337 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr. Gogeta34]

Like I said before, if they made the choices so that (even while Paragon/Renegade), one is not gauranteed to provide a better outcome/more content/more praise/more lives saved/more cameos/and better story continuity than the other... every.. single... time, then I'd be happy with it.

Unfortunately this has not been the case and the notion of a "tough choice" has been ruined because of it.

[HiroVoid]

rapscallioness wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

Since different people make different dialogue choices depending on who's writing the mission you're at, what Paragon and Renegade can really change from the person writing that mission.

.....you know what, I never even thought about that.

Yep.  Renegade in particular's probably the most changing since each writer has his/her own opinion.  Some may just think renegade is a**hole, some may think it means doing what's difficult for the safest route, and some may just think it's the bada** route.  Writing for paragon is probably easier since it seems to be more favored and more the usual 'hero' story.

[Mr. Gogeta34]

Hence the problem with Paragon Favoritism. What major choice do you have to really think about anymore?

[Dean_the_Young]

rapscallioness wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Well can't really against that because if that's your opinion, that's your opinion. For me personally ME2 is one of the best games I ever played. RPG or not.

Being good as a game and good as an RPG are two entirely different things.


Bioware is good at establishing roles, but their handling of choices is pretty weak. It's just stuff that... happens, and then never matters after. No divergent plotlines, few re-occuring consequences: even the choices just disappear for the rest of a game to be briefly referenced in the next, rather than play re-occuring roles.

Deus Ex, Human Revolution could teach quite a bit about how to let Choices shape an RPG experience.

I've heard that the witcher2 did pretty good at that (i think); and---alpha protocol? I haven't played those, so idk.

What I'm wondering tho, is does trying to implement that system over the span of a trilogy/imports and all that pose a unique challenge? Becasue these other games, from what I hear, do it well, but it's only in the context of one game.

And I pose the question srsly. Because BW strikes me as bright, hard working ppl. So....wat happened?

In two words: design philosophy.

When Bioware set out on the Mass Effect trilogy, from the start they decided that every story has to be it's own self-sufficient story on its own. You could play ME2, or ME1, or ME3 in isolation, and still get a sufficient story experience no matter where you started. Which means that later stories could not be dependentent on the choices of the previous stories, lest the divergences be too large.

When it comes to trilogies, that means that the story of one can't be dependent on the choice previously. You have to provide the illusion of choices and consequences, simply to move along in a meaningful way: otherwise plot divergences are too large to use. This also rears its head in RPG's with significant time skips, like DA2.

But even within single games of Mass Effect, however, C&C is hampered by modulization.

The Mass Effect games aren't one continuous story, but rather a buch of individual stories put together in a row, linked by something higher story. You have heirarchies of stories, but each story is a replacable block, independent and self-sufficient in its own right. Part of this is the 'choose your own adventure' idea of choosing your own mission order, where you can do the story/character missions in whichever order you choose. When there is no set order, consequences between them become harder.

But it also is effected by Bioware's writing style. There's very much a modular approach in their writing: different writers are given different missions to pursue, or different characters to write, and then they and their support writers focus on them. The advantage of modularity is that it's easy to arrange the order as you like, and it's a very manageable system from an organizational standpoint: person a handles story box A, person b box B, etc.

But the downside of having every smaller story being a module is that, as each module is independent, they don't have strong ties to any other modules. In ME2, this was apparent from the way the characters, the focus of the game. Not only did characters not have any meaningful cross-companion interactions... but there were barely ties leading from their recruitment to their loyalty missions. By and large, the recruitment missions had nothing tying them directly to the loyalty mission: they were just independent modules that could have been replaced with other independent modules of writing.

Characters like Samara, who had a two-mission plot arc, were the exception. For most characters, the circumstances of their recruitment were irrelevant to their loyalty. While two independent missions did not prevent characterization, it did hinder any cause-and-effect planning.

(To be fair, Mass Effect had its own modulation as well. Everything separated by a vehicle section, pretty much. These were just better hidden.)



