223 réponses à ce sujet

[Lebanese Dude]

I'll give you the Chargers although I only liked the "Not a Mage" elf.

 

The judgements...no. Punishing people who have committed crimes is not ruthless.

 

As opposed to appealing to their better nature? Isn't that what "paragon" is about? Executing most of them can be construed as ruthless not righteous. I mean.. you put the guy in a gibbet for throwing a goat at your castle walls. LOL

 

 

 

 

I've attacked those Wardens mostly by accident, but they are an enemy force. I don't consider that ruthless.

 

 

Your inquisitor basically says "**** it" and orders the Inquisition to attack ALL the wardens despite you having appealed to a few of them earlier. That's ruthless.

 

 

 

Where are these ruthless dialogue choices?

 

Really?

 

 

 

Mass Effect

Different game. Entire mechanic is Paragon vs Ruthless. There is no other archetype available other than a hybrid of the two. Next.

 

 

 

Dragon Age: Killed a child in front of his crying mother, convinced the wolves to kill the elves, sided with Branka, allowed avernus to continue his unethical research, left Redcliffe to burn, Married Anora, spared Loghain, had Alistair's head rolling(after befriending him),

See post above.

Spoiler

 

What's funny is that the majority of decisions in DAO boil down to whether you're a pragmatist, a jerk, or a good guy. The actual intent behind the decisions is always headcanon'd.

 

Why would you save the anvil if you aren't a pragmatist? The entire point of it is sacrifice. and as Caridin points out, very likely not voluntarily.
Why would you kill the elves if you aren't a douchebag? I mean...LOL ... speaks for itself. Sure you can headcanon that ...elves are icky...?

Why would you leave the village to die or let Isolde sacrifice herself if you aren't being pragmatic about your cause? ...yeah... knocking out momma while you stab her child. That's noble.

Why would you let Loghain, the guy who's responsible for your current situation, survive while sacrificing your companion through all the challenges you faced if not to be pragmatic?

etc..

 

meanwhile, DAI actually gives you decisions that don't require you to be a jerk, a pragmatist, or a good guy.

 

Spoiler

Take the direct path and assist the soldiers or take the less risky mountain path and try to find the scouts? 

Both mages and templars have their good and bad points.... no ruthless or angelic personality required.

Drinking from the well or letting Morrigan do it herself have good and bad points. Trust in an ancient being or not?

Judgments give you potential solutions that do not have to be "paragon" or ruthless.

 

Yeah... I'd much rather prefer DAI's approach with the occasionally potentially ruthless decision-making rather than it being the point ALL THE TIME.

Still love DAO though 

 

 

You're also including DLC (Avernus) and combining two different games (DAO and DA2). Marrying Anora isn't ruthless either...

Letting Redcliffe burn is also borderline idiotic given that you depend on the Arl of Redcliffe for your success Good thing there's meta-gaming to assure your victory.

 

As I said in the post above, it's true that DAO allowed a bigger range of ruthless choices in every main quest, but that's what they essentially boiled down to.

 

Be a paragon or be ruthless. The intent is almost always headcanon'd. The only notable exception is Loghain as you can plead Alistair to not leave you and then berate Loghain for costing you Alistair.

 

Meanwhile, DAI gives you several main plot quests that are completely neutral in approach.

 

 

 

[The dead fish]

So is there somewhere that can tell me which games it's okay to headcanon in and which games it's unacceptable in?  

 

 

I never argued that the Inquisitor can be the same as the Warden or Hawke.  Evil comes in many different flavors and varieties.  I may not be slitting throats or kicking puppies, but that doesn't mean I'm a good guy.  

 

I'd use an example here, but I'm sure that it would be twisted and used against me in some way with little regard to its actual point.  

 

I'm not trying to bring anyone about to my way of playing the game.  I don't care how you go about it.  I do, however, care that people dismiss those of us who are satisfied with the Inquisitor's capacity for unique personalities just because we view things in a way that didn't occur to them.  

 

And for the record, I'm not thrilled with the quality of argument that's been brought against me either.  Most of it pretty much boils down to "you're wrong for being satisfied with headcanon because I'm not satisfied with headcanon".

 

What ? I have never said you were wrong to be satisfied with your headcanon. 

 

My argument was we should be careful with the distinction between headcanon ( with your own motivations ) and a ruthless / evil decision that is designed as such in a game. Ruthless / evil decision aka aknowledged as such by the game, the world reactive, where it can be showed to you the way you act is morally wrong or morally contested, or having a bad effect somewhere, where you have some people disagreeing with the way you act for example, or where you see some people suffering, or intimidated, or dying, where you see the effects of such thing, where you have big or minor consequences for or against you. Like for example when I decide not to help my elven cousin who is going to be raped otherwise, and you can see her sad face that make you want to vomit with the bad noble laughing behing her . When I refuse to save the council in Mass effect, I can see how people are dying, while the fleet is still going to kick the ass of Sovereign. 

