[Brian]

Morale Pt. 1

Morale is one of the major systems in the game.  True to the zombie genre, Morale plays a huge part in the will and behavior of the survivors.  Since it affects a lot of systems in many ways, I’m going to be talking about aspects of it over the next few weeks.

Today I’m going to cover the very basic Morale system and what it means for your character as a leader and what it takes for the Shelter to not fall apart from within.  Morale can be thought of as the sum total of good will generated by the player. Morale is what keeps people’s spirits up, keeps them going, and prevents the pocket society they have created from breaking down. As long as Morale is positive, the player doesn’t have to worry about people leaving, refusing to do tasks, or being difficult in the field. Certain story events, activities, and luxury items can build up Morale. Other actions such as starvation, killing an ally, or having an ally die in the field can reduce morale. Certain allies (especially those with negotiation skills) and upgrades (like the generator) will give the player daily morale bonuses. Like Food, good Morale can be stockpiled, meaning that as long as people have distractions and Food, generally they will forget about the harsher realities of life.

The amount of Morale that an ally loses is equal to their Mood.  Each ally loses Morale every day, no matter what their Mood – even under the best circumstances, the reality of living after society has broken down takes its toll on the survivors. There are several ranges of Mood, from Good to Disgruntled, with the least amount of Morale being lost if they have a positive outlook on their survival. Mood is influenced by player actions and events that have affected the Shelter or that ally, both good and bad. Mood is not necessarily tied to an ally’s respect for the player – for example, their Mood might drop because a loved one dies – but making people hate you is not going to do wonders for their Mood and the Shelter’s Morale.

Morale is tallied daily to give you an idea of how things are going at the Shelter. It adds up the Mood of all the allies and factors in any Morale bonuses/losses for the day to calculate the overall Morale. There are a few ways to offset negative Morale… which I will continue with next week – hey, there’s a lot to cover! As Morale is something that a lot of games don’t deal with, I’ll be looking forward on thoughts about the system. I think it’s important to the setting, so I want to make sure it’s not too big of a chore for people to put up with.

I also wanted to point out that we are looking for people with modding experience or modelers looking to gain experience on a project to help create some of the props in the game. If you’re interested, Oscar (our Lead Artist) has a post on this forum with more info. If you know anyone that might be interested, pass it along. Note: This is a strictly a contributor position at the moment, not a full-time position.

[GhanBuriGhan]

Morale is tallied daily to give you an idea of how things are going at the Shelter. It adds up the Mood of all the allies and factors in any Morale bonuses/losses for the day to calculate the overall Morale. There are a few ways to offset negative Morale… which I will continue with next week – hey, there’s a lot to cover! As Morale is something that a lot of games don’t deal with, I’ll be looking forward on thoughts about the system. I think it’s important to the setting, so I want to make sure it’s not too big of a chore for people to put up with.

So, does that mean morale of an individual is a hidden stat, and we only see the "big picture?"? Are there ways to learn about the morale of an individual NPC, or only by the effects, once it goes too low? I can see advantages either way, depending if you are going for a more tacical or a more roleplaying oriented design.

[CanadianWolverine]

Well, all I can think of at the moment is that if morale is to be such a big part of the gameplay (which is totally cool IMHO), even if it dips into the negative (perhaps especially), I would hope the gameplay would be "fun". That is something I think many games miss out on, they have this sort of "Game over? Want to reload a save?" mentality going on, when one should be able to have fun with their mistakes just as much as their successes, made all the more sweeter by the minor hardships.

So, say the morale dips low, perhaps by events not even of the player's actions, could some characters get gallows humor? Or perhaps the way in which a character disobeys orders doesn't have to be the worst possible call but perhaps the best possible, thus undermining your leadership and causing others in your survivor community to wonder if they should have a different person leading. Or maybe if the morale stays negative long enough, some NPCs give you a mean nickname or when you enter a room to the sound of laughter, it stops, and you just know they were talking about you.

