115 réponses à ce sujet

[shootist70]

I always feel slightly pained when playing a renegade game, the character doesn't seem to correspond with the stereotype of the antihero. The renegade Shephard is no John Marston  - a sympathetic rogue achieving heroic ideals in an often amoral manner. The conflict isn't there. The renegade Shephard comes across as a flat-out jerk and feels completely inconsistent with an heroic saga - you wonder why he would ever bother being there.  A properly done antihero can still slot neatly into that sort of a story, yet renegade Shep feels badly written in this environment.

Maybe it's down to my own personal preference. Anybody else feel the same?

[TK Dude]

I always felt that way when I played my Renegade in ME2.

Most of the time, he is an heartless jerk who treats his crewmates like a-holes rather than a rogue soldier that gets the job done no matter what the cost.

Bioware really botched the P/R system in ME2.

[Shadesofsiknas]

I agree. To be ruthless with his enemies he doesnt need to be a complete ass.



I think for an antihero to be effective he needs some redeeming qualities. So while been heartless to the enemy he deep down gives a crap about his own even if he cant show it too well.

[Ralnith]

That is why I have so far never managed to play a full renegade. That path forces Shepard to act like a complete a**hole with little to no regard for the consequences of his actions. Playing a paragade or renegon is a lot more fun, even if it's "strongly discouraged" in ME2.

[Forst1999]

A criminal, cruel racist is the very definition of a jerk. Can't stay playing renegades. Made one strict renegade playthrough in part one, but she got nicer in the sequel.

[Roamingmachine]

The beauty of the system is that you can play the character the way you want.From a "smart" renegade like i play them (eye on the bigger picture at all times but with end justifying the means) to the psychotic extreme version that you get if you allways choose the renegade option.Does it really bother people so much if you get the occasional paragon point or choose a neutral conversation option?

[Forst1999]

Roamingmachine wrote...

The beauty of the system is that you can play the character the way you want.From a "smart" renegade like i play them (eye on the bigger picture at all times but with end justifying the means) to the psychotic extreme version that you get if you allways choose the renegade option.Does it really bother people so much if you get the occasional paragon point or choose a neutral conversation option?

Yeah, you could do that, but then your character is weak-willed and unpersuative because you lose the charm/intimidate options (still hating the charm/intimidate system in ME2).

[shootist70]

Forst1999 wrote...

Roamingmachine wrote...

The beauty of the system is that you can play the character the way you want.From a "smart" renegade like i play them (eye on the bigger picture at all times but with end justifying the means) to the psychotic extreme version that you get if you allways choose the renegade option.Does it really bother people so much if you get the occasional paragon point or choose a neutral conversation option?

Yeah, you could do that, but then your character is weak-willed and unpersuative because you lose the charm/intimidate options (still hating the charm/intimidate system in ME2).

Exactly. The simplification of the system in ME2 forces your hand one way or the other in most of the decision making process, or your character can end up ineffective at both. Now that would be fine by me if we could identify with the full renegade Shep as a likeable antihero, as it is I find him too much of a jerk to enjoy playing him.

That's strange considering how well the antihero has been done over the years in so many films, games etc, from Dirty Harry to Mad Max to John Marston. I just feel that the dialogue writers need to take a more skilled approach to the renegade Shep, rather than the sledgehammer approach we have in ME2.

Modifié par shootist70, 05 août 2010 - 02:39 .

[PsyrenY]

Yahtzee nailed this one in the ME2 review. I quote:

When you're choosing to free a race of slaves or force them to dance about while you take photographs, you're not thinking "what would I do in this situation?" You're thinking, "which option gives me the most **** points because I need them to persuade Crewman A to take her top off."

But given that it's so easy to get full Renegade points by the time you need them (no spoilers here, move along!) My renegade Shep was easily able to be a Paragon in the moments where I wanted her to be one, such as forcing that idiot Quarian to stay behind cover.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 05 août 2010 - 02:56 .

[shootist70]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Yahtzee nailed this one in the ME2 review. I quote:

When you're choosing to free a race of slaves or force them to dance about while you take photographs, you're not thinking "what would I do in this situation?" You're thinking, "which option gives me the most **** points because I need them to persuade Crewman A to take her top off."

But given that it's so easy to get full Renegade points by the time you need them (no spoilers here, move along!) My renegade Shep was easily able to be a Paragon in the moments where I wanted her to be one, such as forcing that idiot Quarian to stay behind cover.

