141 réponses à ce sujet

[didymos1120]

luk4s3d wrote...

jreezy wrote...

luk4s3d wrote...
Take ME2 for example, when your crew start falling out, if you have'nt got full Para or Rene points you insta-fail and have to sacrifice one of 'em in the suicide mission.

Your example isn't always true.

I know, it's a simplistic example to get my point across.

No, it's just plain incorrect, and in multiple ways: you don't need full P/R, and you're also not automatically forced to have an SM casualty as a result of failing either of those persuasions.

[Nashiktal]

I still don't get how morality ties into persuasion. I can see morality coloring how you say your persuasion, but your ability to persuade?

You can't even fall back on reputation. Not everyone you persuade knows your reputation.

[wizardryforever]

Quething wrote...

A "roleplaying" game that only acknowledges two specific, limited, predefined, dev-determined roles as valid, and forces the player to remain consistent with those roles (which are not even actually consistent in the game itself - how does a Paragon feel about TIM? About whether Mordin's a murderer? About the Heretic rewrite?) or suffer story-damaging consequences, is not a successful one. If you can only play two different characters who make only two sets of opposing choices, how exactly is it a roleplaying game at all?

Think about this: Grey Siding in KotOR hinders your game both in your ability to perform in major story events and succeed at missions and in your ability to choose the dialogs and reactions that are appropriate to your character significantly less than running a NG+ paragade Shepard in ME2.

Something's badly wrong with that picture.

Expecting a videogame, however well made, to account for all possible roles and reasons for decisions is just ludicrous.  How many roles would you design for?  How would that affect the variables that the game offers?  The permutations grow significantly with each role that is recognized by the game.  Including all that content just isn't realistic.  They could conceivably have one more role (that of the "don't care" neutral), but more than that is just asking to much. 

Story-damaging consequences?  What?  There are no places where a minimum paragon or renegade score is required.  The story does not negatively change if you don't use charm/intimidate at all.  It's different, but not worse in any real way.  Because so much of the roleplay in a CRPG is in one's mind anyway, I don't see how this is any worse than any other CRPG out there.

Haven't played KOTOR (and probably never will), so I can't comment on that.  But the whole idea of Paragon or Renegade being "required" is just BS.  It's never needed, and the few times where it comes in handy are still doable without them.  Maybe this is Bioware's way of discouraging NG+?

Modifié par wizardryforever, 10 septembre 2011 - 05:23 .

[Omega4RelayResident]

I managed to get my Engineer Shep to max Paragon and max Renegade at the end of ME2... still dont know how.... I tried to replicate that with my Infiltrator.... it backfired so bad I thought Morinth might actually get to kill me in the Samara loyalty mission. Not having a Persuade available sucked sooooo bad.

[Quething]

wizardryforever wrote...

Expecting a videogame, however well made, to account for all possible roles and reasons for decisions is just ludicrous.  How many roles would you design for?

How about not designing for any roles at all?

The whole point of Paragon and Renegade being on separate meters was that they weren't supposed to be a dichotomy. You were supposed to be able to create Sheps who were 99% paragon and did like one Renegade thing, or Sheps who were 50/50, or anywhere in between. One score was not supposed to impact the other. It was supposed to make perfect sense to be able to say "my Shep is both Paragon and Renegade."

There weren't supposed to be any "roles." Paragon was supposed to be a measure of how many careful, diplomatic, idealistic things you did; if you do enough, Hackett figures that you'd be a good person to negotiate a hostage situation. Renegade was supposed to be a measure of how many practical, risk-averse things you did; if you do enough, Hackett figures you'd be a good person to shoot a warlord in the face instead of granting absurd concessions.

There is no conflict between these two identities. It makes perfect sense to say "my character is risk-averse about some things, but idealistic about others." It makes perfect sense to say "my character is an assh*le in conversations, but her actions are compassionate, and thus the people around her trust her to be compassionate." It makes perfect sense to say "my character is a suave, polite, sweet-talker who could charm a miser out of his last coin, but it's all a mask for the fact that she doesn't really give a crap and she'd as soon shoot you as arrest you."

Those are not inconsistent characters.

Well, except in ME2, for some idiot reason.

Edit: And as for checks being "needed" versus "helpful" - it's got nothing to do with the outcome. It's about the choice. If you don't have a high enough morality score, your Shepard is an unprofessional idiot. Period. No leader worth ten seconds of obedience from her underlings takes sides in an argument between crew. Greyside Shep probably does it twice. That's a serious story consequence.

