203 réponses à ce sujet

[GuardianAngel470]

Tony Gunslinger wrote...

I just want to add that the morality bars are actually really incorrect. Information design-wise, it's misrepresentative of how the system works. If the morality checks are based on percentages, then it should function like a pie chart, with percentage of paragon on one side and percentage of renegade on the other. For example, If you scored 20 out of 50 possible paragon points, then the paragon bar should be 40% filled. Right now, they behave culmatively, and this makes you assume that you are striving for a cap or a limit of some sort.

I think what BW intended was for you to look at both bars, add up the total paragon and renegade points in your head, and see the difference between the red and blue to quess how you're doing. HOWEVER, it does not 1) record neutral or missed outcomes, and 2) not all encounters contain both renegade and paragon outcomes, so it leaves a lot of guesswork on your part. So in case of GuardianAngel's 90/60, his Shepard is actually roughly 70-75% paragon, not including missed opportunities and neutral decisions, which may make his score even lower. In practice, this is pretty confusing, inaccurate, and it doesn't help you gauge when critical I/C checks are passed.

That said, this has nothing do to with rewarding flip-flopping Shepards. The current system is effective and fair to reward consistent paragon and renegade Shepards, and should NOT reward a 75% paragon Shepard with the best cake in the house.

Ultimately conveying what you just said was the point of this thread. The idea was to say that the current system is both misleading and broken in terms of end-user usability.  The idea that it tracks a percentage may limit what neutral sheps can do, but that in my mind is an overcorrection.

Instead of saying that Neutrals can do less, this system makes it hard for neutrals to do anything they way they want to. It is never explained to the player that it works this way which is infuriating. I have played this game over 10 times and was always under the impression that if I couldn't do one thing or the other then it was because of the difference between my accumulated morality points. This is based on the assumption that the bars are accurate.  Not once did I think that it was based on a percentage. The fact that you accumulate points with varying quantities implies that it is based somehow on your total.

I really don't know who at Bioware came up with this, but they should be fired. It was a complete failure.

[GuardianAngel470]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

Tony Gunslinger wrote...

I just want to add that the morality bars are actually really incorrect. Information design-wise, it's misrepresentative of how the system works. If the morality checks are based on percentages, then it should function like a pie chart, with percentage of paragon on one side and percentage of renegade on the other. For example, If you scored 20 out of 50 possible paragon points, then the paragon bar should be 40% filled. Right now, they behave culmatively, and this makes you assume that you are striving for a cap or a limit of some sort.

I think what BW intended was for you to look at both bars, add up the total paragon and renegade points in your head, and see the difference between the red and blue to quess how you're doing. HOWEVER, it does not 1) record neutral or missed outcomes, and 2) not all encounters contain both renegade and paragon outcomes, so it leaves a lot of guesswork on your part. So in case of GuardianAngel's 90/60, his Shepard is actually roughly 70-75% paragon, not including missed opportunities and neutral decisions, which may make his score even lower. In practice, this is pretty confusing, inaccurate, and it doesn't help you gauge when critical I/C checks are passed.

That said, this has nothing do to with rewarding flip-flopping Shepards. The current system is effective and fair to reward consistent paragon and renegade Shepards, and should NOT reward a 75% paragon Shepard with the best cake in the house.

Ultimately conveying what you just said was the point of this thread. The idea was to say that the current system is both misleading and broken in terms of end-user usability.  The idea that it tracks a percentage may limit what neutral sheps can do, but that in my mind is an overcorrection.

Instead of saying that Neutrals can do less, this system makes it hard for neutrals to do anything they way they want to. It is never explained to the player that it works this way which is infuriating. I have played this game over 10 times and was always under the impression that if I couldn't do one thing or the other then it was because of the difference between my accumulated morality points. This is based on the assumption that the bars are accurate.  Not once did I think that it was based on a percentage. The fact that you accumulate points with varying quantities implies that it is based somehow on your total.

I really don't know who at Bioware came up with this, but they should be fired. It was a complete failure.

And I'll link to it again, because it accomplishes Bioware's intention of limiting what neutrals can do while at the same time creating an easy to use, easy to quantify, easy to understand system for charm and intimidate. It compromises between the player's desire for freedom of role play and the developers desire for a third person narative.

