123 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

David7204 wrote...

If heroism matters, then Paragon characters being rewarded more heavily than Renegade characters is the logical conclusion.

Why should heroism matter?  Heroism has no intrinsic value.

Coherence should matter more.  Consequences should make sense, even if that sense is only perceptible after the fact.

[AppealToReason]

silentassassin264 wrote...

Keriana wrote...

Kileyan wrote...
Why should the bad option have a reward to encourage it though? A lot of people just like playing a not very good person, their reward is being able to make those terrible choices and be something other than the typical shining knight.

Maybe because I don't see playing a terrible person making terrible choices as being much of a reward...

I was thinking more that paragon choices could be rewarded in ways that matter to paragons while renegade choices could be rewarded in ways that matter to renegades, but that the pc wouldn't get both rewards. So, you are picking what is important for your pc in a situation and seeing the logical consequences of those decisions. I wasn't meaning to suggest that a random person should die because the pc saves someone.

I was also responding to Maria writing "Now, I believe Allan once mentioned that if there's a 'good' option and a 'bad' option, he's probably going to pick the good one as picking the bad one doesn't make much sense. That doesn't make it much of a choice."

I like this idea and this is how I felt it should have been in the Mass Effect series.  Both sides had to sacrifice but only paragons really seemed to get something out of it.  Renegades got one-liners but nothing of substance or if anything losing assets.  Both sides should get something appropriate out of sacrifice and both sides should get a penalty out of it.  If DA, mages and templar, however they want to break it down, should both get penalties and appropriate rewards if they decide to sacrifice something intentionally or unintentionally.  It seems like bias if you only reward one or only punish one and it seems like devs are saying "this is how you should be playing.  if not you are playing it wrong."  I do not play an open ended western rpg to be told "this is how I should be playing".

Agreed. In ME as fun as being a renegade was, punching people and badass scars, you just seemed to lose out on things by picking the renegade option. Renegade Maelon's research, no lady Krogan. Renegade the genophage, lose Wrex and Krogan support but get useless Salarian strength that you got most of anyway by being a Paragon. Renegade Miranda's requests, lose her military score thing. Renegade Samara's quest thing, she dies. Quite easily could renegade away that Quarian admiral, Tali and the fleet. Can renegade the Rachni into death lose that military strength.

A lot of it makes sense, but there really is no benefit to it which can make it pretty hollow and undesirable. It pissed me off how after being able to renegade most of the first 2 games that come three I had to make girly boy choices or be left in the cold. If you Paragon all that then you get all the goodies and everyone becomes your best friend forever. No reward to renegade which makes it feel as if you're doing it wrong to play your way.

"Shepard, how is the getting everyone to help going?"
"Pretty bad, I have to be a little girly boy paragon all the time and I'm a badass so F that noise"
"So we have no fleets?"
"Yeah basically."
*Hacket faceplants on the terminal*

Modifié par AppealToReason, 23 octobre 2012 - 08:30 .

[Il Divo]

David7204 wrote...

If heroism matters, then Paragon characters being rewarded more heavily than Renegade characters is the logical conclusion.

I think that's a bad idea. Mass Effect isn't intended as good vs. evil in the way that KotOR was. Evil actions leading to evil outcomes works in that case. The initial point of the paragon-renegade options was to create to opposing philosophies. Abandoning that in favor of "Paragon is always right" is such a waste. Heroism matters, but there's also more than a few moments where that transcends heroism into blind optimism, which the game should punish us for.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Il Divo wrote...

I think that's a bad idea. Mass Effect isn't intended as good vs. evil in the way that KotOR was.

I don't even agree that KotOR was good vs. evil.  That George Lucas based his story on an incredibly naïve moral perspective (something he later lauded as a strength) is no reason for us to accept that naïveté. 

Though I will say that Mass Effect was often written as if Paragon meant Good and Renegade meant Evil - the conversations with TIM at the beginning of ME2 made this abundantly clear.

