Luxury for Evil.

[kabaliero]

Saving all the girl's kittens in the tree, and refusing to accept any reward makes a Good guy feel good. And still fills his pockets after a while, when a certain ammount of good reputation is gained. And he buys all the stuff he needs to save the world (which is not so much, really) and lets everyone dance around in perfect communism just until he dies happily in his wood cabin or whatever.

 

But what about the bad guys or girls? Who'd rather burn down the tree and take any kinds of advantage of that stupid lass, who brings herself in trouble by talking to strangers.

 

In older IE RPGs there was little profit from being Evil. Except for some aesthetic pleasure and interesting dialogues maybe. Well, yes, you could collect those 100 gold from an old lady's corpse, but eventually you'd lose more by gaining that bad rep and stuff.

And even if you had a lot of gold, you couldn't really spend it on any sort of attractive luxury, which Evil dudes often crave.

No bards, or actors, or fools performing for you in fear, no elite prostitutes, no fakesmiling aristocratic friends, no golden statues of you, no castles or towns, or land, or slaves to buy, no .. entertainment.

 

 

So what do you guys think?

 

Edit: yes, there were a couple of choices to engage slaving buisness at some point, but not exactly extensive enough to bring up much intrest. c:

Edited October 4, 2012 by kabaliero

[bronzepoem]

That's a very important point. Just like PS:T, the achieve of best two epic weapons both need to be evil.

[DocDoomII]

I see it as Luffy (OnePiece) does.

"I don't want to be a hero! Heroes share their meat. I'm a pirate, I wanna eat my meat!"

[bronzepoem]

I see it as Luffy (OnePiece) does.

"I don't want to be a hero! Heroes share their meat. I'm a pirate, I wanna eat my meat!"

haha, great cartoon.

[NOK222]

I see it as Luffy (OnePiece) does.

"I don't want to be a hero! Heroes share their meat. I'm a pirate, I wanna eat my meat!"

 

But Luffy is the nicest guy ever...

[molarBear]

this issue has been voiced in several threads on this forum. i just hope that obsidian listens.

 

That's a very important point. Just like PS:T, the achieve of best two epic weapons both need to be evil.

 

being evil wasn't implemented properly in PST methinks. it was punishing to be an evil char. you either ended up slaughtering NPCs or losing the precious quest XPs.

[kabaliero]

Just like a Evil ending of AoSaMO (if i'm correct). You end up in the ruins of the world, with all you've achieved and gathered, just sitting there (everyone's dead) all alone and nothing to do. Boohoo.

Edited October 4, 2012 by kabaliero

[DocDoomII]

I see it as Luffy (OnePiece) does.

"I don't want to be a hero! Heroes share their meat. I'm a pirate, I wanna eat my meat!"

 

But Luffy is the nicest guy ever...

Try asking him to share his meat

 

 

Anyway, my point was that it shouldn't be only about money, or riches in general, but to be able to 'twist' the plot of a quest to get an ending fitting *my* purpose, and not that of the quest giver.

 

Let's say that someone hires you to free a manor from an usurper and the one who hired you comes along. I'd like to betray the npc who hired me and let him fight alone the 'last boss' and then kill them both and take the manor for myself

[NOK222]

The reason I was renegade Shepard in ME was that I thought I would be able to rule the galaxy by the trilogy's end, the first game had hints of this that Shepard can manipulate the politics of the Galaxy in order to rule.

 

Guess that didn't happen right?

 

I don't know if I want to be evil, I want to be ambitious though, like, I wanna be able to rule cities if I want (though I would leave it to someone else to run while I adventure).

[Krios]

Being Evil ... I think that is more flexible (fun) if Project Eternity features an open ended world. Without true open endedness, I doubt you can slaughter everyone without affecting the plot. But the in-between benefits such as a torture chamber for evil characters, I think we might see it hmm ... as a room in the Player House? As for 'twisting' quests to fit the Player's purpose, I think they just need to design the quest to have multiple outcomes to achieve that. But I think that will add a lot of work to the team's already full plate.

 

But this has potential for the teams of talented modders out there

[kabaliero]

Srsly, can a guy get some natural, simple profit from being Evil? That which makes it so appealing for everyone, who care less about feelings of others.

