185 réponses à ce sujet

[Laughing_Man]

Zaeed follows Paragon Shep to save the civvies like a scolded dog. I'd argue this is one of the most egregious examples, since you are actually telling Zaeed what's going to happen, and despite it being the opposite of what he wants (and him literally just declaring "this is my mission") he falls in line and does it anyway. That you can even make him forget that he's mad at you for wasting 20 years of work at the end of the mission (via bluespeech) makes it even worse. Singleminded guy like him should have simply told you to get bent and go save the workers yourself, then gone after Vido without you, but instead he gets a bad case of character derailment because "muh choices" or whatever.

 

It would have been interesting to see him go after Vido on his own, then you had to convince him as a paragon that he still needs you...

 

In this case a "why not both" option would make sense, Zaeed has his revenge, and blue!Shep gets to save civies.

 

Choices are good, but they are not mutually exclusive with basic respect to the integrity of the characters.

[KaiserShep]

This is Aria we're speaking about, have you read the books? The woman oozes revenge out of every pore. Given what happened in the comics; how Oleg STOLE OMEGA I highly doubt she'd show Oleg any type of forgiveness. This is Aria, not a simpleton like Conrad, Shepard's words should have meant nothing to her. Have you played ME2? Number one rule of Omega is:

I don't interpret the Oleg lives outcome as Aria giving him forgiveness. She is letting him live strictly because she's instead giving Shepard an asset to use.

[Hazegurl]

Eh, that sounds cool by me but in reaility I'd bet 100$ that everyone would just whine about how stupid it is that our choices don't matter. And how Bioware dropped the ball but taking away player agency.

True, but that is only if the player is given no options to counter the npc.  Such as the Vivienne disapproval scene in DAI.  It's no fun standing around like an idiot so the npc can look like some sort of badass.  But if they allow the player to give as good as they're getting then it would be a pretty good concept.

[Lady Artifice]

Aria sparing Petrovski in a Paragon playthrough isn't about her forgiving him, it's about her foregoing her immediate satisfaction to offer Shepard something valuable in the fight against Cerberus. 

 

Cerberus at that point is a danger to the entire galaxy, considering who they're helping. Her being more practical about fighting that isn't a sign of her becoming a bleeding heart. She's just thinking long term. 

[Seboist]

Zaeed follows Paragon Shep to save the civvies like a scolded dog. I'd argue this is one of the most egregious examples, since you are actually telling Zaeed what's going to happen, and despite it being the opposite of what he wants (and him literally just declaring "this is my mission") he falls in line and does it anyway. That you can even make him forget that he's mad at you for wasting 20 years of work at the end of the mission (via bluespeech) makes it even worse. Singleminded guy like him should have simply told you to get bent and go save the workers yourself, then gone after Vido without you, but instead he gets a bad case of character derailment because "muh choices" or whatever.

You left out arguably the most atrocious bit of character assassination, Paragon Shepard makes him relive the traumatic event that started all this by shoving a gun in his face when he's being held down by debris, and despite that, goes on to serve parashep like a whipped little pup. Smh.

[Anacronian Stryx]

In any case, I do think that it is about time that Bioware moved out of the 1990's with the writing of their companion characters - as it is now you can hardly call them companions and more like a mobile player character fan club.

[Gothfather]

To all the people raging against Bioware games for not letting them do what they want to companions...

 

People Mass effect, Dragon age, and Kotor all these games where NEVER about giving the player total agency to do Whatever they wanted. Sorry but that just wasn't the mandate of these 7 games. They entire purpose was to give the player LIMITED agency to tell a specific story that the DEVELOPERS wanted to tell. This includes agency over how you treat your companions. Your ability to "role-play" has zero impact on this, actors have near zero agency with the character they portray because they must surrender almost all of their agency to serve the story, yet acting is nothing but role-playing. So agency does zero to curb or stop role-playing.

 

Just as an actor is responsible to 'role-play' the character they are portraying within the confines of the story so too are you responsible for making a character that fits within the confines of the game. If you don't want to do that then suffer the consequences of ALWAYS running into a wall where the game say nope can't do that. Just like a director would say nope you can't turn Macbeth into a 100% loyal knight to the king.

 

"Wah wah wah But I want to make MY character loyal to the king. You are a terrible writer Shakespeare you are ruining my roleplaying moments you are a hack."

 

"Yay  Yay you're fired bring me someone willing to act within the limits of the play please."

