98 réponses à ce sujet

[Nathan Redgrave]

Only twice have a Paragon decisions bitten Shepard in the arse, and these in really handwavey ways: Charm options are useless against Elias Kelham, and result in a failure to end the interrogation before the lawyer bursts in; also, during ME2, if you let the Bring Down the Sky guy go to save the hostages, news reports will play saying that he's still at large two years later. Apart from that, Paragons get really, really goddamn lucky.

It'd be more interesting if players occasionally had to deal with backlash from both sides of the spectrum--making enemies as a Renegade, making mistakes as a Paragon. Fine-tuning the persuasion system to allow more shades-of-gray character choices would be helpful as well. My idea for that:

- Return "Charm" or "Intimidate" skills for level-up. Low-level and mid-level charm/intimidate skills are acquirable regardless of Paragon/Renegade totals, simply providing the player more opportunities to bolster one or the other. High-level and max-level Paragon/Renegade skills require 25% and 50% Paragon/Renegade scores (including Passive class skill boosts), as well as more Squad Points than the lower levels, making it difficult (although not impossible) to max out both persuasion schools in a single playthrough.

- A pair of additional class-specific powers or bonuses can be implemented that develops as the Paragon/Renegade scores go up--a Paragon Soldier, for example, would receive a bonus to Shield Strength, while a Renegade Soldier would receive a bonus to weapon damage. You could either go full-on one or the other, maxing out both bonuses, or dither at some level of middle-ground and pick up a partial bonus on both sides.

These mechanics combined with the "Paragons make mistakes/Renegades make enemies" morality would remove most of the problems with the current system without actually killing the point of the points.

In theory, that is.

Modifié par Nathan Redgrave, 14 avril 2011 - 02:51 .

[DPSSOC]

My only problem with the system is it seems rather poorly balanced.  Paragon or Renegade there are good and bad reasons to choose and there are benefits and costs.  I'm willing to accept that Renegade choices have their downsides (lack of galactic unity) but where's the downside to Paragon choices?  I'm not asking that Paragons be punished but with Renegade you gain a stronger Alliance but it leads to alien hostility (not just a lack of unity); Paragon you gain galactic cooperation and lose...what exactly?

The reason I stressed that Renegades don't just have a lack of unity but hostility is because it's not a simple case of one side's loss is the others gain.  If it were stronger Alliance and species not working together I'd be fine but it's stronger Alliance and species working against you.  I'd be willing to settle for limitations on Alliance autonomy, or the Council seizing a portion of their military to make up what they lost, something with a bit more bite than just missing out on the Renegade boon.

[Sebby]

DPSSOC wrote...

My only problem with the system is it seems rather poorly balanced.  Paragon or Renegade there are good and bad reasons to choose and there are benefits and costs.  I'm willing to accept that Renegade choices have their downsides (lack of galactic unity) but where's the downside to Paragon choices?  I'm not asking that Paragons be punished but with Renegade you gain a stronger Alliance but it leads to alien hostility (not just a lack of unity); Paragon you gain galactic cooperation and lose...what exactly?

The reason I stressed that Renegades don't just have a lack of unity but hostility is because it's not a simple case of one side's loss is the others gain.  If it were stronger Alliance and species not working together I'd be fine but it's stronger Alliance and species working against you.  I'd be willing to settle for limitations on Alliance autonomy, or the Council seizing a portion of their military to make up what they lost, something with a bit more bite than just missing out on the Renegade boon.

It's quite telling how if you sacrifice the council in ME1 the aliens are pissed at Shepard but if you save them no humans are pissed over sacrificing Alliance ships.

Renegades are continually punished and deprived of content(Cameos)while Paragon always gets the benefits and no blowback.

[IrishSpectre257]

I just wish decisions weren't divided by paragon and renegade points.

[jbblue05]

Paragons should lose more humans because the Alliance is weaker but than again most paragons believe aliens are super awesome and humans suck.

Cerberus attacking you in ME3 tells me that Bioware might make the CB decision irrelevant and force Shepard down one path.
Cerberus loyalists are being forced to fight their allies and Cerberus haters can team up with the "good guys" they can attack Cerberus, and save the galaxy.

Once again Paragons get to have their cake and eat it too.
The pragmatic Renegade is inferior to the righteous emotional paragon

Renegades aren't bad guys that need to bepunished we are good guys trying to defeat the Reapers also

Modifié par jbblue05, 14 avril 2011 - 03:21 .

