261 réponses à ce sujet

[wright1978]

Not really a fan of morality systems as they tend to encourage people to play one extreme or the other and that decisions have to be clearly black or white to fit it. The rewrite/destruction of geth heretics is an example of a great choice where the quandary can't easily be fitted into those clear cut boxes. I personally never cared which was paragon/renegade as i have weighing the dilemma in the crucible of the character i'd developed and deciding which choice he/she would favour, which was the same approach to all other dialogue choices. Equally that's why i used neutral options at times and mourned their passing as they further pushed people to follow a single set extreme in ME3.

[Arcian]

Morality needs to die in a drive by.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Arcian wrote...

Morality needs to die in a drive by.

Unfortunately, I think we're only going to get even more of a divide between paragon and renegade in further games, where only the absolute paragon and renegade options get you the best outcome, and at the time of the finale, only the 95% paragon or above player will get the best game ending.

[CronoDragoon]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...
In my decision making process, I'm really not one to regard morality or ethics as a part of why I choose a course of action. If it's in my best interest and the interest of my goal to be diplomatic and compassionate, I'll do it. Likewise, if I have to commit genocide, I'm more than willing to do that as well. Necessity knows no law. Comes with being unfettered.

I think you mean you don't incorporate any deontological morals into your decision-making progress, which is to say - in this case - actions have no inherent moral worth besides their effectiveness and practicality. You're still acribing moral worth to actions though, or else you'd have no system whatsoever for acting.

[CronoDragoon]

javeart wrote...
I think I understand that, but what I meant is that the problem is not only the lack of downsides for paragons choices, is the lack of downsides for any choice, because, where are the costs that a renegade Shepard is suppossed to assume? what sacrifices does she make?

Let's examine this within the scope of the large moral decisions of the series that contain P/R points, since those are usually when Renegade Shepard is renegade for his practicality instead of simply being a jerk.

For the rachni decision, Paragon ultimately suffers no drawback as opposed to Renegade. In both cases the rachni are taken over by the Reapers in ME3. The rachni join the Crucible research team in both cases. But with Renegade, the rachni turn on the research team. WIth Paragon they do not. Paragon is ultimately the right decision, even if *in the moment* neither decision is portrayed as the "correct" one.

For saving the Council, if you choose Paragon, you ostensibly sacrifice more human lives to do so AND risk a greater chance of Sovereign succeeding. The latter concern is never implemented in any way. The former concern probably happened, but Paragon players - to my knowledge - are never challenged on this decision. No sobbing spouse, no second-guessing (Edit: actually that's not entirely true, Al-Jilani does). Do Renegade players have a downside here? That depends. If a Renegade player supports the Council but sacrifices them anyway because the game hints you'll have a better chance at beating Sovereign, then yes. If the Renegade thinks the Council is useless and detrimental to the galaxy, possibly not.

For the Collector Base, Cerberus gets the Reaper intel and turns on you no matter what. I don't consider saving the base to be inherently bad so this choice is pretty inconsequential.

For the genophage, the affliction itself has always been characterized as a necessary evil, knowingly inflicting pain and suffering to balance the krogan population. Continuing to support this as a Renegade is to prevent another krogan war while also gaining salarian support. But you get salarian support anyway for curing the genophage, krogan ground troops en masse, and oh yeah, you don't have to kill Wrex or shoot Mordin in the back. Meanwhile Paragon consequences are punted into the post-series future where Paragons can simply say the krogan don't rebel.

Rannoch isn't different in any meaningful way.

So perhaps you are right that Renegade "consequences" are a bit overblown, but the philosophical point still stands: if the outcomes end up the same or better for Paragons, then Renegades were ultimately in the wrong. There needed to be more fail-states for Paragon for this system to really work as a balance of morality, instead of Renegade simply being something for alternate playthroughs to see how things turned out.

The P/R system is clearly designed to reward players, not punish them, which probably explains lack of consequences overall. That's why some consider persuasion options "get out of jail free" cards. It might be more interesting to weigh the pros and cons of the white P/R options, such as exposing Tali's father vs. getting her exiled.