[ioannisdenton]

+1 at title

[AppealToReason]

Il Divo wrote...

David7204 wrote...

If heroism matters, then Paragon characters being rewarded more heavily than Renegade characters is the logical conclusion.

I think that's a bad idea. Mass Effect isn't intended as good vs. evil in the way that KotOR was. Evil actions leading to evil outcomes works in that case. The initial point of the paragon-renegade options was to create to opposing philosophies. Abandoning that in favor of "Paragon is always right" is such a waste. Heroism matters, but there's also more than a few moments where that transcends heroism into blind optimism, which the game should punish us for.

I couldn't agree more with the last sentence. "Hey, knock it off okay. Stop. :)" "Oh okay Shepard *never kills again*" Like what in the ****. Where are all these upstanding mercenaries and criminals from?

[Wynne]

ArenCordial wrote...

Zu Long wrote...

My problem with the consequences thing is that it often seems what some people are really asking for is to have the writers punish anyone with the temerity to enjoy playing a good guy who tries to make the world a better place.

Batman isn't any less a hero for not killing the Joker despite the fact he may in the end save more lives if he just did.

No? I'm sure the families of the Joker's victims and the people he terrorized would agree with that statement. :/

In order to not have to live with the guilt of killing, or feel cheapened morally, Batman refuses to ensure that the Joker cannot escape, which he always inevitably does. 

If anything, I'd say an unwillingness to save lives in a way that only you can, in order to protect your own feelings and self-image, is actually quite selfish. I would even see it as Batman's fatal flaw as a person. He can't accept into himself anything that would make him feel less heroic, even if he knows it would objectively save lives. And maybe some part of him sympathizes with the Joker to boot. So he preserves an old enemy he knows at the cost of many he doesn't know. Maybe subconsciously, he likes having someone around who knows him as Batman, who is a match for him. 

As for Dragon Age, I wouldn't mind some quests which force me to question my idea of right and wrong rather than making me feel like a straight-up good guy or bad guy. And I don't want the writers to punish people who want to do good, I want them to punish characters who have a flat idea of what good is but don't use their brains to identify what the good act probably is in this situation. Who are too willing to accept a linear solution as the only possibility or are too willing not to question orders; who make choices based on what makes them feel good rather than on a basis of the most probable outcome.

Mercy for one can mean capital punishment for a whole lot of innocent people. That's why we should've had the option to take some kind of action in regard to people like Grace when she started psychotically blaming the player; take it to Meredith or someone and see about getting her made Tranquil. Then you'd still wonder if you did the right thing, but you would've had a choice. 

I like choices like the one at the end of Myst: One or the other? Neither, you know if you were paying attention during the game. There's an optimal way to have choices come back to bite us... give the player the tools to make the right decision, but don't hand it to them. Make them work for it. Punish them if they ignore their gut and their instincts. If done right, they will be kicking themselves--unless they were roleplaying, in which case it's still a reward for making character-driven choices. If done wrong, they will be feeling like it came completely out of the blue or like there simply never was an option to choose anything else.

Bhelen/Harrowmont remains an example of the former, for the most part. You are rewarded in that quest for making character-driven choices or for looking past the evil deeds to see the mind behind the monster and how good it could be for Orzammar, and that is awesome.

LookingGlass93 wrote...

I'd prefer that choices be presented as "left or right" as opposed to "right and wrong". What I mean by that is that instead of having a fail condition as the outcome of a quest have two contradictory victory conditions. Take the left path and you help the elves; take the right path and you help the dwarves. At no point are you able to help both the elves AND the dwarves. 

I like what you're saying, but I am a big fan of the third option. Even when it's not what you'd usually expect, but especially when it is.

Example: "In the 1920s, a British submarine captain in China once faced the Hobson's Choice of either allowing a hijacked river steamer to escape, or allowing the pirates to kill their hostages. He took the third option of sinking the ship. He fired a shot into the waterline, causing the ship to settle slowly, so that the passengers and crew could easily abandon ship, and in the confusion most of the pirates were killed. Since they had blended with the passengers, it was uncertain how many pirates had escaped and how many innocents had died, but the overall solution worked, and the captain was exonerated."

