147 réponses à ce sujet

[voteDC]

HappyHappyJoyJoy wrote...

Sidney wrote...

FDR and Stalin defeated a dictator, killed thousands of innocent civilians to achiev their ends, built terrible weapons so they're all the same right? So now you wind up in the hands of th FBI or the KGB. Both might threaten you, both might yell at you but, in the end, do you buy that the FBI is gonna put a bullet in your brain if you don't talk? Do you think the KGB will? Yeah, that's the difference in crediblity.

You are not forced to play all or nothing. I sure as heck didn't. You choose to play that way because you have a pre-determined outcome you want to achieve.

Exactly my thoughts, thank you.

As a counterpoint, would you believe the KGB if they tried a "nice guy" path?  Of course not, that's not how they worked.

ME1 allowing you to act like a jerk and still put points into being "charming" was simplistic.  You get to be charming/intimidating by doing, and I like ME2's system of having you become better by doing.

That is one example I made.

Are you seriously telling me that because I am nice to my crew mates that I can't threaten a criminal even though I've just killed all his men without a glimmer of mercy?

How is that guy even meant to know I've been nice to my crew?

[voteDC]

Sorry for the double post.

Modifié par voteDC, 28 novembre 2010 - 04:16 .

[Evil Johnny 666]

Omega-202 wrote...

Gleym wrote...

I'd prefer it if my accuracy was once more affected by my stats and skill points. That's what made ME1 a blend between RPG and Shooter to me. Once they removed that, along with everything else remniscent of an RPG, it just became a Shooter with dialog options and a character creation screen, not an RPG.

Why not? That's what an RPG is about: Making judgement calls on how you want to create and customize your character. The problem is that these days, casual gamers have the attention span of a goldfish and just want to go in guns blazing without bothering to even try to learn to play a game. Content is traded in for casual gaming. And that's never a good thing.

Why not?  Because such a limitation is a relic of days past.  There used to be a purpose to this min/maxing.  It kept old RPG's balanced on a macroscopic scale.  This is no longer necessary.  Newer RPGs can be balanced with a different set of assumptions of the power of "conversation skills".  In the past, a single "persuasion" dice roll could completely change or avoid an encounter.  Mass Effect conversations don't have that level of power.

The only reason you like this facet is nostalgia.  It reminds you of games past.  There is nothing inherently good about having to pointlessly sacrifice intrinsic abilities in order to fully experience part of the game.  A game like Mass Effect has enough replay value without needing to artificially gate certain facets through additional skill-point lock out. 

The fact of the matter is that what you consider "casual gaming" is more widely enjoyed than your "hardcore" gaming. 

Let me ask you this: what was "learned" by having separate skill points for conversation skills in ME1?  The only thing I learned was that it was a waste to put points into them because by the third NG+, you could max them out without having to invest a single point.  Inherently, that points to it being a bad system.  

There are still PLENTY of judgement calls in building your character in ME2.  Do I think there should have been more customization?  Yes.  But skill points for conversations would not have accomplished this at all.  

A relic of the past? No way. It's realistic. Tell me how putting conversational SKILL with your moral stance makes sense? SHOWING yourself as more paragon or renegade doesn't make you better at convincing people. This is a SKILL, and you can't practice 10 skills at the same time. You can't practice guitar and running at the same time, almost everything is about skills and it's about allowing those "points". If you'd rather be a better combatant so be it, at the sake of conversation choices which can maybe give you an advantage in combat among others. It's about deciding which type of character you want to be, it's about role playing. If you think it's a relic of the past, it's because you shouldn't be playing rpgs. In fact, Mass Effect 2 isn't really an RPG, you have RPG elements, but they are so few in between that it's more a third person shooter with a dialog system than anything else. Dialog system doesn't make RPGs, RPGs is about creating a unique character, if half the people playing ME2 make the same damn character, Bioware failed at making a good RPG, and in that case, the Mass Effect games are terrible RPGs, very good games yes, but terrible RPGs.

You can't have everything. Leaving out dialog out of the skill pool makes dialog 'skills' useless. Why don't they scrap that convincing thing out is you don't have to make any real choices about it. Your character will always be the best in combat and the best in conversations, is this making a unique character with trade-offs for certain skills? I'd rather see all these RPGs elements gone and see a purely shooter experience rather than bother with RPG elements when they have no incidence on gameplay or my character. Seriously, the skill system of ME2 is so barebone and bad, I feel like wasting my time attributing skills. A good RPG makes you think when attributing skills, it asks you which kind of character you want to be, the only choice you make in ME2 is your class and moral stance.