It's not impossible to give choices, or at least the illusions of choices, with modular writing design. But it is harder to give consequences when every story is pretty much unrelated to the others.

[Seboist]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Well can't really against that because if that's your opinion, that's your opinion. For me personally ME2 is one of the best games I ever played. RPG or not.

Being good as a game and good as an RPG are two entirely different things.


Bioware is good at establishing roles, but their handling of choices is pretty weak. It's just stuff that... happens, and then never matters after. No divergent plotlines, few re-occuring consequences: even the choices just disappear for the rest of a game to be briefly referenced in the next, rather than play re-occuring roles.

Deus Ex, Human Revolution could teach quite a bit about how to let Choices shape an RPG experience.

Like I keep saying, Shepard can tell the Quarian admirals to go to war and then proceed to empower the Geth via the heretic rewrite and nobody notices anything fishy going on.  Not only that but nowhere in Legion's LM does anybody mention the potential political ramifications with the Quarians(not even from Tali!) when it comes to the two choices there.

Another example is with the Krogans, why doesn't anybody mention that Paragon Shepard is undermining the council by wanting to cure the genophage? And another thing with the Krogan, there's absolutely no mention of the fate of the Rachni Queen. You'd think her fate would be a decisive factor in how the Krogan percieve Shepard but there's..... nothing, even after Wrex throws a major fit over him/her even THINKING of releasing her if you bring him along.

Other than a few exceptions just about everything exists in the "Shepard bubble".

Modifié par Seboist, 27 décembre 2011 - 02:29 .

[rapscallioness]

thank you, Dean. good analysis.

And....on that note, I'm gonna take a stroll around the forum.

[Troika0]

Dean's post is indeed a very good summation of the structural impediments to C&C inherent in Bioware's design. Nice job.

Modifié par Troika0, 27 décembre 2011 - 02:39 .

[Nightwriter]

AlexXIV wrote...

And facts are facts and opinions are opinions. Just because you think that other people have it better doesn't make it so, and just because you think that you're having it worse doesn't make it so either.

Btw. we all have the same choices. If you let the Council die, you don't see it next game. Like with every other npc too. You don't get cameos of dead people. Now people want Bioware to create new NPCs to make up for all those people who you killed off? Can you behave a bit more childish people? Because we have still a couple of inches until we hit the bottom. It's simple as that, if you want more content, don't kill everyone. It's the same friggen thing in every game out there. Why don't you go to Obsidian or Bethesda forums and complain that you killed every NPC on sight and now can't finish as many quests as people who didn't do that. Seriously ...

So destruction should yield no outcome?

It does in life. Why shouldn't it in Mass Effect?

[Dean_the_Young]

Seboist wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Well can't really against that because if that's your opinion, that's your opinion. For me personally ME2 is one of the best games I ever played. RPG or not.

Being good as a game and good as an RPG are two entirely different things.


Bioware is good at establishing roles, but their handling of choices is pretty weak. It's just stuff that... happens, and then never matters after. No divergent plotlines, few re-occuring consequences: even the choices just disappear for the rest of a game to be briefly referenced in the next, rather than play re-occuring roles.

Deus Ex, Human Revolution could teach quite a bit about how to let Choices shape an RPG experience.

Like I keep saying, Shepard can tell the Quarian admirals to go to war and then proceed to empower the Geth via the heretic rewrite and nobody notices anything fishy going on.  Not only that but nowhere in Legion's LM does anybody mention the potential political ramifications with the Quarians(not even from Tali!) when it comes to the two choices there.

Another example is with the Krogans, why doesn't anybody mention that Paragon Shepard is undermining the council by wanting to cure the genophage? And another thing with the Krogan, there's absolutely no mention of the fate of the Rachni Queen. You'd think her fate would be a decisive factor in how the Krogan percieve Shepard but there's..... nothing, even after Wrex throws a major fit over him/her even THINKING of releasing her if you bring him along.

Other than a few exceptions just about everything exists in the "Shepard bubble".

It's really funny, and obvious, with side quests. The character just walks away... and disappears until the next game.

