Morale
I’ve talked about LOTRO’s Morale system before, but lately I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. As in, “probably way overthinking it but that’s what happens when you’re mindlessly grinding 150 Orcs.”
So instead of most other MMOs, where the green bar represents abstract “hit points” (their physical status), LOTRO’s green bar is supposed to represent your character’s “morale.” Basically, how they’re feeling about the fight and whether or not they are brave enough to continue.
Now, I’ve always thought this was a clever invention on Turbine’s behalf. Yes, you could say it’s semantics — a green bar with numbers is basically hit points no matter what you call it — but by calling it “morale” they were able to work around a number of lore issues with the LOTR world, such as:
- Why characters could come back from the dead, as they do in other MMOs, but shouldn’t be able to do in Middle-earth (answer: a loss of morale means they’re defeated and have to temporarily retreat)
- How classes can heal in a low-magic world (answer: by inspiring characters through words, songs, yells and actions — which boost their morale)
- How the devs could use LOTR staples such as fear and dread — which are hard to represent abstractly — in a game (answer: by lowering one’s morale temporarily)
So in terms of how mobs attack us until we either come out triumphant or have our morale devastated, I can understand. Yes, it’s a little weird that our characters never sustain any physical injuries beyond a limp if we fall too far, and we are apparently immortal even if we plunge into bottomless chasms, but for the most part it works.
That is, it works for us. The thing is, the morale system breaks down when you examine it the other way, which is players inflicting damage on monsters and people. The game never really tries to enforce the sense that you’re demoralizing orcs, birds, bog-lurkers, brigands and the like; in fact, it’s pretty clear that you’re slaughtering them all like a one-man Jason Vorhees.
That doesn’t seem quite fair. I mean, the worst a mob can do to me is make me quake in my boots, perhaps wet my breeches in fear, and have to run away for a little while. The worst I can do to them is full-limb amputation followed by an effortless decapitation. When you look at the world through the NPCs eyes, it’s hard not to feel sorry for them. I mean, no matter how many of them there are, how strong they are, they’re mortal while you’re an invincible, immortal, unstoppable foe. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when and how painful.
- Posted in: Lord of the Rings Online
I still think back to the days I actually played LOTRO, and the many guildies who kept saying “My hit points are low”
A number is a number…
I liked the cleverness of the morale concept in LOTRO, but never thought of it from the NPCs perspective. Even in the *very* brief time I played. I slaughtered scores of creatures.
Well, some classes do play into the demoralizing aspect for enemies. Actually, Rune-Keepers (for all their lore-not lore arguments) utilize this a lot with their skills (shocking an enemy with their words, giving them a fierce stare, arguing with them until the enemy wants to run away). I’d say the shouts certain classes use also play into that. Besides that… hacking them with weapons is pretty much it.
@ Alphaman – Yeah, you’re right, and there are some other class skills that are described as hurting the enemy’s morale, so I guess that invalidates some of what I wrote. Still, you end up killing them, so there’s that!
Actually, if you think about it, they’re immortal too. When you are defeated, you disappear, then come back. So do they. No matter how many times you defeat Ivar, or that wolf that likes to hang around Gondamon, they’re always going to come back. The whole world is immortal really. The grim reaper really ought to get off his ass and do something about that…
Interesting post that gets me thinking back to D&D (not the online version).
Back in the day my fellow players would try repeatedly to use certain rules that made combat more realistic.
We tried you know things like hit points per appendage. Like 20 hp for a leg and some such… these ideas always made me wince since it seemed overly complex but we tried… and failed.
The moral (or morale?) of the story is that games seem to fit into the hit point abstraction of damage pretty cleanly. A monster has 1000 hp your team has 100 hp each team up and beat him. Yes at 10% health you “should” feel under the weather but so should the monster… although I have never seen a dragon start doing weaker damage at the end of a fight… ever.
It’s just a staple of fantasy themed games that seems to work well.
If you mess with it… perhaps you get a commercial experience like LOTRO has had.
When philosophically considering morale, you might want to also consider the original hope/dread mechanic as well. Just a fine point related to your argument, but iirc, monsters experience morale changes when exposed to hope and dread just like players, so it’s not totally one-sided. i.e.
Tirith Rhaw, Lugazag, and Main Keeps
Controlling your affiliated tower provides the following:
Ownership increases the mood advantage at Main Keep
+1 Hope for players
+1 Dread for monster players
The player is a heri from an epic tale. Like other heroes from epic tales, they journey, they fight, they win, and they lose; they only die at the end of the epic tale.
LotRO has a great deal of its value in being an epic tale, which the morale system makes a great deal of sense for; I applaud it.