[DPSSOC]

Seboist wrote...
Renegades are continually punished and deprived of content(Cameos)while Paragon always gets the benefits and no blowback.

Well we kind of ask for the lack of cameos Renegades kill most of those people.  I suppose they could have a related cameo but aside from variations of "you killed my father, prepare to die." I can't really think of anything right now.

[Sebby]

jbblue05 wrote...

Paragons should lose more humans because the Alliance is weaker but than again most paragons believe aliens are super awesome and humans suck.

Cerberus attacking you in ME3 tells me that Bioware might make the CB decision irrelevant and force Shepard down one path.
Cerberus loyalists are being forced to fight their allies and Cerberus haters can team up with the "good guys" they can attack Cerberus, and save the galaxy.

Once again Paragons get to have their cake and eat it too.
The pragmatic Renegade is inferior to the righteous emotional paragon

Renegades aren't bad guys that need to bepunished we are good guys trying to defeat the Reapers also

It sucks that Bioware had me end up loving TIM and Cerberus and then forces me to go fight 'em in ME3.

[jbblue05]

Seboist wrote...


It sucks that Bioware had me end up loving TIM and Cerberus and then forces me to go fight 'em in ME3.

I agree

[Sebby]

DPSSOC wrote...

Seboist wrote...
Renegades are continually punished and deprived of content(Cameos)while Paragon always gets the benefits and no blowback.

Well we kind of ask for the lack of cameos Renegades kill most of those people.  I suppose they could have a related cameo but aside from variations of "you killed my father, prepare to die." I can't really think of anything right now.

Well, there's several kinds of cameos they could have done such as:

Killed Shiala? Have Lizbeth Baynham show up on Illium(Instead of the generic colonist they have now)

KIlled Rana Thanoptis? Have one of Kirahee's men investigating Okeer's doings

Killed Fist? Have one of his former employees or that Turian C-Sec officer show up.

Killed Rachni Queen? Have one of the Noveria researchers show up.

So on and so forth.

[100k]

I think the important thing is that there is no value in the middle ground of Shepard's decisions that really makes this 2D morality damaging.

Paragon gives you Paragon options, along with raising your rep throughout the galaxy.

Renegade gives you Renegade options, along with raising your rep throughout the galaxy.

Both of these options allow you to often advert difficult situations that would otherwise be difficult. I get that.

What I don't get, is why the Neutral option doesn't also give you some kind of bonus! I mean, for much of ME and ME2, I didn't realize that the best option to any conversation wheel, was located at the polar ends. Despite the fact that Shepard's middle option makes him seem like a rational human being, it yields no reward in the long run.

Example:

Paragon) The genophage was horrible!
Neutral) The genophage was a necessary evil!
Renegade) The genophage kicked ass!

If the player chooses either the paragon or renegade option, they get points. If the player chooses the logical option, they get d*ck.

[Sebby]

100k wrote...

I think the important thing is that there is no value in the middle ground of Shepard's decisions that really makes this 2D morality damaging.

Paragon gives you Paragon options, along with raising your rep throughout the galaxy.

Renegade gives you Renegade options, along with raising your rep throughout the galaxy.

Both of these options allow you to often advert difficult situations that would otherwise be difficult. I get that.

What I don't get, is why the Neutral option doesn't also give you some kind of bonus! I mean, for much of ME and ME2, I didn't realize that the best option to any conversation wheel, was located at the polar ends. Despite the fact that Shepard's middle option makes him seem like a rational human being, it yields no reward in the long run.

Example:

Paragon) The genophage was horrible!
Neutral) The genophage was a necessary evil!
Renegade) The genophage kicked ass!

If the player chooses either the paragon or renegade option, they get points. If the player chooses the logical option, they get d*ck.

Yep, the Paragon/Renegade system punishes role playing and rewards meta-gaming.

[looloolooigotsomeapples]

They need to bring back Charm/Intimidate so players can choose mostly neutral and not be nerf'd. Or perhaps tie it to their special class skill? Who knows. The way they handled this aspect in Mass Effect 2 is pretty broken.

[Sebby]

looloolooigotsomeapples wrote...

