'd been having about strategy games! mainly, how do we move away from pure optimisation based games to something that focuses more on navigating competing interests and making actually tough decisions (not just moral decisions but also ones where you're not sure if you actually made the right gameplay choice). i feel like most strategy video games shy away from tapping into this really interesting part of design, especially compared to their board game brethern, because so much focuses on optimisation and getting big numbers. this video has also made me a lot more interested in tno, i got kinda put off by how boring my china playthrough was back in 2021 but it's nice to see it's developed a lot since then!
I haven't played China yet and I know Guangdong itself is quite unique gameplay-wise, so grain of salt there.
I definetely had a worse experience trying to control Japan itself.
Just found out that Rise of the Rōnin is going to have a karma system.
I'm very interested in how this is going to turn out.
Just found your channel while looking for reviews of Kings of Dragon Pass. Man, you make awesome videos, gonna watch your Fire Punch video next.
Regardles how good moral system is, im still can ingnore it. My morals has priority.
I wasn't ready for the surprise guandong gaming
I found a solution in replacing people with robots... They do not have a need for free time or food, just steam so just replace squishy humans with long legged robot dogs that work on steam. I am of course oversimplifying the matter but there is a simple way of doing things because all the scenarios are fixed in place. The easy way: Child shelter and then internship (best to put them in medical), bodies in the hole then organ harvesting, amputation then prosthetics, fighting arena and brothel. Keep all the people inside the city or in the areas with warmers after day 3. Everything manual should be done in first 3 days of the game (with focus on coal, it will give you time to research production from the sources in stead of gathering things). Once you choose a path, you simply ignore the skill tree... That is pretty much it, a combo of linear choices that will win you a game if you know what you are doing... This can barely be called a morality problem, especially since I am an uncaring god who likes to see numbers go up XD
I need you to please do more videos on TNO, I have been following it's development for a long time and watched many gameplay videos, and it never ceases to amaze me to see what new fascinating countries or paths I have overlooked
I haven't played that much of it, but considering how consistently strong it's written, I probably will reference it someday
Always happy to see there's a new last minute essay.
Although this one is bad because it makes me want to buy and play a paradox game.
Tragic. Maybe it'll be in some bundle, TNO genuinely runs well on nothing but base game.
The way I see it is that morality is too complicated and multilayered to be accurately simulated completely in really any media. Instead, if morality is to be portrayed, it needs to be done so with acknowledgment that the portrayal will be imperfect. If this acknowledgment is not used we see situations like you described where the morality system feels either forced or unnecessary.
Nice SBAHJ insert :)
WE ARE NOT DEAD. WE WILL NEVER DIE.
6:50 slight correction here.
By the game standards you ARE the manager/mayor of the place, the bird eye view is more for gamplay reason. This is ever more so during events, as the option is ask of you and sometimes will adress you directly as a person in the escene.
Very similar to lobotomy corp mind you, as you are the Manager of the place, not a godly force, thus why too in that game the UI isnt super helpfull and cant control movement of characters to the Letter.
Had a bit to think it over, but having seen "morality" as a game mechanism in a number of other places, I guess I'll chime in:
That fundamentally baking an expected form of morals in a gaming system is limiting; as I see it, that you are encouraged to develop something like a skill and and are thusly judged on performing it well
I'll at least say it's on a gradient at least exemplified in 3 or at least as much I have seen, in
1) "PICK THE GOOD OPTION FOR BROWNIE POINTS", where all the options are already hard labeled by the developers in the most blatant binary, pretty much straight up saying in full game terms "do x behavior and get rewarded/punished cuz the developer said it was good/bad" regardless of motivation, just that specific actions are already moralized out (see every single GOOD/BAD moral choice in the past AAA generations)
2) Deconstructive: are at least somewhat self-aware of the above, at best I can say games like Kotor2, Spec Ops and hell even Undertale, where they set-up the expectation of "do x for good vs bad" but try to thematically subvert it in plot: Spec Ops "do you feel like a hero" or Kotor2 in many parts epitomized in Kreia's criticizing all your actions cuz "Kreia will remember that".
