416 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

Are you so sure? Because you seem incredibly opposed to the idea that the story might present any meaningful themes that could convey any sort of message.

"Let us draw our own conclusions."
"People debating what is right or wrong is a good thing."
"the issue was debatable and interpretive, like it should be"

This seems clear to me. All morals, all themes must be ambiguous. Because otherwise they aren't very 'debatable and interpretive,' are they?

Modifié par David7204, 26 juin 2013 - 09:50 .

[Nightwriter]

Good grief. It's like we're speaking a different language.

All right. All right. You know what, forget everything. Just imagine this:

You're playing the game, and you come upon an apartment building which is being raided by a violent mercenary group. You can hear people inside screaming. You're given three options:

1. Keep walking. You have sh*t to do and this is none of your affair.

2. Dive inside, fight the mercs, and save as many as you can.

3. Call the authorities and let them handle it. Some people may die waiting for them to get there, but you're on an urgent mission that is more important and you can't risk valuable time (or your life) on a smaller, unrelated matter.

None of these choices give you P/R points after you select them. Instead:

If you choose 1 and keep walking, most of the people inside the building die. Almost all of your squadmates will be disgusted that you won't even at least report the crime in progress. Some will even try to report it themselves if you don't. Later, the son of one of the women who was killed in the apartment will attack you in the street, mad with grief. He curses you, a known war hero, for refusing to lift a finger to help his mother and the others in the building, and reviles you as a selfish, uncaring bastard. You can intimidate him into running away, vowing revenge at a later date, or the confrontation can end with you killing him as he attacks you.

If you choose 2 and dive inside, most of the people within the building are saved. Your squadmates will generally approve of this pro-rescue attitude, though a few will question your sense of priorities. The news calls you a hero for it, as does the local community. Later, you run into a young woman who was in the building during the attack. She approaches you and expresses her gratitude, saying if not for you she'd be being cremated right now, but instead she's at university studying to be a surgeon. Choosing this option has a slight impact on the greater mission you were on: you make it in time to achieve the same results, but only barely. It feels like a much closer shave, and some of your squadmates give you "you really pushed it that time, don't think you'll always be that lucky" looks.

If you choose 3 and call the authorities, only half of the people you rescue in option 2 are saved. You don't get heroic mention on the news. You run into both the young woman and the traumatized son whose mother is dead. The young woman will not approach you this time because she doesn't recognize you, but if you talk to her and explain you're the one who called the police she'll express gratitude and tell you about med school. When the son of the dead mother attacks you, you get unique dialogue options that let you explain to him that you wanted to stop and help, but you were on an urgent mission where many more lives were at stake, and you did the best you could. There is an intense and emotional argument, after which the scene plays out in a much more heartbreaking way than it does in option 1. Mad with grief, the son cannot come to forgive you, but sees that you are not the uncaring bastard he wanted to kill you for being. He runs away, beside himself with anguish and rage that has no outlet, and you watch him go, helpless to comfort him.

Now:

Has the absence of a +10 Renegade really made leaving those people to die any less heartless?

Has the absence of a +10 Paragon really made saving them any less heroic?

Is it really so bad that none of these decisions make your face look uglier or prettier?

Has the inclusion of that third option, which wouldn't even exist in a game with a P/R system because it doesn't fit either category, really broken the game's sense of right and wrong?

Is it really so horrible that in this scenario, the game only pronounces "judgment" on your decision through the consequences it causes, and not through color-coded points?

[Erez Kristal]

Nightwriter wrote...

Good grief. It's like we're speaking a different language.

All right. All right. You know what, forget everything. Just imagine this:

You're playing the game, and you come upon an apartment building which is being raided by a violent mercenary group. You can hear people inside screaming. You're given three options:

1. Keep walking. You have sh*t to do and this is none of your affair.

2. Dive inside, fight the mercs, and save as many as you can.

3. Call the authorities and let them handle it. Some people may die waiting for them to get there, but you're on an urgent mission that is more important and you can't risk valuable time (or your life) on a smaller, unrelated matter.

None of these choices give you P/R points after you select them. Instead:

If you choose 1 and keep walking, most of the people inside the building die. Almost all of your squadmates will be disgusted that you won't even at least report the crime in progress. Some will even try to report it themselves if you don't. Later, the son of one of the women who was killed in the apartment will attack you in the street, mad with grief. He curses you, a known war hero, for refusing to lift a finger to help his mother and the others in the building, and reviles you as a selfish, uncaring bastard. You can intimidate him into running away, vowing revenge at a later date, or the confrontation can end with you killing him as he attacks you.

