Another "Will Alignment matter?" Topic

[(XBOX)Arbalestier]

So revisiting this idea out of boredom but it seems the whole planar morality alignment seems trivial in WF.  Is there a plan to do anything with it besides space chair complain about being old and being blinded by your light?  Or is it just another illusion of choice mechanic?

[aligatorno]

They dropped the concept, I think they've mentioned in one of last year's devstreams that they did not think it through well enough and it required to many resources to be implemented. Considering it has been 2 years with little to no effect in the game, I`d say it's as good as dead and it's better of being removed completely. 

[(XBOX)Arbalestier]

There's a shock, and yes if they're just going to not finish it then they should just remove it.

[DrBorris]

I don't think they ever said the dropped the concept, what they said is that they dropped implementing it in The Sacrifice due to time.

 

Imma just copy-pasta my thoughts on this from a post I made awhile ago.

Quote

I am personally a huge fan of what the alignment dial in quests could be. It just is not feasible in a game like Warframe to have meaningful consequences for the individual decisions you make in quests due to the shared universe as well as it just taking much, much more development time. While branching paths based on decisions gives weight to the decisions you make, the dial gives (theoretical) weight to who you decide to be. No single decisions has an impact on what makes an individual, it is the accumulation of all decisions.

 

But... that all sounds good on paper until you get to the consequences of having the dial mean something. Unlike most everything in Warframe, you can't min-max the dial, you (rightfully) are a consistent individual. So if there was any gameplay impact of the dial, players would be "stuck" with whatever impacts they have.

Obviously this would lead to people min-maxing their decisions, which kinda defeats the purpose. And if DE made a way for you to change your alignment like how you switch Focus schools, that would also defeat the purpose of the dial in the first place.

 

That all said, would it be that bad? Would it be the end of the world to actually have consequences for our decisions rather than being able to undo anything on a whim? Obviously the impact would not be something like "Full Sun gets +50% damage and full Moon gets +50% damage reduction", but maybe a more subtle gameplay effect.

TL;DR: Making alignment matter is a can of worms DE is rightly treading carefully around and I would not blame them if they did choose to just not have it matter in gameplay.

[(XBOX)Arbalestier]

13 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

I don't think they ever said the dropped the concept, what they said is that they dropped implementing it in The Sacrifice due to time.

 

Imma just copy-pasta my thoughts on this from a post I made awhile ago.

TL;DR: Making alignment matter is a can of worms DE is rightly treading carefully around and I would not blame them if they did choose to just not have it matter in gameplay.

You can change your morality dial already by replaying the story missions. The minmax argument could be used if players already didn't do that for gear in the game because of the lack of balance and power creep.  As well as the syndicate system and having no impact on gameplay other than hitsquads.

The argument is moot unless they sit down and do something with it, but ultimately it goes down to coddling the community or not prioritizing its implementation.  So as aligatorno said, just take it out then.

[Loza03]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)Turaglas said:

You can change your morality dial already by replaying the story missions. The minmax argument could be used if players already didn't do that for gear in the game because of the lack of balance and power creep.  As well as the syndicate system and having no impact on gameplay other than hitsquads.

The argument is moot unless they sit down and do something with it, but ultimately it goes down to coddling the community or not prioritizing its implementation.  So as aligatorno said, just take it out then.

No you can't. It changes in the mission but goes right back to normal afterwards.

[DrBorris]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)Turaglas said:

You can change your morality dial already by replaying the story missions. The minmax argument could be used if players already didn't do that for gear in the game because of the lack of balance and power creep.  As well as the syndicate system and having no impact on gameplay other than hitsquads.

The argument is moot unless they sit down and do something with it, but ultimately it goes down to coddling the community or not prioritizing its implementation.  So as aligatorno said, just take it out then.

Replaying quests is not supposed to change your actual alignment, if it is than it is a bug.

 

And I disagree with "just take it out" because it does add some context to who your Operator is. And furthermore, DE might want to go back to it at some point and  even just add some varied NPC dialogue based on your dial alignment. It is not harming the game at all existing, and while its effects are minimal I would argue that having it even as it stands is better than not having it at all.

Edited December 3, 2018 by DrBorris

[(XBOX)Arbalestier]

12 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

No you can't. It changes in the mission but goes right back to normal afterwards.

I saw the change during Sacrifice when I went to get chord fragments but didn't confirm any solid changes because I chose the same dialogue when doing it.  I apologize for stating that then if that is the case.

11 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Replaying quests is not supposed to change your actual alignment, if it is than it is a bug.

 

And I disagree with "just take it out" because it does add some context to who your Operator is. And furthermore, DE might want to go back to it at some point and  even just add some varied NPC dialogue based on your dial alignment. It is not harming the game at all existing, and while its effects are minimal I would argue that having it even as it stands is better than not having it at all.

I agree on the point and I'll ignore what I was about to say.

I also had a thought where syndicates can get tied to alignments.