311 réponses à ce sujet

[Excella Gionne]

Paragon and Renegade should be removed and an entirely different system should be implemented. They've always held the game back when it came to choices. Only in ME3 do they actually not matter as much and it was fun to just pick the one you wanted, but only after you have completed the game once. In ME2, it was over the top annoying since you had to commit to either one of them to even resolve the most high paragon/renegade demanding conflicts. Do bring back the interrupts. Those were fun.

[Ahriman]

 it's simply a dialogue choice.

Well, yeah, since every choice in ME is dialogue choice.

 

No one reacts to you differently whether you act as a consummate diplomat a total bellend.

This is simply not true. NPCs react on your words accordingly. It could be done better with proper tracking all dialogs with particular character and everything he knows or can. It always can be better, the question is how much money you have for it.

 

Any sacrifice in their games is there for shock value and has no bearing on the story beyond game play difficulties.

It has no bearing on the story, it is the story. Or did you expect completely different routes? That would cut story in two smaller ones, CDPR risked to do it once, Bioware didn't. So what?

 

When was the last Bioware game that presented you with a choice to knowingly choose to sacrifice someone?

Ashley/Kaiden, Council, nameless workers from Zaeed mission, David Archer, Aralakh/Rachni, Geth/Quarians, Mordin...

 

Morality in Bioware games does not force emotional decisions, it forces logical ones based solely upon which dialogue choice gives me the easiest ending?

Until that I assumed we both played ME. What the hell is "easiest ending"? How can you possibly not get "easiest ending"? How is red easier than blue?

And don't tell me about war assets, these are a joke. All ME decisions are emotional, because only real reason to choose one or another is your personal preference. Unless you want to squeeze a little more content and choose paragon.

[Sartoz]

No they weren't.

 

The game needed a lot more renegade choices and interrupts 

 

                                                                           <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

 

The problem with interrupts, for me, was that I invariably missed most of them. It's too bad I could not increase the timer value.

[FKA_Servo]

The problem with interrupts for me is that they're always a surprise the first time. They need to let us know what we're going to do somehow.

 

I welcome them as a nice opportunity to step out of character where applicable. Shoot out a tv screen? Great. It doesn't mean I want to push a dude out the window though. It would be nice to know that going in.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I would argue that an interesting moral choice, in an RPG at least, is one that allows me to explore playing a character who holds a different, but still plausible, moral compass from my own.

I'll certainly grant that this is an interesting roleplaying exercise. I enjoy doing that, as well.

I suppose I was claiming that there is no difficult moral choice.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The problem with interrupts for me is that they're always a surprise the first time. They need to let us know what we're going to do somehow.

The interrupts, and Casey Hudson's defense of them (apparently that surprise was a design goal), are why I left the franchise after ME2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

There's no such thing as a 'paladin' or a 'jerk' in Bioware games, it's simply a dialogue choice. No one reacts to you differently whether you act as a consummate diplomat a total bellend. Any sacrifice in their games is there for shock value and has no bearing on the story beyond game play difficulties. When was the last Bioware game that presented you with a choice to knowingly choose to sacrifice someone? Morality in Bioware games does not force emotional decisions, it forces logical ones based solely upon which dialogue choice gives me the easiest ending? The game doesn't have to be Witcher-in-space to achieve more nuanced writing.

Besides, it's not just CDPR that do this, Eidos Montreal gave you more nuanced morale choices in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and they appear to be doing the same in Mankind Divided. ME:A isn't just going to be judged against TW3, it's going to be competing against DE:MD so the question for Bioware is can they really afford to continue with their Disney-esq morality in games?

Modern Disney does much better job of it, frankly. That naïve morality you describe can be seen more easily in the Star Wars prequels.

[Laughing_Man]

Modern Disney does much better job of it, frankly. That naïve morality you describe can be seen more easily in the Star Wars prequels.

 

There wasn't a real difference between the two trilogies when it comes to the naive morality system of SW, specifically how shallow and childish the whole "Dark Side Vs. Light Side" thing is. And I say this despite the fact that I like the SW universe.

[AlanC9]

When was the last Bioware game that presented you with a choice to knowingly choose to sacrifice someone?

ME3 comes to mind. If you want to Destroy, you have to kill at least EDI, and potentially many more.

[saladinbob]

ME3 comes to mind.

 

Really? I recommend you replay it then because other than Shepard (yourself), you don't sacrifice anyone. We where discussing the protagonist sacrificing a team member, not him/herself.

