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[Revan Reborn]

Get a room, you two.

As long as you are buying!!!

[Onewomanarmy]

Yeah are you Bigot?

[wright1978]

I quite liked the N7 javelin missile mission in ME2, where you could either save the spaceport(preserving the viability of the colony) or the civilians.

I'd be all for there to be a smattering of these sort of choces.

[Scarlett]

Yes and No.

 

Well, yes because it's interesting but no if it's like Dragon Age. I HATE when I have to pick a side especially when both sides suck. Like to csupport templars or mages on DA2. Really I was crazy. I didn't want to pick something, but I was obliged by the game to do it.

 

In the contrary, I like very much the case of the Geth and Quarians on ME3 => you can do conciliation. And save them both depending of your previous choices on ME2&3. So it's not easy to have the peace but you can have it. This is a good 3rd option, as a player, I don't fell totally useless and forced to side with something I don't like or believe in.

[Revan Reborn]

Yeah are you Bigot?

If you had just put on the show from the start bigot wouldn't be so interested in getting us a room!!!

 

I quite liked the N7 javelin missile mission in ME2, where you could either save the spaceport(preserving the viability of the colony) or the civilians.

I'd be all for there to be a smattering of these sort of choces.

I completely forgot about that one. Yeah, it's true some of these moral dilemmas were in the form of random side missions you could complete in the game. Definitely, I think the problem is these kinds of choices were just too few and far between in the ME trilogy.

 

Yes and No.

 

Well, yes because it's interesting but no if it's like Dragon Age. I HATE when I have to pick a side especially when both sides suck. Like to csupport templars or mages on DA2. Really I was crazy. I didn't want to pick something, but I was obliged by the game to do it.

 

In the contrary, I like very much the case of the Geth and Quarians on ME3 => you can do conciliation. And save them both depending of your previous choices on ME2&3. So it's not easy to have the peace but you can have it. This is a good 3rd option, as a player, I don't fell totally useless and forced to side with something I don't like or believe in.

I actually wasn't thinking about that at all. I suppose picking factions/alliances could be a moral dilemma, but I was thinking about issues similar to the rachni queen dilemma in ME1. Let the queen go and risk starting another galactic war? Or kill her, wiping out an entire species, for the greater good?

 

I think having a reconciliation of sorts is fair, but I think it should be challenging to achieve. I also believe both sides shouldn't necessarily get all that they want, because that isn't realistic. Generally, there are going to be compromises and both sides will have to live with what they are able to get.

 

I like how the geth and the quarian conflict was resolved, but it was a bit of a fairy tale happy ending. Then again, Legion does die, so that at least made some impact in your choices.

[Scarlett]

If you had just put on the show from the start bigot wouldn't be so interested in getting us a room!!!

 

I completely forgot about that one. Yeah, it's true some of these moral dilemmas were in the form of random side missions you could complete in the game. Definitely, I think the problem is these kinds of choices were just too few and far between in the ME trilogy.

 

I actually wasn't thinking about that at all. I suppose picking factions/alliances could be a moral dilemma, but I was thinking about issues similar to the rachni queen dilemma in ME1. Let the queen go and risk starting another galactic war? Or kill her, wiping out an entire species, for the greater good?

 

I think having a reconciliation of sorts is fair, but I think it should be challenging to achieve. I also believe both sides shouldn't necessarily get all that they want, because that isn't realistic. Generally, there are going to be compromises and both sides will have to live with what they are able to get.

 

I like how the geth and the quarian conflict was resolved, but it was a bit of a fairy tale happy ending. Then again, Legion does die, so that at least made some impact in your choices.

For a weird reason, the rachni case was never a big moral dilemma to me, I let them live each time I play (even if it could have been a very bad decision, yes).

 

Also, I agree, I don't mind if it's very hard to make conciliation as long as you can actually do it (really you should have seen me yelling at Meredith and Orsino during DA2 because I was forced to pick a side... that was priceless ). After all I did for quarians and geth during the trilogy, I was really glad to have that 3rd option, I hate when I try so hard to fix something and the game just tells me "noooo.... you can't., even if you try harder, you still can't... too bad éh? *evil laugh* "

To me this war and how I dealed with it was a serious moral dilemma, even if Legion dies whatever you decide. At least he dies for peace, not for war.

 

about realism... well, I agree it's important but I play to have fun and I like when my character have a positive influence when bad stuff happen even if IRL it would be different. I don't play to be a spectactor and to pick choices that don't look like me. So I will always give priority to my pleasure as a gamer ... honestly, about reality, just watch the news and cry... I wish I could use conciliation IRL and stop people from killing each others I'm sick of all that madness on Earth, so if I have the option to fix things on a game, I will happily take it, realistic or not.