A third option shows that the writer has been thinking and has identified not only the two obvious solutions, but also other things that a smart hero might consider. It may not be fully successful, but it would be cool to be able to play clever protagonist who can't completely help both sides, but still cares enough to go above and beyond. So you fight with the dwarves, but you send some of your best weapons to the elves along with intel you gathered on their enemies, and maybe they have a fighting chance then. 

The less binary a choice feels, the less black and white it is, the more it pushes the player to consider what they really want to do, the more rewarding it is when something shakes loose because of that unorthodox idea. I like being dared to do the unexpected and see how it turns out. I like ingenuity and cleverness in my PC. I like the Solomon choice. 

That's what I want to see.

AppealToReason wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

The initial point of the paragon-renegade options was to create to opposing philosophies. Abandoning that in favor of "Paragon is always right" is such a waste. Heroism matters, but there's also more than a few moments where that transcends heroism into blind optimism, which the game should punish us for. 

I couldn't agree more with the last sentence. "Hey, knock it off okay. Stop. :)" "Oh okay Shepard *never kills again*" Like what in the ****. Where are all these upstanding mercenaries and criminals from?

Exactly. Give me the chance to decide if my character is a Batman and has a fatal flaw. Challenge my attempts at heroism. That's when I'll feel that it matters, and that my good PC has depth. They are either clever enough to choose the truly good choice, or their sense of duty or sympathy makes them more human, more flawed than if they were simply dedicated to doing what is right. Either way, the player feels rewarded for roleplaying.

Modifié par Wynne, 05 novembre 2012 - 11:50 .

[Arppis]

AntiChri5 wrote...

People complain to no end if their choices don't turn out exactly the way they intended.

This, sadly.

But yeah, I want more impact on the choices.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

David7204 wrote...

If
heroism matters, then Paragon characters being rewarded more heavily
than Renegade characters is the logical conclusion.

Why should heroism matter?  Heroism has no intrinsic value.

Coherence should matter more.  Consequences should make sense, even if that sense is only perceptible after the fact.

I'm with you.

Modifié par Arppis, 05 novembre 2012 - 12:21 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

Zu Long wrote...
See, comics are a good example of what I DON'T want to happen. Because of the need to preserve a dramatic status quo, all good or happy outcomes are immediately negated by an unpreventable tragedy.

If I'm going to be the hero of the game, I want to be able to look back at the end and know that I made a difference. The best example I can think of is Dragon Age 2. You can't save one of your siblings. You can't save Wesley. You can't stop Hawke's mother from being murdered and turned into a puppet corpse. You can't stop the Qunari from declaring war on the city. You can't stop Anders from blowing up the chantry. You can't make Meredith or Orsino see reason. You can't. You can't. You can't.

You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.

You're a guy with a sword, not the second coming of Jesus.
You CAN'T stop everyone.
You CAN'T predict every disaster.
You CAN'T be at 2 places at once.
You CAN'T talk everyone into everything.

And that is how it should be.
It is perfect.

At the end of Dragon Age 2, all I felt looking back was a series of tragedies I couldn't do anything about. It didn't feel very heroic.

Compare that to Origins and Awakening. I could save the mages at the tower. I could save Eamon's son without resorting to blood magic. I could settle the werewolves dispute peaceably. I could unite Ferelden at the Landsmeet. I could save Vigils Keep AND Amaranthine with enough hard work. I could survive killing the Archdemon by trusting someone I thought of as my friend.

At the end of all that, I felt like my Warden was the baddest mother****er on the face of the planet, and it was awesome.

Yeah, well some of us don't need a game to boost our frail egos and tell us how awesome we are.

The complaints basicly boil down to "it didn't end how I wanted... BWAAAAAAAAA".