[karushna5]

I feel like paragon and renegade are staples of the series, and need to be kept, but I feel it is a mistake to calculate how good or bad you are, it fits more with their previous franchises than Mass Effect. I also love interrupts.

 

But i do feel they need to be done differently. Paragon should make you feel like a hero. Renegade should make you feel like you are cool and tough.

So when you are talking instead of nice vs jerk response. Make it nice vs cool response. Do you kill the innocent or save them? How about severely punish them or let them off easy. Things like the Rachni can stay the same, but I like that Renegade is treated as less bad and more cool.

 

Also some interrupts should be a bad thing. Paragon hesitates when they shouldn't. Renegade act before thinking ramifications. what do you guys think?

[The Night Haunter]

Honestly I feel going with absolutely zero moral system, and instead just remembering what actual choices were made rather than having '400 Renegade points!' would work out better.

 

Paragon and Renegade shoehorn decisions into one of two categories, but real people aren't like that, they might make a 'Paragon' choice for one event and a 'renegade' choice at another. Adding these points to the chocies just encourages people to keep selecting the same options, making it more difficult to have a complex character. 

The Paragon/Renegade meter is just a left over from the DnD/KotOR systems that were the base for ME1. It is old and should be gotten rid of, it makes sense in Star Wars where there is a distinct light and dark side, but not in a morally ambiguous setting like ME.

[Joseph Warrick]

Honestly I feel going with absolutely zero moral system, and instead just remembering what actual choices were made rather than having '400 Renegade points!' would work out better.

 

Paragon and Renegade shoehorn decisions into one of two categories, but real people aren't like that, they might make a 'Paragon' choice for one event and a 'renegade' choice at another. Adding these points to the chocies just encourages people to keep selecting the same options, making it more difficult to have a complex character. 

The Paragon/Renegade meter is just a left over from the DnD/KotOR systems that were the base for ME1. It is old and should be gotten rid of, it makes sense in Star Wars where there is a distinct light and dark side, but not in a morally ambiguous setting like ME.

 

The reputation meter solved this problem ME2 had. ME3 didn't suffer from this. Having two independent meters makes it different from D&D/Kotor. A character with points in both meters is ambiguous.

[Hazegurl]

A part of me want them to get rid of the meter and another part of me don't. If getting rid of the meter causes them to write primarily neutral sounding dialogue and actions a la DA:I I'm not going to be very happy.  And I really don't want to spend another few months on this board reading the word "Nuance" as an excuse for half a**ed writing and choices.  If the Renegade/Paragon system forces them to write more complex and difficult choices while giving us at least two completely different ways to play our character then I say they should keep it and just tweak it a bit more or something.

[karushna5]

A part of me want them to get rid of the meter and another part of me don't. If getting rid of the meter causes them to write primarily neutral sounding dialogue and actions a la DA:I I'm not going to be very happy.  And I really don't want to spend another few months on this board reading the word "Nuance" as an excuse for half a**ed writing and choices.  If the Renegade/Paragon system forces them to write more complex and difficult choices while giving us at least two completely different ways to play our character then I say they should keep it and just tweak it a bit more or something.

I feel less strongly than you about it, but yes this is excatly how I think it should be done. There needs variety of play, DA:I was too neutral (and the emotions were so unemotional) but having only 2 options is limited.

 

I just don't like that Renegade is necessarily evil. I want there to be stakes on both sides. Do you save the civilians, or catch the guy so he doesn't do it again? People are saved, but he later does something pretty bad (not killing civilians exactly as that is too similiar, but destroying/ blowing up something) or stop the guy, find out you stopped his plans, but civilians die.

 

I like those scenarios. Be a hero, but fail in some areas of the future, or do what needs to be done even if that means looking the other way when someone wants you to be a hero.

[AlanC9]

Really? I recommend you replay it then because other than Shepard (yourself), you don't sacrifice anyone. We where discussing the protagonist sacrificing a team member, not him/herself.

Edited above for clarity. What, you don't consider EDI a team member?

[The Night Haunter]

A part of me want them to get rid of the meter and another part of me don't. If getting rid of the meter causes them to write primarily neutral sounding dialogue and actions a la DA:I I'm not going to be very happy.  And I really don't want to spend another few months on this board reading the word "Nuance" as an excuse for half a**ed writing and choices.  If the Renegade/Paragon system forces them to write more complex and difficult choices while giving us at least two completely different ways to play our character then I say they should keep it and just tweak it a bit more or something.