[Evil Johnny 666]

voteDC wrote...

HappyHappyJoyJoy wrote...

Sidney wrote...

FDR and Stalin defeated a dictator, killed thousands of innocent civilians to achiev their ends, built terrible weapons so they're all the same right? So now you wind up in the hands of th FBI or the KGB. Both might threaten you, both might yell at you but, in the end, do you buy that the FBI is gonna put a bullet in your brain if you don't talk? Do you think the KGB will? Yeah, that's the difference in crediblity.

You are not forced to play all or nothing. I sure as heck didn't. You choose to play that way because you have a pre-determined outcome you want to achieve.

Exactly my thoughts, thank you.

As a counterpoint, would you believe the KGB if they tried a "nice guy" path?  Of course not, that's not how they worked.

ME1 allowing you to act like a jerk and still put points into being "charming" was simplistic.  You get to be charming/intimidating by doing, and I like ME2's system of having you become better by doing.

That is one example I made.

Are you seriously telling me that because I am nice to my crew mates that I can't threaten a criminal even though I've just killed all his men without a glimmer of mercy?

How is that guy even meant to know I've been nice to my crew?

Exactly, the moral system doesn't work. You have your morals, your moral stance, that's it. It has no incidence on conversational skills. How using dialog options following a pre-determined moral which is not yours, makes you more apt to convince people on a more paragon or renegade way? Again, you have your stance and it stops there, the rest is conversational SKILLS.

[Gleym]

Evil Johnny 666 wrote...

A relic of the past? No way. It's realistic. Tell me how putting conversational SKILL with your moral stance makes sense? SHOWING yourself as more paragon or renegade doesn't make you better at convincing people. This is a SKILL, and you can't practice 10 skills at the same time. You can't practice guitar and running at the same time, almost everything is about skills and it's about allowing those "points". If you'd rather be a better combatant so be it, at the sake of conversation choices which can maybe give you an advantage in combat among others. It's about deciding which type of character you want to be, it's about role playing. If you think it's a relic of the past, it's because you shouldn't be playing rpgs. In fact, Mass Effect 2 isn't really an RPG, you have RPG elements, but they are so few in between that it's more a third person shooter with a dialog system than anything else. Dialog system doesn't make RPGs, RPGs is about creating a unique character, if half the people playing ME2 make the same damn character, Bioware failed at making a good RPG, and in that case, the Mass Effect games are terrible RPGs, very good games yes, but terrible RPGs.

You can't have everything. Leaving out dialog out of the skill pool makes dialog 'skills' useless. Why don't they scrap that convincing thing out is you don't have to make any real choices about it. Your character will always be the best in combat and the best in conversations, is this making a unique character with trade-offs for certain skills? I'd rather see all these RPGs elements gone and see a purely shooter experience rather than bother with RPG elements when they have no incidence on gameplay or my character. Seriously, the skill system of ME2 is so barebone and bad, I feel like wasting my time attributing skills. A good RPG makes you think when attributing skills, it asks you which kind of character you want to be, the only choice you make in ME2 is your class and moral stance.

Thank you. This is the point I've been repeatedly making, but all the casuals and shooter-nuts obsessed with brown-nosing Bioware's decisions seem to wave off as 'elitist behaviour' just because it requires them to actually utilize more than just 'shoot' and 'talk' functions. A few dialog choices, and being able to customize your appearance does NOT equate to an RPG. Facets of your character creation, skill distribution (REAL skill distribution, not just increasing damage and resistance) and having to work a balance between your crafts and finding the sort of thing that suits your gameplay best, and then having your choices affect your gameplay and method, THAT is what an RPG is. ME1 did this very well with Skills affecting conversational skill, combat efficiency, even your ability to heal and to mitigate damage, what specific modes of combat you wanted to focus on and which weapons to specialize in, as well as what armors you were able to utilize. When Bioware cut all of those things out of ME2, they removed the RPG system, and anyone insisting on otherwise either doesn't have a clue what an RPG is, or is just in denial altogether.

Modifié par Gleym, 28 novembre 2010 - 06:01 .

[ThirtyS1x]

revengeance wrote...