If you choose 2 and dive inside, most of the people within the building are saved. Your squadmates will generally approve of this pro-rescue attitude, though a few will question your sense of priorities. The news calls you a hero for it, as does the local community. Later, you run into a young woman who was in the building during the attack. She approaches you and expresses her gratitude, saying if not for you she'd be being cremated right now, but instead she's at university studying to be a surgeon. Choosing this option has a slight impact on the greater mission you were on: you make it in time to achieve the same results, but only barely. It feels like a much closer shave, and some of your squadmates give you "you really pushed it that time, don't think you'll always be that lucky" looks.

If you choose 3 and call the authorities, only half of the people you rescue in option 2 are saved. You don't get heroic mention on the news. You run into both the young woman and the traumatized son whose mother is dead. The young woman will not approach you this time because she doesn't recognize you, but if you talk to her and explain you're the one who called the police she'll express gratitude and tell you about med school. When the son of the dead mother attacks you, you get unique dialogue options that let you explain to him that you wanted to stop and help, but you were on an urgent mission where many more lives were at stake, and you did the best you could. There is an intense and emotional argument, after which the scene plays out in a much more heartbreaking way than it does in option 1. Mad with grief, the son cannot come to forgive you, but sees that you are not the uncaring bastard he wanted to kill you for being. He runs away, beside himself with anguish and rage that has no outlet, and you watch him go, helpless to comfort him.

Now:

Has the absence of a +10 Renegade really made leaving those people to die any less heartless?

Has the absence of a +10 Paragon really made saving them any less heroic?

Is it really so bad that none of these decisions make your face look uglier or prettier?

Has the inclusion of that third option, which wouldn't even exist in a game with a P/R system because it doesn't fit either category, really broken the game's sense of right and wrong?

Is it really so horrible that in this scenario, the game only pronounces "judgment" on your decision through the consequences it causes, and not through color-coded points?

Good speech. but players like to have a little gameplay feedback 

[Nightwriter]

That is gameplay feedback as far as I'm concerned.

[Erez Kristal]

Nightwriter wrote...

That is gameplay feedback as far as I'm concerned.

what you wrote work well in Skyrim and witcher. vut the lawful vs chaotic also worked well in planescape torment, fable. 

It help further defining your character reputation, in a manner that sums down to numbers. is he the driven practical sort.
Or he is he an extremist who tries to save who ever he can at the moment.

They are both good, but they work in different ways and recieve a different reputation

[shodiswe]

How about, renegade, more renegade and psycho.

[Nightwriter]

erezike wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

That is gameplay feedback as far as I'm concerned.

what you wrote work well in Skyrim and witcher. vut the lawful vs chaotic also worked well in planescape torment, fable. 

It help further defining your character reputation, in a manner that sums down to numbers. is he the driven practical sort.
Or he is he an extremist who tries to save who ever he can at the moment.

They are both good, but they work in different ways and recieve a different reputation

I have never played any Witcher games, but I don't know how what I said would work well in Skyrim. It involves emotive scenes with heavy dialogue, reactive squadmates, and a serious take on morality and verbal roleplaying. I love Skyrim but ES games aren't terribly strong in any of those areas.

[Coyotebay]

Paragon/renegade points are fine, as long as they make sense.  An example of where they didn't make sense was the Miranda/Jack argument in ME2.  Here I had resolved Jack's past and saved Miranda's sister, but if Shepard sides with either of them in a really petty argument, those great acts of friendship are thrown out the window and one of them will die on the final mission if I don't have an arbitrary number of paragon or renegade points to open up a dialogue option, which is simply a comment to smooth things over that anyone would think of using regardless of their ethical bent.  You're just trying to get a colleague to lighten up and stop being mad at you over something stupid.  Making their whole future depend on that and doom them because you weren't a saint or a rogue the whole game is just plain silly.

[AlanC9]

erezike wrote...

It help further defining your character reputation, in a manner that sums down to numbers. is he the driven practical sort.
Or he is he an extremist who tries to save who ever he can at the moment.

They are both good, but they work in different ways and recieve a different reputation

There's nothing wrong with a reputation mechanic. But that isn't how P/R is used in ME. A fair number of awards have nothing to do with reputation, and many choices that give P/R points would only be known to the squadmates, rather than the galaxy at large.

Modifié par AlanC9, 27 juin 2013 - 07:50 .