But on the other hand, they're also heavily limited to being almost purely done in story and narrative, but are somewhat ludo-narratively absent, if not outright dissonant: yeah thematically your character "should" opt out of any force powers to prove Kreia's point...but you also get skill points and levels and are you really gonna pass up force lightning as a player? Hell, I'm even more critical on something like Undertale for trying to overtly say "don't kill for exp/power and it'll be harder but you'll do it for friendship"...and it ultimately making the game so absurdly easier that it's like you aren't really sacrificing anything at all? (there's a bigger rant I'd share but it just comes down to "doing good DOES make life easier" not being morally challenging to me.
which brings us to
3) "Complexity in no-win factions" or aka "How to solve everyone hating each other (you don't)". Not the true ideal, but at least the best in leaving morality as an open question, where values and situations are set-up for mutually exclusive choices so it's more to the player's internal value alignment to a given faction, to whatever end the developers allow. I'm reminded of Divinity - Dragon Commander where between Religious Skeletons and Industrial Goblins and Neo-Liberal Dwarf merchants, all your choices will affect your influences in a tug-and-pull and who you favor (or who you wanna waifu really).
I will say tho...that "zero-sum" faction influence is probably not ideal in presentation in a sense that it ultimately assumes SOMEONE is getting fucked over in every decision or more so if there IS a meta to the game where "it just makes sense to fuck over this one guy cuz he offers so little in-game mechanics". I'm side-stepping it a bit but fundamentally one of the issues is that if you want to ask moral questions and strap them in-game to an external (but in-game) reward, it highly devolves into people instead trying to "game the moral system for goodies" but even more so, the logic of the entire system would argue through its systems:
1) "Pick the Developer's aligned right choices or fuck you"
2) "HAH you thought normal genre conventions were moral? FUCK YOU AGAIN"
3) "well now, YOU get to choose who gets fucked and who you're willing to fuck you back"
and it can feel the hand of the author to be patronizing regardless, if simply by the limits of design.
Weird that we haven't gone back to stuff like Disco Elysium where it might actually stem as an honorary 4th critique of the 3rd, where it's themes/Author's political argument is that picking ANY alignment is fucked cuz none of them actually solve your ACTUAL issues (some better than others tho) but I think it's best at stating since it feels unlike a 3's Roscharch test of morality, that the author actually CAN have a say of their own worldview through it's exploration of choices, while maintaining it's own identity of themes (no matter which ideology you pick, shit's still kinda fucked)
It's more so tho, that Morality is Subjective (as groan worthy that phrase is) and variable between people but a game system is pretty much hard-coded in limitations, that it might have to be made separate from the gameplay loop like something like Soma with all it's infinite open trolley-problems without any "right" answer, less it devolve into "I'm only playing moral for pragmatic reasons, cuz making the riot police crush the orphanage gets me a winning city score" is honestly not much of a better take-away if ultimately the game is then "morality is a luxury for when it doesn't make me starve" etc...
I was watching the whole video scared for my life that LobCorp will appear with a baseball bat once again
I'd say that morality sucks and reputation is great, simple as
As far as reputation systems go, I remember Tyranny having a pretty neat one - every faction had separate "Favor" and "Wrath" meters and for some reason I find it more interesting than just a single stat because hell, you can evoke both feelings in them at the same time
Tyranny's definetely on the list because rules lawyering good governance out of baddie government sounds fun
Morality systems don't really work. The "how you feel about the world" system, like in Disco Elysium works much better. The "choose your type of coping" type of thing, used to describe the character
Ig rdr2 has the best take on it...
Cause arthur isnt a good or bad person, he is a person who redeemed himself 😊
Have yet to play RDR2, but as far as I understand, that's the plot, not a game mechanic tied to that plot
I really hope the morality system in Frostpunk 2 will be better.