Just some ideas, somewhat inspired by the kind of "fun" some gamers have with the likes of Dwarf Fortress, Fallout series, and Deus Ex play throughs and styles. Sometimes it is rather fun to "screw up" and learn from one's so called mistakes.

[Bjergtrold]

It sounds good so far. The mechanics seem interesting without being complicated.

My suggestion to morale is this. It would be cool if the npc's morale had a "real" value and an "official" value. I'll explain: one plays the leader of this group, and having to worry about everything, and having to deal with all the responsibilities, one might forget to maintain a personal relationship with many of the people in the group. We walk around thinking everything is well and dandy, untill one day, we wake up to find half the group has split. We have to spend time with the npc's, in order to remain in contact with them. We need to socialize in order to get a feel of morale.

I would suggest that the morale that is being shown us be an estimate. This estimate might be completely off if we haven't talked with anybody for weeks. It would become really accurate if we spent some "quality" time with the individual members. Our estimate would improve somewhat if we spent an evening playing cards with the group. We might notice that Claire just isn't enjoying the game, and her mind is somewhere else... someplace dark...
etc...

We need to be socially active to have an updated morale. The random event described earlier, where we walk into the room and everybody stops laughing and the mood changes completely is awesome; it might be an eye-opener letting you know that things are not as merry as you would have thought them.

Some NPC's might be more or less open than others, showing their "real" morale without needing the personal relationship.

[One Wolf]

lots of good ideas.  One thing I also would like to see is interesting gameplay arising from failure\less than optimal outcomes. For example, in many games high ability score gets you a special option. I`ve always thought it would be cool if there was a range of options i.e. INT 8-10 gets a different option than 5-7.  Makes each set of ability scores change a given playthrough more than high = good, low = bad.  Same could work for morale as the poster above mentioned. 

[Brian]

So, does that mean morale of an individual is a hidden stat, and we only see the "big picture?"? Are there ways to learn about the morale of an individual NPC, or only by the effects, once it goes too low? I can see advantages either way, depending if you are going for a more tacical or a more roleplaying oriented design.

Players can see their ally's mood. If they are in a Good mood, then they are only losing -1 Morale a day - not hard to compensate for. You don't know what their actual Mood score is, you just know that they seem to be "Good" and unless something happens to drop that, they will continue to be 'Good". It's when you start getting down to the worse Moods that you have to worry about both the Morale hit (it's much larger per day) and the fact that they are more desperate and therefore more likely to either do something dangerous or stupid (like panic in battle or even commit suicide, for example). Note that there are several levels of Mood and it's not just a drop from Good to "terrible stuff is going to happen", there's a gradual slide, though some events will drop their Mood pretty quick.

The general Morale number is to make sure that you are aware that the general Morale is positive - there are consequences if it is continually negative. There is no Mood slider or any numbers attached to your ally, you just have a general idea of how they are. Keep in mind that someone can dislike you and still have a positive Mood, though you will probably know what they think of you from their dialogue tone or previous dealings with them. Generally, the more their Mood drops and Morale becomes negative, the more likely it is that they will be both unhappy with your leadership and more willing to do something about it.

[Starwars]

I gotta say I'm totally digging the whole RPG but with the strategy feel and micromanaging a shelter angle. Very fresh take, lots of potential.

[One Wolf]

Same here, the combination of those elements is immensely appealing.  Fills me with warm memories of X-Com:Enemy Unknown.  Then I become enraged for some reason.  Then warm.  Then enraged. 

you will probably know what they think of you from their dialogue tone

This isn't the right thread for this question, but I'm curious about how dialog is fashioned.  Are all dialogs unique to each NPC?  Are all NPCs unique, or will their skills/attributes be drawn from a pool to provide diversity (again, think X-Com soldiers)?  If they aren't unique, will dialog then also be randomized in a similar fashion?

