311 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

Ah, i see one of my pet peeves has resurfaced... well, here we go again.

 

My observation is that the ME games present us with a consistent pattern of decisions and outcomes that follow the principle "Follow your heart and everything will be ok". I've called that a "feel-good morality", and I object to it because it's most emphatically not how the world works. it presents a fairy-tale world where "it makes me feel uncomfortable" always equals "wrong" and where this is an almost 100% certain indicator of the kind of outcomes you will get. It's childish, delusionary, and it can be, given that we tend to take something away from our favorite stories into the real life, outright damaging to people's perception of reality.

 

A plausible pattern of decisions and outcomes is one where the "comfortable" choice *sometimes* works, but not always. It is one where in order to get the highest benefit, we must *sometimes* do bad stuff, and where we have to decide, based on our own personal ideologies and the traits we ascribe to our characters,  if the outcome is worth what we have to do to get them. It is also a pattern where some problems are intractable and nothing will work to solve them, while others will peter away on their own with no intervention at all. There is, I repeat, for any decision where the benefit does not already lie in the decision itself, no necessary connection at all between a good action and a good outcome. To believe anything else is being delusional. I do not want my stories to promote delusional mindsets, and I want my stories to reflect a more plausible pattern.

 

I should add, that breaking the pattern in small decisions that affect basically no one will not work. There needs to be a realistic pattern especially in those big decisions that affect a large number of people, because those are the least likely to have a connection between a good action and a good outcome. That's because our morality has evolved for small personal interaction in a tribe-sized community, and will be more likely to lead us astray the bigger our decisions get. This is not an ad-hoc hypothesis, btw. There have been studies on the subject, and the results are unambiguous. When making political decisions, it is far more likely that a decision based exclusively on morality will lead into disaster, and that a decision based on expediency will have at least some benefit.

 

Meanwhile, Dragon Age - particularly in Origins - did this better. Bhelen as king is better for Orzammar in the long run, and saving the anvil gives you benefits in the war. Meanwhile, saving the Circles is clearly the better choice, and saving Connor is an example of where the good action almost implausibly works. That is ok, because it's "sometimes". Things sometimes are that way. Just like they are sometimes otherwise.

[Enigmatick]

See, if you had just said you found it boring, I would have respected that. But then you went and ran into trouble.

 

First of all, this is not about 'realism' at all. The people who are claiming it is are kidding themselves. Let's talk about 'realism.'

 

You're with you're two companions and you meet someone might be innocent, might be a criminal. He claims to be innocent, begs for his life, blah blah blah. You can execute him or spare him. Your noble companions tell you firmly you not to do it, insisting you can't take a person's life because he might be guilty. You decide to take the supposedly 'safe' option and execute him. That way you know he doesn't hurt anyone later on.

 

As soon as you do, your two companions immediately shout at you in enraged anger, draw their weapons, and step several feet back. They order you to drop yours. Drop your weapons they say, and they'll escort you to the authorities to be detained and interrogated and eventually tried.

 

You have an option to go for your own gun of course, but if you do you're immediately shot and killed. This is 'realism' after all, not a silly power fantasy where you can draw faster than two trained killers sighted down on you can twitch their trigger finger.

 

And so you put down your weapons, go with them, and the rest of the game is 'Sit-in-Jail-Simulator-5000.'

 

Now then, you'd think if this was really about 'realism,' this thread would be full of people advocating scenarios just that. But they aren't, are they? Funnily enough, every 'realistic' choice has pretty much everyone else being docile and obiedient to whatever acts of murder, genocide, torture, and so and on and so forth you commit. We can't have 'realism' getting in the way of our fantasy, can we now?

 

Is that what 'realism' looks like to you?

 

But secondly, even if all that wasn't true, it's entirely irrelevant because it's not what the issue is even about. Pretty much every action video game ever made has the protagonist cutting through hundreds of mooks. That's obviously abhorrantly 'unrealistic.' Hell, it's pretty much any fiction that involves any sort of combat, period. The protagonist surving against overwhelmingly odds is an absolute staple. Clearly, 'realism', if we consider 'realism' to be 'that which is most likely to occur were this situation to manifest in real life,' is not what fiction is concerned with.

Don't be pedantic, David. You know they meant believable instead of 'realistic'.

[Wulfram]

Don't be pedantic, David. You know they meant believable instead of 'realistic'.