Nizzemancer wrote...

Autoclave wrote...

I like the ME2 system, and i HATE the ME1. This is stupid, even from role playing perspective. Oh look! I invested some skill points into my persuading abilities! Now I can convince the bastard into completing my objective. Hell, Neverwinter Nights even had 3 (!!!) different skills of this kind: Persuation, Bluff, Intimidate. Instead of investing in some really useful gameplay skills, i had to put my skill points into this just because i could not complete some quests...

Welcome to the world of RPG's where your stats depend on eachother and youhave to make a choice to be good at one thing and mediocre at something else.

Ok that is fine but i do not feel that it is fun or necessary to force me to be an absolute i like my neutral choices they reflect my personality,  why can i not play the way i feel is right and not pay for it later?

Yes but these games are made to be as realistic as possible,so it would make sence to do it in real time

[Autoclave]

Evil Johnny 666 wrote...

A relic of the past? No way. It's realistic. Tell me how putting conversational SKILL with your moral stance makes sense? SHOWING yourself as more paragon or renegade doesn't make you better at convincing people. This is a SKILL, and you can't practice 10 skills at the same time. You can't practice guitar and running at the same time, almost everything is about skills and it's about allowing those "points". If you'd rather be a better combatant so be it, at the sake of conversation choices which can maybe give you an advantage in combat among others. It's about deciding which type of character you want to be, it's about role playing. If you think it's a relic of the past, it's because you shouldn't be playing rpgs. In fact, Mass Effect 2 isn't really an RPG, you have RPG elements, but they are so few in between that it's more a third person shooter with a dialog system than anything else. Dialog system doesn't make RPGs, RPGs is about creating a unique character, if half the people playing ME2 make the same damn character, Bioware failed at making a good RPG, and in that case, the Mass Effect games are terrible RPGs, very good games yes, but terrible RPGs.

You can't have everything. Leaving out dialog out of the skill pool makes dialog 'skills' useless. Why don't they scrap that convincing thing out is you don't have to make any real choices about it. Your character will always be the best in combat and the best in conversations, is this making a unique character with trade-offs for certain skills? I'd rather see all these RPGs elements gone and see a purely shooter experience rather than bother with RPG elements when they have no incidence on gameplay or my character. Seriously, the skill system of ME2 is so barebone and bad, I feel like wasting my time attributing skills. A good RPG makes you think when attributing skills, it asks you which kind of character you want to be, the only choice you make in ME2 is your class and moral stance.

So basically, if I understand you well, you are the old school RPG gamer that only cares about his character skills and thinks that if he has max charm or intimidate should automatically be able to unlock any possible dialog and coerce anyone into doing anything you want. To defend your "realism" argument you bring up the "shep is a multi-dimensional character" so he/she should be able to heal a wounded batarian merc and at the same time side up with some serial killer in a conflict. 

Realism is about your past actions having some impact on your abilities to convince people in the future. If you are generally a paragon guy and your team mates notice this (which makes sense because they accompany you everywhere) then it is really next to impossible to threaten them (using a renegade speech) because your will not be able to sound convincing. And now you come on this forum and say that you should be able to do that just because on level up you invested some points in intimidation!
 
If you noticed, renegade and paragon interrupts don't require any sort of unlocking mechanism. You can do them regardless how renegade or paragon you are. And that makes sense, because it's an action! 

But convincing somebody through talk should not be a stupid "i pick the skill charm no I can charm people" system. 

Modifié par Autoclave, 29 novembre 2010 - 10:21 .

[joriandrake]

I support the skills being seperated from moral meter again

[Ahglock]

Autoclave wrote...


So basically, if I understand you well, you are the old school RPG gamer that only cares about his character skills and thinks that if he has max charm or intimidate should automatically be able to unlock any possible dialog and coerce anyone into doing anything you want. To defend your "realism" argument you bring up the "shep is a multi-dimensional character" so he/she should be able to heal a wounded batarian merc and at the same time side up with some serial killer in a conflict. 

Realism is about your past actions having some impact on your abilities to convince people in the future. If you are generally a paragon guy and your team mates notice this (which makes sense because they accompany you everywhere) then it is really next to impossible to threaten them (using a renegade speech) because your will not be able to sound convincing. And now you come on this forum and say that you should be able to do that just because on level up you invested some points in intimidation!
 