 

I don't remember having once the possibility to hit someone with the inquisitor by the way, except solas who really deserved it, but that's it. Why as a figure of power am I not able to abuse my power ? That's just ridiculous. Inquisition was just perfect for that. 

 

You are free to believe whatever the hell you want, but you aren't going to convince me with this argument if you are telling me that I should consider your point of view as a fact that the inquisitor had plenty of possibilities to be evil and ruthless, that's the only thing I said. 

 

People didn't try to dismiss those of you satisfied. People only gave their own opinion as to why they felt the way they feel, and it's actually some of you guys who came to tell they were wrong. So please, let's not flip the tables.

[Phoe77]

Heads up for unsatisfactory word choice.  I can't figure out exactly how to phrase things correctly, but here's my best attempt.  

 

I think it would be very difficult for the game to give you a tangible (so to speak) representation of your choice while still maintaining a similar degree of freedom for varying motivations.  A decision wouldn't simply be able to be resolved by choosing between "Ally with" or Conscript".  It would have to be "Ally with because A", "Conscript because B", "Conscript because C", ad nauseam.  In addition, they'd have to find a way to illustrate the subtle differences between the results of each choice in a satisfying manner.  

 

I guess a more simple way to put it is that a game has to choose between allowing players to assign a wide variety of different motivations to their actions or giving them only a small number of choices for each specific portion of the game and having those be physically represented in the game.  It is, in my opinion, unrealistic to wish to have both in the same game.  

[Hazegurl]

 

As opposed to appealing to their better nature? Isn't that what "paragon" is about? Executing most of them can be construed as ruthless not righteous. I mean.. you put the guy in a gibbet for throwing a goat at your castle walls. LOL

 

 

How is punishing criminals who sold people into slavery to painfully grow lyrium out of their bodies until they die, people who wanted to help a 1000 year old magister rule the world, et al. ruthless?

 

Also, there is no personal connection to any of these judgements. How on earth is it comparable to anything I've mentioned from ME and earlier DA games?  And yeah I'll give you the gibbet. So that's four ruthless choices.

 

Your inquisitor basically says "**** it" and orders the Inquisition to attack ALL the wardens despite you having appealed to a few of them earlier. That's ruthless.

 

 

With the Wardens, you give them a chance to surrender and they attack you. That is hardly ruthless or "kill them all" as you are trying hard to sale.

 

You appeal to a small group by telling them to fall back, they do. Or you ask them to surrender and they attack you and you kill them.  Once you face down Clarel you have the option to appeal to them if you like. No matter what,  both Hawke and Loghain will try to appeal to them and even inform them of Cory. Clarel insists on completing the demon ritual. It is only after this does the IQ have the option to either order an attack or appeal to them further.

 

Either way, the Wardens either make it clear that they are all for demon summoning or willing to listen.  You do not just order an attack after appealing to them in that scene. You can't because Clarel is willing to listen and that is when Erimond pulls out the Dragon.

 

 

Different game. Entire mechanic is Paragon vs Ruthless. There is no other archetype available other than a hybrid of the two. Next.

 

 

 We're talking about actually having non headcanon choices and seeing them play out which the other games give us that DAI doesn't.  They are worth a mention to at least show what some of us are talking about.

 

See post above.

You're also including DLC (Avernus) and combining two different games (DAO and DA2).

 

Even if DAI give us a DLC, it wouldn't compare to the amount of options we've had in vanilla DAO.

 

 

As I said in the post above, it's true that DAO allowed a bigger range of ruthless choices in every main quest, but that's what they essentially boiled down to.

 

Be a paragon or be ruthless. 

 

Meanwhile, DAI gives you several main plot quests that are completely neutral in approach.

 

 

You can most certainly be neutral in DAO, you can also be Neutral in ME1 and ME2. Only ME3 have Paragon and Ruthless only.  However, you do not have to go through any of these games mindlessly pressing paragon, neutral, or renegade options. You simply get more benefits from doing so.  It's like a person complaining because they hit the purple button all throughout DA2 and wonder why they had a Hawke who laughed at everything.

 

So you see, even in games where neutrality is an option, you still have multiple main quests and side quests to exercise these options.  In DAI you have only main quests and out of all the main quests, the only ruthless pragmatic choice is given at the Winter Palace. 