Here it is: http://social.biowar...3/index/4565413

[GuardianAngel470]

 This is a picture of my morality bars after getting the 100% class power upgrade.  I still couldn't use either paragon or renegade options.

http://s477.photobuc...nt=P1000395.jpg

[RiouHotaru]

 Are we certain that ALL paragon/renegade checks use the percentage?  I was under the impression that only  few of the major decisions (Zaeed's loyalty, Miranda/Jack, Tali/Legion, Recruiting Morinth, and Tela Vasir) used the Percentage-based scheme.  If ALL of them fall under, then yes, using the bars is pointless, since we can't necessarily do the math in our heads.

However, I find this system to be a good one.  As has been said before, the game reward consistency.  I'm a Paragade myself (100% Paragon/40% Renegade).  I do have to go paragon for the above-mentiond major checks, but that's in-character for my Shepard.  The thing is, there can't be a reward for neutrality, because the Paragon and Renegade scores are a measure of your Shepard's skill at persuasion, AND also a measure of your reputation.  If Shepard is known for being diplomatic or for being a hard-ass, it'll be incredibly difficult to swing the other direction.  Also, admittedly some checks are easier than others (Zaeed takes quite a bit of Paragon to be charmed, and Miranda/Jack is easier to resolve using Intimidate) but again, if you're consistent...

Neutrality is there just to give you an option, it doesn't have to be a beneficial one.

As for NG+, the same issue occured in ME1.  An NG+ resulted in a reset of your Paragon and Renegade scores.  But since the SKILL determined your ability to make the check, the point value was only relevant for earning the free skillpoints.

Modifié par RiouHotaru, 09 octobre 2010 - 09:39 .

[Ieldra]

Aradace wrote...
Case in point, I agree with GodWood's way of putting it as a "Very stupid design" and will add that BioWare must of had their heads up their asses when they came up with it. IMO, in ME3, they need to either A.) Impliment a system similar to ME1's in regards to Paragon/Renegade.

The stupid part is that you can't put enough skill points in persuasion. Add being able to sacrifice combat capability for diplomacy as in ME1 and it will all work out. The ratio-based enabling of options is actually a very good idea, because it means the decisions stay at about equal relative difficulty regardless of when in the game you make them. That system only breaks down because you get a big bonus from importing a ME1 game, which makes earlier decisions easier.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 09 octobre 2010 - 11:14 .

[Ieldra]

RiouHotaru wrote...
 As has been said before, the game reward consistency.

No it doesn't. There is no worse thing in the game than to be consistently neutral. Also, rewarding consistency in this only means the games encourages you do to stick to an ideology regardless of the circumstances of the situaion. I say that's stupid. Take, for instance, the dialogues with krogan on Tuchanka. The Renegade options there are often culturally appropriate where in other circumstances, Renegade means being a jerk or just pragmatic.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 09 octobre 2010 - 11:19 .

[Christmas Ape]

Ieldra2 wrote...
The stupid part is that you can't put enough skill points in persuasion. Add being able to sacrifice combat capability for diplomacy as in ME1 and it will all work out. The ratio-based enabling of options is actually a very good idea, because it means the decisions stay at about equal relative difficulty regardless of when in the game you make them. That system only breaks down because you get a big bonus from importing a ME1 game, which makes earlier decisions easier.

I'm not sure you can describe the intentional effect of a system as "breaking down", to be technical.

[Ieldra]

Christmas Ape wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
The stupid part is that you can't put enough skill points in persuasion. Add being able to sacrifice combat capability for diplomacy as in ME1 and it will all work out. The ratio-based enabling of options is actually a very good idea, because it means the decisions stay at about equal relative difficulty regardless of when in the game you make them. That system only breaks down because you get a big bonus from importing a ME1 game, which makes earlier decisions easier.

I'm not sure you can describe the intentional effect of a system as "breaking down", to be technical.

Perhaps not, but there is the problem that the bonus hides the standard difficulty of getting persuasion options. Which, in turn, makes it surprising when the difficulty goes up late in the game as fast as it does. As Bioware said, it was the intention to make squadmate conflicts very difficult to resolve by persuasion. With no bonus, that would have been the case for everyone, but with half of all players importing a game things started to appear inconsistent.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 09 octobre 2010 - 12:10 .

[RiouHotaru]

Ieldra2 wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...
 As has been said before, the game reward consistency.

No it doesn't. There is no worse thing in the game than to be consistently neutral. Also, rewarding consistency in this only means the games encourages you do to stick to an ideology regardless of the circumstances of the situaion. I say that's stupid. Take, for instance, the dialogues with krogan on Tuchanka. The Renegade options there are often culturally appropriate where in other circumstances, Renegade means being a jerk or just pragmatic.

You also quote-mined me, though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.  I did address the issue of neutrality in my response.  And again, my Shepard did choose the Renegade responses on Tuchanka because it was the bet way of dealing with the Krogan, but I still managed to complete my other checks properly.