If you noticed, renegade and paragon interrupts don't require any sort of unlocking mechanism. You can do them regardless how renegade or paragon you are. And that makes sense, because it's an action! 

But convincing somebody through talk should not be a stupid "i pick the skill charm no I can charm people" system. 

There are problems with what you assert.

1.  Many if not most Paragon/renegade conversation options are against NPCs who don't really know much if anything about you.  So your history means jack, just your skill at talking.

2.  Even if a talking point is with a teammate it is more plausible that they buy an angry rant from paragon shepard than they don't.  Guess what even good people get pissed off and yell now and then, even generally nice people do.  I doubt there isn't a adult in the world who hasn't snapped at someone before no matter how friendly they normally are. And when they snap people don't say, I don't buy it, they say damn he is pissed off. 

3.  Convincing someone through talk is better explained by skill points than just being an **** in some key points.  Though if the overall system was more like elder scrolls where skill use raised its level it would be consistent that persuasion and intimidation choices made in dialogue would help your skill, though story oriented paragade things would not.  I'm not recommending that.  Though I'd prefer a system where when you talk to people they or others you spoke with earlier give you clues on talking points to manipulate them with, not just this one is blue this one is red=win.  Sort of like when you meet morinth, or at least how it is implied to work. 

4.  Multidimensional characters are flat out more realistic.  Just because you help granny across the street doesn't mean when the chips are down you don't play to win.  In fact many if not most people in law enforcement or the military ideally are like that.  A cop should be nice to people in general but he should be willing to use lethal force at a moments notice if it is called for.  Soldiers have to make tough calls that effect the lives of civilians, enemies, and their own units yet when they go home they are nice to their families while at the same time they may be hard ass chain of command types when on duty.

The rest is Not related to this specific quote but for those who have issues with spending combat points on non-combat skills I somewhat agree depending on the system.  In ME2 where there is a hard cap of level 30 and that doesn't even cover your combat skills it is an issue.  In ME1 where repeated playthroughs would advance you much further in level it is less of an issue.  You still have to make tough choices, but if you want to have it all you pretty much can with repeated playthroughs.   

People seem to be getting really touchy over this on both sides of the argument.  I'm not sure why people seem to get offended because someone else likes a different game style.  Yeah, I get people want ME3 to cater to their preferences, but getting angry at others seems a bit odd. 

[Mr. MannlyMan]

Ahglock wrote...

Autoclave wrote...


So basically, if I understand you well, you are the old school RPG gamer that only cares about his character skills and thinks that if he has max charm or intimidate should automatically be able to unlock any possible dialog and coerce anyone into doing anything you want. To defend your "realism" argument you bring up the "shep is a multi-dimensional character" so he/she should be able to heal a wounded batarian merc and at the same time side up with some serial killer in a conflict. 

Realism is about your past actions having some impact on your abilities to convince people in the future. If you are generally a paragon guy and your team mates notice this (which makes sense because they accompany you everywhere) then it is really next to impossible to threaten them (using a renegade speech) because your will not be able to sound convincing. And now you come on this forum and say that you should be able to do that just because on level up you invested some points in intimidation!
 
If you noticed, renegade and paragon interrupts don't require any sort of unlocking mechanism. You can do them regardless how renegade or paragon you are. And that makes sense, because it's an action! 

But convincing somebody through talk should not be a stupid "i pick the skill charm no I can charm people" system. 

There are problems with what you assert.

1.  Many if not most Paragon/renegade conversation options are against NPCs who don't really know much if anything about you.  So your history means jack, just your skill at talking.

2.  Even if a talking point is with a teammate it is more plausible that they buy an angry rant from paragon shepard than they don't.  Guess what even good people get pissed off and yell now and then, even generally nice people do.  I doubt there isn't a adult in the world who hasn't snapped at someone before no matter how friendly they normally are. And when they snap people don't say, I don't buy it, they say damn he is pissed off. 

3.  Convincing someone through talk is better explained by skill points than just being an **** in some key points.  Though if the overall system was more like elder scrolls where skill use raised its level it would be consistent that persuasion and intimidation choices made in dialogue would help your skill, though story oriented paragade things would not.  I'm not recommending that.  Though I'd prefer a system where when you talk to people they or others you spoke with earlier give you clues on talking points to manipulate them with, not just this one is blue this one is red=win.  Sort of like when you meet morinth, or at least how it is implied to work. 

