Posted By BarriaKarl at 08:53 AM - Mon Jan 16 2017

Well... Do you consider that a good action negates a bad one? The affinity system being dumb will assign numbers to all actions we do, so fooling it is simple, not easy just simple.

Actually that would be an interesting Talent if you could see someone's affinity history.

"Murdered Dude -20 points"

"Saved Orphan from Bandit +5 points"

"Fed Orphan to Otterbear -20 points"

"Fed Otterbear +5 Points"

Ideally we would love if the affinity system could be perfect but how would it know that the money you just received was a bribe? Or that you are being unfair(if you can even call this unfair) when naming a price that the other person cant pay? It is impossible. It is impossible even in Real life.

We can wait for more info on the soulborn engine that (according to caspian) can do some amazing AI stuff.

I'm just curious and asking. I agree that it would be very difficult to keep track of said minor 'evil' actions without a very complicated and bloated system.

I wouldn't say it's impossible in real life, just difficult to prove. Padding flour with sawdust would be easy to prove, but connecting a bribe to a judge would be difficult. And unfair contracts or loans generally are legal or illegal depending on how many lawyers you can afford.

Simply because we know the metrics of good and evil must be calculated by measurable actions and cannot include qualitative things like intent, im expecting it to be pretty basic.

Firstly, good choice of quote! The dramatisation was on over Christmas which is worth watching.

Secondly I hope we never know exactly what the engine considers dark and light. I think it is far far far far (keep repeating) more interesting to find these things out in game. Use our own moral compasses and see how the game reacts. If you believe in the teachings of the Qin I think it is important that we actually go through the trials of Mann, learn after each life, and try to move towards enlightenment. I agree that a general view on the detail would be interesting but I am not sure how that can be done without giving away specifics so I would prefer to know nothing other than the system exists than ruin that part of the game.

If your affinity is not viewable by other players then I imagine it wouldn't matter, since it would only affect the types of quests generated for you by the system.

Though I think it would be better if a character's intuition or other social skills could offer a glimpse into someone's affinity, and there being a talent to view it fully.

I do not think other players can or should see your affinity. It is nothing to do with social skills, that to me is reputation which is a very different beast. A person might well be hiding the dark deeds they do and therefore keeping a positive reputation in the community, and that is a great story. I see no reason your social skills would be able to see through it unless you, or someone else, actually catches them doing things that are dark. You do not know peoples secrets through intuition or social skills.

As much as I would love to see a true system that can gauge between Good and Evil I cannot fathom how one would exist that cannot be manipulated.

I agree with you.... But in the same stroke, I understand and accept whatever system they go with.

Sadly determining anything complex would require inordinate volumes of code and an AI that could not only determine all the knock on effects of every action you take but determine the intent behind it.

Realistically this isn't practical so the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Simple actions such as attacking someone unprovoked, stealing, evicting someone from their home, taking someone's property, perhaps initiating a conflict or state of war. All of these things have a very direct negative impact on others and should result in alignment shift.

Defending someone who has been attacked ie assisting, capturing a criminal, recovering and returning stolen goods (implies delivering criminal to justice), defeating a force of evil. These should all provide a positive alignment shift.

There are many other possibilities. These largely come down to what they want to engineer.

Saying bad things about CoE.. that's a massive crime...

EDIT. Personally I believe alignment should be shown in some manner. The more famous you are, the more clearly it should be shown. Why? Talk of deeds spreads. The more known you are, the more your actions will be spoken of.