 

 

 

 

[Phoe77]

What ? I have never said you were wrong to be satisfied with your headcanon. 

 

My argument was we should be careful with the distinction between headcanon ( with your own motivations ) and a ruthless / evil decision that is designed as such in a game. Ruthless / evil decision aka aknowledged as such by the game, the world reactive, where it can be showed to you the way you act is morally wrong or morally contested, or having a bad effect somewhere, where you have some people disagreeing with the way you act for example, or where you see some people suffering, or intimidated, or dying, where you see the effects of such thing, where you have big or minor consequences for or against you. Like for example when I decide not to help my elven cousin who is going to be raped otherwise, and you can see her sad face that make you want to vomit with the bad noble laughing behing her . When I refuse to save the council in Mass effect, I can see how people are dying, while the fleet is still going to kick the ass of Sovereign. 

When you said that there is a problem because I rely on headcanon to differentiate my Inquisitors from each other it definitely seemed as though you're saying that I'm doing it wrong.  The numerous "are you kidding me's" and "Seriouslys" probably made me think that your posts were more dismissive or mocking than you intended them to be.  Perhaps I interpreted it wrong.  

I recognize the difference between having a decision's impact shown to you versus leaving it ambiguous.  I do not agree, however, that choosing the latter option robs a decision of its moral importance.  The fact that the game doesn't show you a "this is how you've hurt people" doesn't mean that you're not still a bad guy. To me, it also doesn't matter if conscripting the mages or templars isn't as bad as killing babies.  Just because one can be more malicious doesn't mean that the other is not malicious at all.  The cinematics may make things more visceral, but they aren't required to me.   

 

You are free to believe whatever the hell you want, but you aren't going to convince me with this argument if you are telling me that I should consider your point of view as a fact that the inquisitor had plenty of possibilities to be evil and ruthless, that's the only thing I said. 

 

The possibilities exist because players can determine their characters' motivations for decisions.  It's not a question of whether or not they're well implemented or if they could have been done in a more pleasing way.  The fact that the possibilities depend on a way of playing that you don't approve of doesn't negate the fact that they are there.

 

 

People didn't try to dismiss those of you satisfied. People only gave their own opinion as to why they felt the way they feel, and it's actually some of you guys who came to tell they were wrong. So please, let's not flip the tables.

 

People on both sides are dismissive of those who disagree with them.  People are referred to as trolls or fanboys constantly.  I'm sure that it happened in this topic.  People on both sides have their responses met with "are you kidding me" or "you must be joking".  I don't care if someone disagrees with another person's point of view, but I think it's rude to just dismiss it as a joke.    

[The dead fish]

Anyway, I was hardly unreasonable. I only wanted to play a very ambitious man with his own agenda, selfish ( but not evil, he had just his flaws, someone who was really complicated, and good too ) and ruthless, but the game didn't really support my headcanon. Yeah, my very ambitious character that was willing to sacrifice anything just sucked since he never really had to show this side of him . When in the game you have a character that almost never takes any opportunity to be selfish and to fight for his own power, to build his own power, sometimes to the expense of others, who is hardly ruthless, and almost always diplomatic, what is the meaning of headcanon ? That doesn't mean anything, here what it means to me. I'm not interested into headcanon alone.

 

I had the well of sorrow, that was the only thing which made me feel supported by the game, where I could be truly defined as power hungry. Wow, in the last minutes finally. That was really disappointing. 

 

Of course, if I was interested to play a diplomatic inquisitor, I'm certain my headcanon would be supported since this is basically what is the inquisitor lol, but I'm not really interested to play such character. I have already played too many parangon or diplomatic characters in the past. I'm a sucker for something way more grey nowadays. So I remain with my selfish, ambitious inquisitor who isn't really ambitious and selifh and ruthless ! 

 

There were too many fetch quests anyway, with more side quests ( quality story ) , I am certain that it would have been possible to better work on that. But the maps were all about doing the job of some peasants or soldiers. In the exalted plains, you just have to clean up a whole map, and not a single possible side quest. The same in the hissing wastes. Wait, actually, in all the damn maps. Not a single side quest with quality story, cinematics, dialogues and choices and different outcomes. 

[Medhia_Nox]

To the original question.

 

I liked the Inquisitor more than Hawke or Shepard... less than Warden.

[Darkly Tranquil]

True enough.
 
Although I would love it if they toned down the proclamations at the end of the quests.
The way my Inquisitor announced the mage alliance was hilariously out of character xD

It would have worked better if Josephine announced it while the Inquisitor stood there looking important. That way it would not come across as OoC for some players.