I've actually been thinking about doing a no-persuasion playthrough. Given the ME3 endings it would probably be a more compelling and consistent experience.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 05 février 2014 - 05:56 .

[AlanC9]

Note that the Collector Base decision can be vitally important in low-EMS games, though I don't think it makes sense to try and sort out the relative merits of Control and Destroy in this thread.

It is also possible for sabotaging the genophage cure to be the WA-maximizing choice. I actually had a Destroy game where Shepard only survived because he got the points for Mordin and the salarian fleet. The system sometimes works the way it should have worked.

[SwobyJ]

It would be interesting if the majority of players lacked a fundamental context on what the morality system even means.

Paragon - Wings with a sharp curve shape and trajectory upward
Renegade - Star with a lower but more direct trajectory upward

[javeart]

CronoDragoon wrote...

javeart wrote...
I think I understand that, but what I meant is that the problem is not only the lack of downsides for paragons choices, is the lack of downsides for any choice, because, where are the costs that a renegade Shepard is suppossed to assume? what sacrifices does she make?

Let's examine this within the scope of the large moral decisions of the series that contain P/R points, since those are usually when Renegade Shepard is renegade for his practicality instead of simply being a jerk.

For the rachni decision, Paragon ultimately suffers no drawback as opposed to Renegade. In both cases the rachni are taken over by the Reapers in ME3. The rachni join the Crucible research team in both cases. But with Renegade, the rachni turn on the research team. WIth Paragon they do not. Paragon is ultimately the right decision, even if *in the moment* neither decision is portrayed as the "correct" one.

For saving the Council, if you choose Paragon, you ostensibly sacrifice more human lives to do so AND risk a greater chance of Sovereign succeeding. The latter concern is never implemented in any way. The former concern probably happened, but Paragon players - to my knowledge - are never challenged on this decision. No sobbing spouse, no second-guessing (Edit: actually that's not entirely true, Al-Jilani does). Do Renegade players have a downside here? That depends. If a Renegade player supports the Council but sacrifices them anyway because the game hints you'll have a better chance at beating Sovereign, then yes. If the Renegade thinks the Council is useless and detrimental to the galaxy, possibly not.

For the Collector Base, Cerberus gets the Reaper intel and turns on you no matter what. I don't consider saving the base to be inherently bad so this choice is pretty inconsequential.

For the genophage, the affliction itself has always been characterized as a necessary evil, knowingly inflicting pain and suffering to balance the krogan population. Continuing to support this as a Renegade is to prevent another krogan war while also gaining salarian support. But you get salarian support anyway for curing the genophage, krogan ground troops en masse, and oh yeah, you don't have to kill Wrex or shoot Mordin in the back. Meanwhile Paragon consequences are punted into the post-series future where Paragons can simply say the krogan don't rebel.

Rannoch isn't different in any meaningful way.

So perhaps you are right that Renegade "consequences" are a bit overblown, but the philosophical point still stands: if the outcomes end up the same or better for Paragons, then Renegades were ultimately in the wrong. There needed to be more fail-states for Paragon for this system to really work as a balance of morality, instead of Renegade simply being something for alternate playthroughs to see how things turned out.

The P/R system is clearly designed to reward players, not punish them, which probably explains lack of consequences overall. That's why some consider persuasion options "get out of jail free" cards. It might be more interesting to weigh the pros and cons of the white P/R options, such as exposing Tali's father vs. getting her exiled.

I've actually been thinking about doing a no-persuasion playthrough. Given the ME3 endings it would probably be a more compelling and consistent experience.

My point, is why would not paragon choices work just as fine as renegade choices when these are just as cost-less and acceptable as paragon ones? 

Rachni. Costs, I see none, and the council reprehends you whether you kill the queen or not.
Council. What makes sacrificing the council the renegade option in the first place? Why would it be "harder" or more "morally wrong" sacrificing the council than sacrificing human ships? 
Collector Base. Again, what are we sacrificing by keeping it? 
Genophage. First, you can easily avoid killing Mordin. As for the decision itself, well that might be a "truly" renegade choice, because at least you have to do something that it's most likely to be considered "bad" (though again we're not making any sacrifice, except, I don't know, maybe your friendship with Wrex if he's alive... and if you think of him as a friend). 