[Nurot]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AntiChri5 wrote...

People complain to no end if their choices don't turn out exactly the way they intended.

I complain if they always do.

Me too.

[Bernhardtbr]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.

You're a guy with a sword, not the second coming of Jesus.
You CAN'T stop everyone.
You CAN'T predict every disaster.
You CAN'T be at 2 places at once.
You CAN'T talk everyone into everything.

And that is how it should be.
It is perfect.


Yeah, well some of us don't need a game to boost our frail egos and tell us how awesome we are.

The complaints basicly boil down to "it didn't end how I wanted... BWAAAAAAAAA".

Ha awesome. Agree 100% with you. When people fight, they often die. To expect no innocents (and sometimes characters) to die is to view the world with pink glass. Also, people forget that when "cute" characters slash bad guys, in real life there would be lots of blood instead of little stars or flashes. Violence is violence, we are all adults and if we didn´t like Bioware games we would be in other forums (say, Final Fantasy ones).

Bioware can´t please everyone. Some people like Disney cartoons, others bloody animes.  

Modifié par Bernhardtbr, 05 novembre 2012 - 09:32 .

[BouncyFrag]

I welcome more unexpected consequences of the things we do.

[WhiteThunder]

Bernhardtbr wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.
You're not supposed to.

You're a guy with a sword, not the second coming of Jesus.
You CAN'T stop everyone.
You CAN'T predict every disaster.
You CAN'T be at 2 places at once.
You CAN'T talk everyone into everything.

And that is how it should be.
It is perfect.


Yeah, well some of us don't need a game to boost our frail egos and tell us how awesome we are.

The complaints basicly boil down to "it didn't end how I wanted... BWAAAAAAAAA".

Ha awesome. Agree 100% with you. When people fight, they often die. To expect no innocents (and sometimes characters) to die is to view the world with pink glass. Also, people forget that when "cute" characters slash bad guys, in real life there would be lots of blood instead of little stars or flashes. Violence is violence, we are all adults and if we didn´t like Bioware games we would be in other forums (say, Final Fantasy ones).

Bioware can´t please everyone. Some people like Disney cartoons, others bloody animes.  

The bigger problem is that when there is no sense of player agency, there is not much of a point in playing the game.  DA2 would be great as a novel, but, IMO, failed as an RPG due to the lack of consequences of our actions.

And Disney cartoons often have greater thematic depth and richer storytelling than bloody animes.  It's not about the content, it's about the execution.

[WhiteThunder]

Wynne wrote...

AppealToReason wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

The initial point of the paragon-renegade options was to create to opposing philosophies. Abandoning that in favor of "Paragon is always right" is such a waste. Heroism matters, but there's also more than a few moments where that transcends heroism into blind optimism, which the game should punish us for. 

I couldn't agree more with the last sentence. "Hey, knock it off okay. Stop. :)" "Oh okay Shepard *never kills again*" Like what in the ****. Where are all these upstanding mercenaries and criminals from?

Exactly. Give me the chance to decide if my character is a Batman and has a fatal flaw. Challenge my attempts at heroism. That's when I'll feel that it matters, and that my good PC has depth. They are either clever enough to choose the truly good choice, or their sense of duty or sympathy makes them more human, more flawed than if they were simply dedicated to doing what is right. Either way, the player feels rewarded for roleplaying.

This. I want to be Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, not Wesley Crusher.

[Palipride47]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Or, in DA2, things will all go to hell regardless because, well, it's Hawke.

I could write a dissertation about this issue if I really wanted to, because it's a huge, sprawling issue with many interrelated problems.  Let me see if I can enumerate some of what I see to be the bigger ones.

1.  There are two paths that not only lead to the same destination, but the view on the way is basically identical.  Example: look at the culmination of Izzy's main quest path.  If you go for main friendship or main rivalry, it's the same--she shows up with the book, the Arishok wants to take her away, she protests, and you either fight the Arishok or let him take her away.  It's not even relevant which path Hawke took--which decision you made--you get exactly the same result.  The only way to get a different option is to be indecisive and keep Izzy around the middle on the rivalry/friend meter.