[Ski Mask Wei]

While I missed the ruthless/evil options I do find the Inquisitor interesting.  I especially like how you can jump across the dial without sounding like you have split personalities.  The choice to be a zealot/atheist was also pretty cool.  

[Zu Long]

My elven Inquisitor might be my favorite Bioware protagonist ever, due to the subtleties I could add to his personality without ever feeling like he was out of character. I got precisely the faith-uncertain, chessmaster tactician I wanted to play before the game came out, and it was great.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Characters like Shep or Hawke felt like I didn't get to define their personality. I was choosing between 2 or 3 pre-determined ones, where as the Inquisitor gets the weird freedom in that you have more choice in the details but they must all be diplomatic.

I think the Inquisitor can be wry or sardonic, as well, which does sound a lot like diplomatic but has a very different motive.

But even if the Inquisitor can only be diplomatic, that doesn't preclude the Inquisitor being evil. It just precludes him being unsubtle about it.

[o Ventus]

I think the Inquisitor can be wry or sardonic, as well, which does sound a lot like diplomatic but has a very different motive.

But even if the Inquisitor can only be diplomatic, that doesn't preclude the Inquisitor being evil. It just precludes him being unsubtle about it.

 

I prefer the Francis Urquhart/Frank Underwood kind of evil to an overt caricature of oneself, anyway. The kind of person who goes out of their way to ruin your life, while taking careful steps to make it look like he's helping you.

[DarthEmpress]

I can't remember if I replied to this or not, but... yes, only elven female inquisitor is interesting to me.  First of all, an elf as the herald of andraste? A dalish elf?  Some of the reactions, both from others and the inquisitor, are priceless.  Second, there's so many elven locations you uncover - dirthamen's temple, the temple of mythal, the location of the suledin blade, etc.  It feels poignant because your elven inquisitor is the one finding and exploring them.  When I play as a non-elf, it kind of... cheapens the adventure, to me.  Just feels more meaningful as an elf because it's like "wow I'm finding things my people thought were lost!"  Lastly, romancing Solas.  I don't even have to explain that.  No use putting that into words anymore - it hurts.

[Ishka]

I loved my Inquisitor. I thought she was perfect.

[tesla21]

Inquisitor is my least liked PC of the franchise... you have very little control over his actions or attitude and it doesn't allow me to be creative with roleplaying at all... it's basically either I am a goodie-goodie or a goodie that complains alot and has a few aggresive comments every now and then and of course I can choose whether I am a believer or not which was nice but quickly lost relevance past the first sequences.

 

Quizzy feels forced to be diplomatic and I have a problem with the voice acting... the difference is that Hawke was a defined character so the VA worked, you controlled his general attitude but not who he truly was at the end of the day. On the other hand Warden's lack of voice acting allowed for alot more roleplaying... for example in Inquisition if I wanted to roleplay as a badass cold blooded military mind quinari/human I just can't get into it when said character keeps smiling like a teenager girl while saying some of the lines or has too many confused wimpy lines at times... I wish they would have given you more "keeps silent" dialogue options... for example at the very start, if I am playing a cold blooded rational man i'd like him to not sound so shocked with everything that is going on, instead he would be chill about it while still trying to find out what is going on and what is the proper way to proceed instead of going all emotional or righteous about it but it's just not supported by the game thus why I had to scrap said character and went with a goodie vulnerable-but-strong woman skeptical-but-with-sense-of-dutie type which is basically alot more generic and easier to support by the game. 

 

One is stuck playing generic inquisitor variation #1,#2 and #3 rather than your own tailored inmersive character.

[Barry-Allen]

Yeah, that's actually one of my favorite aspects about the game. You can actually give your character some personality and charisma. I always found that lacking in Mass Effect.

[sim-ran]

I've just started a second playthrough as a female elf and I can see what some of the complaints are about now. In my first play as a male human noble the dialogue options allowed lots of nuance to their character, but this time the dialogue options are just... wrong.

All the options make the PC seem way too comfortable with the Inquisition, chatting about diplomacy with Orlesian nobility and the Chantry like she's an intellectual about these things. And the (English) VA just makes her sound so... nice.

I envisioned the character to be a traditional Dalish but I'm having to completely reimagine them now to fit what is coming across on screen. Which I'm a little unhappy with. Having the CC option of a Dalish elf that doesn't feel Dalish is a pretty big failure in my mind. I considered restarting and rolling a human mage, but there's a whole bunch of elf-focused content in the game that I really wanted to try out with an elven PC.

I've seen a YouTube video of a Qunari through the intro and they seem to have the same problem. These VAs and lines really don't seem suited to half of the races and backgrounds they made.