Really, one of the things many RPGs do is using side quests to affect main quests as that sort of consequence. A game in which, say, hacking is a device might have a side quest that gives you passwords applicable to a main story quest. Fallout does this a lot, giving out passwords and keys to have an easier path. Other 'choose your own order' games let the mission order shape the missions: a triangulation of the route.



Mass Effect 1 was strictly parallel in its story missions, in that each had no effect on the other. But, if Feros, Noveria, and Virmire had been triangulated...

The number of colonists on Feros could have depended on when you did it. Rather than 18 colonists to save regardless, it could have ranged from 26 to 10, with fewer people the longer you waited. The fewer people surviving when you got there, of course, means less leeway for saving the colony. A consequence.

But then sparing Shiala could have consequences for the other missions. If you saved Shiala, for example, she could give you the name of the Asari spy on Feros, allowing you to get to the hotlabs eaiser by challenging the spy outright. If you killed Shiala, then Exo-Geni scientist Elizabeth could have given you her pass, and by dropping her name to that doctor in the med bay you could also get a quick route to the med bay.


If you do Noveria first... the bio-weapon referenced in the hot-labs, implied to be developed for use against the Thorian, could give you a special anti-Thorian mod to make fighting the Thorian and its creepers easier. Benezia might be aware of Saren's indoctrination facility, and be able to give you intel about it that helps in your base assault. If you do Noveria last, after Virmire, you can recognize the effects of indoctrination, catching Benezia's agent or having dialogue with Benezia that could help circumvent part of the fight.



Etc. Not the best examples, but I'm tired.

[HiroVoid]

You actually get a dialogue with Benezia if you do Feros first about indoctrination. The rest, not so much.

[Dean_the_Young]

Yes, I'm aware, hence why they were hypotheticals...?

[Seboist]

There could have been ways for there to be unique content in ME2 based on past decisions that wouldn't involve pallette swaps or what have you.

-Giving Cerberus data to the Shadow Broker could have resulted in an extra piece of information in their dossier in LOTSB.

- Shipping Samesh Batia's wife's body to the Alliance could have resulted in a unique shield upgrade.

- Not recruiting Garrus could have resulted in him becoming a future enemy of pro-Cerberus renshep due to him seeing it as a second chance to take down a rogue spectre.

(Of course this is dependant on them not throwing away player choice and character progression in order to fan pander.....)

- Doing/not doing the "Geth Incursion" campaign would have affected the strength of the Alliance and Geth militaries in ME1 and through the entire series.

And so on and so forth...

[krossbow]

Its not like paragon choices are always all sunshine and roses; Zaeed's loyalty mission for an example isn't really satisfying for paragon.


You basically save a bunch of random workers (Who YOU endangered by being there), and the villain gets away sneering the entire time (oh no, a flunky of his died. that'll set him back i'm sure).

However, if your a renegade you get the satisfaction of seeing him die.



Paragon CAN give benefits, but so can renegade-- I don't think either one is really any "better" than the others. Just as often as Renegade bites you in the rear, so does being a paragon (Letting elnora get away for example).

I don't think bioware is biased.

[GodWood]

kumquats wrote...

GodWood wrote...
So effectively we got nothing, except for less content and constant scorn. Now honestly, the scorn itself doesn't bother me so much, I do like having negative repercussions as much as positive ones it's just that negative repercussions and scorn is ALL we get.

L2p
If you play your Renegade like a retard, it's not BWs fault.

And this is why I hate paragons.

krossbow wrote...
Its not like paragon choices are always all sunshine and roses; Zaeed's loyalty mission for an example isn't really satisfying for paragon.

Zaeed's loyalty mission is one of the finest examples of paragon getting their cake and eating it too.

Your options are:
Follow Zaeed's plan and let the innocents die so you can kill Vido.

OR

Ruin Zaeed's plan, save the innocents and let Vido escape.