[zingaran]

Is Mood ever "contagious" amongst NPCs?  I keep thinking that if one NPC had something really tragic happen to him, lowering his Mood, that that would have some effect on other character even if their mood was good.  I guess it can go both ways…if you have a NPC who is very charismatic(possibly tied to Leadership?) his Good Mood would be more likely to affect other NPCs.  You wouldn’t want this to be a major modifier to Mood, otherwise the player only has to pay attention to the Mood of a few key NPCs, but it could be a nice little touch to make things a little more interesting in the Shelter.

[One Wolf]

if you have a NPC who is very charismatic(possibly tied to Leadership?) his Good Mood would be more likely to affect other NPCs. 

Brian mentioned that NPC skills like negotiation influence moral.

[zingaran]

Brian mentioned that NPC skills like negotiation influence moral.

Yea, and that's definitely a good thing.  However, the example given in the Dialogue thread dealt with Negotiation being used to improve Morale.  I guess I'm wondering what happens when you have a NPC with high Negotiation who happens to be in a bad Mood.   Does the bad mood just negate Negotiation and the NPC becomes more likely to hurt himself or does the bad Mood lead to the NPC using that skill in a more destructive manner that affects the Mood of others around him?  Both example lower the overall Morale but the 2nd example can be far more insidious.

[Brian]

Brian mentioned that NPC skills like negotiation influence moral.

Yea, and that's definitely a good thing.  However, the example given in the Dialogue thread dealt with Negotiation being used to improve Morale.  I guess I'm wondering what happens when you have a NPC with high Negotiation who happens to be in a bad Mood.   Does the bad mood just negate Negotiation and the NPC becomes more likely to hurt himself or does the bad Mood lead to the NPC using that skill in a more destructive manner that affects the Mood of others around him?  Both example lower the overall Morale but the 2nd example can be far more insidious.

Yeah, if the NPC with higher Negotiation is in a bad mood, they are effectively destroying their own bonus. Since not everyone will have Negotiation skills, that Morale number can go negative pretty easily if you're not paying attention to individual Moods. The Negotiation skill will still count - it won't negatively affect the other people (unless their Mood causes them to do something that affects other allies), but their poor Mood will kill any Negotiation bonus they were giving. Mood isn't really contagious unless Morale is in the negative - if it stays negative, it will have an impact on everyone's Mood, and may even trigger some bigger problems. Just like expanding your empire in a Civ-type game gives you more power but a larger empire to protect, more people at the Shelter gives you more warm bodies to allocate to tasks but increases the difficulty of governing them.

[zingaran]

Yeah, if the NPC with higher Negotiation is in a bad mood, they are effectively destroying their own bonus. Since not everyone will have Negotiation skills, that Morale number can go negative pretty easily if you're not paying attention to individual Moods. The Negotiation skill will still count - it won't negatively affect the other people (unless their Mood causes them to do something that affects other allies), but their poor Mood will kill any Negotiation bonus they were giving. Mood isn't really contagious unless Morale is in the negative - if it stays negative, it will have an impact on everyone's Mood, and may even trigger some bigger problems. Just like expanding your empire in a Civ-type game gives you more power but a larger empire to protect, more people at the Shelter gives you more warm bodies to allocate to tasks but increases the difficulty of governing them.

Good stuff!  The Civilization example definitely clears it up for me.  Looking forward to the next update 

[Scott]

It sounds promising, if finicky to implement and get right.  I'm hoping different NPCs will have their Mood fluctuate at different rates depending on their personalities.  For instance the flighty hairdresser in the shelter might generally be really cheerful, but also quicker than average to get depressed and give up when things don't go her way.

[Bjergtrold]

I agree... I hope to see very different NPC's.

One thing I thought of in the bus this morning, was the possibility to play an utter a**hole/survivalist. A character (player) who only takes people in he deems tough enough, and able to pull their own weight. Will we be able to judge (more or less fast) how psycologically stable a person is, how skilled they are on the whole, and such? And can we kick out any person deemed too weak?