311 réponses à ce sujet

[Amirit]

"Good" decisions should, more often than not, require the player to sacrifice genuine personal (character) gain... for the sake of the gain of others (NPCs).
 
"Evil" decisions should, more often than not, allow the player to achieve greater personal (character) gain... while costing others (NPCs)
 
The idea that good or evil should be universally rewarded or punished is, of course, preposterous.  The situations demands variety.

 
QFTT ! Well said, sums it up perfectly. Because here, all mixed up again:
 

According to your set up the renegade option is already set up to lose. A peaceful non law violating nation wants to be your ally.  You gain an ally willing to help because you have none and you gain good reputation.  It's a no brainer to pick the Paragon Help option.  The Renegade option in that case would be to refuse the alliance, lose an ally willing to help and get no rep. This is exactly what people are saying they don't want.  There should be a story here with positives and negatives to a choice.  Not Paragon selections being your "Win the game" button.

 
"Moral choice" and "reward" are 2 different things. You say it, yes, but from your post it looks like you still want a renegade options to be rewarded in the same way paragons are for the same cases! Which is nonsense!

As Medhia_Nox said - different deeds yield different rewards. "Chaotic stupid" just for the sake of adding "evil" option looks out of place to me. And here the game genre comes to play: if you are an appointed hero - named as one and expected to act as one, obviously, when you play according to the title and expectation you get better results. It's a package deal. 

 

When you are asking for more rewarding "evil" choices you are asking for a different genre. Something along the line of Saints Row, where a gang of bandits can be world saviors. Or a really more political-oriented game. Along the line with GoT - when saving wildlings is very practical yet the most unpopular decision one can make and you pay with your life for that. I would love to see something like that but would not want to be in developers shoes should someone decide to make it. Not sure BW is going that road again any time soon...

[dragonflight288]

I don't mind Paragon options having positive endings, but in many ways they are also incredibly idealistic. I think there should be a balance between which choices provide the best benefits.

 

For example, the Rachni Queen, killing her on Noveria, as the last queen, should have made it so we never face any Ravagers in single player because there are no Rachni to corrupt, and instead we could raid a Reaper-infested system with Grunt and his squad to pull some Krogan scouts out of a tight spot instead.

 

Or preserving the collector base actually providing a wealth of data and the war assets go up for that playthough just for that, but Cerberus also has tougher enemies to fight...or we take orders from TIM rather than Hackett. 

 

It shouldn't be that hard. Same quests more or less, different person giving orders. If we destroy the base, we get James in our squad and Hackett giving orders, if we saved it, we get Kai Leng in our party and TIM giving the orders.

 

That would be interesting. 

[BabyPuncher]

I don't mind Paragon options having positive endings, but in many ways they are also incredibly idealistic. I think there should be a balance between which choices provide the best benefits.

 

For example, the Rachni Queen, killing her on Noveria, as the last queen, should have made it so we never face any Ravagers in single player because there are no Rachni to corrupt, and instead we could raid a Reaper-infested system with Grunt and his squad to pull some Krogan scouts out of a tight spot instead.

 

Or preserving the collector base actually providing a wealth of data and the war assets go up for that playthough just for that, but Cerberus also has tougher enemies to fight...or we take orders from TIM rather than Hackett. 

 

Both the Rachni and Cerberus troops provide a carefully crafted gameplay niche. It's generally not a good idea to go screwing around with that.

[AlanC9]

"Good" decisions should, more often than not, require the player to sacrifice genuine personal (character) gain... for the sake of the gain of others (NPCs).
 
"Evil" decisions should, more often than not, allow the player to achieve greater personal (character) gain... while costing others (NPCs)

I don't have a conceptual problem with this, but it doesn't apply to a lot of decisions. What if personal gain isn't on the table?

[dragonflight288]

Both the Rachni and Cerberus troops provide a carefully crafted gameplay niche. It's generally not a good idea to go screwing around with that.