Now naturally one would expect the latter to have the repercussions of pissing Zaeed off and sacrificing his loyalty (and/or squadmate status) as you completely ruined his chance at revenge, but this would be worth it as you didn't sacrifice your morals and saved innocent lives. The loss of his loyalty was a necessary sacrifice.
But no! Not only do you save the innocents and play hero but you also still get his loyalty just because.

Paragon CAN give benefits, but so can renegade-- I don't think either one is really any "better" than the others. Just as often as Renegade bites you in the rear, so does being a paragon (Letting elnora get away for example).

That is the only paragon choice that comes back to bite you.

I don't think bioware is biased.

Read the leaked script and you'll think differently.

[Seboist]

The player should have been forced to throw Zaeed out of the squad (Paragon) or execute him(Renegade) if they took the "save the workers" path. It's ridiculous that Zaeed turns into a whimpering pup that submits to Jesus Shepard's will after s/he ruined 20 years of his life.

Edit: Letting Elnora go isn't much of a backfire as her entire merc unit was wiped out and she's on the run from the authorities. Based on what I've seen with what they did to Balak in the leak, I can't wait to LMAO at what they will do with her in ME3.

Modifié par Seboist, 27 décembre 2011 - 05:27 .

[Labrev]

Mr. Gogeta34 wrote...

Your whole arguement boils down to.  "Real Renegades don't mind having decisions that don't turn out to be the suprerior alternative at any point (as far as being a hero is concerned).  You do still know that Renegades are heroes too right? (their job is to save the day as well as possible... they just use their own methods to bring that about).  Having a jerk-ish attitude has nothing to do with the actual choices (so that whole "have cake and eat it too" bit is frankly nonsense.  Being a "saint" and being a "sinner" are both their own rewards in games.. that shouldn't justify the actual choice's outcome.

First of all... the vast majority of decisions in the game have yet to play out completely, or even close enough, for any to be considered the "superior alternative" at this point. So that's a bunch of bogus.

Second, comparing paragon and renegade outcomes is lame. Only one outcome happens in a ME career, what doesn't happen doesn't happen. Ex: I've killed Balak because I believe letting him go would result in him being able to go out and possibly commit more terrorist attacks. I don't care what positive outcomes result from letting him go. All I know is that I rid the world of a galactic menace and ultimately take pride in knowing he's no longer alive to potentially kill many civilians as he was planning to do before.

If you're making those decisions to be loved by everyone, you're pretty much playing the game with a paragon heart. In which case, sorry, but hard decision-making is not for you.

And actually, being a jerk doesn't have anything to do with anything. I had a character who was renegade, and then some, ... and still had the make up of a highly compassionate and very heroic individual. My personal best career, in fact. Not a saint, but far from a sinner.

ex)  Gregory House and Jack Bauer are tv show chars that could easily be considered "Renegades."  Bad things always happen to them personally... but they also (on multiple occasions) devise solutions that no other alternative could've done better and gain praise/respect from their peers (whether they like them on a personal level or not).  Their actions have also saved more lives and yielded more positive results than their "Paragon" counterparts in the series on multiple occassions...
 
That's realistic.  Favoritism toward either side is unrealistic... which is the problem.

Shepard does not lack for praise or respect in the least. If anything, he/she is a vastly overrated figure. This is true regardless the way you play. Even a total jerk Shepard is still loved by basically 90% of the galaxy, to a goody-two-shoes Shepard's 95%. That's not realistic no matter how you spin it. People who are important in the world are just about always controversial, even the most disliked Shepard possible is not half as hated as most of those kinds of people in life.

Also, being a jerk to your squad on a personal level doesn't make them love you any less than a nice guy Shep either.

Council:  The "alien backlash" is anti-human riots (with no human strengths to show for it), no demonstration of increased human presence or human power (compared to the Paragon or even Neutral alternative), stressed inter-species relations (store owner/salarian accusing humans of using "gunboat diplomacy") with nothing to show for it.  And of course we also never get to actually "see" the Council (I personally would've loved to see an epic Renegade arguement with them... but no such content).  Not to mention that Renegade Shepard replaced the old Council to see a change... and no such payoff ever occured.  Neutrals did what they had to do and picked a chairman who (in ME2) can't even call the Council to a meeting... how are they a chairman then?  The Paragon outcome gave Anderson more power as a normal member than Renegade/Neutrals as a chairman... wut?