ME1's system wasn't perfect, but it handled this a lot better. Take the Toombs encounter, for example. You go in, and you meet Toombs, and he wants to shoot Dr Wayne. If it's in-character for Shepard to want Wayne to live? You can play it that way; there's a white right-side option that takes Shep through an attempt to convince Toombs to chill. If it's in-character for Shepard to want Wayne to die? You can play it that way; there's a white right-side option that lets you tell Toombs to go right ahead.

Neither will resolve the situation optimally; both result in Toombs' death, and you need points in Persuade skills to avert that consequence. But you can try.

Modifié par Quething, 10 septembre 2011 - 06:59 .

[Homey C-Dawg]

I'd have to agree that the paragon/renegade system messes with your head. It does feel a little bit like you get rewarded for just being a drone by picking the right color instead of thinking about the situation. My canon Shepard doesn't do to well with the paragon/renegade points because my ideas of right/wrong/good/bad don't always match up with Biowares.

Too bad you can't knock out the devil and the angel and take their cookies, then pick neutral like a real soldier.

[Berserk011]

Thats why you play through the game 3 times. One time for max paragon, one for max renegade, and another to do what you would do in that situation. Thats how i did it anyways. *shrugs*

[embrasse]

I played a deliberate straight forward Paragon game in both ME and ME2 (although in ME2 I incidentally accrued Renegade points by being an accidental badass on occasion).

Quething: +1

[Varen Spectre]

Providing that it really affects somebody that way... than yes... it is interesting.

Since I am not picking answers to save paragon / renegade points for important situations, I only have to justify to myself those replies, that I "have to" use, since I don't have enough paragon / renegade points for my prefered option.

It's little bit similar though.

Anyway, I am quite O.K. with paragon / renegade system just like I would be with convesation skill, charm / intimidate talents, social enhancers or any other mechanic, that either does not allow me to use all possible replies without sacrifying anything (skill points, augmentations, previous decisions, previous reputation, etc.)... or affects how the characters would respond to my replies (based on my speaking skill, charm / intimidate talent, reputation, etc.). That would be even better but it would also be harder to make.

It's just that having complete freedom of choice of answers and their consequences (I am not sure, but I have a feeling that Witcher 2 is like that) would be too shallow and easy for me.¯\\_  _/¯ 

[Raizo]

Biotic Sage wrote...

ThePwener wrote...

What Cheez is saying is very accurate. Most people have been conditioned by it so much that they will probably play the whole game in only one said of the bar (Fable ).

It has never affected me though. My mind is unbreakable. I play like I wanna play as, the hell with blue/red points, Im my own person, no system/game will ever dictate how I carry myself.

Rebel to the end!

But sometimes how I want to play is impossible because if I don't have a high enough persuasion skill, I can't choose the dialogue I want!

I agree.

More often than not I tend to take the paragon/good guy route in games where I have the choice since I like role playing as the ultra heroic good guy who doesn't let anyone down but there is somthing about the morality system in ME2 that I just don't like, I think if I had the choice my Shepard would have been a little bit more grey instead of the pure paragon that he turned out to be. I think it's the realisation that I would struggle during Miranda/Jack ( In my 1st playthrough I did not have enough Paragon or Renegade points to settle this dispute and I had to pick sides and Jack ended up dieing in the SM ) and the Legion/Tali confrontations. That more so than anything else in ME2 forces the gamer into sticking to 1 side of the morality bar instead mixining up  things a little.

I hope the morality system in ME3 is a lot less restrictive.

[JeffZero]

I blatantly ignore meta-related rewards and just go with the flow.

[wizardryforever]

Quething wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Expecting a videogame, however well made, to account for all possible roles and reasons for decisions is just ludicrous.  How many roles would you design for?

How about not designing for any roles at all?

The whole point of Paragon and Renegade being on separate meters was that they weren't supposed to be a dichotomy. You were supposed to be able to create Sheps who were 99% paragon and did like one Renegade thing, or Sheps who were 50/50, or anywhere in between. One score was not supposed to impact the other. It was supposed to make perfect sense to be able to say "my Shep is both Paragon and Renegade."

There weren't supposed to be any "roles." Paragon was supposed to be a measure of how many careful, diplomatic, idealistic things you did; if you do enough, Hackett figures that you'd be a good person to negotiate a hostage situation. Renegade was supposed to be a measure of how many practical, risk-averse things you did; if you do enough, Hackett figures you'd be a good person to shoot a warlord in the face instead of granting absurd concessions.