4.  Multidimensional characters are flat out more realistic.  Just because you help granny across the street doesn't mean when the chips are down you don't play to win.  In fact many if not most people in law enforcement or the military ideally are like that.  A cop should be nice to people in general but he should be willing to use lethal force at a moments notice if it is called for.  Soldiers have to make tough calls that effect the lives of civilians, enemies, and their own units yet when they go home they are nice to their families while at the same time they may be hard ass chain of command types when on duty.

The rest is Not related to this specific quote but for those who have issues with spending combat points on non-combat skills I somewhat agree depending on the system.  In ME2 where there is a hard cap of level 30 and that doesn't even cover your combat skills it is an issue.  In ME1 where repeated playthroughs would advance you much further in level it is less of an issue.  You still have to make tough choices, but if you want to have it all you pretty much can with repeated playthroughs.   

People seem to be getting really touchy over this on both sides of the argument.  I'm not sure why people seem to get offended because someone else likes a different game style.  Yeah, I get people want ME3 to cater to their preferences, but getting angry at others seems a bit odd. 

Exactly. ME2's system has very small skill trees with very few points and very few skills. Each level of every skill represents a huge step in your character's development, so funneling points into a non-combat related skill would have a huge effect on your character's effectiveness in combat (especially when you don't have enough skillpoints left over to buy another level, which is a bull**** system). This is why ME1's system really was superior; at level 60, you could max out charm or intimidate, and still have the points needed to max out 4-5 other skills, while bringing the others to a reasonable level. You could be as specialized or as balanced as you wanted. You could customize (even though most people would argue about how meaningless it was, which is a bull**** argument).

For the record, ME1 had plenty of battles that you could talk your way out of using charm or intimidate, and it never costed you a huge amount of experience points. I was able to build an extremely powerful Vanguard with maxed charm and an intimidate bar that was about half-full.

[Autoclave]

Why did I get angry? Because after years of playing RPG games, especially D&D games like NWN, I always felt extremely stressed with my skill points distribution. There were a lot of important skills I needed to invest in, and finding room for persuasion skills was always a real pain in the ass.

It was a pain the ass in ME1 too. And I was happy that in my ME2 game I no longer needed to worry about this stat. I was happy to play shepard they way I liked and be able to use paragon/renegade dialogs. 

And then somebody comes on this forum and says: "lets go back to the old system!". Of course I will feel angry. 

Modifié par Autoclave, 30 novembre 2010 - 02:38 .

[R-F]

I honestly liked leveling a whole lot better in ME1. I think that was one of the few things that really irked me about ME2's new lets call it 'efficient' system. I like to play a mix of paragon and renegade, and i really didn't like playing all one or all the other simply to resolve a conflict between my crew members.

[Ahglock]

Autoclave wrote...

Why did I get angry? Because after years of playing RPG games, especially D&D games like NWN, I always felt extremely stressed with my skill points distribution. There were a lot of important skills I needed to invest in, and finding room for persuasion skills was always a real pain in the ass.

It was a pain the ass in ME1 too. And I was happy that in my ME2 game I no longer needed to worry about this stat. I was happy to play shepard they way I liked and be able to use paragon/renegade dialogs. 

And then somebody comes on this forum and says: "lets go back to the old system!". Of course I will feel angry. 

That explains your prefernce, but that doens't really expaian why someone should get angry or for those who were on either side of the argument insulting.  No one here is a game desinger, no one is telling you what ME3 will be like they are just stating their preferences.  Getting angry about people having a different preference seems odd to me. 

[Fro_McJoe]

I would prefer the old more complex leveling system of ME1 personally

[YukiFA]

I prefer the older system with the free points. Four free points in whatever alignment I choose each playthrough let me max out each alignment in 3 playthroughs each and let me play my Shepard the way I want (being nice to nice people and using the renegade options for criminals/corrupt people).

[Gleym]

A lot of people would prefer the old system. Namely those of us who are actually people who enjoy RPGs. Unfortunately, chances are we'll have the same system of ME2, or an even more dumbed down one, in ME3 on account of the fact that it's cheap and easy, and they know that their new target consumer (i.e. not us RPG lovers) will eat up anything that doesn't require them to have an attention span above that of a sugar-high co-cker spaniel, a learning curve upwards of 'put the square block in the square hole', or a challenge level beyond 'press this button to win the game'.