It's that kind of favoritism that doesn't make sense.

Queen:  Provided extra content for Paragons with no equivalent encounter for Renegades.  What acknowledgement was given for Renegades btw in ME2 concerning the Rachni (out of curiosity)?

--> Council: those imaginary anti-human riots are amongst the throwaway lines I alluded to. As for human strength, the Illusive Man says that the Alliance is "stretched thin" if you saved the Council. If you didn't, he says they are overwhelmed with the new responsibility (translation: they are in significant power). I'm not sure what store owner/salarian you're even talking about either.

The non-appearance of the new council is about the only legitimate concern with the carry-over IMO. And personally, I get the feeling they didn't show them because they didn't want to create those new characters before knowing what they wanted to do with the new council in ME3, so maybe it's for the best. Better than making rushed characters and then possibly needing to retcon them, or just being stuck with bad characters that don't work with the story. (Oh wait, thinking positvely and using optimism again, who am I kidding?)

--> Rachni: there is a news report about the experiments on Noveria of rachni clones. I'm pretty sure the word "fortunately" was used preceding the statement that no living rachni resulted from it, which I would basically call a pat-on-the-back (See, they do exist! ...if you're willing to find them). Kinda hard to do much with it when the subject at hand is completely dead, but they did.

[Labrev]

GodWood wrote...

Zaeed's loyalty mission is one of the finest examples of paragon getting their cake and eating it too.

Your options are:
Follow Zaeed's plan and let the innocents die so you can kill Vido.

OR

Ruin Zaeed's plan, save the innocents and let Vido escape.

Now naturally one would expect the latter to have the repercussions of pissing Zaeed off and sacrificing his loyalty (and/or squadmate status) as you completely ruined his chance at revenge, but this would be worth it as you didn't sacrifice your morals and saved innocent lives. The loss of his loyalty was a necessary sacrifice.
But no! Not only do you save the innocents and play hero but you also still get his loyalty just because.

Load of crap.

First of all, if you take this path then it's very hard to acquire his loyalty. If you happen to have the metaknowledge of the game, doing it early + import bonus might make it attainable. Otherwise, it takes a very high P score to unlock. VERY high.

For two, letting Vido escape is a failure. A failure (AND a sacrifice) far too large to constitute as much as a twinkie, let alone cake. The dude who killed/enslaved innocents is alive and well because you chose to try to save other ones. Whatever victory can be taken away from saving workers is almost completely negated by that very outcome.

Having your cake and eating it would be, saving the workers, and still catching Vido. As is, it's a mission failure with the off-chance of being able to get his loyalty in the end.

And personally, I stopped believing the "paragons always win" myth after playing this mission. This was nothing but a total victory for the renegade path.

Modifié par Hah Yes Reapers, 27 décembre 2011 - 05:57 .

[GodWood]

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...
Load of crap.

Oh here he goes.

For two, letting Vido escape is a failure. A failure far too large to constitute as much as a twinkie, let alone cake. The dude who killed/enslaved innocents is alive and well because you chose to try to save other ones. Whatever victory can be taken away from saving workers is almost completely negated by that very outcome.

If this is what a paragon believes when they make the choice, then why make the choice? You're well aware he's going to escape, when you hurp durr let him escape. So naturally if you let him escape you must see that as a necessary sacrifice to ensure the survival of the innocents.
Saving the innocents would be the victory. Getting Zaeed's loyalty would be a bonus.

Having your cake and eating it would be, saving the workers, and still catching Vido. As is, it's a mission failure with the off-chance of being able to get his loyalty in the end.

No it's the player betraying a squadmate so he can save the innocents and then still getting the squadmates loyalty in the end anyways.

Modifié par GodWood, 27 décembre 2011 - 06:05 .

[Bleachrude]

I personally have no problem with the Zaeed loyalty mission if it worked a la the Sacred Ashes/Caridin scenario where it was quite possible to lose a member...