The Forgotten City asks some questions about morality, perhaps you'll like it.
I do like it! It's even in the video as an example of a game that is a diamond pressed out of coal dust
Edit: I apologize for the length. I like the video overall its an interesting discussion but I do disagree on most points at least somewhat so I got a bit carried away.
I mean. The morality in Frostpunk is in a way a commentary on binary morality itself. The options that are "bad" in the morality system are really powerful tools to help you survive in the cold. Frostpunk thematically and borderline explicitly asks you how far is too far. I do agree it could be improved in places, endgame laws that give good points but offer more challenge like for example a law for more sick leave for your workers. But overall I find this video rather lackluster in terms of actual thematic analysis.
Frostpunk at its core is about survival, and the difficult choices you might need to make along the way. Its binary morality is only binary in a strictly mechanical sense, because a broader view of the text will reveal that the morality in the game is a lot more grey. You did what you had to in order to survive, its the donner party dilemma. In my opinion the "good" ending feels like a concession, as if saying "we survived, and we should not have. We were lucky to keep our morals intact and still live".
The authoritarianism portrayed in this game is not the fascist totalitarianism of certain ww2 powers but instead an authoritarianism born of necessity. You are not seizing power, you are deciding if survival is worth the cost of your morals. This video asks "is it really a moral failing? or a practical one". That's the point. That's what the game is going for. It is explicitly trying to put you in situations where the practical choice is the immoral one, in order to analyze the morality of a desperate situation and if you can really call such a decision immoral.
In this video it seems as if you judge a good binary morality system purely on mechanical effects rather than narrative and thematic weight. To me that feels rather short sighted and misses the point of having morality in games in the first place.
Also as an endnote, you are a person in the fiction of the world? Like did you miss the dialogues where your citizens literally thank you? Sure you don't literally have an avatar, but its very heavily implied that you are a real person in the fiction of the world not least in the sense that your people can literally rise up and murder or depose you if discontent gets too high.
I do see your point, and I think I would be a lot more receptive of the idea of using the system to track that authoritarianism if there was no definite point at which the game tells you that you crossed a line. That and genuinely giving me options to pass laws that are detrimental to survival for the sake of ethics (even if they are a gameplay trap with 100% fail rate) so that the law system does not lie there unused.
I did like The Ark and The Refugees scenarios more, partially because doing the right thing in both comes at a significant cost. It's easy to optimize the ethical conundrum out of the base gameplay loop, but tailored scenarios make it more interesting for sure.
As for me being a person in the fiction - I genuinely never felt that, even with people thanking me in dialogue bits. Maybe it's due to how extremely high or low discontent and hope need to get to affect gameplay, maybe it's due to the fact I could see these meters at all times. But the primary reason for this point was the ending collage of all the laws I passed that made me go "No, i didn't approve of that, I set up a leaflet printer and a city watch, that's all I did". The consequences of my actions were not clearly linked to the actions themselves, even in retrospect, and the law system feels like it either expects you to commit in full or not at all.
Also stop complaining about eating soup, people, Jesus.
@@LastMinuteEssays I definitely see where you are coming from there. The ending slides do somewhat come off as contrary to what I think is the intent behind the game, and I think it would be more interesting if they just listed some decisions you made nonjudgementally and then concluded with "and so we survived".
It definitely sounds like your issues with the system come more from a personal disconnect between your expectations and the game. Its definitely an odd issue that could be handled better. The propaganda center is an odd one because you could definitely interpret it as leaflets. I think the game tries to imply that the propaganda is there to silence dissent and demonize those who question you. "Those who oppose the leader oppose survival!" and such. Its a little poorly communicated either way and I made the same "mistake" as you on my first run.