I get what you're saying and I agree that 2 Distinct styles is better than an ambiguous set of options that are all neutral.

 

However, I think that isn't the best solution.

 

I would rank them like so:

1) Emotional and engaging choices without any type of morality meter attached to them.

2) Set of 2-3 engaging choices with a morality tied to each choice.

3) Unengaging choices without a morality meter.

 

Given that Bioware's attempts at convo's sans morality have all been conveyed in an neutral tone that isn't conductive to story engagement the set of clearly defined morality choices is attractive as it makes the dialogue better, but I think the best solution would be no meter, but keep (somehow) the engaging dialogue.

 

Given that this is ME and not DA I think we are pretty likely to see some kind of morality meter attached to the game (whether it is Paragon/Renegade, or something new).

[The Night Haunter]

The reputation meter solved this problem ME2 had. ME3 didn't suffer from this. Having two independent meters makes it different from D&D/Kotor. A character with points in both meters is ambiguous.

I wouldn't say it solved the problem, but it did alleviate the worst symptoms. There was still the idea of a 'Renegade' character influencing players to take specific dialogue options rather than reading through them and deciding which actually fit their character best. But ME3 was the best out of the ME morality meters, but in general I think morality meters hold the writers/devs/players back. Sometimes there might be 5 different options you could take, some of which aren't clearly Paragon or Renegade and so don't actually end up in the game with a morality meter.

 

The Orliesan Peace Treaty negotiatiomns in DAI come to mind. You can side with: 1) Celene, 2) Gaspard, 3) Gaspard with Briala behind him, 4) Celene and Gaspard together.

Celene by herself might have been a Paragon choice (rightful ruler and all that), Gaspard the Renegade choice( Military man for a military situation, pragmatism), but the other solutions don't fit neatly into morality categories, so a game that has those meters doesn't typically include more than 2 options.

 

For example the Rachni in ME1, there was only kill or release, what about just leaving the queen locked up and if she survived until order was restored a higher authority could deal with it then? It wasn't included because it doesn't fit either Renegade or Paragon. How many choices in ME actually had more than 2 options to pick (besides the ending, lets not even go there)?

[Joseph Warrick]

You have a complex situation in Tali's loyalty mission. There are more than two possible outcomes there, past choices are taken into account... since renegade and paragon can mean different things to different people, so it doesn't necessarily dumb down choices.

 

I see the meters as an archive that registers the weight past decisions have on you. Alignment points as a consequence, not a goal.

[saladinbob]

You have a complex situation in Tali's loyalty mission. There are more than two possible outcomes there, past choices are taken into account... since renegade and paragon can mean different things to different people, so it doesn't necessarily dumb down choices.

 

I see the meters as an archive that registers the weight past decisions have on you. Alignment points as a consequence, not a goal.

 

Neither of which changes the game in any meaningful way. As with all loyalty missions, they're self contained stories. Miranda doesn't go AWOL if you don't help her with her sister. Tali doesn't commit suicide because of the shame of her dishonour. Wrex doesn't throw a wobbler and trash the ship because you don't help him find the meaning of life and that's the problem right there. Other games do. The industry moved on past the simplistic black and white approach to morality. Bioware stood still. In terms of this, KoTOR is no different to Inquisition despite there being eleven years between the two titles. Andromeda needs to move with the times.

[Medhia_Nox]

Paragon and Renegade were just Hero and Anti-Hero - not "good" and "evil". 

[ComedicSociopathy]

Isn't the ultimate problem with the Paragon/Renegade dynamic and Bioware's style of storytelling in general is that it really doesn't matter whether I pick the good or evil option?

 

As long as I make any choice (sans ME 3's Refusal ending) the game will still progress and Shepard, the Warden, Hawke, etc, will ultimately "win" defeat the Bad Bad and have the setting their in remain relatively intact. You can't lose. Sure Wrex might be dead, choosing to reprogram the Heretics backfires in ME 3 and tainting the sacred ashes will cause Wynne and Leilana to turn on you, but who cares? You might suffer some consequences depending on your decision and might lose out on potential story content and assets that you might have gained if you picked the other option, but the game never flat out tells you that your decision was ultimately so wrong and stupid that it immediately resulted in your character's demise.