Nah, I don't buy that quote from Yahtzee. It's long been known that readers of books will give up on protaganists that they can't sympathise or empathise with. They don't have to want to be like them, like Yahtzee seems to think, but they do need to identify with them. 

Your second solution seems too contrived, almost like a weakness in the alignment system that undermines the character development. Jerk one minute, paragon the next - a bit of an immersion breaker.

Tbh, I guess it all comes down to what you want out of the product - either simply a 'game' to beat, or virtual drama to immerse in. I like a lot of both.

Modifié par shootist70, 05 août 2010 - 03:06 .

[Jebel Krong]

you don't have to play 100% renegade (or 100% paragon) all the time. it's quite easy to play the antihero if you want, or the jerk (depending on your taste).

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 05 août 2010 - 03:17 .

[shootist70]

Jebel Krong wrote...

you don't have to play 100% renegade (or 100% paragon) all the time. it's quite easy to play the antihero if you want, or the jerk (depending on your taste).

True, but again you have to make sure you're juggling the options enough to ensure that decisions later in the game are open to you.  I'd rather see better writing in the first place than such a contrived solution on the part of the player.  The latter really doesn't help with suspension-of-disbelief.

[Whatever42]

shootist70 wrote...

Jebel Krong wrote...

you don't have to play 100% renegade (or 100% paragon) all the time. it's quite easy to play the antihero if you want, or the jerk (depending on your taste).

True, but again you have to make sure you're juggling the options enough to ensure that decisions later in the game are open to you.  I'd rather see better writing in the first place than such a contrived solution on the part of the player.  The latter really doesn't help with suspension-of-disbelief.

I think that Bioware is trying to give your dialogue choices some meaning. They can't fork the convesation and/or story on every dialogue option and they want your dialogue options to have some consquence. I agree that the paragon/renegade system could be improved, but any system they put in place will be "gamed".  I'm not really sure how to get around that, within the limitations of a finite game.

[PsyrenY]

shootist70 wrote...

Your second solution seems too contrived, almost like a weakness in the alignment system that undermines the character development. Jerk one minute, paragon the next - a bit of an immersion breaker.

Tbh, I guess it all comes down to what you want out of the product - either simply a 'game' to beat, or virtual drama to immerse in. I like a lot of both.

How does that break immersion? Real people are "jerks one minute, paragons the next." Nobody outside a Hannah-Barbera cartoon dedicates their every waking moment to being a bastard, just like nobody outside a VeggieTales episode dedicates their every waking moment to being a saint.

My renegade Shepard is overall a humano-centric bastard, but is capable of Paragon moments. A prime example is on Omega - the Paragon interrupt to stop the kid with the crappy pistol from enlisting to take on Archangel. I broke his firearm and told him to get his money back because I look out for humans, and I knew (a) that Blue Sun Batarian asswipe would have had no problems letting a human kid sign up for his own funeral, and ( that I would have neither the time nor inclination to endanger my mission protecting that kid's dumb ass. Therefore, I took the Paragon option and took him out of the fight before it even began.

[Bom_diggidy_Wrex]

Renegades fail



Miranda is a much better renegade than a-hole shepard

[shootist70]

Optimystic_X wrote...

How does that break immersion? Real people are "jerks one minute, paragons the next." Nobody outside a Hannah-Barbera cartoon dedicates their every waking moment to being a bastard, just like nobody outside a VeggieTales episode dedicates their every waking moment to being a saint.

Nobody who ever creates a book, film, game etc ever attempts to recreate a 'real' person. It's not feasible or necessary. They distill a character down to a certain archetype or stereotype that acts as a vehicle for the plot/story. Renegade shep, for me, isn't an effective vehicle because he's such a jerk he doesn't fit into the old heroic saga. He's not believable. I'd much rather see the usual rogue antihero in there anyday than that guy.

Hell, Zaeed is a vengeance obsessed psycho but he'd be more effective and is more likeable than a-hole renegade Shep.

Modifié par shootist70, 05 août 2010 - 03:52 .

[PsyrenY]

shootist70 wrote...

Optimystic_X wrote...

How does that break immersion? Real people are "jerks one minute, paragons the next." Nobody outside a Hannah-Barbera cartoon dedicates their every waking moment to being a bastard, just like nobody outside a VeggieTales episode dedicates their every waking moment to being a saint.

Nobody who ever creates a book, film, game etc ever attempts to recreate a 'real' person. It's not feasible or necessary. They distill a character down to a certain archetype or stereotype that acts as a vehicle for the plot/story. Renegade shep, for me, isn't an effective vehicle because he's such a jerk he doesn't fit into the old heroic saga. He's not believable. I'd much rather see the usual rogue antihero in there anyday than that guy.