How to fix this?  Well, change the view.  You don't necessarily have to have two completely separate paths, but the paths DO need to pass by some different scenery on the way.  Wouldn't the decision whether to Friend or Rival Izzy have been MUCH more significant if in the rival version, she volunteers to go with the Arishok and then makes some snide comment about how she's going to escape and Hawke will regret it?  (And then, of course, you can insist on fighting anyway and ****** her the heck off.)  The end result would be the same--lose Izzy or keep Izzy, but it'd feel much more like two very different outcomes depending on what path you pursued with Izzy.  And if you didn't pursue a path with her, you'd get what you'd earned--a sort of "meh" response to the whole thing.

2.  Doom is foretold but never materializes.  If you have a major decision where one group wants things one way and the other group wants things another way and they're foaming at the mouth about it, then you decide to do X, the group that didn't get its way swears revenge, and then you NEVER HEAR FROM THEM AGAIN EVER . . . it looks dumb.

How to fix it?  Well, this one is an easy fix--if people swear revenge on you, have them freakin' show up again later (preferably at the worst possible time). Sheesh.  If you're going to telegraph something, you need to follow up on it.

3.  Doom is telegraphed but you have no ability to forestall it.  I, personally, hate this one.  If you're going to give out hints like having the lying schmuck hesitate over their words, giggle insanely, refuse to answer questions, etc., to the point where it's OBVIOUS they are getting ready to betray you, then for chrissakes let the PC say things like "you're acting suspicious" and "I'm not doing anything you ask until you explain!"  Granted, they had this with Anders' pre-quests, but it didn't matter because that quest line also merged with problem #1 up there.  Heck, it was even worse because the doom was telegraphed, you could **** at him about it, but the resulting view prior to the denoument was IDENTICAL.  Something different should have happened depending on whether you went along blithely or not.  I'm not saying it should have prevented the annihilation of the Chantry, but there should have been some different scenery on the way.

How to fix this--let the PC do SOMETHING that makes them look the LEAST TINY BIT savvy even if it only has the effect of changing the scenery instead of the result.  But it better change SOMETHING.  The setup with Jade Empire (which was awesome, btw), is an exception to this because it was done well enough that while you might have been thinking "this is odd", you weren't quite thinking "there's something wrong here".

4.  Something totally un-telegraphed suddenly results in doom.  The whole deal in DA2 where Grace kidnaps your LI/best bud was completely out of the blue, and here's the best part, it didn't matter what decision you made earlier in the game.  Okay, I can understand Grace having a beef with Hawke if you turned her over to the Templars, although at the time she seemed more despairing than vengeful.  The whole thing was horribly mismanaged and what could have been a cool scene left more of a WTF is wrong with you people impression than anything.  It really felt like this storyline was supposed to have 3 or 4 more installments that got cut, and what was left just wasn't remotely enough to carry it.

How to fix this one--don't have characters come back in a manner that's completely divorced from your earlier interaction with them.  If they come back, it needs to be directly tied to what happened earlier OR you need to TELEGRAPH THE HELL out of whatever resulted in this new situation.  Otherwise, if you feel the need for Random Surprise Doom, have it involve new characters.

I don't buy this idea that people complain if things play out other than precisely how they expected.  I actually LIKE it if things play out in an unexpected way (Jade Empire!).  What I don't like is when the cues are mismanaged.  There needs to be a clear distinction between "more coming!" cues and "this is it" cues.  There needs to be a clear distinction between "it matters what you decide" and "it doesn't matter what you decide" cues.  If you're giving one set of cues and the other result, yeah, people are going to be annoyed that things "didn't play out how they expected".  It's not that they wanted a happy ending and you didn't give them one, it's that they were expecting a result of SOME kind and you left them, metaphorically, standing naked in the living room with their dick in their hand while you snuck out the back way.