 

Alright, sleeping with Morinth is an example of that happening, but in a game that's supposedly about tough choices and consequences for your actions we rarely see a time where a faulty major decision can lead to a realistic outcome that ends up killing you. Decided to awaken Grunt while in an enclosed space all by yourself... He bulrushes you and snaps your neck. Oh well, you should have taken procedures to protect yourself better. Please try again. 

 

Is that harsh? Sure. Can it be annoying. Yep. Could it possibly railroad players into only making certain decisions. Possibly. But at least in this style of play the player is forced to be far more calculating and intelligent with their decisions. Sometimes being the diplomatic nice guy is the right decision that saves you and your squad and sometimes being a coldblooded pragmatist can get you out of a bad situation that would have lead to your death. 

 

So to hell with the Paragon/Renegade morality dynamic. The chances of your success and failure should be a based on a Smart Move/Idiot Move paradigm, where in sometimes a Smart Move might be Paragon decision and sometimes it might be a Renegade decision. It should fall to the circumstances that given situation to determine which is more likely to succeed. 

[Master Warder Z_]

I feel less strongly than you about it, but yes this is excatly how I think it should be done. There needs variety of play, DA:I was too neutral (and the emotions were so unemotional) but having only 2 options is limited.

I just don't like that Renegade is necessarily evil. I want there to be stakes on both sides. Do you save the civilians, or catch the guy so he doesn't do it again? People are saved, but he later does something pretty bad (not killing civilians exactly as that is too similiar, but destroying/ blowing up something) or stop the guy, find out you stopped his plans, but civilians die.

I like those scenarios. Be a hero, but fail in some areas of the future, or do what needs to be done even if that means looking the other way when someone wants you to be a hero.

Like Balak?

[BabyPuncher]

There's no such thing as an interesting moral choice.  As long as you know your own morality, the choices are never more than arithmetic.

 

Agreed. For once.

 

Very few people in this thread seem to recognize what the actual point of choices in games are.

 

A game presenting you with a supposedly 'difficult' choice...what is this supposed to accomplish by itself? The choice is not actually ever 'difficult,' it's only that the player has to deal with consequences they don't like. 

 

Every moral choice is an obvious right/wrong if you know the moral rules that govern it.

 

And if you don't, then arguably morality isn't relevant to you in that case.

 

Also basically true. 

 

When people are whining about the concept of choices being 'black and white,' they're whining about the concept of truth existing at all.

 

The idiocy of that belief is tedious, but idiocy is far too common to really be upset about. No, the real problem of such as a belief is the hypocrisy. The fact that it's not a belief at all.

[Hazegurl]

I feel less strongly than you about it, but yes this is excatly how I think it should be done. There needs variety of play, DA:I was too neutral (and the emotions were so unemotional) but having only 2 options is limited.

I agree I want the choices to have more weight but when it comes to character type I actually want a personality there and that is something the Renegade/Paragon system provides. Two different ways Shepard can be as a person is better than none.  I think there is a way to give us that and choices that aren't black and white.  Mainly by giving us consequences we experience within the story. ME3 did a good job of giving us complex choices, it's just that the consequences were never touched upon and Paragon decisions were favored. I think they can create a good system if they work on what they have. 
 

 

Isn't the ultimate problem with the Paragon/Renegade dynamic and Bioware's style of storytelling in general is that it really doesn't matter whether I pick the good or evil option?

 

As long as I make any choice (sans ME 3's Refusal ending) the game will still progress and Shepard, the Warden, Hawke, etc, will ultimately "win" defeat the Bad Bad and have the setting their in remain relatively intact. You can't lose.

 

I don't think that's a problem with the story, the game is played to win, it's about the journey to the end.  Although it would be nice that if you make too many wrong choices no matter if it's Paragon or Renegade it can result in either a lot of lives lost or a loss altogether. 

 

I don't think I would be too fond of a "game over" reload every single time a choice is made.  It'll just railroad the player into making one decision that is the right one and subsequently destroy replay value. Might as well play a linear game. I do like that your idea could force the player to prepare for a decision though. 

 

Example: I liked that Shepard takes a gun with him to open up Grunt's tube. But that was an automatic thing, Shepard just had the gun on him.  However, if the game gave us the option to grab a gun before opening the tank I think that would have been good.  If you grabbed a gun you can defend yourself, if not, Grunt roughs you up more cause you went in unarmed.  Of course this would only work if Bioware doesn't beat the player upside the head with the choice to bring a gun into the room. Something close to TW3 preparations for an encounter would be a good idea.