There is no conflict between these two identities. It makes perfect sense to say "my character is risk-averse about some things, but idealistic about others." It makes perfect sense to say "my character is an assh*le in conversations, but her actions are compassionate, and thus the people around her trust her to be compassionate." It makes perfect sense to say "my character is a suave, polite, sweet-talker who could charm a miser out of his last coin, but it's all a mask for the fact that she doesn't really give a crap and she'd as soon shoot you as arrest you."

Those are not inconsistent characters.

Well, except in ME2, for some idiot reason.

Edit: And as for checks being "needed" versus "helpful" - it's got nothing to do with the outcome. It's about the choice. If you don't have a high enough morality score, your Shepard is an unprofessional idiot. Period. No leader worth ten seconds of obedience from her underlings takes sides in an argument between crew. Greyside Shep probably does it twice. That's a serious story consequence.

ME1's system wasn't perfect, but it handled this a lot better. Take the Toombs encounter, for example. You go in, and you meet Toombs, and he wants to shoot Dr Wayne. If it's in-character for Shepard to want Wayne to live? You can play it that way; there's a white right-side option that takes Shep through an attempt to convince Toombs to chill. If it's in-character for Shepard to want Wayne to die? You can play it that way; there's a white right-side option that lets you tell Toombs to go right ahead.

Neither will resolve the situation optimally; both result in Toombs' death, and you need points in Persuade skills to avert that consequence. But you can try.

My entire point, which you seem to have sidestepped neatly, is that this is a videogame.  You can't tell the system your reasons for doing something, or what your Shepard's personality is.  Maybe my Shepard loves salarians, thinks they're awesome, and is a blatant, Conrad Verner style fan.  Should I be able to whine that the game doesn't recognize Shepard's salarian fanboyism?  No, because attempting to account for all possible reasons, reactions, and personalities is a lesson in fultility.  What degree of nuance to you design the game for?  How detailed do you make the consequences? 

Paragon and Renegade aren't mutually exclusive, and you're right, they were never meant to be.  But even in ME1, making one decision naturally precludes another.  So if you mix the two (everyone does to some degree), you end up with a Paragon who has streaks of Renegade, or a Renegade who has streaks of Paragon.  A roughly 50/50 character is possible and playable.

Every Shepard is a role, even if you play with your personal moral compass.  That's what I was trying to say.  All degrees of Paragon and Renegade are how your character is defined by the game.  You shape Shepard's personality with his/her actions and dialogue.  Though, like in life, actions speak louder than words.  Major decisions, (like the Rachni decision, or the Geth decision, or the Collector base decision) affect your morality much more than simply being nice or rude to someone in dialogue.  Thus you can easily be the "jerk with a heart of gold" or the "magnificent bastard" archetypes as well, someone who talks one way and acts another.  The point of the Charm/Intimidate options was never about skill points or extra dialogue or even "I win" buttons, it was based on how you, through actions and dialogue, have defined your character in the context of the game.  These options are based on Shepard's personality as demonstrated by you, thus, being Paragon means you go out of your way to be accomodating and thus will think of these Charm options, ditto with Renegade being ruthless and pragmatic enough to see these force-oriented Intimidate options.  A Shepard who isn't compassionate/ruthless enough (as defined by you, remember) simply will not think of these dialogues.

Really it is not worse than other RPGs in this regard.  In NWN2 for instance, there are three conversation skills, but there are also numerous options based on stats, race, class, and faction.  Naturally, these aren't available for everyone, but for some reason people don't whine that not having these options restricts their roleplaying.  They're bonuses, and nothing more.

As for the loyalty fights, Shepard picks a side in the heat of the conflict, realizes that he should have handled things better, and goes to patch things up with the offended party.  It's one of those situations where you realize later all the things you could have (and probably should have) said, then groan to yourself.  The "patch up" check is much much lower than the initial check, and those few times that I couldn't resolve the fight immediately, I've always had enough to patch things up later.  I would like to know exactly what percentage is required for those checks, maybe someone like didymos could dig up that information by delving into the game files?

[Kyria Nyriese]

luk4s3d wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

luk4s3d wrote...

jreezy wrote...

luk4s3d wrote...
Take ME2 for example, when your crew start falling out, if you have'nt got full Para or Rene points you insta-fail and have to sacrifice one of 'em in the suicide mission.