So that's it, one choice in the whole trilogy in wich a renegade choice feels truly like one, and, yes, I could agree that the difference in WA is a poor reward. Well, I actually think that not scorting your crew in the SM is also a truly renegade choice, but in that case at least, if you do send someone with them you run a greater risk of loosing people latter on.

It's important to note too, that it's not like the kind of unexpected consequences you mention are unknown for paragon Shepard either (there's times when playing nice should pay off too and it doesn't): she saves the council and still they treat her like sh*t, she destroyes the collector base but cerberus still gets the reaper tech... 

In fact, it might be more accurate to say that the the worst outcomes are usually for the "no-risk" decisions, and that's probably so just because the story it's more interesting with a reckless Shepard as protagonist, regardless of paragon and renegade labels. And, yes, it's usually renegade Shepard who is less willing to take risks (representing, btw, the not so inferior and hardly unpopular moral value of caution, particularly when so many lives are in her hands), so she might get the worst of it, but that's a different problem.

Maybe if we were offered truly renegade choices, I could agree that everything working out for paragon Shepard makes them pointless, but I don't think that's the case. For the most part, both paths are lacking costs and consequences and serve no other purpose than building your character's personality, and only a few of the renegade choices can be considered "morally inferior" without discussion (or with little discussion, at least).

Modifié par javeart, 05 février 2014 - 11:53 .

[AlanC9]

javeart wrote...
Rachni. Costs, I see none, and the council reprehends you whether you kill the queen or not.

Well, beyond the whole genocide thing, you're losing WA points and gaining nothing.

Council. What makes sacrificing the council the renegade option in the first place? Why would it be "harder" or more "morally wrong" sacrificing the council than sacrificing human ships?

Bio says saving the Council is Paragon. They give you points and everything. Part of the problem here is that the decision has fake costs, which is a long and ignoble Bio tradition.

Collector Base. Again, what are we sacrificing by keeping it?

The advantages the tech could give us in battle. (At the time of the decision Shepard doesn't know there aren't any.) 

Sounds like you're saying that these decisions don't actually map very well onto the P/R scheme in the first place.

Genophage. First, you can easily avoid killing Mordin.

It's not all that easy to keep Mordin alive with a save import. Throwing away Maelon's data for no reason is either very stupid or very idealistic, and presumably idealistic Sheps won't be going for sabotaging the genophage cure  in the first place.

Modifié par AlanC9, 06 février 2014 - 12:13 .

[SwobyJ]

StreetMagic wrote...

SwobyJ wrote...

It would be interesting if the majority of players lacked a fundamental context on what the morality system even means.

Paragon - Wings with a sharp curve shape and trajectory upward
Renegade - Star with a lower but more direct trajectory upward

I have no idea what it means.

I see an Angel or a Rock Star

Both are of ASCENDING nature.

Paragon is more roundabout to it, but reaches higher.

Renegade is more direct to it, but reaches lower.


EDIT: For a potential Green path (let's say, for the next game), the arrows/lines would reach higher than the Paragon, yet directly upwards like the Renegade. It may also be more of a narrowness, instead of the broad Renegade arrows.

^      instead of                          or
^                               ^
^                                  ^                          ^
^                                     ^                    ^    ^

I don't know what the shape itself would be though (Wing/Star/?).

In any case, both the Wing and Star are heavenly symbols. Just Wing in this way is usually more spiritual, while Star is usually more physical (at least more than angel wings).

Modifié par SwobyJ, 06 février 2014 - 01:06 .

[Steelcan]

SwobyJ wrote...

StreetMagic wrote...

SwobyJ wrote...

It would be interesting if the majority of players lacked a fundamental context on what the morality system even means.

Paragon - Wings with a sharp curve shape and trajectory upward
Renegade - Star with a lower but more direct trajectory upward

I have no idea what it means.