 

Or at least have the same xp\gold profit as the Good guy, but in another manner, with diffrent screenplay.

 

Besides, it takes lots of guts and a blade-sharp mind to make a formidable vilian. Not just a mere bandit. Isn't the constant pressure of maintaining everything intact a punishment enough for the choice of Evil path?

 

Of course in RL there's no save\load where you can try to crit that guard until you get his plate armour and repeat the procedure with all other guards. So yes, i guess it's hard for the devs to make an Evil character's life hard enough to secondguess his ways. Much easier is to just make his life miserable and without any real profit, which Good char can't achieve.

Edited October 4, 2012 by kabaliero

[bronzepoem]

this issue has been voiced in several threads on this forum. i just hope that obsidian listens.

 

That's a very important point. Just like PS:T, the achieve of best two epic weapons both need to be evil.

 

being evil wasn't implemented properly in PST methinks. it was punishing to be an evil char. you either ended up slaughtering NPCs or losing the precious quest XPs.

No, in my memory be evil in PS:T always get lower XPs but get better equipments. I still remember the fun I got a power bone claw by threaten a NPC. Edited October 4, 2012 by bronzepoem

[kabaliero]

Don't get me wrong, i don't play evil characters. I just feel bad for them, coz it looks like they often miss out on most of the fun.

[Amentep]

I think part of it is that its harder to think about the benefits of evil or different degrees of "evilness".

 

I think it actually *is* a problem with both good and evil, to be honest though. Its the reason D&D Paladins are referred to as "Lawful Stupid". But most evil PCs in cRPGs (not pen and paper) end up being "Chaotic Sociopaths" randomly cutting their way through people in town. Because murder is the only really "evil" choice.

 

So hopefully PE will take a more interesting approach to good and evil and those who want to take the harder paths in good and evil can still be rewarded for their gameplay with an interesting storypath that fits their character.

[kabaliero]

That's actually one nice, hope-giving comment right there.

[DocDoomII]

As said few posts above, my idea of 'evil' is just being selfish and act only if the goal would benefit myself, no matter if what I do damages or helps others.

If I have an archenemy, I would save him from death by hand of another because *I* have to be the one killing my archenemy.

 

Vice versa being good would be being altruist and helping other even if not asked.

People got robbed/killed on the streets and no one is lifting a finger? I'd try to capture the criminal even if not asked to and bring him to justice.

Edited October 4, 2012 by DocDoomII

[nikolokolus]

Evil, Good, Lawful, Chaotic ... kill 'em all I say. A pox on alignment

[kabaliero]

And hello to reputation ratio! Fallout's Karma was kinda neat. High store prices for the baddies though. And random encounters with power-armored bounty hunters with gauss weapons, like, every single car trip. Selling loot off them could bring some profit, but, man, that got SO AGGREVATING©.

[Monte Carlo]

As others have said, I don't want 'chaotic stoopid' I want sly, manipulative mo-fo. I want to do Really Bad Stuff and blame it on goody-goody characters. I want to besmirch reputations, poison wells, overthrow governments by sedition and guile. I want to avoid paying taxes, steal, cheat and lie to start pointless wars. I want to, at the zenith of my power, topple faiths and have nations put to the sword on a false premise. And, I want to do all these things while the idiot general populace think I'm good.

 

Basically I want a Politician character class.

[Troller]

I think evil should get more love, like in Fallout New Vegas, the Legion was clearly the bad guys, but there weren't really many quests for them, like there was for the NCR for example...

[Amentep]

Anyway, my point was that it shouldn't be only about money, or riches in general, but to be able to 'twist' the plot of a quest to get an ending fitting *my* purpose, and not that of the quest giver.