I don't think the post would change if you replaced "realistic" with "believable"

[Majestic Jazz]

Ah, i see one of my pet peeves has resurfaced... well, here we go again.

My observation is that the ME games present us with a consistent pattern of decisions and outcomes that follow the principle "Follow your heart and everything will be ok". I've called that a "feel-good morality", and I object to it because it's most emphatically not how the world works. it presents a fairy-tale world where "it makes me feel uncomfortable" always equals "wrong" and where this is an almost 100% certain indicator of the kind of outcomes you will get. It's childish, delusionary, and it can be, given that we tend to take something away from our favorite stories into the real life, outright damaging to people's perception of reality.

A plausible pattern of decisions and outcomes is one where the "comfortable" choice *sometimes* works, but not always. It is one where in order to get the highest benefit, we must *sometimes* do bad stuff, and where we have to decide, based on our own personal ideologies and the traits we ascribe to our characters, if the outcome is worth what we have to do to get them. It is also a pattern where some problems are intractable and nothing will work to solve them, while others will peter away on their own with no intervention at all. There is, I repeat, for any decision where the benefit does not already lie in the decision itself, no necessary connection at all between a good action and a good outcome. To believe anything else is being delusional. I do not want my stories to promote delusional mindsets, and I want my stories to reflect a more plausible pattern.

I should add, that breaking the pattern in small decisions that affect basically no one will not work. There needs to be a realistic pattern especially in those big decisions that affect a large number of people, because those are the least likely to have a connection between a good action and a good outcome. That's because our morality has evolved for small personal interaction in a tribe-sized community, and will be more likely to lead us astray the bigger our decisions get. This is not an ad-hoc hypothesis, btw. There have been studies on the subject, and the results are unambiguous. When making political decisions, it is far more likely that a decision based exclusively on morality will lead into disaster, and that a decision based on expediency will have at least some benefit.

Meanwhile, Dragon Age - particularly in Origins - did this better. Bhelen as king is better for Orzammar in the long run, and saving the anvil gives you benefits in the war. Meanwhile, saving the Circles is clearly the better choice, and saving Connor is an example of where the good action almost implausibly works. That is ok, because it's "sometimes". Things sometimes are that way. Just like they are sometimes otherwise.

Very well said but I doubt Bioware will go that route in ME4.

Instead expect renegade decisions to result in bad outcomes and cut you off from content while paragon choices leads to better outcomes and adds content.

It is just how Bioware does things. I hate to bring up TW3 but CDPR does a better job at this where a seemingly good choice actually led to a bad outcome or a seemingly bad choice led to a good outcome.

Bioware like you said, seems to favor the good/paragon decisions while leaving the renegade choices for comic relief and shock moments rather than a compelling way to give a perspective and tell a story.

[PhroXenGold]

Well, Dragon Age: Origins managed to do this right. 

"Evil" choices gave you usually more benefits - keeping the Anvil gave you powerful golems in final battle, slaughtering the Dalish gave you stronger warewolves. Smuggling and being a criminal, threatening and stealing gave you more gold.

But it generally led to world becoming a worse place. 

 

While this is technically true, the difference between the various allies avaiable to you in the finale is pretty trivial - none of them are remotely neccesary to beat the enemies - and more importantly, there's never any incidents of your choice to do things the "good" way backfiring on you and turning out far worse than had you taken the "evil" choice. If you do the "good" thing, everything works out OK in the end.

 

For example, what if taking the Templar path in the Circle quest had been the right one? What if the surviving mages had been possesed? And by letting them go, you unleash further demons into the world? What if trying to save Connor by going to the mage tower and getting lyrium resulted in the demon possesing him breaking free again in your absence, thus forcing you to take his life and causing far more damage than had you just killed him in the first place? I woudln't want all of the quests to go bad should you chose the "good" option, but I think the game would've been much more interesting if every now and then your choices could backfire on you like this.

 

That is really what I'm looking for - not just a matter of getting a little more resources or slightly stronger allies by chosing the "renegade" path, but there actually being negative consequences to taking the "paragon" path. I want the possibilty of my decisions completely blowing up in my face and making things far worse despite my good intentions. And of course, I want times where picking the renegade path has consequences like this. Hell, your decisions should be more meaningful in game (as opposed to merely altering the epilogue) than they are in general, but that's another story.