They need to bring back Charm/Intimidate so players can choose mostly neutral and not be nerf'd. Or perhaps tie it to their special class skill? Who knows. The way they handled this aspect in Mass Effect 2 is pretty broken.

It most certainly is broken, my Paragade Shep wasn't able to recruit Morinth but my pure Paragon one was. Go Figure.

[Empiro]

looloolooigotsomeapples wrote...

They need to bring back Charm/Intimidate so players can choose mostly neutral and not be nerf'd. Or perhaps tie it to their special class skill? Who knows. The way they handled this aspect in Mass Effect 2 is pretty broken.

I'm not sure how that helped -- to get the highest levels of charm or intimidate, you needed a high paragon or renegade score. It only mattered in a couple of checks, but you still couldn't get all of them unless you went heavily paragon or renegade.

Modifié par Empiro, 14 avril 2011 - 05:16 .

[sidequest]

You can recruit Morinth? Interesting.

[Nathan Redgrave]

sidequest wrote...

You can recruit Morinth? Interesting.

You need to have a high enough Charm/Intimidate rating to be able to access the final persuasion option in Morinth's apartment--the one that lets you resist her mental domination. If you do that--either by way of Paragon or Renegade--you can choose whether to kill Morinth or Samara. If not, Shepard automatically sides with Samara.

[Schattenkeil]

One thing that puzzles me in this thread is I am not sure whether the OP actually mean what he says in the title. Two dimensional is actually comparably sophisticated, comparabe to D&D 2 / 3. You have one good-evil axis and one lawful-chaotic axis. If you consider paragon and renegade scores to be opposed by 180° you would have an actually one dimensional "morality", just with two separate rulers to measure one thing.

No does the OP consider paragon and renegade scores to be completely unrelated as the title would imply or not?

Modifié par Schattenkeil, 14 avril 2011 - 02:44 .

[CreoleLakerFan]

sidequest wrote...

Oh, another good example of for Paragon moral gray would be choosing to re-write the Heretics as opposed to deleting them in the Sea of Storms mission. I'm willing to bet that that seemingly humane Paragon choice could backfire just as easily as the preservation of the Reaper technology. When the entire sum of Heretic experience and memory are incorporated back into the Geth, who's to say what millions of individual Heretic perspectives will contribute to the collective AI? Will they begin to convert to a Heretical viewpoint even after the eradication of the virus? The sum of Geth experience may outweigh core logic when all those legless individuals re-integrate with core software. Will Legion eventually defect from the hive mind and become the "Heretic"?

That was a tough choice.  Shepard tried to pass the buck, but Legion passed it right back to him.  When forced to make a moral decision, Shepard took a while to decide.

Let them live!  Just rewrite them, because "killing" off an entire group for philosophical reasons would be wrong.  Yes, but so would indocrinating them.  In fact, that's how the conflict started, the heretics were attempting to rewrite the traditionalists to force them to their way of thinking - and THAT is probably worse than death.  

Shepard thought of all of the Husks he had fought through, and wondered if behind those eyes there was still a piece of a helpless soul trapped in a body that was controlled by anothers will.  So he chose the RENEGADE action, but did the right thing by eliminating the Geth Heretics

[Savber100]

sidequest wrote...

Oh, another good example of for Paragon moral gray would be choosing to re-write the Heretics as opposed to deleting them in the Sea of Storms mission. I'm willing to bet that that seemingly humane Paragon choice could backfire just as easily as the preservation of the Reaper technology. When the entire sum of Heretic experience and memory are incorporated back into the Geth, who's to say what millions of individual Heretic perspectives will contribute to the collective AI? Will they begin to convert to a Heretical viewpoint even after the eradication of the virus? The sum of Geth experience may outweigh core logic when all those legless individuals re-integrate with core software. Will Legion eventually defect from the hive mind and become the "Heretic"?

The problem with that choice is how the game indicates one choice was Paragon and one choice was Renagade.

With that information, I would just choose Paragon without much thought because it's obvious that Paragon is the developer's side of being good. (Well, that's the general assumption as of now and is why I think it'll be great if the Paragon choice led to dire consequences rather than the Renagade choices).

[Dr. rotinaj]

looloolooigotsomeapples wrote...

They need to bring back Charm/Intimidate so players can choose mostly neutral and not be nerf'd. Or perhaps tie it to their special class skill? Who knows. The way they handled this aspect in Mass Effect 2 is pretty broken.