But if we do actually look at the text of the game as presented we do see that we are playing a character that exists within the world. We even see him in some of the promotional material (aparently they execute you by tying you up over a steam vent and scalding you to death). Characters refer to us as the leader and speek directly to us, when discontent and hope cause a game over its not the city decending into anarchy its specifically us getting deposed or executed. I guess a way to more firmly cement this concept in the game would be to have some starting government structure that you upgrade to access some laws. Idk, I felt it did a good enough job to communicate it to me, maybe if the rough edges were cleaned up it would work for you too
Giving kids drugs is always a good move they always come back for more!!!
Also GREAT video!
There is morality and then there is ethics. Morality is giving to the poor, ethics is not murdering a person just to save a thousand others.
Ethics being of course the important thing which you may never under any circumstance violate.
You should look at a game called Broken Roads, its about morality in the post apocalypse that's written by actual phd philosophers.
Noted, thank you!
My man you are the "Captain" in Frostpunk. You are not a omnipotent beeing floating in the sky, you are the Leader of the city and get reports on resources, events and the general mood around the city. Somtimes you also get protests, Riots and ppl calling for your head.
Technically, yeah, but that ain't conveyed in gameplay much. There is no seat of power for you (unless the game implies you have a room in the generator that gets white-hot by the endgame), you are not included among the stats for housing and food needs. It's a typical concession for a strategy title, but if the name of the game is survival, I feel like being able to be a total dickweed putting the needs of few ahead of the needs of many should at least be an option, including caring for your own needs first.
Maybe if hope and discontent were tracked individually and not with one big ol' meter, it would feel more like I'm actually oppressing people, I dunno.
I know exactly how you feel with frostpunks end replay after you have done a scenario.
You made us work 14 hour days so we could "all" survive the coming storm you evil man.
You made us eat soup to extend the currently limeted rations we have. EVIL
The propaganda thing could have been done kinda like they did in anno 1800 you can spread the news as it is or change things around so the poeple dont hear about the bad stuff. with a change of them finding out.(stil not perfect but atleast a risk reward to the system i felt was missing in the game.)
It feels a bit that the devs themselfs missed the context of the game in those end messages. This is kinda like how dictator ship used to work in the roman republic. Dictatorship during crises, republic during normal times.
And then Julius screwed it all up!
@@LastMinuteEssays Yes and no by the time Julius came around it was like kicking a wooden house infested with termites. It all just came crumbling down.
Congratulations! Guangdong.
You just play third world country simulator.
As a south american i hope it was enlightening, specially to the venezuelan circumstances in the last 10 years.
Apart from that, about frost punk, i never concider its morality to be really judgmental and more melancholic, as first of all the whole laws is "Authoritarianism or Cult" or in other goes "Oligharchy" in its place,very binary, not really develope, as is more to be simple as people dont really ly seek to think about this stuff, just feel as they do.
And as i underestand Guangdong is more you against other human forces that you can influence but not control, while frost punk is You against the climate, something you can only react to, and that is in part what makes it more a 1st playtrought only, information makes the escenearious waay easier, where it shows you how EASY is for humans to devolve its societies when things gets tought, and sometimes that is needed, otherwise people die.
Someday I'll go for a Fujitsu or Hitachi playthrough and it will be even more of a 3rd country simulator lmao
Best of luck out there.
Skill issue tbh
It kinda is, but I was genuinely doing well enough to not even need these buildings, I was just clicking buttons because they went off cooldown most of the time.
I guess that's part of why it rubbed me the wrong way.
@@LastMinuteEssays Having played Frostpunk, the good boi route is actually easier in the long run. The game is still designed so you have to scramble a bit during the "final boss" though.
The best use of an absolute moral system (not a public perception one like pathologics, new vegas or a diplomacy system in a strategy game) I know was in kotor 2. The narrative contextualise it as an eldritch will of the universe and tell you to rebel against it while the gameplay reward you for following it. In the end, it's not what the gamified moral system tell you to do that's matter but whether you subscribe to it and for what reason.