[Mummy22kids]

 What if trying to save Connor by going to the mage tower and getting lyrium resulted in the demon possesing him breaking free again in your absence, thus forcing you to take his life and causing far more damage than had you just killed him in the first place? I woudln't want all of the quests to go bad should you chose the "good" option, but I think the game would've been much more interesting if every now and then your choices could backfire on you like this.

Actually the first time I played this is exactly what I thought would happen so I sacrificed Isolde.

[Hazegurl]

Yeah it was disappointing that you could leave Connor for what seems like weeks at a time to travel to the mage tower, do there quest (if you haven't), give the mages time to prepare and travel to the castle and Connor is a just a nice well behaved little possessed kid until you get back.  smh.

 

I opt the kill the kid anyway.  If BW won't put any weight on my choices I will.

[Sartoz]

Ah, i see one of my pet peeves has resurfaced... well, here we go again.

 

My observation is that the ME games present us with a consistent pattern of decisions and outcomes that follow the principle "Follow your heart and everything will be ok". I've called that a "feel-good morality", and I object to it because it's most emphatically not how the world works.

 

Snip

 

A plausible pattern of decisions and outcomes is one where the "comfortable" choice *sometimes* works, but not always. It is one where in order to get the highest benefit, we must *sometimes* do bad stuff, 

 

Snip

 

I should add, that breaking the pattern in small decisions that affect basically no one will not work.

 

Snip

 

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

 

I understand where you are coming from.

 

It would be an awesome game if the choices placed upon the player is white, black, some morally grey and some hard decisions where lives are at stake. That is a decision that sacrifices lives now but save many, many more down the road. Or, little choices that can bite a huge chunk of our butts later in the story. All of the above is good, provided the game somehow tells us where we went right/wrong. A branching storyline that leads us along a maze of choices with no clue that back then going left was the better choice is the same as a game with no choices at all.

 

Design MEA where some of your squad mate(s) will die or need to be sacrificed, for the greater good down the road.

 

MEA will be an actionesque-RPGesque type game and not a simulation of reality. As such, the game designed will be stripped down to its bare essentials, in order to focus on what it does best. That is to lead us down the fantasy funnel where choices are limited and simplistic and the action is intense and the romance is all puffed up wang-bam, thank you maam type, as I experienced with Cassandra. 

 

Unfortunately, this won't happen. EA wants the casual gamer to pick up a controller and just play with cerebral decisions to be avoided and romance that must be a walk -in-the-park experience.

[AlanC9]

It would be an awesome game if the choices placed upon the player is white, black, some morally grey and some hard decisions where lives are at stake. That is a decision that sacrifices lives now but save many, many more down the road. Or, little choices that can bite a huge chunk of our butts later in the story. All of the above is good, provided the game somehow tells us where we went right/wrong. A branching storyline that leads us along a maze of choices with no clue that back then going left was the better choice is the same as a game with no choices at all.

Are you thinking of anything in particular with that last bit?

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I don't think players should be penalized for being nice. 

[AlanC9]

Even in situations where being nice is risky? Or stupid?

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Even in situations where being nice is risky? Or stupid?

Even then. 

[Majestic Jazz]

I don't think players should be penalized for being nice. 

 

But in real life people are penalized for being nice/taking the good route. What people are asking for is choices that are more realistic and mysterious instead of good choices = best outcome and renegade choice = worse outcome. 

 

Cesear in Rise of the Planet of the Apes took the "paragon" choice in allowing the humans to pass through. Had he taken the renegade option, Koba would have never been compelled to do what he did. Thus, Cesear being nice blew up in his face.

 

I want options like this in a Bioware game but we never get it.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

But in real life people are penalized for being nice/taking the good route. What people are asking for is choices that are more realistic and mysterious instead of good choices = best outcome and renegade choice = worse outcome. 

 

Cesear in Rise of the Planet of the Apes took the "paragon" choice in allowing the humans to pass through. Had he taken the renegade option, Koba would have never been compelled to do what he did. Thus, Cesear being nice blew up in his face.

 

I want options like this in a Bioware game but we never get it.

Exactly. We already have to deal with people being nice being penalized in real life. I'd rather not have that in video games as well. 

 

Good people should be rewarded, bad people should be punished. 