Your example isn't always true.

I know, it's a simplistic example to get my point across.

No, it's just plain incorrect, and in multiple ways: you don't need full P/R, and you're also not automatically forced to have an SM casualty as a result of failing either of those persuasions.

youre just being argumentative.

If you havent got NEARLY full para rene, youre gonna loose squadmates.

Happy now?

Anal post is anal! 

OK guess I'm the odd person out, but I usually play grey and I have yet to have lost a squad mate during the SM.  I even failed at my persuasion checks a time or two on the Miranda/Jack fight and neither one died and no one else did either.

While I do agree that a lot of the time, you are penalized for choosing the grey path, I still go with what feels right for my Shepard at the time.  Whether that is Paragon, Renagade or a bit of both - usually a bit of both.

[JeffZero]

Playing in the style I mentioned earlier in this thread, my Shepards do what they're going to do. Based on beliefs, not meta-perks. If that means someone dies due to x factor they couldn't possibly be aware of, viva la drama.

[Omega4RelayResident]

What if the system is more of a mind**** than we think it to be. What if we feel we are being conditioned to react certain ways but in reality these are the decisions we would actually make if we were put in these situations.

I am of course speaking of the canon playthroughs. I am not talking about playing a Paragon or Renegade just to see what the results are.

I give everyone on here much more creative credit than that. What if we would really make these decisions but because we are far more well spoken and more creative than Shepards character that the dialogue would be so different it would be unrecognizable, but the decisions remain the same.

I mean for example I know in my heart I dont think I could damn an entire race to extinction... thats just not me. So did I let the Rachni Queen live on my canon playthrough because I am conditioned by the game or is it because I am conditioned by my self not to do something that would compromise my character.

Too many questions exist to accurately pinpoint the source of this stigma. I must ponder it a bit more.

[didymos1120]

luk4s3d wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

luk4s3d wrote...

jreezy wrote...

luk4s3d wrote...
Take ME2 for example, when your crew start falling out, if you have'nt got full Para or Rene points you insta-fail and have to sacrifice one of 'em in the suicide mission.

Your example isn't always true.

I know, it's a simplistic example to get my point across.

No, it's just plain incorrect, and in multiple ways: you don't need full P/R, and you're also not automatically forced to have an SM casualty as a result of failing either of those persuasions.

youre just being argumentative.

If you havent got NEARLY full para rene, youre gonna loose squadmates.

Happy now?

Anal post is anal! 

No, because you're not forced to use those non-loyal squadmates to do anything.  Lost Tali's loyalty?  Oh well. Just use Legion in the vents instead.  Or Kasumi.  Lost Jack's?  Use Samara or Morinth for the biotic barrier. Nor are you forced to make other bad SM decisions that will get those characters killed, like siding with Jack and then taking a non-loyal Miranda to the final boss.  And no: failing to recruit potential substitutes and/or gain their loyalty doesn't make this claim right either.  That's entirely on you, and also isn't dependent on P/R scores (no, not even Samara's loyalty mission.  You don't need to use persuasion at all to succeed there).

Wrong post is wrong.

Modifié par didymos1120, 11 septembre 2011 - 02:10 .

[naledgeborn]

The Para/gade system from ME2 sucks. ME1's was better. Unless you're importing from ME1 it really cramps RP style. Why can't Shepard be a Paragon douchebag, or a Renegade boyscout, or whatever-deity-you-pray-to forbid, a sensible person who makes decisions based on a given situation's circumstance? No, just me?

[naledgeborn]

jreezy wrote...

naledgeborn wrote...

The Para/gade system from ME2 sucks. ME1's was better. Unless you're importing from ME1 it really cramps RP style. Why can't Shepard be a Paragon douchebag, or a Renegade boyscout, or whatever-deity-you-pray-to forbid, a sensible person who makes decisions based on a given situation's circumstance? No, just me?

Blame NG+ functionality not the Paragon/Renegade system.

Even if NG+ did let you keep your P/R score you'd still only get rewarded for leaning on one side of the morality scale. When it comes to games like this I say keep morality as grey as possible. It adds a greater sense of everyday realism. There's only a couple choices in the series that makes (me) the dialogue wheel lock up for a while. And even then if you're a metagamer you're going with the decision that'll give you that P/R boost instead of thinking about the actual decision. People really like their Blue/Red I win button.