 

I can understand why some people will not like these limits but those limits exist so either you be an adult and accept them or don't buy the fraking game. If you must have agency in all things then don't play a crpg because agency is more limited or play games that are designed to give you more agency. They are plenty of RPGs being made go play those games. Stop trying to convince Bioware to do a complete 180 from the direction they have been moving towards for 20 years now. It is the equivalent of pissing into the wind and complaining of getting wet.

[Sylvius the Mad]

To all the people raging against Bioware games for not letting them do what they want to companions...

People Mass effect, Dragon age, and Kotor all these games where NEVER about giving the player total agency to do Whatever they wanted. Sorry but that just wasn't the mandate of these 7 games. They entire purpose was to give the player LIMITED agency to tell a specific story that the DEVELOPERS wanted to tell. This includes agency over how you treat your companions. Your ability to "role-play" has zero impact on this, actors have near zero agency with the character they portray because they must surrender almost all of their agency to serve the story, yet acting is nothing but role-playing. So agency does zero to curb or stop role-playing.

Just as an actor is responsible to 'role-play' the character they are portraying within the confines of the story so too are you responsible for making a character that fits within the confines of the game. If you don't want to do that then suffer the consequences of ALWAYS running into a wall where the game say nope can't do that. Just like a director would say nope you can't turn Macbeth into a 100% loyal knight to the king.

"Wah wah wah But I want to make MY character loyal to the king. You are a terrible writer Shakespeare you are ruining my roleplaying moments you are a hack."

"Yay Yay you're fired bring me someone willing to act within the limits of the play please."

I can understand why some people will not like these limits but those limits exist so either you be an adult and either accept them or don't buy the fraking game. If you must have agency in all things then don't play a crpg because agency is more limited or play games that are designed to give you more agency. They are plenty of RPGs being made go play those games. Stop trying to convince Bioware to do a complete 180 from the direction they have been moving towards for 20 years now. It is the equivalent of pissing into the wind and complaining of getting wet.

Acting bears no resemblance to roleplaying. Actors don't make any decisions for their characters, but that's what roleplaying is. Roleplaying is about inhabiting your character, perceoving the world from your character's perspective, and making decisions from within that perspective.

That is nothing at all like acting. Method acting might do part of that (the inhabiting the character bit), but roleplaying requires aspects which actors never get to do (except arguably in improvisational performances).

If we're not able to make decisions from an in-character perspective, then then we're not able to roleplay.

[Master Warder Z_]

snip 

 

You do sure repeated yourself daily ya know?

[Steelcan]

In any case, I do think that it is about time that Bioware moved out of the 1990's with the writing of their companion characters - as it is now you can hardly call them companions and more like a mobile player character fan club.

I think this is BioWare simply reacting to what they perceive most of their fanbase as wanting

[Iakus]

I think this is BioWare simply reacting to what they perceive most of their fanbase as wanting

Judging by the forums players only seem to want two things from their companions.

 

To kill them

or

To have sex with them.

 

Possibly both in some cases.

[Steelcan]

Judging by the forums players only seem to want two things from their companions.

 

To kill them

or

To have sex with them.

 

Possibly both in some cases.

even given BioWare's clear lack of interest in these forums anymore, I'd say that's the reaction they get from other social media outlets and conventions

[MrFob]

It's kinda funny because for years and years (and even today) we mostly played video games in which the protagonist does what NPCs tell them to do (Spec Ops: The Line deconstructs this paradigm very well btw).

 

BW (and a few other studios) tried to break out of this situation by giving the player the decision directly. Now, people are basically asking to go back to the old ways.

 

Interestingly, when exactly this happens in ME3 and companions from ME2 tell you that they will not join you, no matter what you say, it's bad yet again.

It seems they can't get it right no matter what they do.

That said, I do agree that companions with their own personalities are a good thing. I think the right mix of influence and own motives would be great. I wouldn't mind one instance of a scenario like the OP describes if only to make it clear that these NPCs are supposed to be characters, not game mechanics. But it definitely shouldn't be overdone or it will make the dialogue options seem pointless.

[Puddi III]

Then people will complain that choices in the game don't matter.

[Quarian Master Race]

You left out arguably the most atrocious bit of character assassination, Paragon Shepard makes him relive the traumatic event that started all this by shoving a gun in his face when he's being held down by debris, and despite that, goes on to serve parashep like a whipped little pup. Smh.