This. The only problem with the morality system is that it rewards/punishes players by affecting Shepard's persuasion ability. Persuasion should be a skill that needs to be invested in like any other skill. By removing Charm/Intimidate skills, a huge chunk of role-playing potential is removed from conversations and is replaced with meta-gaming.

[DPSSOC]

Arcian wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...
 with Renegade you gain a stronger Alliance but it leads to alien hostility (not just a lack of unity); Paragon you gain galactic cooperation and lose...what exactly?

A weaker Alliance.

Wrong.  Like I said it's not just that the Renegades don't get the benefit of the Paragon choice they actually slide back a bit.  Let's look at it like this; if you had 7 each of apples and oranges and were given a choice to get 3 more of 1 a straight "my loss is his gain" system would mean you end with 10 of one and 7 of the other.  You don't lose anything, you just don't gain the benefits of the other choice.  The way the Renegade choice plays out is a "win some lose some" system where we actually lose a few apples for picking oranges so we now have 10 oranges and 4 apples.

Now I have no problem with this system but where are the Paragons' 3 lost oranges?  The Alliance isn't weakened by not being top dog it's just not top dog.  We're given no indications that they've been hit by anything more than the lost cruisers which were part of the balance of the initial choice (Save Council/Lose Cruisers, Kill Council/Gain time[in theory]).  Like I said just some sign that the Alliance has signed over a few ships to the Council temporarily to bolster their damaged fleet would be sufficient something that shows they've lost a tiny bit (because the Ren loss was tiny) on the power slide (where Renegades gained).

Now maybe I've missed something, some mention in the Newsnet broadasts or a piece of side convo, but I'm not seeing your lost oranges.

Arcian wrote...
EDIT: Also, I don't get the whole, "I want to play renegade but I don't want anyone to hate me." The whole point with being a pro-human renegade is that you do not care what aliens think. Getting to be topdog is as much reward for renegades as playing nice is for paragons. There is total equality, but you don't seem to see it.

Yes both sides have a benefit but that's not the total balance because the Renegade choice also has a cost.  If Paragon and Renegade both got a benefit, and their only cost was not getting the benefit of the other, then Renegades would simply have a lack of cooperation (aliens refuse to work with us), and that'd be fine.  What we get is hostility (aliens actively work against us), so not only have we not gained the unity of the Paragons we've slid back; I just don't see a similar side in the Paragon play (and again if you do point it out it'll make me happy).  Yes the Alliance isn't as strong as Renegade but you aren't any worse off than you were at the end of ME1 (where Renegades are in terms of diplomacy).

[didymos1120]

CreoleLakerFan wrote...
Shepard tried to pass the buck, but Legion passed it right back to him. 

Yeah, well, Legion passed the thing in first place, and it really should not have been up to Shep.  That was a sop to us players, mostly.

[JKoopman]

Dr. rotinaj wrote...

looloolooigotsomeapples wrote...

They need to bring back Charm/Intimidate so players can choose mostly neutral and not be nerf'd. Or perhaps tie it to their special class skill? Who knows. The way they handled this aspect in Mass Effect 2 is pretty broken.

This. The only problem with the morality system is that it rewards/punishes players by affecting Shepard's persuasion ability. Persuasion should be a skill that needs to be invested in like any other skill. By removing Charm/Intimidate skills, a huge chunk of role-playing potential is removed from conversations and is replaced with meta-gaming.

I've been saying this pretty much since ME2's release. I really hope they bring back the persuasion skill in ME3, but BioWare apparently seem to think that ME2 was perfect in every way so I'm not holding my breath.

It's really telling that I had to hack all my saves and give myself 1200 in both Paragon and Renegade just so that I could role-play a rational and balanced human being instead of a two-dimensional moral cliche.

Modifié par JKoopman, 15 avril 2011 - 03:28 .

[GME_ThorianCreeper]

My opinion on all of this is simple. I imagine that Paragon and Renegade does not even exist, and I make the tough spontaneous choices. From small choices that protect my life, such as shooting Dr. Kenson, (that did not really work though), to choices that can change the galaxy significantly, such as saving the council.

Paragon and Renegade bars are probably the biggest mistake in Mass Effect.

I choose what is right, be it Renegade or Paragon. I wonder what ending they will have for neither.