[Ieldra]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...
 As has been said before, the game reward consistency.

No it doesn't. There is no worse thing in the game than to be consistently neutral. Also, rewarding consistency in this only means the games encourages you do to stick to an ideology regardless of the circumstances of the situaion. I say that's stupid. Take, for instance, the dialogues with krogan on Tuchanka. The Renegade options there are often culturally appropriate where in other circumstances, Renegade means being a jerk or just pragmatic.

You also quote-mined me, though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.  I did address the issue of neutrality in my response.  And again, my Shepard did choose the Renegade responses on Tuchanka because it was the bet way of dealing with the Krogan, but I still managed to complete my other checks properly.

Sorry, overlooked that.

The problem with consistency is this: Paragon choices are sometimes diplomatic, sometimes compassionate. Renegade choices are sometimes pragmatic, sometimes you're hard-ass or even a jerk. Now I like to play Shepards who are diplomatic but rarely compassionate, pragmatic but rarely a jerk. In fact, being overly compassionate or overly like a jerk is what I usually want to avoid. Which means I end up making a lot of neutral choices exactly because I want to be consistent. The game rewards consistency only if you count being pragmatic and a jerk as the same, or bleeding-heart compassionate and diplomatic as the same.

Regarding reputation, I think it's plausible a more neutral Shepard would acquire a reputation for being level-headed.  

[RiouHotaru]

Ieldra2 wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...
 As has been said before, the game reward consistency.

No it doesn't. There is no worse thing in the game than to be consistently neutral. Also, rewarding consistency in this only means the games encourages you do to stick to an ideology regardless of the circumstances of the situaion. I say that's stupid. Take, for instance, the dialogues with krogan on Tuchanka. The Renegade options there are often culturally appropriate where in other circumstances, Renegade means being a jerk or just pragmatic.

You also quote-mined me, though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.  I did address the issue of neutrality in my response.  And again, my Shepard did choose the Renegade responses on Tuchanka because it was the bet way of dealing with the Krogan, but I still managed to complete my other checks properly.

Sorry, overlooked that.

The problem with consistency is this: Paragon choices are sometimes diplomatic, sometimes compassionate. Renegade choices are sometimes pragmatic, sometimes you're hard-ass or even a jerk. Now I like to play Shepards who are diplomatic but rarely compassionate, pragmatic but rarely a jerk. In fact, being overly compassionate or overly like a jerk is what I usually want to avoid. Which means I end up making a lot of neutral choices exactly because I want to be consistent. The game rewards consistency only if you count being pragmatic and a jerk as the same, or bleeding-heart compassionate and diplomatic as the same.

Regarding reputation, I think it's plausible a more neutral Shepard would acquire a reputation for being level-headed.  

It's alright, I'm sorry if I sounded like I bit your head off.  Some other topics have been making me twitch.  But being netural does make it hard to work to at being glib (being pragmatic and diplomatic both count as being glib in my book).

[Lumikki]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Sorry, overlooked that.

The problem with consistency is this: Paragon choices are sometimes diplomatic, sometimes compassionate. Renegade choices are sometimes pragmatic, sometimes you're hard-ass or even a jerk. Now I like to play Shepards who are diplomatic but rarely compassionate, pragmatic but rarely a jerk. In fact, being overly compassionate or overly like a jerk is what I usually want to avoid. Which means I end up making a lot of neutral choices exactly because I want to be consistent. The game rewards consistency only if you count being pragmatic and a jerk as the same, or bleeding-heart compassionate and diplomatic as the same.

Regarding reputation, I think it's plausible a more neutral Shepard would acquire a reputation for being level-headed. 

But the compassion or been ruthless is what creates you reputation. They defines you personality more public ways. Do you avoid reputation, but require reward what reputation gives. If you do resonable solution, but are not noisy enough with you choises, you are forgoten easyly by npcs. Meaning you don't have fame or reputation, what cause fear or respect of compassion. Neutral is like effective mouse, who no-one knows. Does solve situations with reasons, but without emotions, it's not remembed by others so well. Mostly because that kind of person is cold, not feared or warm and loved. Only fame what neutral can get  is respect from the achievements. But does people spread word of you accomplishments, if you did you job like clock. If you save someones life or cause major fear, it's more effective way to spread words what you have done.

Sheapard is know in every where, but what kind of personality Shepard is to known? Does it affect the npcs behaviors, when Shapards want them to do what they don't like to do. Is Shepard someone who is known to put his/her own life to line to save others or is he/she someone who are feared because he/she can kill you if you don't do what she/he wants or is she just someone who has done in past something great, but no-one really knows much more Sheapard it self.