I had completely forgotten about that because I've never again taken it after my solitary Paragon playthrough. Yet more atrociously sadistic, reprehensible behavior to add to Parashep's Cc, along with supporting an institutionally racist Council oligarchy, destroying useful research data on Collector/Reaper technology out of spite, supporting a megalomaniacal dictator's rule and enabling his violent species of predators to expand and swallow other sentient life/biodiversity, using an army of military robots to commit xenonationalist/racist genocide, and unilaterally imposing transhumanist eugenics on every lifeform in the Milky Way galaxy against their will.

[CronoDragoon]

Judging by the forums players only seem to want two things from their companions.
 
To kill them
or
To have sex with them.
 
Possibly both in some cases.

And in no particular order.

[wright1978]

It's kinda funny because for years and years (and even today) we mostly played video games in which the protagonist does what NPCs tell them to do (Spec Ops: The Line deconstructs this paradigm very well btw).
 
BW (and a few other studios) tried to break out of this situation by giving the player the decision directly. Now, people are basically asking to go back to the old ways.
 
Interestingly, when exactly this happens in ME3 and companions from ME2 tell you that they will not join you, no matter what you say, it's bad yet again.
It seems they can't get it right no matter what they do.
That said, I do agree that companions with their own personalities are a good thing. I think the right mix of influence and own motives would be great. I wouldn't mind one instance of a scenario like the OP describes if only to make it clear that these NPCs are supposed to be characters, not game mechanics. But it definitely shouldn't be overdone or it will make the dialogue options seem pointless.

Agree if there's a companion for who making such a scenario makes(similar to zaeed) then yeah but for the most part I don't want dialogue options to be made pointless or remove the notion of protagonist having an influence.

[Mdizzletr0n]

Then people will complain that choices in the game don't matter.

Did they really ever matter though? Lol

[Yaroub]

Judging by the forums players only seem to want two things from their companions.

 

To kill them

or

To have sex with them.

 

Possibly both in some cases.

 

That's what Gaider used to say.

[Seboist]

Did they really ever matter though? Lol

I need one playthrough of ME3 with my import and another one without it, and i can say...... nope.

[Hair Serious Business]

 I would love the option of companions having free will, especially during their own missions. I'm sick and tired of playing mommy to a bunch of adult children. However, it would be nice if my character isn't standing around like some doormat either. If I give an order and it's disobeyed I would also like the option to not be cool with it and toss them from the group or punish them. Choices should have consequences for the companion too.

 

As I mentioned Geralt/Ciri fine example.

 

Geralt's choices do affect her and depending on them she makes a choice. Very simple thing in here as well. Our choices will affect our companions of course, but at final point in where they chose who to be they chose their own way.

[Hair Serious Business]

That kind of sass would get them thrown out the airlock.

Airlocking Things In Here 

[Andrew Lucas]

Judging by the forums players only seem to want two things from their companions.
 
To kill them
or
To have sex with them.
 
Possibly both in some cases.

So true, Iakus, so true.

[Midnight Bliss]

Then people will complain that choices in the game don't matter.

Whining, contrarianism and never being happy with anything is the thing to do nowdays.

[Gothfather]

Acting bears no resemblance to roleplaying. Actors don't make any decisions for their characters, but that's what roleplaying is. Roleplaying is about inhabiting your character, perceoving the world from your character's perspective, and making decisions from within that perspective.

That is nothing at all like acting. Method acting might do part of that (the inhabiting the character bit), but roleplaying requires aspects which actors never get to do (except arguably in improvisational performances).

If we're not able to make decisions from an in-character perspective, then then we're not able to roleplay.

Totally false.

 

Every hear an actor asked the question "what did you bring to the character?"

 

That is them making decision of who or what or why their character is as they are and role playing. To say actors have zero agency is to lie they have the most limited form of agency but then again when it comes to role playing you think anything that doesn't emulate a pen and paper game isn't role playing. Yet role playing isn't about rules. It is about taking on a different role than yourself and those roles can be imposed on by other people.

 

Often times couples role-play in bed and one person has a fantasy so they "impose" a role on their partner to role-play to fill their fantasy.

 

I know I know that doesn't count. Because in your imaginary world you have defined role-playing is such a manner that no DICTIONARY definition even comes close.

 

Hell every definition of role-play I know almost always used the word act as in act out a role. yet somehow acting isn't roleplaying.