[FKA_Servo]

But in real life people are penalized for being nice/taking the good route. What people are asking for is choices that are more realistic and mysterious instead of good choices = best outcome and renegade choice = worse outcome. 

 

Cesear in Rise of the Planet of the Apes took the "paragon" choice in allowing the humans to pass through. Had he taken the renegade option, Koba would have never been compelled to do what he did. Thus, Cesear being nice blew up in his face.

 

I want options like this in a Bioware game but we never get it.

 

Aren't you in another thread right now arguing about how realism is unnecessary?

 

Like I said, I just don't want a big puddle of morally ambiguous "grey" bullshit to take everything over. It has it's place, and I enjoy unexpected consequences as much as the next guy. But I also appreciate the ability to occasionally play a good, idealistic, and uncompromising character and still come out on top (truth be told, ME is just about the only setting where this specifically appeals to me, but c'est la vie).

 

Honestly, the biggest change I'd make to the Paragade system would just be to remove the checks that punish you for ever stepping out of character. It could do with an overhaul, but I would hope that it doesn't remove the ability to be a true "paragon" - I like that a lot. There's plenty of moral ambiguity everywhere, including Dragon Age.

[Steelcan]

Exactly. We already have to deal with people being nice being penalized in real life. I'd rather not have that in video games as well. 

 

Good people should be rewarded, bad people should be punished. 

ME did enough of the "paragon is right and renegade is wrong"

[FKA_Servo]

ME did enough of the "paragon is right and renegade is wrong"

 

I kinda like that being Mass Effect's "thing" though.

 

Renegade could be messed about with a little bit, that's true. Otherwise, my thoughts are above.

[Majestic Jazz]

Exactly. We already have to deal with people being nice being penalized in real life. I'd rather not have that in video games as well. 

 

Good people should be rewarded, bad people should be punished. 

 

But being renegade in Mass Effect is not being "bad". Brutal and to the point yes, but not bad as in KOTOR Darkside bad.

 

At the end of the day, Shepard could be 100% renegade but he/she was STILL the hero. 

[Steelcan]

But being renegade in Mass Effect is not being "bad". Brutal and to the point yes, but not bad as in KOTOR Darkside bad.

 

At the end of the day, Shepard could be 100% renegade but he/she was STILL the hero. 

and the entire time its being beaten into your head that the ideas behind renegade characters are wrong

[Daemul]

Exactly. We already have to deal with people being nice being penalized in real life. I'd rather not have that in video games as well. 

 

Good people should be rewarded, bad people should be punished. 

 

That's self delusion though. 

[Majestic Jazz]

and the entire time its being beaten into your head that the ideas behind renegade characters are wrong

 

By who? Maybe Bioware wants us to believe so but when I did my first renegade playthrough back in ME1, I never saw her as a bad person. Just someone who wanted to save the galaxy but didn't have time to put up with all the BS and kiss butt politics that goes along with it, so she just did it her way and was successful. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

ME did enough of the "paragon is right and renegade is wrong"

And I'd rather they keep doing it rather than continue with the "Dark/edgy/morally grey is cool!" mindset. 

 

But being renegade in Mass Effect is not being "bad". Brutal and to the point yes, but not bad as in KOTOR Darkside bad.

 

At the end of the day, Shepard could be 100% renegade but he/she was STILL the hero. 

Renegade is bad. Dark side is evil. Comparing a bad thing to a worse thing doesn't make the bad thing less bad. 

 

That's self delusion though. 

So? 

[themikefest]

I've done a renegade playthrough with everyone alive that can be alive or at least most everyone, and I did a paragon playthrough with everyone that can be dead are dead. Its what the player chooses to do for that playthrough.

 

As I've mentioned a few times, I would like to see a lot more renegade interrupts or at least more get in the character's face and use harsh dialogue.

 

Even though Shepard can be a renegade in ME3, I felt it wasn't ruthless enough. 

 

One of the best choices that was evil or if you want to call it evil, is killing Falere. Excellent. More choices like that would be fine with me.

[Steelcan]

And I'd rather they keep doing it rather than continue with the "Dark/edgy/morally grey is cool!" mindset. 

ME is hardly dark and edgy, ME3 might as well be an M rated after school special

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

ME:A needs to be darker than atleast DA:I. That game had as much grit and darkness to it as a Disney theme park ride.