Modifié par Lumikki, 09 octobre 2010 - 09:22 .

[Computer_God91]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

 Well, I had a very angering situation a few minutes ago. I was just playing through LotSB post suicide mission and was looking forward to using the renegade dialog option with Vasir and her hostage.

Thing is, I get to it and both of the dialog options for Charm and Intimidate are grayed out. This was very frustrating. My Paragon bar was about 90% full and my renegade bar was about 60% full. I should have had enough, especially as this was enough to resolve both squadmate disputes and earlier in the game I had already done the DLC and successfully used the renegade option.

So naturally I thought there was a bug in the Xbox version. I google it and lo and behold, it isn't a bug, it is by design.

Reading this thread: http://social.biowar...5/index/2907273
 
Detailing the completely idiotic way in which it actually works. It doesn't register how many points you have, it registers how many you don't but could.  This means that neutral players are doubly screwed, as they won't have as much of one or the other to begin with and because they didn't get ones that they could have, it snowballs.

Bioware, what the hell kind of sadistic Game-developer demons possessed you to use this system in conjunction with tying charm and intimidate into the morality points?! On top of that, what possessed you to NOT tell the players at ANY point that this was how it worked In-Game? It wasn't even in the manual!

Streamlining is fine but this is just moronic. To not tell the player relevant info like this is beyond stupid. To use a system that can't be measured by the player in any real way (because Pacifien even says that the paragon and renegade bars don't mean anything) is just cruel.

I don't care if you make the combat as clunky as a 1940's ford truck suffering from rust decay, FIX THIS!  Above anything, I play the Mass Effect Series for the Role playing. This breaks the role playing completely because I can't play how I want and even when I try I get screwed over by the code behind the curtain.

OP has anyone told you that you must be a spectre to get those charm and intimidate options?

[Mr. Gogeta34]

Depends on how you look at it.

Both Paragon and Renegade bars have 5 sections... making a total of 10. You could logically make each bar worth 10% of your overall personality with the empty space adding to your dominant trait.

So if say you were a full Paragon with 1 bar of Renegade, then you could technically say that you're 90% Paragon and 10% Renegade.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Or: Divide the available filled bars

If the same example of full paragon + 1 bar of Renegade were applied you could say that you're 1/6th Renegade with the rest being Paragon.

Which would make you roughly 83% Paragon and 17% Renegade.

Modifié par Mr. Gogeta34, 09 octobre 2010 - 10:48 .

[Rogue Eagle]

I also agree, it is a very stupid system. Really takes some of the fun out of dialogue.

[Chuvvy]

Paragon/Renegade is pretty much the worst thing they implemented into ME.

[Mr. Gogeta34]

It would be a more interesting story if you just made choices without judgement tracking and just saw the consequences play out.

[El-Destructo]

The system is certainly disingenuous. You're left jockeying for invisible magical numbers from the man behind the curtain long after the bar on your interface leaves you assuming you've topped the scale off. Poor design, at best.

[Mallissin]

Or more appropriately, they push you into making decisions that aren't really even moral to start.



They're really just sensationalized judgments with the air of morality.

[Arijharn]

I'm of two minds regarding ME2's morality system



For one I like how subtle it is, although I hate how constrained it makes me feel for the reasons everyone has mentioned.



I think the best idea would be to put points into 'charm' or 'intimidate', but make paragon or renegade decisions not based purely upon these decisions (such as charm doesn't necessarily mean paragon automatically) and have store discounts etc based on the actual paragon/renegade meter.

[uzivatel]

Its not bad system, its actually pretty good (other than the misleading bars).

That said it can be very punishing and I understand many people want it dumbed down.

[Christmas Ape]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Christmas Ape wrote...
I'm not sure you can describe the intentional effect of a system as "breaking down", to be technical.

Perhaps not, but there is the problem that the bonus hides the standard difficulty of getting persuasion options. Which, in turn, makes it surprising when the difficulty goes up late in the game as fast as it does. As Bioware said, it was the intention to make squadmate conflicts very difficult to resolve by persuasion. With no bonus, that would have been the case for everyone, but with half of all players importing a game things started to appear inconsistent.

Very difficult; not impossible. Easier if you played the first game in a particular fashion as a reward, like the Wrex reunion and giving a damn about the human in the pink suit yelling at you on Horizon.