(Funny thing is that Zaeed's LM has no actual plot relevance later in the game..Its quite easy to get Zaeed to survive the SM without doing the LM)

[Mr. Gogeta34]

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...
First of all... the vast majority of decisions in the game have yet to play out completely, or even close enough, for any to be considered the "superior alternative" at this point. So that's a bunch of bogus.

We've got 2 out of the 3 games to go on.  And consequences (namely, the Paragon favoritism) have been rolling in already... so no, it's not bogus.

Second, comparing paragon and renegade outcomes is lame. Only one outcome happens in a ME career, what doesn't happen doesn't happen. Ex: I've killed Balak because I believe letting him go would result in him being able to go out and possibly commit more terrorist attacks. I don't care what positive outcomes result from letting him go. All I know is that I rid the world of a galactic menace and ultimately take pride in knowing he's no longer alive to potentially kill many civilians as he was planning to do before.

"Comparing Paragon and Renegade outcomes is lame...."  Sorry dude, but you're in the wrong thread... what do you think we're talking about?

So you kill Balak because you want the world rid of a galactic menace... letting him go accomplishes that too (he doesn't do anything/hasn't done anything... and neither did Fist.)  He's still alive and not killing any civilians (if the story had him doing so... Bioware would've let you know).  All they say is he's still "at large" (ie. alive and unjailed... just like you left him).

If you're making those decisions to be loved by everyone, you're pretty much playing the game with a paragon heart. In which case, sorry, but hard decision-making is not for you.

The answer to that assumption is "no," I'm not making those decisions to be "loved by everyone."  And it should be clear to you by now that there is no "hard decision-making" in ME.  Blue button brings the best outcome for a hero (and yes, Renegades are heroes too).  That's the whole issue... the favoritism of Paragon choices.

There has yet to be a choice that's paid off more than the blue button alternative.  Any dangerous element a Paragon choice forgives and/or forgets becomes irrelevant in the story... making any "hard choice" to sacrifice in order to stop them a waste of time.  With the Paragon path, you can gain loyalty even if you fail the actual loyalty mission. 

So again... the issue is favoritism...

Shepard does not lack for praise or respect in the least. If anything, he/she is a vastly overrated figure. This is true regardless the way you play. Even a total jerk Shepard is still loved by basically 90% of the galaxy, to a goody-two-shoes Shepard's 95%. That's not realistic no matter how you spin it. People who are important in the world are just about always controversial, even the most disliked Shepard possible is not half as hated as most of those kinds of people in life.

Also, being a jerk to your squad on a personal level doesn't make them love you any less than a nice guy Shep either.

Your percentages are irrelevant when the narrative doesn't demonstrate it.  You also seem to be failing to compare that demonstrated content to the Paragon alternative.

Modifié par Mr. Gogeta34, 27 décembre 2011 - 06:28 .

[Labrev]

GodWood wrote...

For two, letting Vido escape is a failure. A failure far too large to constitute as much as a twinkie, let alone cake. The dude who killed/enslaved innocents is alive and well because you chose to try to save other ones. Whatever victory can be taken away from saving workers is almost completely negated by that very outcome.

If this is what a paragon believes when they make the choice, then why make the choice? You're well aware he's going to escape, when you hurp durr let him escape. So naturally if you let him escape you must see that as a necessary sacrifice to ensure the survival of the innocents.
Saving the innocents would be the victory. Getting Zaeed's loyalty would be a bonus.

I don't know, ask someone who made the choice.

Let me reiterate, if saving a grand total of 4 people is a victory, it's a rather short-lived one when you consider the fact that the guy getting away will probably kill others himself. I'm not sure it's even a victory at all.

No it's the player betraying a squadmate so he can save the innocents and then still getting the squadmates loyalty in the end anyways.

There's no betrayal, your wish is his command. If that means sticking to Vido, then that works out for him. If it's putting out the fire, then that's that. You don't let your subordinates call their own shots, you're the one in charge. Frankly, I wish I could reiterate this point after the mission, even though I did let him catch the guy.