Requoted and formatting the heck out of it because awesome. Every last bit. 

PsychoBlonde, you are one of the most insightful people here on the BSN (which honestly, means very little - but I'm bad at compliments and using appropiate emocons ) 

[burning salaradile]

Let consequences of actions be logical.

If you let a dangerous killer escape, they should kill some people in the future.

If you get on the bad side of someone important, let there be consequences. This need not only be assassins showing up to kill you, but merchants being pressured not to trade with you or something similar.

But above all, the consequences should make sense, even if you didn't expect them when you first made the choice.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Honestly, it doesn't have to happen all the time. I'd suggest one splashy example where a PC's choices have a negative reaction at the beginning of the game. If the player believes something bad might happen because they've seen it, they'll carry that with them to every other quest. 

DA 2 did that. I knew Hawke going to Kirkwall is a bad idea. I knew Hawke staying in Kirkwall is a bad idea. I knew Hawke going to expedition is a bad idea. I knew Hawke owning the family mansion and becoming a well known figure in Kirkwall is a bad idea. I knew Hawke trusting Isabella is a bad idea. I knew Isabella would leave Hawke to clear the mess. I knew Anders is up to no good. I knew the world is at the brink of war and there is nothing Hawke could do to stop it because it's already set in stone, thanks to Varric. There is nothing Hawke could do to change anything. 

Every choice available to me is bad one in DA 2. 

But that doesn't infuriate me. What really ****** me is Hawke as PC. They should have made Cassandra a PC instead, since DA 2 is about wanting to know what Hawke been up to for the course of 10 years. It's a role properly done by Cassandra. Not Hawke.

[Luckywallace]

I actually was quite liking the end of Dragon Age 2 at first when I had sided with the mages and Orsino went crazy and turned into a Harvester. It really made me go "DAMN! I made the wrong choice..." and that was awesome, it was really weighty and meaninful.

Then Meredith went nuts as well and I soon learnt that you fight them both no matter what... and that was just lame.

I really would have been fine with Orsino being the final boss and it essentially being... well, not the 'wrong' choice exactly to side with the mages but to have it lead to some major consequences, not just have the same thing play out whatever your last choice.

[BadJustice]

choices in DA2 were either no real outcome later on or is black and white. They need to make the choices have more impact later on in the story rather than just 1 change here and now and finished.

[Fredward]

Maria Caliban wrote...
A good example of this is my turning the noble's insane, murderous son over to the guards. He explicitly tells me that he'll get back at me, but that never materializes.
 

This was jarring for me too but then I fixed it by pretending he died under mysterious circumstances after Leandra sent him a cake as an "apology" for her daughter's actions.

Imagination fixes everything people!

[Chozos]

I agree with OP. We need consequences in the game to come and bite us. If my main hero is a blood mage and is open about it why not have it bite me? DA1 cut out a scene where that would have happened and in my personal opinion that was a mistake.

[Cigne]

Luckywallace wrote...

I actually was quite liking the end of Dragon Age 2 at first when I had sided with the mages and Orsino went crazy and turned into a Harvester. It really made me go "DAMN! I made the wrong choice..." and that was awesome, it was really weighty and meaninful.

Then Meredith went nuts as well and I soon learnt that you fight them both no matter what... and that was just lame.

I really would have been fine with Orsino being the final boss and it essentially being... well, not the 'wrong' choice exactly to side with the mages but to have it lead to some major consequences, not just have the same thing play out whatever your last choice.

Yeah, they could have used  only one and left the other (say, the discovery that Meredith had been driven crazy) for DA3.

[Archyyy]

Completely agree. There needs to be the option of failing hard. Winning shouldnt be taken as granted.

[TOBY FLENDERSON]

I think the architect decision will bite us in the ass eventually, but i don't know whether it will be better to save him or kill him in the end. I'm leaning on saving be ing better given Corypeus's plot line.