[Revan Reborn]

For a weird reason, the rachni case was never a big moral dilemma to me, I let them live each time I play (even if it could have been a very bad decision, yes).

 

Also, I agree, I don't mind if it's very hard to make conciliation as long as you can actually do it (really you should have seen me yelling at Meredith and Orsino during DA2 because I was forced to pick a side... that was priceless ). After all I did for quarians and geth during the trilogy, I was really glad to have that 3rd option, I hate when I try so hard to fix something and the game just tells me "noooo.... you can't., even if you try harder, you still can't... too bad éh? *evil laugh* "

To me this war and how I dealed with it was a serious moral dilemma, even if Legion dies whatever you decide. At least he dies for peace, not for war.

 

about realism... well, I agree it's important but I play to have fun and I like when my character have a positive influence when bad stuff happen even if IRL it would be different. I don't play to be a spectactor and to pick choices that don't look like me. So I will always give priority to my pleasure as a gamer ... honestly, about reality, just watch the news and cry... I wish I could use conciliation IRL and stop people from killing each others I'm sick of all that madness on Earth, so if I have the option to fix things on a game, I will happily take it, realistic or not.

I think part of the issue of BioWare's presentation. Since it was the first ME game and we just literally found out about the rachni, the implications of the queen escaping were never really that alarming. Had it been a dilemma in ME2 or ME3, perhaps feelings towards it would have been different.

 

I was all over Orsino. I couldn't stand Meredith. Sorry. That lady rubbed me the wrong way lol. Not that I think templars are "evil," but she had to go one way or another. I do agree it's nice to get that desired ending. I just don't think it should be necessarily something we expect. In my opinion, those kind of endings are far more appreciated when you don't expect them.

 

Oh, I don't mean anything super, seriously depressing lol. I just meant that, yeah, things can work out. I just don't believe it should be too over the top where it's kind of just silly or ridiculous. I certainly like when miracles happen and I think BioWare should continue to allow us to solve the impossible here and there. However, some of those resolutions shouldn't necessarily be immediate either, in my opinion.

 

If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Eventually, things will work out and I think that could be a potential approach for the game to take for some hard decisions that shouldn't necessarily be resolved so quickly. The geth and quarian conflict, of course, took three games to resolve.

[ThomasBlaine]

I disagree that the moral dilemmas in the original trilogy are entirely black and white, one of the things I enjoy most about the games is being able to actually justify renegade actions - though not always renegade dialogue - as the smart and sensible options while looking at the Paragon options as really optimistic and risky, and thus mix them up depending on exactly how desperate a situation is and how drastic the options are.

 

If anything that makes them grey and white, and in that sense I'd very much like it if Paragon choices in Andromeda also had the negative consequences you'd expect of making sentimental decisions in a crisis and refusing to get your hands dirty, as it seems like the universe is constantly rewarding Shepard for doing 'the right thing' even when that involves putting his/her own honor before the billions who depend on him/her to save them by any means necessary.

 

There are consequences like that, but they're tiny and almost unnoticeable to avoid making Paragon players feel bad about their decisions. There's always just time enough to do everything and save everyone, trusting despicable people never really backfires and everybody is suspiciously easily convinced of their moral failures as soon as you start preaching, never actually requiring you to take drastic action for the greater good. And meanwhile, Renegade players are ruthlessly criticized and get their more pragmatic and cautious choices thrown in their faces even when those decisions make perfect sense from a realistic standpoint.

 

As a person who likes to play Paragade Shepards who expect real consequences to come from their actions no matter what, I'd like more substantial consequences for insisting on doing the most obviously moral thing to encourage players to actually consider the decisions instead of basically letting the karma system do the thinking for them.

 

It'd also be nice if maybe there were more more tactical dilemmas that had nothing to do with morality but rather were about approaching things on a practical level, weighing pros and cons. The push forward or risk taking a detour choice at the start of Inquisition and the how-do-you-want-your-agents-to-handle-this map thing seemed promising like that, even if the implementation was a disappointment.

[Original Mako]

^ But if you could "eventually" get the unicorns-and-rainbows outcome every time, where is the moral dilemma?

 

Edit: oops, this was suppose to come after Raven Reborn's post.

[Revan Reborn]

I disagree that the moral dilemmas in the original trilogy are entirely black and white, one of the things I enjoy most about the games is being able to actually justify renegade actions - though not always renegade dialogue - as the smart and sensible options while looking at the Paragon options as really optimistic and risky if honorable, and thus mix them up depending on exactly how desperate a situation is and how drastic the options are.