[lecho_himself]

Coyotebay - claiming that their future depends on this talk is metagaming. If you wouldnt know the way game calculates Paragon/Renegade points and how certain dialogues exactly affect the story, you wouldnt even connect these two facts and maybe just ****ing yourself: "Damn, I was too hard on Miranda/Jack last time, if I only knew..."

Modifié par lecho_himself, 27 juin 2013 - 06:52 .

[Coyotebay]

lecho_himself wrote...

Coyotebay - claiming that their future depends on this talk is metagaming. If you wouldnt know the way game calculates Paragon/Renegade points and how certain dialogues exactly affect the story, you wouldnt even connect these two facts and maybe just ****ing yourself: "Damn, I was too hard on Miranda/Jack last time, if I only knew..."

But it's not metagaming, the game mechanically causes this to happen if you are not allowed a dialogue option that really should not be based on this rating.  I'm saying paragon/renegade points and what they represent has nothing to do with your Shepard being able to sit down with a friend and smooth things over with them.  A paragon/renegade rating should impact the availability of real ethical choices your character can make, not their charisma, same as in any classic D&D role play game like Neverwinter Nights.  I think in this case the consequences of the argument were very contrived and overblown.  The scene was just tossed in there ad hoc without any real context.

[AlanC9]

I think what he's saying is that without the P/R score, all you'd know is that sometimes you can settle disputes and sometime you can't. You wouldn't know why.

I don't know why not being able to see how a system works is supposed to be anything but bad, though.

[Coyotebay]

What I'm trying to say is, whether or not you are aware of what mechanically went on in the background, if they code in an outcome that is arbitrary and doesn't make sense, it's still bad.  It's really a larger question where sometimes dialogue options are shoe-horned into this paragon/renegade system, which is not full-featured enough like a traditional D&D system, where you have factors like charisma/persuade/intimidate in addition to moral and ethical leanings of good/evil and lawful/chaotic.  Paragon/renegade means different things at different times.  Sometimes it denotes good/bad, sometimes lawful/chaotic.  It's a vague and generic rating system, so it doesn't always fit.  So you will sometimes come into situations where it works, like when you can talk a girl down from a suicide, and if you have enough paragon points you get the dialogue to do it, because you have a good heart, whereas if you don't have enough you won't get that dialogue, because you have played your Shepard in a way where he wouldn't care if she killed herself.  Then you have other times where paragon/renegade shouldn't really factor in, like the example I gave.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 27 juin 2013 - 04:17 .

[CronoDragoon]

AlanC9 wrote...

I think what he's saying is that without the P/R score, all you'd know is that sometimes you can settle disputes and sometime you can't. You wouldn't know why.

I don't know why not being able to see how a system works is supposed to be anything but bad, though.

Maybe I misunderstood this thread, but I want the P/R meter to be scrapped altogether, not just it's visibility.

If you want a compelling way to solve the Miranda/Jack loyalty conflict, then make it so that certain dialogue options only appear if you've flagged certain dialogue options earlier in the game. Have a dialogue line or two with Miranda concerning Jack, or even her attitude towards the other squad in general. Have some dialogue lines with Jack concerning selfishness vs. professionalism, or putting the mission first. If you explore these dialogues previous to the conflict, then Shepard is equipped to resolve it. If not, he can't.

[AlanC9]

That works for key conflicts. ME3 did something similar with TIM, right?

But there are a lot of situations where it wouldn't be useful because there isn't enough conversation with the NPC before the check. You'd need other methods there, unless there just isn't going to be a dialogue check.

[Guanxii]

No, in my opinion BioWare should go back to charm and intimidate and stop conflating these dialogue options with morality choices. Maybe the next game could have a talent tree for speech (along with fitness and passive(s), etc) which gives the player the ability to modify their speech options directly or if they are so inclined save those points for something else entirely.

E.g. for example, at level 6; either full-charm, full-intimidate, a unique mix of charm/intimidate or no additional speech options - 21 skill points I can use for proxy mine, etc.

Modifié par Guanxii, 27 juin 2013 - 02:53 .

[CronoDragoon]

AlanC9 wrote...

That works for key conflicts. ME3 did something similar with TIM, right?

But there are a lot of situations where it wouldn't be useful because there isn't enough conversation with the NPC before the check. You'd need other methods there, unless there just isn't going to be a dialogue check.

Also happens in Dragon Age II where save imports, etc can add the additional upper left star option.

But for normal decisions this level of intricacy isn't required. You just go the Dragon Age route of having a bunch of neutral dialogue options.