 

Let's say that someone hires you to free a manor from an usurper and the one who hired you comes along. I'd like to betray the npc who hired me and let him fight alone the 'last boss' and then kill them both and take the manor for myself

 

I'd like for the "someone hires you to free a manor from an usurper" scenario to be resolvable in the following manner as well. You pursuade/extort the quest giver to a high fee upfront and to sign a contract that they will pay you an additional fee when the usurper no longer has control of the manor. You then go and do a quest for a government official as well as a quest for the local captain of the guard. You pay a forger to frame some evidence on the usurper which you give to the local captain of the guard. The captain of the guard then uses the city guard to remove the usurper from the manor. You also use your influence with the government official to back your legal claim to the property because squatter rights in the city had given the usurper legal claim to the manor however the claim was forfeited due to the criminal charges back to the government. As the good citizen who brought to light the evil deeds of the usuper, his property (formerly the quest givers) is turned over to you giving you legal ownership of the manor. The quest giver in anger refuses to pay the additional fee when you've rid the manor of the usurper so you go and legally file charges against the quest giver for not honoring your contract since the usurper no longer had control of the manor and the contract was fulfilled. Because he still doesn't have the manor and the original fee to take the quest was all the money the quest giver had, s/he's taken to prison for not being able to pay their debts."

 

And I'd like for the same quest to be able to be resolved by a player who goes and finds one of the usurpers thugs and after doing a series of quests for him manages to get him on the PC's side; he gives the PC the password to get into the house. The PC gets through to the boss who along with the help from the flunky convinces the usurper that there may be a better way to resolve the usurper's problems. The PC goes through a few quests that find the usurper their own land and money to build a manor of their own. The PC also convinces through deeds, word and dedication the usurper and the quest giver both to dedicate their manor's chapels to the PC's diety.

 

And I'd like for you to be able to just plow through the manor, kill the boss and get paid for it which also opens up other quests from the manor inhabitants and the original quest giver.

 

Probably a bit too complicated for a game, but ultimately there needs to be some quests (not all quests) that allow for evil options that aren't just "whack a mole for evil" and good options that aren't just "do good for goodness sake" but really reflect the nature of the setting and what the PCs goals would be. Certainly not all quests, "go kill the giant ant eating my cow" is probably not going to lead to much complexity, but there should be some signature quests that allow a lot different ways to approach and resolve.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Amentep

[kabaliero]

Yeah, politicians obviously get all the love.

If they do it rite.

The evil guys gotta have this goal of becoming a shadow governor, a member of the elitest club.

 

But ofc it's all up to the devs' resources.

[Shades]

I'd like it if there was something different than the usual having 'good' and 'bad' rep where bad means eventually the guards came after you. Instead you had something like different threat or menace levels, and at the highest level people would fear you (they know, or think they know what you're capable of) but aren't stupid enough to attack you. If you went around slaughtering people, yes the guards should be after you. However if you're just intimidating and/or bullying people or manipulating them to get your own way, maybe even letting someone die rather than stepping in to save that person, it should be treated differently.

 

And you should be able to intimidate shop keepers into giving a discount just as much as much as a good character would get a discount through... Why exactly do good characters get discounts anyway? Through gratitude? I would think that a merchant who wanted to make money might be even more likely to see a good/successful character to be a better source of cash. Perhaps it's to encourage a good hero to buy their stuff.

 

And if my character comes across a caravan of people in the wilderness and slaughters them, unless there were survivors I don't see how everyone would suddenly know that I'd done such a thing. Unless my companions blabbed about it... Which could actually make for some pretty interesting talks with them, trying to persuade or intimidate them into not talking.

[Aedelric]

I never play evil characters, but you make a good point with your original post Kabaliero.

 

People play evil not just for evil's sake, but to profit from it. They should be rewarded and punished for their deeds as much as any altruistic good character.

 

A good person needs love of the people and be given gifts, but should also be crossed and taken advantage of by not quite so noble people. Bad guys should get their statue of gold and high ranking friends, but in the same respect also suffer due to the peoples hatred and their reckless crossing the wrong people.

 

I would like to see Obsidian strike a good balance with this concept.

[Amentep]

Here's my complaint about binary reputation systems - realistically an evil character should be able to have a good reputation because they've never been caught and have always managed to turn any situation into their favor. And a good character might have a bad reputation because they killed an evil man - who just happened to be liked by everyone.

 

Problem is, I don't really have a good solution for how to better do reputations without being incredibly complex (and probably having multiple systems going at once).