I see an Angel or a Rock Star

Both are of ASCENDING nature.

Paragon is more roundabout to it, but reaches higher.

Renegade is more direct to it, but reaches lower.

[SwobyJ]

Too damn bad Steel. It's what I think.

[javeart]

AlanC9 wrote...

javeart wrote...
Rachni. Costs, I see none, and the council reprehends you whether you kill the queen or not.

Well, beyond the whole genocide thing, you're losing WA points and gaining nothing.

Ok, you may loose some WA, so it doesn't work out very well, but it's not like you could say, "I've lost valuable soldiers to kill the queen and now it turns out I gain nothing". You didn't loose a thing. As for the genocide, rachni were already condemned to extinction, and it's not like you're killing thousands of them (in fact you kill alot of them before getting to the queen, and for that you don't have a choice). 

AlanC9 wrote...

javeart wrote...
Council. What makes sacrificing the council the renegade option in the first place? Why would it be "harder" or more "morally wrong" sacrificing the council than sacrificing human ships?

Bio says saving the Council is Paragon. They give you points and everything. Part of the problem here is that the decision has fake costs, which is a long and ignoble Bio tradition. 

Well, I'm aware that BW says saving the council is the paragon option, but following the definition of renegade we've been discussing here, why is sacrificing them a renegade choice? is better (in moral terms) saving high rank politicians than saving soldiers? 

AlanC9 wrote...

javeart wrote...
Collector Base. Again, what are we sacrificing by keeping it?

The advantages the tech could give us in battle. (At the time of the decision Shepard doesn't know there aren't any.) 

The potential advantage of saving the collector base (the tech) is a sacrifice that makes paragon Shepard, not renegade Shepard.

AlanC9 wrote...

Sounds like you're saying that these decisions don't actually map very well onto the P/R scheme in the first place.

 

Yes, that exactly what I'm saying, at least if we're accepting that Renegade=greater cost, morally inferior actions. That's why I don't think it's a problem that everything works out ok for paragon Shepard. Because, whatever the offiicial definitions of paragon an renegade, they're usually nothing more than the opposition between being pro-alien or being pro-human, respecting legal procedure or ignoring it, being polite and understanding or being rude or even cruel, and things like that, and the only use they have is, like I said, building your character's personality.

AlanC9 wrote...

javeart wrote...
Genophage. First, you can easily avoid killing Mordin.

It's not all that easy to keep Mordin alive with a save import. Throwing away Maelon's data for no reason is either very stupid or very idealistic, and presumably idealistic Sheps won't be going for sabotaging the genophage cure  in the first place.

I sabotage the cure like 50% of the times and I always save Mordin, and I don't think it's a strange course of action at all... I sabotage the cure because I don't particularly like krogans and krogans characters, and find reasonsable for my Shepard not to trust them and agree with the genophage... So I don't keep Maelon's data just because I don't want anything that can lead to a cure... I think it's quite coherent. In fact, in that scene, the first time you have to choose, you're "invited" to think in terms of the inmorality of the methods used, but the seconf time you're "invited" to think in terms of wanting the cure or not.

Anyway, I don't think I can make my point any clearer and obviously I'm convincing no one and no one is convincing me  so, we might just let it be 

Modifié par javeart, 06 février 2014 - 02:00 .

[AlanC9]

javeart wrote...

I sabotage the cure like 50% of the times and I always save Mordin, and I don't think it's a strange course of action at all... I sabotage the cure because I don't particularly like krogans and krogans characters, and find reasonsable for my Shepard not to trust them and agree with the genophage... So I don't keep Maelon's data just because I don't want anything that can lead to a cure... I think it's quite coherent. In fact, in that scene, the first time you have to choose, you're "invited" to think in terms of the inmorality of the methods used, but the seconf time you're "invited" to think in terms of wanting the cure or not.

Sure. DouchebagSheps can keep Mordin alive easily. But this isn't quite the same thing as being a Renegade.

Modifié par AlanC9, 06 février 2014 - 04:51 .