Hell, Zaeed is a vengeance obsessed psycho but he'd be more effective and is more likeable than a-hole renegade Shep.

Nobody is forcing you to be pure renegade. If you want to make your Shepard more complex  (as I did) then do it. As I said before, you can max out your Renegade bar without being 100% Renegade.

Your argument is like the guy suing Macdonalds because eating it exclusively made him fat; try varying your diet.

[shootist70]

Double post.

Modifié par shootist70, 05 août 2010 - 04:01 .

[shootist70]

Nobody is forcing you to be pure renegade. If you want to make your Shepard more complex  (as I did) then do it. As I said before, you can max out your Renegade bar without being 100% Renegade.

Your argument is like the guy suing Macdonalds because eating it exclusively made him fat; try varying your diet.

I covered this argument already. It's a player-contrived solution, and player-contrived solutions aren't consistent with suspension-of-disbelief, and the latter is vital to anything with dramatic content.

It's like saying to somebody who's reading the Twilight series 'try imagining that it's much better written than it actually is'.

Modifié par shootist70, 05 août 2010 - 03:59 .

[ELE08]

Jebel Krong wrote...

you don't have to play 100% renegade (or 100% paragon) all the time. it's quite easy to play the antihero if you want, or the jerk (depending on your taste).

As someone who likes playing the pragmatic renegade, this was a hell of a lot easier in the first game.  The mechanics in the second game pretty much shoehorn you in to playing for morality points to be able to make certain persuades instead of just roleplaying a character.  Seems like a lot of the renegade options in ME2 have gone from goal-oriented badass to just a-hole for no reason.
It's possible to play an antihero in ME2, I think I'll be cheating to do it though.

[desala]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

I think that Bioware is trying to give your dialogue choices some meaning. They can't fork the convesation and/or story on every dialogue option and they want your dialogue options to have some consquence. I agree that the paragon/renegade system could be improved, but any system they put in place will be "gamed".  I'm not really sure how to get around that, within the limitations of a finite game.

It's the weighting of the points that's my big problem.  Having to count my points completely breaks the immersion, and any roleplaying is more about figuring out how to justifying comments I need to make, rather than choosing what to say in the first place.

The big decisions are all well and good (should I commit genocide? [y/n]) but I'm not going to make some completely OOC comment for that one last point to pull me over to 75% renegade.  Or maybe I would.  Most of my Sheps end up pretty bipolar anyway.

As for the OP, I think* there are enough points in the game to be renegade in the antihero sense, or at least doing the wrong things for the right reasons, without being a prime candidate for Terra Firma (or sociopath therapy).

*not that I have tried to out yet.  Will do, once my super-diplomatic run is over

Modifié par desala, 05 août 2010 - 04:03 .

[amcnow]

Renegades were so much funner in ME1. There, renegade options were based on the Intimidate talent. This made it much easier to play the anti-hero. ME2, however, goes strictly off the renegade bar. This constrains your roleplaying choices and makes playing the effective anti-hero that much harder (especially when you're just not heartless enough to make some of those awful renegade choices in ME2).

[shootist70]

desala wrote...

As for the OP, I think* there are enough points in the game to be renegade in the antihero sense, or at least doing the wrong things for the right reasons, without being a prime candidate for Terra Firma (or sociopath therapy).

*not that I have tried to out yet.  Will do, once my super-diplomatic run is over

Yeah, maybe there are. It's not something I've succeeded at in any believable way, and like I said, it feels too contrived. Surely a better solution would be decent characterisation in the first place - like I keep saying.

[ELE08]

desala wrote...

As for the OP, I think* there are enough points in the game to be renegade in the antihero sense, or at least doing the wrong things for the right reasons, without being a prime candidate for Terra Firma (or sociopath therapy)

I think there might be enough points for this, but it requires a certain amount of metagaming to acheive, like knowing what order to do certain quests in to have enough points to make an intimidate.  This is pretty immersion breaking for me.  Compare that to playing 100% either way and this doesn't become an issue.

It's always going to be a balance between game mechanics and roleplaying, I think in the second game it could have been implemented better to support a more middle of the road approach that is not 100% renegade or paragon.

The best I can think of is just having a general stat for persuades that let's you choose either the intimade or charm options depending on how you align your character.  That's how games like Kotor and DA worked and it allowed a lot more freedom.

Modifié par ELE08, 05 août 2010 - 04:13 .