 

If anything that makes them grey and white, and in that sense I'd very much like it if Paragon choices in Andromeda also had the negative consequences you'd expect of making sentimental decisions in a crisis and refusing to get your hands dirty, as it seems like the universe is constantly rewarding Shepard for doing "the right thing" even when that involves putting his/her own honor before the billions who depend on him/her to save them by any means necessary.

 

There are consequences like that, but they're tiny and almost unnoticeable to avoid making Paragon players feel bad about their decisions, while Renegade players are ruthlessly criticized and get their more pragmatic and cautious choices thrown in their faces. As a person who likes to play Paragade Shepards who expect real consequences to come from their actions no matter what, I'd like a little more grey in the white to encourage players to actually consider the decisions instead of basically letting karma do the thinking for them.

 

It'd also be nice if maybe there were more more tactical dilemmas that had nothing to do with morality but rather was about approaching things on a practical level, weighing pros and cons. The push forward or risk taking a detour choice at the start of Inquisition and the how-will-you-handle-this-mission map thing seemed promising like that, even if the implementation was a disappointment.

Honestly, my solution would just be to throw out paragon/renegade and have shades of gray for options. This is more or less what DAI did and it worked fairly well. I think the extremes for ME are too much and often the results are just as ridiculous leading to unrealistic outcomes. The morality bar is just a feature that was brought over from KotOR, which made sense in that game, but it undermines the complexity of decisions in Mass Effect.

 

I didn't really consider the "stealth approach" or "charge approach" to really be tactical dilemmas. It was more of a gameplay decision of what kind of experience you wanted to proceed with. It was alright, but ultimately neither choice really had that much of a difference in the end. A tactical dilemma would be helping companion A to repel an enemy force, but leaving companion B vulnerable to attack and a potential breach in the line.

[Revan Reborn]

^ But if you could "eventually" get the unicorns-and-rainbows outcome every time, where is the moral dilemma?

 

Edit: oops, this was suppose to come after Raven Reborn's post.

I wouldn't say "every time" and it would depend on the choice. I was merely positing that it might be okay for some decisions to somewhat have that "unicorn-and-rainbows" outcome. I used the example of the geth and quarians, which took three games to resolve. In most cases, however, I don't believe things should be so straight forward and not everything should work out perfectly. Otherwise, there is no risk and that, in itself, would undermine the experience. I just don't believe the game needs to be entirely devoid of hope, however.

[Scarlett]

 

If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Eventually, things will work out and I think that could be a potential approach for the game to take for some hard decisions that shouldn't necessarily be resolved so quickly. The geth and quarian conflict, of course, took three games to resolve.

 

This and it's a good motivation to replay the game !

[Revan Reborn]

This and it's a good motivation to replay the game !

Definitely. The game doesn't need to be dark and gloomy all of the time. There can be hope, and I think that is important to have in order to hit a variety of emotional beats. I just believe BioWare should use that approach wisely for those decisions that we can really appreciate it rather than diluting the entire experience. The last thing we'd want is to believe none of our choices matter and all issues can be resolved fairly easily.

[abaris]

Don't you think, the problem is rather a budgetary one? The fully voiced game led to the rather limited dialogue wheel. Voice acting is expensive and every company going down that path tries to limit their costs.

 

It would be nice to have more moral choices. It would be nice to have more choices overall. Choices that really matter, as opposed to ME3 where most of your previous choices led to a canon. They needed Udina to pull his schtick, so he had to be on the council. They needed Anderson to defend earth, so he couldn't be on the council. Regardless if you saved or killed the Rachni queen in 1, another one would be in 3.

 

It all boils down to costs. The more choices they offer, the more forks in the tale. The more forks, the more expensive, if they really follow through on the consequences.

 

I guess, that's the main problem and not a preference for black and white.

[Helios969]

Yeah are you Bigot?

Moral dilemma.  To bigot or not to bigot, that is the question.

 

Sorry, just couldn't resist

[Cyonan]

Don't you think, the problem is rather a budgetary one? The fully voiced game led to the rather limited dialogue wheel. Voice acting is expensive and every company going down that path tries to limit their costs.

 

It would be nice to have more moral choices. It would be nice to have more choices overall. Choices that really matter, as opposed to ME3 where most of your previous choices led to a canon. They needed Udina to pull his schtick, so he had to be on the council. They needed Anderson to defend earth, so he couldn't be on the council. Regardless if you saved or killed the Rachni queen in 1, another one would be in 3.