 

I know, but it just feels like a shame that past choices simply do not mean squat in the grand scheme of things, especially since Mass Effect was originally intended to be only a trilogy, and thus we were promised a WIDE variety of choices and resolutions based on past choices without an a, b or c ending because ME3 was supposed to be the last ME game. 

 

I know it probably would've taken a lot more work, but the cerberus troops could have been reskinned as alliance troops if Shepard officially joined Cerberus, but otherwise have the same skills and units, and the Rachni....good point but it seems silly if Shepard killed the last Rachni queen only to find out that another Queen was just around the corner for the Reapers to corrupt simply for the sake of gameplay.

 

It's just the fine-line between story-telling vs gameplay. I can deal with it, currently playing the trilogy again anyway because I love the games, but it doesn't stop me from pausing, thinking about how much better it could be if this or that happened, and then I write a fanfic about it. 

[AlanC9]

Both the Rachni and Cerberus troops provide a carefully crafted gameplay niche. It's generally not a good idea to go screwing around with that.

Right. This is one of those nice ideas that would burn a huge amount of zots to implement properly.

[AlanC9]

it's associated with a reputation check, not a paragon/ renegade decision. If you can't meet the check, Koris dies and you save the civilians no matter if you chose the paragon or renegade dialouge choice. Taking either persuasion option saves Koris and leaves the civilians to be killed by the geth.

Not saving Koris is objectively a bad decision because a large portion of the Civilian Fleet then tries to flee the conflict anyway and is killed by the geth, and you lose Koris's own small amount of war assets. Nevermind that it makes the ceasefire harder to achieve.

Yeah, I remember now. I guess that's why they don't make saving the crew a Paragon choice -- can't have Paragon choices leading to bad outcomes, right?

[Hazegurl]

Not in the slightest.

 

Pretty much every 'Renegade' execution in the game is based upon the 'hope and faith' that nobody important becomes enraged and decides to take action.

 

Not curing the krogan? That's 'hope and faith' that the krogan don't bother to check if the cure is actually working, and 'hope and faith' that none of the other races decide not to work with Shepard if he's willing to break his word.
 

Or perhaps all the 'hope and faith' that the Council Races are going to smile and bow down obidiently when humans try to claim that they're the new rulers of the Citadel instead of promptly evicting humans from Citadel participation and facilities with their far superior fleets.

 

Or when innocent people are left to die, it's 'hope and faith' that nobody actually cares very much. That people don't decide to abandon their duties or preform poorly when it's clear their lives aren't worth all that much.

 

All of these things invariably succeed, of course. The player never gets penalized for 'hope and faith.'

None of that is hope and faith.  You're just doing verbal gymnastics. 

 

Shepard gets away with a lot of crap period, it wouldn't be any fun if the PC spent every game sitting in prison. Somewhere both Paragon and Renegade Shep should be if not for a Reaper invasion. We're talking about about decision making based on the info we are given to make said choices.

 

You have faith that Wrex and Eve can keep the Krogan in line vs having a sure fire way to keep them in line

You have faith that the Geth won't betray you vs eliminating the Geth to ensure they will never turn.

You have faith that Falere will remain at the monastery vs knowing for a fact she will never escape because she's dead.

You have faith the Rachni Queen won't get captured and used against you a third time vs knowing she won't because you leave her to die.

 

You are right though, the game never penalizes you for using hope and faith as the core of your logic. Your faith is always well placed no matter the circumstances.

[Hazegurl]

 
"Moral choice" and "reward" are 2 different things. You say it, yes, but from your post it looks like you still want a renegade options to be rewarded in the same way paragons are for the same cases! Which is nonsense!

As Medhia_Nox said - different deeds yield different rewards. "Chaotic stupid" just for the sake of adding "evil" option looks out of place to me. And here the game genre comes to play: if you are an appointed hero - named as one and expected to act as one, obviously, when you play according to the title and expectation you get better results. It's a package deal. 

 

When you are asking for more rewarding "evil" choices you are asking for a different genre. Something along the line of Saints Row, where a gang of bandits can be world saviors. Or a really more political-oriented game. Along the line with GoT - when saving wildlings is very practical yet the most unpopular decision one can make and you pay with your life for that. I would love to see something like that but would not want to be in developers shoes should someone decide to make it. Not sure BW is going that road again any time soon...