Speaking of which, you wouldn't have betrayed Tali on her loyalty-mission either, did you? (I don't ask questions I don't know the answer to)

Another "cake" would be Vido getting away in either circumstance, in which case one path at least saved people and one failed and let people die for it anyway. But nope, there is a considerable tangible victory on one side - and it's not the paragons'.

Modifié par Hah Yes Reapers, 27 décembre 2011 - 06:36 .

[Seboist]

Bleachrude wrote...

I personally have no problem with the Zaeed loyalty mission if it worked a la the Sacred Ashes/Caridin scenario where it was quite possible to lose a member...

(Funny thing is that Zaeed's LM has no actual plot relevance later in the game..Its quite easy to get Zaeed to survive the SM without doing the LM)

That's one area where DA:O has the entire ME series beat(that and being able to pick sides in a conflict).

[krossbow]

GodWood wrote...
If this is what a paragon believes when they make the choice, then why make the choice? You're well aware he's going to escape, when you hurp durr let him escape.

The issue isn't looking at the game in a meta sense and going "Hum, i'm going to look up the VERY BEST options ahad of time and only use psychic knowledge of the future for my dialouge"; You CAN make dialouge choices NOT knowing the choices, like shepard would, and go through the game based upon your morals and whats right.


Shepard DOESN"T know whether or not Vido would get away-- Shepard (and the player) would INTEND to kill vido, but wouldn't be willing to sacrifice innocents to do so; It would be highly possible to think that you might still be able to take out vido. As such, the Paragon IS making a choice and being punished for it.



Your statement that the player "Knows" that vido will get away assumes every player reads a walkthrough before answering questions or playing the game, which is frankly, not true. And this is a PRIME example of how being a paragon can bite you in the rear, as, unless you've prepared properly for a high charm check, you WILL lose Zaeed's loyalty.

Modifié par krossbow, 27 décembre 2011 - 06:59 .

[Labrev]

Mr. Gogeta34 wrote...

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...
First of all... the vast majority of decisions in the game have yet to play out completely, or even close enough, for any to be considered the "superior alternative" at this point. So that's a bunch of bogus.

We've got 2 out of the 3 games to go on.  And consequences (namely, the Paragon favoritism) have been rolling in already... so no, it's not bogus.

Really? Well, just going by the only decisions significant enough to make Genesis comic....

Rachni - a messenger tells you the rachni is alive, well, and willing to fight for you. That messenger does not guarantee the rachni does not get indoctrinated again.
Wrex - renegades can save him too.
Council - the good old bureaucrats that were as much help as they were a hindrance to you in completing the mission back in ME1 is completely non-commital to your cause - again - as they laugh and ridicule you over the Reaper threat you try desperately to convince them off - again - and offer you Spectre status as a means to say "it's okay, we don't hate you!" You can accept it from them, but it has no value whatsoever (aside from a throwaway line in Thane's LM). If you want to decline it, you get on their bad side completely to which they respond to you in a threatening manner - a potential negative that no renegade player is at risk of having. And, if they're the same politicians we knew and loved from ME1, their "help" will require the player jumping through hoops and putting up with lots of personal crap before they begin to consider even giving you any.

Sorry, but that's not favoritism in any sense of the word.

Second, comparing paragon and renegade outcomes is lame. Only one outcome happens in a ME career, what doesn't happen doesn't happen. Ex: I've killed Balak because I believe letting him go would result in him being able to go out and possibly commit more terrorist attacks. I don't care what positive outcomes result from letting him go. All I know is that I rid the world of a galactic menace and ultimately take pride in knowing he's no longer alive to potentially kill many civilians as he was planning to do before.

"Comparing Paragon and Renegade outcomes is lame...."  Sorry dude, but you're in the wrong thread... what do you think we're talking about?

So you kill Balak because you want the world rid of a galactic menace... letting him go accomplishes that too (he doesn't do anything/hasn't done anything... and neither did Fist.)  He's still alive and not killing any civilians (if the story had him doing so... Bioware would've let you know).  All they say is he's still "at large" (ie. alive and unjailed... just like you left him).