Modifié par Gleym, 30 novembre 2010 - 06:59 .

[Rahzar]

Neither system was perfect.  Each had problems with it that frustrated me.  Here's how I think the problems should be solved.

Keep the Paragon/Renegade system, but add a separate Charm/Intimidate system that grows just like the P/R system does, but from different conversation options.  Whether or not Shepard can convince someone (and the most effective way of doing it) would depend on how high his Charm/Intimidate is.  Paragon/Renegade would primarily affect Shepard's appearance (like Renegade = glowy scars), but they would also increase Charm/Intimidate scores (P would give small bonuses to Charm, while R would give small bonuses to Intimidate).

They really do need to have more conversation options.  They should have more options than just a Paragon, a neutral, and a Renegade response.  I propose giving most, if not all, conversations a lot of choices, including a Paragon/Charm, a Neutral/Charm, a Neutral/Intimidate, and a Renegade/Intimidate.  This would provide a variety of dialogue options and allow players to choose more Neutral conversation options without totally sacrificing their ability to persuade.

On sort of a side note, I don't think they should have the red- or blue-highlighted dialogue options, or at least they definitely shouldn't be "I WIN" buttons.  They should be failable, depending on the kind of person you use them on.

[CPT Eightball]

yup. that worked nicely. better than requireing a certain amount of paragon or renegade points to solve a problem. > instead, use your skill at speech, then get paragon or renegade points for your actions.

[joriandrake]

Autoclave wrote...

Why did I get angry? Because after years of playing RPG games, especially D&D games like NWN, I always felt extremely stressed with my skill points distribution. There were a lot of important skills I needed to invest in, and finding room for persuasion skills was always a real pain in the ass.

It was a pain the ass in ME1 too. And I was happy that in my ME2 game I no longer needed to worry about this stat. I was happy to play shepard they way I liked and be able to use paragon/renegade dialogs. 

And then somebody comes on this forum and says: "lets go back to the old system!". Of course I will feel angry. 

never liked the new system, and I always preferred stats or skills like luck or persuation in games over battle ones, I think it is nicer to persuate Saren to shot himself than to do the work myself too, would love to be able to play through majority of game via diplomacy and intrigues, and with nearly no gunshot

[LURadio]

The investment of skill points in Mass Effect was a stupid idea, the fact that I had to waste points on Charm or Intimidate when I could've put them in weapon or power spots was ridiculous.  Mass Effect 2 nailed how Paragon and Renegade decisions should be made.

[Tested-Faythe]

BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA..



oh... wait.. you're serious???

[LURadio]

Ya I am serious, why is that so funny to you

[thebrute7]

LURadio wrote...

The investment of skill points in Mass Effect was a stupid idea, the fact that I had to waste points on Charm or Intimidate when I could've put them in weapon or power spots was ridiculous.  Mass Effect 2 nailed how Paragon and Renegade decisions should be made.

I can't believe that you actually believe that they way it is in ME2 is the way it should be.  Granted I dislike ME1 using combat points to increase dialog options but at least in ME1 you could mix paragon with rengade and not be punished for it.  In ME2 if you try to mix paragon and renegade you get none of the interrupts, or rather only a few of them and even then only if you brought a character from ME1 into 2.  

I recently started a character straight into ME2 and about a third of the way through I said screw it because I couldn't get any interrupts.  The dialog system needs to allow you to make any decision in any situaution and your Paragon/Renegade scores only determine how people view you, not how you can and cannot interact with people.

[LURadio]

And how can you become a Paragon or Renegade in the game without interacting with people, if you start the game with a clean slate you can still easily make dialouge options appear, you just have to commit to being a Paragon or Renegade. Shepard is one or the other, there's no half arsed neutral option.

[Ahglock]

LURadio wrote...

And how can you become a Paragon or Renegade in the game without interacting with people, if you start the game with a clean slate you can still easily make dialouge options appear, you just have to commit to being a Paragon or Renegade. Shepard is one or the other, there's no half arsed neutral option.

The issue for many is why should me generally being an ass stop me from being nice now and then.  Why should generally being nice stop me from intimidating someone occasioanlly, last time I checked you still kill crap tons of people and are heavily armed and armored seems kind of intimidating to me.  Also those half arsed neutral options better reflect life.  I disliked things from both systems and want neither of them back.