No I don't. Read my posts again where I bring up multiple considerations for a choice that can lead to different possible rewards and consequences.  Unlike your extremely bias scenario in which a totally innocent perfect nation gives you allies and rep without losing anything in return.

 

I want Paragon actions to actually have consequences as well as Renegade choices.  Not have everything loaded for you to win based on spamming one option.

 

It seems to me that you simply want all the rewards for picking Paragon.  That's what's nonsense.  Blindly playing everyone's hero and expecting the situation to simply work out for...reasons is just as unrealistic as going on a murder spree.  It seems to me as though you simply think there should be no reward for renegade choices.

[In Exile]

I don't mind Paragon options having positive endings, but in many ways they are also incredibly idealistic. I think there should be a balance between which choices provide the best benefits.

For example, the Rachni Queen, killing her on Noveria, as the last queen, should have made it so we never face any Ravagers in single player because there are no Rachni to corrupt, and instead we could raid a Reaper-infested system with Grunt and his squad to pull some Krogan scouts out of a tight spot instead.

Or preserving the collector base actually providing a wealth of data and the war assets go up for that playthough just for that, but Cerberus also has tougher enemies to fight...or we take orders from TIM rather than Hackett.

It shouldn't be that hard. Same quests more or less, different person giving orders. If we destroy the base, we get James in our squad and Hackett giving orders, if we saved it, we get Kai Leng in our party and TIM giving the orders.

That would be interesting.

But the rachni choice is contrivance anyway. Why do they get indoctrinated instead of becoming a powerful force that saves billions of lives from genocide? It's all a take that to the player.

Same with the collector base. Saving it just as easily should lead to the Cerberus we get in ME3 with all the key scientists that would work on the Crucible getting indoctrinated.

The choices aren't meaningful moral choices. They're just overwrought and their consequence depends on what predetermined moral position the writers want to shill for at the time.

Consequences should be logical and foreshadowed. If you established the krogan as violence personified then make the consequence turn on their violence with all the good or ill that entails. The states shouldn't be good or bad but rather different.

[dragonflight288]

But the rachni choice is contrivance anyway. Why do they get indoctrinated instead of becoming a powerful force that saves billions of lives from genocide? It's all a take that to the player.

Same with the collector base. Saving it just as easily should lead to the Cerberus we get in ME3 with all the key scientists that would work on the Crucible getting indoctrinated.

The choices aren't meaningful moral choices. They're just overwrought and their consequence depends on what predetermined moral position the writers want to shill for at the time.

Consequences should be logical and foreshadowed. If you established the krogan as violence personified then make the consequence turn on their violence with all the good or ill that entails. The states shouldn't be good or bad but rather different.

 

Which is kind of what I was going for in what I said, you just said it better. 

[windsea]

Choices are hard to balance, most of the time either one is going to be more worth it then the other or they are equal and/or pointless and that just makes it about player's preferences, then there is the fact that choices can't effect the overall plot, that is why there were so many understudies in ME3 for when someone died, which limits them too.

[mickey111]

Just don't track the "morality" at all. Worked great for countless games from fallout, to torment to witcher. Morals are a lot like opinions, like what kind of food or music is good and bad. people aren't going to be like minded in moral choices any more than they are in food or music, therefore, don't assign a number to the decision and outcome. 

[NextGenCowboy]

I think it would be great if the easy path ("evil") rewarded you in the short term, while the hard path ("good") rewarded you in the long term. You could get some immediate benefits from treating people bad, but it might come back to haunt you later. You might struggle more if you try to be a good person, but it might benefit you at some point in the future.

 

This is exactly how I'd do it. In the short term you can get access to more XP, better guns, mods, etc. Whereas taking the high road gives you better results in the long run.

[mickey111]

This is exactly how I'd do it. In the short term you can get access to more XP, better guns, mods, etc. Whereas taking the high road gives you better results in the long run.