I know what you're talking about. That's kind of the problem here. People's way of thinking is very anti-renegade and completely metagaming. This might be a mind-boggling concept for people to wrap their heads around, but, it's possible to take away positive/negative consequences from the game even when they aren't explicitly spelled-out. 

Guess what, I don't care what Balak's fate is in a universe where he's alive. All I know and care about is what happened in mine, and that's that he was a major galactic menace but is no longer a threat to kill anyone because he's dead. That, to me, constitues a major victory. Especially considering the high liklihood that if I let him walk, he would be committing terrorist attacks again or may have already done so (in which case, news reports wouldn't tell me anything anyway). By the way, being "alive and at large" when you're talking about a terrorist would pretty much be considered a major negative outcome, even if it's not explicitly stated that he's killed/killing anyone. The threat is still out there, no thanks to the paragon path on that one.

And yes, Fist bit the dust too on my playthrough (and not because of Wrex). I don't care that he probably never took up crime again if he were let go, he was dangerous enough to warrant that caution. He also deserved it anyway for what he was guilty of doing. What does he do in ME2 anyway, become a dockworker? Hardly what I would call a redemption story. I wouldn't care if he were feeding the poor though, I had no reason to believe he would and all the reason necessary to shoot him.

It's not as if any of these things will be the difference between whether or not Shepard can defeat the Reapers in the end. What's the big deal?

And it should be clear to you by now that there is no "hard decision-making" in ME.  Blue button brings the best outcome for a hero (and yes, Renegades are heroes too).

Like I said above, I stopped believing this myth when I played Zaeed's LM. Besides which, decision-making is done on principle, not metagame reasoning for "best outcome." Has the paragon choice NEVER seemed stupid to you, nor the renegade choice EVER more logical? If it has and you chose otherwise, it's your own fault for not making what you think is the best decision.

Your percentages are irrelevant when the narrative doesn't demonstrate it.  You also seem to be failing to compare that demonstrated content to the Paragon alternative.

What does narrative not demonstrate, are you playing the same game as the rest of us? Shepard is "a hero a bloody icon" to practically the whole galaxy, and only ever-so-slightly less so if he/she sacrficed the council. For every one angry turian shopkeeper there are 10 people of the likes of Conrad Verner, the salarian at Saronis Apps, Clerk Bosker, all the Cerberus crew on the Normandy you meet that shower you with compliments, ME1 squad (even if you were a jerk to all of them) ...

...I mean, the examples of Shepard-worship are countless.

[Labrev]

krossbow wrote...

GodWood wrote...
If this is what a paragon believes when they make the choice, then why make the choice? You're well aware he's going to escape, when you hurp durr let him escape.

The issue isn't looking at the game in a meta sense and going "Hum, i'm going to look up the VERY BEST options ahad of time and only use psychic knowledge of the future for my dialouge"; You CAN make dialouge choices NOT knowing the choices, like shepard would, and go through the game based upon your morals and whats right.


Shepard DOESN"T know whether or not Vido would get away-- Shepard (and the player) would INTEND to kill vido, but wouldn't be willing to sacrifice innocents to do so; It would be highly possible to think that you might still be able to take out vido. As such, the Paragon IS making a choice and being punished for it.



Your statement that the player "Knows" that vido will get away assumes every player reads a walkthrough before answering questions or playing the game, which is frankly, not true. And this is a PRIME example of how being a paragon can bite you in the rear, as, unless you've prepared properly for a high charm check, you WILL lose Zaeed's loyalty.

To be fair, the wording of "Forget loyalty. We're saving them" was somewhat of a give-away.

I agree though, when I used to believe the "paragons always win" myth I took the paragon path despite my instincts because I figured I could catch him anyway. Talk about a rude surprise. I even had the Charm score high enough to get his loyalty anyway, but I ignored it and retconned the decision altogether.

I gave myself the benefit-of-the-doubt since I was metagaming my decision the first time.