 

It all boils down to costs. The more choices they offer, the more forks in the tale. The more forks, the more expensive, if they really follow through on the consequences.

 

I guess, that's the main problem and not a preference for black and white.

 

You don't always need the choice to have some big grandiose changes to the universe or story.

 

Having a NPC that you saved come back on a later mission to help you out is a pretty small thing that would be a choice that matters. Or maybe you get a weapon mod that you might not otherwise be able to get unless you help somebody out.

 

Saving Reegar and giving Veetor to Tali are choices that ultimately can matter, because they can later help you to get through Tali's loyalty mission without her being exiled or having to use incriminating data against her father. The only thing I can really criticize them for there is that the alternate paths of those choices really don't give you anything, so there's no real incentive to ever pick those.

 

It also helps to plan things out ahead of time so that the player doesn't feel like their choices get rendered irrelevant later on because the story demands it. If they never gave us the option to kill the Rachni on Noveria, people wouldn't have felt cheated when they showed up again in ME3.

[ThomasBlaine]

Honestly, my solution would just be to throw out paragon/renegade and have shades of gray for options. This is more or less what DAI did and it worked fairly well. I think the extremes for ME are too much and often the results are just as ridiculous leading to unrealistic outcomes. The morality bar is just a feature that was brought over from KotOR, which made sense in that game, but it undermines the complexity of decisions in Mass Effect.

 

I didn't really consider the "stealth approach" or "charge approach" to really be tactical dilemmas. It was more of a gameplay decision of what kind of experience you wanted to proceed with. It was alright, but ultimately neither choice really had that much of a difference in the end. A tactical dilemma would be helping companion A to repel an enemy force, but leaving companion B vulnerable to attack and a potential breach in the line.

 

An RPG can still have moral decisions intermingled with practical ones on some level. Not necessarily labeled as renegade or paragon no, but there are lots of more subtle ways to force people to prioritize between sensibility or practicality, both on a day-to-day basis and in the extremes.

 

Remember having to choose between letting Clementine unknowingly eat human flesh or making a scene and forcing a big and disastrous confrontation on the spot in Walking Dead? It's an extreme situation with white and grey choices, but the 'white' choice has enough downsides that it's still not a no-brainer, and making the decision says something about Lee without defining him as either a bad guy or a saint. Not all shades of gray, and still a great role-playing moment.

 

Similarly, the dilemma of letting Archer use his brother for experimentation in ME2 is seemingly cut-and-dried, but that research really could be crucial and save many more lives in the long run. It doesn't, but Shepard has no way of knowing that. I've never played a Shepard who could live with leaving David in that place, but a lot of them felt conflicted or even guilty about shutting down that avenue of dealing with the Geth just to save one person.

 

As for Inquisition, the choice of taking the mountain path or attacking head-on is the very definition of a tactical decision. The fact that both result in exactly the same is what I mean by disappointing implementation, but the way the choice itself is presented is great. That it's a choice of what kind of experience you want to proceed with is something you can say about literally everything. What you're talking about with how to direct your companions is pretty much pure gameplay, and you can make roleplaying decisions there too, it just isn't highlighted with cutscenes.

[MaxQuartiroli]

I would really like them, but honestly I don't think Bioware will ever change his "black or white" system.

[Original Mako]

^ They can keep it, but the "white" path shouldn't always work and the "black" path needs more purpose aside from "I wanna role play a jerk. I'm so edgy!"

 

Saving Reegar and giving Veetor to Tali are choices that ultimately can matter, because they can later help you to get through Tali's loyalty mission without her being exiled or having to use incriminating data against her father. The only thing I can really criticize them for there is that the alternate paths of those choices really don't give you anything, so there's no real incentive to ever pick those.

 

Similarly, the dilemma of letting Archer use his brother for experimentation in ME2 is seemingly cut-and-dried, but that research really could be crucial and save many more lives in the long run. It doesn't, but Shepard has no way of knowing that. I've never played a Shepard who could live with leaving David in that place, but a lot of them felt conflicted or even guilty about shutting down that avenue of dealing with the Geth just to save one person.

 

Examples of the "black" path amounting to nothing. In both, being the nice Shep ultimately is more fruitful (though David just unlocks a door for you in the 2nd case). If they're going to have black and white morality, they should make it so white doesn't guarantee best results each time and black is more than the "edgy hipster" choice.

 

Meaningful "tactical" choices would be interesting. But let's not argue if something is an emotional/moral/tactical/personal/etc. choice. We all frame things differently. The important thing is to have relevant and actual choices, instead of the "just choose blue/red to win".