 

that would get rather predictable and gamey. best to mix it up a bit. I know I wasn't the only one caught off guard when bRoche just said yes to helping geralt out of the nothing but the kindness of his heart in witcher 3. In a story full of self interested users, that meant a lot. 

[Draining Dragon]

I liked the ME1 and 2 systems, where Paragon was, well, a paragon of virtue and the Renegade did what was necessary. In ME3, Renegade became blatantly evil to the point of comedy, and that was what really screwed the system up.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I disagree with this. Moral questions are intrinsic to life, and BioWare games in general have a hallmark of addressing moral imperatives anyway. This does not mean that they should divide up everything into Derpagon and Herpagade or some similar mess of a quasi-ethical decision system; they didn't do that in any of the Dragon Age games and still managed to discuss ethical issues and dilemmas.

Yes, but BioWare need not concern themselves with which options are "good" and which are "evil".  For interesting moral questions, reasonable people might disagree as to the moral value of one option versus another.  And I think BioWare has generally done a good job of this.

[mickey111]

They really need to cut it out though, they're turning morality into a game by adding these points trackers which I think has the effect of boiling the whole thing down to a simplistic choice of "which choice is more likely to make me the strongest". It kills immersion, morality, nuance, and the path that rewards the most kind of has the effect of rendering the alternatives as invalid. I'm not saying that they should try and reqard equally, quite the opposite, I just don't want to be informed of the fact with a message on the screen. Just let me guess based on the outcomes, how people react and so on.

[Daemul]

I liked the ME1 and 2 systems, where Paragon was, well, a paragon of virtue and the Renegade did what was necessary. In ME3, Renegade became blatantly evil to the point of comedy, and that was what really screwed the system up.

Lol what? There was nothing Renegade did in ME3 which was evil, unless you're one of those weirdos who thinks shooting Mordin when you're hand is forced, following Asari Command protocol by shooting Falere, and shooting Wrex in self defense is evil lol

You can't even be evil in this series to start with, the most you can be is an anti hero.

[Valkyrja]

I liked the ME1 and 2 systems, where Paragon was, well, a paragon of virtue and the Renegade did what was necessary. In ME3, Renegade became blatantly evil to the point of comedy, and that was what really screwed the system up.

 

Mass Effect 3 had the best Renegade.

 

Cutting out the bad attitude and petulance and going for a more realistic persona that is willing to make sacrifices but can still regret that it was necessary was a huge improvement.

 

ME3 was the game that got Renegade closest to what it should have been all along.

[Hazegurl]

I find it odd that people think ME3 was Shepard just being batshyt crazy.  In ME1 he was punching a reporter and pulling guns on anyone who looked at him wrong.  Almost every Renegade choice in ME3 had a reason and Shepard showed remorse for his actions. 

[In Exile]

This is exactly how I'd do it. In the short term you can get access to more XP, better guns, mods, etc. Whereas taking the high road gives you better results in the long run.

 

I don't see that being rewarding really - most people would sacrifice all of that for better plot outcomes. 

[AlanC9]

Well, there's nothing wrong with the PC engaging in a little petty theft or whatever, if the player wants; we had a little of this in ME2. The bigger problem is that this sort of balancing doesn't make any sense for most potential choices.

[BabyPuncher]

Players need to get over the idea that better outcomes need to be 'earned' in video games. That would go a considerable way to relieving this problem.

 

They're 'earned' by the protagonist. Never the player.

[In Exile]

Players need to get over the idea that better outcomes need to be 'earned' in video games. That would go a considerable way to relieving this problem.

 

They're 'earned' by the protagonist. Never the player.

 

That's nonsense. They're directly earned by the player. By definition:

 

earn

  (ûrn)

tr.v. earned, earn·ing, earns

1. To gain especially for the performance of service, labor, or work: earned money by mowing lawns.

2. To acquire or deserve as a result of effort or action: She earned a reputation as a hard worker.

3. To yield as return or profit: a savings account that earns interest on deposited funds.