I think the idea that the playing field must be level and all desired outcomes must be attainable leads to a lot of this. So imports fare better than fresh characters. Good; you sank 30-60 hours into the first of a trilogy, you deserve something for it. You don't need all four squabbling squadmates loyal to complete your mission; you don't need any of them loyal to complete the mission, only if you want to live. Shepard's survival, and the survival of each squad mate, is an alternate ending you earn via in-game decisions.

Neither are you in any way owed a free pass through one of the game's few roleplaying conflict points any more than you should be capable of finishing the game's combat portion without ever spending talent points, buying upgrades, or switching from the Predator. The concept of 'system mastery' - that a player who pays attention to the interactions of the rules in pursuit of advantage will gain his desired outcome more often than one who does not - has been integrated into every game worth playing. Like it or not, if you have a vested interest in the outcome of the squadmate arguments, you're going to need to play the system, or decide that making the choices that make the Persuasion option unavailable are in fact a higher priority for you. For all the griping about Tali's trial having a Persuade 'cop-out', everybody's sure eager to have Shepard talk down two allies who are both ideologically opposed and prone to violence and have it all end in going out for frosty chocolate milkshakes together.

Could the ratio system have been better implemented in ME2? Absolutely. Should it have been arranged so everybody always gets what they want? Not on your life.

[GuardianAngel470]

Christmas Ape wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Christmas Ape wrote...
I'm not sure you can describe the intentional effect of a system as "breaking down", to be technical.

Perhaps not, but there is the problem that the bonus hides the standard difficulty of getting persuasion options. Which, in turn, makes it surprising when the difficulty goes up late in the game as fast as it does. As Bioware said, it was the intention to make squadmate conflicts very difficult to resolve by persuasion. With no bonus, that would have been the case for everyone, but with half of all players importing a game things started to appear inconsistent.

Very difficult; not impossible. Easier if you played the first game in a particular fashion as a reward, like the Wrex reunion and giving a damn about the human in the pink suit yelling at you on Horizon.

I think the idea that the playing field must be level and all desired outcomes must be attainable leads to a lot of this. So imports fare better than fresh characters. Good; you sank 30-60 hours into the first of a trilogy, you deserve something for it. You don't need all four squabbling squadmates loyal to complete your mission; you don't need any of them loyal to complete the mission, only if you want to live. Shepard's survival, and the survival of each squad mate, is an alternate ending you earn via in-game decisions.

Neither are you in any way owed a free pass through one of the game's few roleplaying conflict points any more than you should be capable of finishing the game's combat portion without ever spending talent points, buying upgrades, or switching from the Predator. The concept of 'system mastery' - that a player who pays attention to the interactions of the rules in pursuit of advantage will gain his desired outcome more often than one who does not - has been integrated into every game worth playing. Like it or not, if you have a vested interest in the outcome of the squadmate arguments, you're going to need to play the system, or decide that making the choices that make the Persuasion option unavailable are in fact a higher priority for you. For all the griping about Tali's trial having a Persuade 'cop-out', everybody's sure eager to have Shepard talk down two allies who are both ideologically opposed and prone to violence and have it all end in going out for frosty chocolate milkshakes together.

Could the ratio system have been better implemented in ME2? Absolutely. Should it have been arranged so everybody always gets what they want? Not on your life.

I just wanted to make it clear, this wasn't an NG+ game that I ran into trouble. This was an import, and I got 190 paragon points and 150 something renegade points. I had just about the best possible import for a neutral shep.

Also, the devs in the post I linked to state that the effect snowballs. The more you play neutral, the harder it gets to play neutral.  Luckily the only trouble I actually had was the Tela Vasir conflict, but if you look at the image I linked to, that better be the only thing I have trouble with. 100% paragon and 80% renegade had better net me the ability to persuade my way out of problems.

[GuardianAngel470]

uzivatel wrote...

Its not bad system, its actually pretty good (other than the misleading bars).
That said it can be very punishing and I understand many people want it dumbed down.

I think my biggest problem is the misleading part. I can understand the devs wanting to exert some control over the player and impose limitations, but this just isn't the way. I would probably be less upset if they just told you that that was how it worked.

[GuardianAngel470]

Mr. Gogeta34 wrote...

It would be a more interesting story if you just made choices without judgement tracking and just saw the consequences play out.

I agree. I would prefer to just make my decisions and suffer the consequences, and have the consequences not be a hidden system that I have to decode to understand where I went wrong.

If for instance I decided to kill a merc leader in an interupt, I want my consequence to be a long hard fight through mercs that could have been avoided if I had just persuaded the first merc instead of a hidden addition to a percentage that I can't understand through extrapolation.