[abaris]

Examples of the "black" path amounting to nothing. In both, being the nice Shep ultimately is more fruitful (though David just unlocks a door for you in the 2nd case). If they're going to have black and white morality, they should make it so white doesn't guarantee best results each time and black is more than the "edgy hipster" choice.

 

 

 

Black isn't always what I consider black though. Calling the reapers damned bastards isn't black. Or telling Aria,, if it were me, I would want revenge, isn't being a total jerk either.

 

In fact, I hardly found any red interrupt or downwards option in the dialogue wheel, that really turns you into a jerk. Sometimes it's the tough leader option, taking the risk of casualties. Sometimes it's just a less friendly or sarcastic response.

[katamuro]

I like the moral dilemmas in games and mass effect had its good ones. While sure the whole black and white thing does get a bit weird especially when renegade options sometimes are just "badass" options so I would like a more variance.

[ThomasBlaine]

Black isn't always what I consider black though. Calling the reapers damned bastards isn't black. Or telling Aria,, if it were me, I would want revenge, isn't being a total jerk either.

 

In fact, I hardly found any red interrupt or downwards option in the dialogue wheel, that really turns you into a jerk. Sometimes it's the tough leader option, taking the risk of casualties. Sometimes it's just a less friendly or sarcastic response.

 

Well, some of the Renegade dialogue options are specifically jerkass options, like shutting out the galactic council and threatening to slander stores for small discounts. That's not 'tough leader', unfriendly or sarcastic behavior. And plenty of the interrupts are pointlessly violent and gleeful.

 

That said, most of the casual dialogue is just cold and uncompromising which works well with professional Shepards, and the major Renegade decisions are usually more about pragmatism than brutality. One of the reasons I don't do straight-Paragon or straight-Renegade is that they're both inconsistent and nearly insane in their extremity and stupidity if you take them to the fullest.

[Midnight Bliss]

So long as it's nothing like the fake moral dilemmas of dragon age or the saturday morning cartoon morality of KOTOR 1 I'm game.

 

Bring on as many of them as can be fit, I say, and make them gust-twisters too. Even better, ones with no right answer, where no matter what you'll leave feeling dirrty.

[Revan Reborn]

I would really like them, but honestly I don't think Bioware will ever change his "black or white" system.

Arguably, DAI already has gotten rid of the "black or white" system, which was diplomatic, sarcastic, or aggressive in DAII. In DAI, there's just a varying level of shades of gray in which you have nuanced responses rather than large extremes like in ME1-3. We'll see if Montreal keeps the p/r bar or not, but I honestly think it needs to be scrapped.

 

So long as it's nothing like the fake moral dilemmas of dragon age or the saturday morning cartoon morality of KOTOR 1 I'm game.

 

Bring on as many of them as can be fit, I say, and make them gust-twisters too. Even better, ones with no right answer, where no matter what you'll leave feeling dirrty.

Well considering ME got it's morality straight from KotOR, it's more or less the same thing. Dark/Light morality works in that game as you are dealing with whether you are Light Side or Dark Side. It doesn't make any sense in Mass Effect, either than to be the guy who wouldn't hurt a flea or the guy who kicks a puppy.

 

I wouldn't mind at all if we were to get some choices that just don't turn out the way we expected. We don't have to totally get screwed over, but it would be nice to keep the game interesting by sometimes things not going according to plan.

[Iakus]

 

 

Yea? Or nay?

Sure.  Provided the player is not "punished" for the choice they make.  That is, the game should unfold differently, but there should not be a "correct" path to take.

 

An example for this should be something like Alpha Protocol.  An example early in the game is, you have captured an arms dealer and have to decide what to do with him, kill him, arrest him, or take his bribe and let him go.  You get  a different perk depending on the choice you make and have different outcomes later

 

Kill him:  The supply of weapons he traffics in dries up, enemies you face later in the hub are less heavily armed.  However, this means your own black market sources dry up as well, and there's not as much for you to purchase either while in this hub.

 

Arrest him:  Equipment still dries up.  In fact, it some items become unavailable for the rest of the game.  But also over the course of the game, you are able to purchase intel he supplies his interrogators (in a Gitmo-like prison)

 

Take the bribe:  Get paid up front.  Weapon sources do not dry up.  Enemies are more heavily armed, but you can purchase extra intel as well (since you have people tracking his movements)

 

Different choices, different consequences.  But no "SO BE IT!!!" from the game for failing to follow the One True Path.