[AlanC9]

Edit: DP

Modifié par AlanC9, 06 février 2014 - 04:51 .

[javeart]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sure. DouchebagSheps can keep Mordin alive easily. But this isn't quite the same thing as being a Renegade.

I was just talking about coherent decisions and the probability of something happening (not keeping the data, not curing the genophage), regardless of how does it fit in what "renegade" is suppossed to mean...  

I have to ask, though: killing the rachni queen because you don't trust her is renegade (only that poorly rewarded) and not helping cure the genophage is douchebag, because... why? why destroying Maelon's data it's not a proper renegade option? does a renegade Shepard necessarily want the cure? does she necessarily trust Mordin with the data (it's not her who's keeping them and choosing what it's to be done with them)? I don't get it

[AlanC9]

I didn't say destroying the Rachni queen wasn't also being a douchebag.

Even if you dislike krogan, destroying Maelon's data is still stupid. What if you needed it someday? Of course, to some extent you can metagame around this; Bio wouldn't actually let you fail in ME3 because you don't have the data. Arguably this is a problem with choice itself.

But Shepard not giving Mordin the data if it was saved isn't a viable strategy; Shepard has to pretend he's working towards a cure even if he plans to sabotage it.

[javeart]

That's it? Is stupid because you could need them in the future? I assume it's also stupid then destroying the collector base and, more generally, it's stupid killing anyone or destroying anything that's it's not an inmediate threat beucase you might need it in the future? with no consideration of risks or the power you give to other people or the fact that it only seem to be usefull to achieve something you don't want to be achieved?
On a side note, renegade=smart? I don't think so

Modifié par javeart, 06 février 2014 - 06:31 .

[thehomeworld]

They should at least go the ME route where you do have a meter but you can add points as you want bare minimum or they should nix the whole para ren meter so players can just play and win blue/red either these strong options would just exist or only be accessible if you hit the correct markers during the conversation having a new system like Dues Ex HR would be nice various branches leading to very different outcomes.

To me the para can be too idealistic to the point of being corny and the ren too much of a senseless nutcase he only occasionally gets some good strategic moments but thats rare.

Also keep the 3 - 5 option choices but mix them up don't always keep ren on bottom and so fourth and no neon para/ren symbols get rid of those forever.

[Fixers0]

AlanC9 wrote...
Even if you dislike krogan, destroying Maelon's data is still stupid. What if you needed it someday? Of course, to some extent you can metagame around this; Bio wouldn't actually let you fail in ME3 because you don't have the data. Arguably this is a problem with choice itself.

The bolded part,appeal to probability and as such is consdered fallacious, no effective argument should be based on the probability that something might happen.


The better quesion would be: Why wouldn't you destroy the data.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Fixers0 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Even if you dislike krogan, destroying Maelon's data is still stupid. What if you needed it someday? Of course, to some extent you can metagame around this; Bio wouldn't actually let you fail in ME3 because you don't have the data. Arguably this is a problem with choice itself.

The bolded part,appeal to probability and as such is consdered fallacious, no effective argument should be based on the probability that something might happen.


The better quesion would be: Why wouldn't you destroy the data.

I bet I can point out a million different appliances in your home whose only purpose is due to the probability that something bad might happen.

[AlanC9]

Fixers0 wrote...


The bolded part,appeal to probability and as such is consdered fallacious, no effective argument should be based on the probability that something might happen.

That's silly. The only time an appeal to probability is considered a fallacy is if you treat a probable or possible event as a certainty.

You can't seriously be proposing that anything that you might not ever need should be thrown away. No one should ever have a smoke detector? 

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 février 2014 - 10:19 .

[AlanC9]

javeart wrote...

That's it? Is stupid because you could need them in the future?

Yes. The cost of keeping the data is effectively zero. The cost of not having the data might be zero, or the cost might be high. Do the math.

On a side note, renegade=smart? I don't think so

The point is that renegades should be efficient. Paragons are allowed to be inefficient because paragon morality means that some concerns override efficiency.

But if you adopt inefficient means to your ends for no reason, you are stupid.

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 février 2014 - 10:25 .