[PhroXenGold]

Hell, the elves don't even have a proper voice actor/ress - from DA2 onwards, they've tried to make the Dalish all have Celtic accents, but we only get the choice of American or English...

[Majestic Jazz]

I've just started a second playthrough as a female elf and I can see what some of the complaints are about now. In my first play as a male human noble the dialogue options allowed lots of nuance to their character, but this time the dialogue options are just... wrong.

All the options make the PC seem way too comfortable with the Inquisition, chatting about diplomacy with Orlesian nobility and the Chantry like she's an intellectual about these things. And the (English) VA just makes her sound so... nice.

I envisioned the character to be a traditional Dalish but I'm having to completely reimagine them now to fit what is coming across on screen. Which I'm a little unhappy with. Having the CC option of a Dalish elf that doesn't feel Dalish is a pretty big failure in my mind. I considered restarting and rolling a human mage, but there's a whole bunch of elf-focused content in the game that I really wanted to try out with an elven PC.

I've seen a YouTube video of a Qunari through the intro and they seem to have the same problem. These VAs and lines really don't seem suited to half of the races and backgrounds they made.

So sad.

This only plays to the idea that DAI was supposed to originally have the IQ be human only (possibly even having Hawke as the IQ) but after the backlash from DA2 of not having other playable races, they went to add in new races as a pure cosmetic design and decided not to change the tone/approach of the game to feel....right for other races. What we are left with is a game with multiple races to play as, but in terms of dialog/story of the IQ, it remains as if DAI is still only human IQ.

There is a moment in the game where a human has to explain to your Dalish IQ what certain words or elven lore means. It is like the game doesn respect your idea to play as an elf and just continues on as if you are a human....

That is why the game feels more natural to play as a human because DAI was meant to be human IQ only and the new races dont have functional purpose....just cosmetic purpose.

The wait for Mass Effect 4 continues....

[Vader20]

I've just started a second playthrough as a female elf and I can see what some of the complaints are about now. In my first play as a male human noble the dialogue options allowed lots of nuance to their character, but this time the dialogue options are just... wrong.

All the options make the PC seem way too comfortable with the Inquisition, chatting about diplomacy with Orlesian nobility and the Chantry like she's an intellectual about these things. And the (English) VA just makes her sound so... nice.

I envisioned the character to be a traditional Dalish but I'm having to completely reimagine them now to fit what is coming across on screen. Which I'm a little unhappy with. Having the CC option of a Dalish elf that doesn't feel Dalish is a pretty big failure in my mind. I considered restarting and rolling a human mage, but there's a whole bunch of elf-focused content in the game that I really wanted to try out with an elven PC.

I've seen a YouTube video of a Qunari through the intro and they seem to have the same problem. These VAs and lines really don't seem suited to half of the races and backgrounds they made.

Hate to give you the bad news, but you are wasting an opportunity here to try out something new.... The game wouldn't feel any different if it was meant to be played with multiple races, trust me.

 

They'd had to write 4 separate dialogue lines unique for each race. Only this way can we have a normal experience with multiple races, but no one would want to invest so many resources into this anyway.. so the game would be like it is now, maybe with a few alternative dialogues here an there.

 

Your dalish elf female will get some unique dialogues though, and there are moments where the human has no business at all.The only place where the elf is a bit out of place is the

Spoiler

Winter Palace. She talks like she's been around nobles her whole life. .

[Ianamus]

I liked my Inquisitor more than any of my previous Bioware protagonists. I always play good characters and they usually end up feeling like clones of one another. Between his frequent light sarcasm, self-proclaimed hopeless romanticness and uncertain stance on the Chantry and mage/templar conflict, he felt more fleshed out and nuanced than any of my previous characters. 

 

As I mentioned to somebody else who complained the Inquisitor was 'boring': I happen to find talking about my characters religious views and choosing their, often subtle, reaction to events far more interesting and character-establishing than kicking people out of windows or punching reporters. 

[CmnDwnWrkn]

People who found the Inquisitor boring must not have chosen the "middle" dialogue option enough.  So much comedy in that middle option

[o Ventus]

 

As I mentioned to somebody else who complained the Inquisitor was 'boring': I happen to find talking about my characters religious views and choosing their, often subtle, reaction to events far more interesting and character-establishing than kicking people out of windows or punching reporters. 

No no, we NEED out cartoonish, mustache-twirling over-the-top evil and reckless. They do so much more to establish character traits than things like meaningful dialogue or visual emoting.

 

.... That was sarcasm. I'm legit not sure how adept at you are at reading it. No offense.