657 réponses à ce sujet

[Master Warder Z_]

Kill him:  

 

There is only one right choice in that situation.

[chris2365]

If you think about it, they did manage to include a few moral dilemmas throughout the trilogy. Off the top of my head, I can think of:

- Rewriting or destroying the Geth heretics in ME2
- Saving or destroying the Collector base (even if this one was massively neglected in ME3)
- Saving or dooming the Krogans/Quarians/Geth (though I agree that the decision was obvious to make based on your part decisions/paragon score)

Heck, I feel like the best moral dilemma we were ever presented in the ME trilogy was ME3's ending. In my opinion, we can debate whether the execution of the ending could have (should have) been better. But I think the idea or concept of the ending was not bad in itself. We did have to make a massive moral choice about the future of the galaxy. That much is undeniable.

I think the main key to fixing the issue you propose is maybe not to add more moral dilemmas, but make it so that the game is not "Paragon to win". Throughout the trilogy, you could just spam the paragon choice in dialogue and you would get the best outcome 99.9% of the time.

For MEA, they should make a system based more off of DAI, where special skills can be unlocked to give you more dialogue options, but otherwise you are free to make whatever choices you want and not be limited by morality. Paragon/Renegade should be scrapped, and they should make it that sometimes the direct and aggressive approach (bottom of the dialogue wheel) ends up with the best outcome. That way, we have to think a lot more carefully about what we answer depending on the person, situation, etc.

[Midnight Bliss]

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.

I wouldn't say ME morality was anything like KOTOR.

[Revan Reborn]

If you think about it, they did manage to include a few moral dilemmas throughout the trilogy. Off the top of my head, I can think of:

- Rewriting or destroying the Geth heretics in ME2
- Saving or destroying the Collector base (even if this one was massively neglected in ME3)
- Saving or dooming the Krogans/Quarians/Geth (though I agree that the decision was obvious to make based on your part decisions/paragon score)

Heck, I feel like the best moral dilemma we were ever presented in the ME trilogy was ME3's ending. In my opinion, we can debate whether the execution of the ending could have (should have) been better. But I think the idea or concept of the ending was not bad in itself. We did have to make a massive moral choice about the future of the galaxy. That much is undeniable.

I think the main key to fixing the issue you propose is maybe not to add more moral dilemmas, but make it so that the game is not "Paragon to win". Throughout the trilogy, you could just spam the paragon choice in dialogue and you would get the best outcome 99.9% of the time.

For MEA, they should make a system based more off of DAI, where special skills can be unlocked to give you more dialogue options, but otherwise you are free to make whatever choices you want and not be limited by morality. Paragon/Renegade should be scrapped, and they should make it that sometimes the direct and aggressive approach (bottom of the dialogue wheel) ends up with the best outcome. That way, we have to think a lot more carefully about what we answer depending on the person, situation, etc.

While I agree the paragon/renegade need to be scrapped, that also means the dialogue and write have to be overhauled to accommodate that. I also do believe just having more moral dilemmas in general would make the game more interesting. Again, they all don't have to be massive and game changing as the ending of ME3 was, for example. It's just nice to have to think about what your a picking and how that could affect your game in the future. It's certainly better than having obvious choices with instant gratification that really do nothing for your player agency or to further the game from a narrative perspective.

[Revan Reborn]

I wouldn't say ME morality was anything like KOTOR.

I would. Paragon/Renegade came straight from KotOR and BioWare even confirmed that. Most of the features from Mass Effect were from KotOR because the same studio and creative director made both games. I thought the system was fine for a Star Wars game where morality is embellished, but a morality bar doesn't make sense for an experience like Mass Effect.

[Iakus]

I wouldn't say ME morality was anything like KOTOR.

 

It more resembled the "Open Hand/Closed Fist" system from Jade Empire.  Which was technically not a good/evil spectrum so much as a law/chaos one.  But in practice, it was almost identical to LS/DS.  And Paragon/Renegade was no different.

 

Heck Renegade even had Dark Side corruption!  Just with scars instead of jaundice!

[Midnight Bliss]

Oh, okay! I thought the suggestion was that P/R was a good/evil system and played out in the story similarly to LS/DS, (e.g. Shep murders Khalisah for asking a rude question) not the way the system functions from a mechanical perspective.

 

MB !

[AlanC9]

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.
 

I'm not sure it makes sense to blame this on voice acting in particular. Non-voiced Bio games didn't have more significant choices than the voiced ones. BG, BG2, and NWN don't have any choices at all -- well, BG has choices about party makeup, but they're completely ignored by the sequel. KotOR has plenty of choices, but they're all either ignored or ground into indistinguishable mush by the sequel -- which, of course, Bio had nothing to do with and may not have even considered when writing KotOR.

I think the real difference is sequels.

[tesla21]

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.

 

Well it depends, while the game should not outright punish you in an obvious way for doing something, I still would argue there should be consequences, negative ones at that sometimes. There should be some incentive to go for the more morally questionable but pragmatic choice rather than knowing "I am shepard, just hit the blue button regarless of logic and it will all work out in the end, somehow..."

[Revan Reborn]

Oh, okay! I thought the suggestion was that P/R was a good/evil system and played out in the story similarly to LS/DS, (e.g. Shep murders Khalisah for asking a rude question) not the way the system functions from a mechanical perspective.

 

MB !

Nope. You can't really be evil in Mass Effect, just a massive jerk. My point is the system just really has no place in Mass Effect anyway. I'd rather have more nuanced options in DAI where results aren't immediate and it's not certain what the outcome will actually be. Not that the dialogue in this game needs to emulate life completely, but we never know exactly how things will turn out. It would be nice to have some unpredictability in Mass Effect Andromeda dialogue.

 

Well it depends, while the game should not outright punish you in an obvious way for doing something, I still would argue there should be consequences, negative ones at that sometimes. There should be some incentive to go for the more morally questionable but pragmatic choice rather than knowing "I am shepard, just hit the blue button regarless of logic and it will all work out in the end, somehow..."

I agree. I think it's perfectly fine to be punished for our choices, regardless of what decision we make. It doesn't have to happen all the time, but I do think it should be possible.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Iakus:  Those are good, I support that style - but I still want the NPCs to have strong opinions and react to actions that matter to them regardless of whether or not the player likes them.

 

I also support the occasional - "This option turned out bad."  or "This option turned out good."  because sometimes that's how life works.

[Iakus]

Well it depends, while the game should not outright punish you in an obvious way for doing something, I still would argue there should be consequences, negative ones at that sometimes. There should be some incentive to go for the more morally questionable but pragmatic choice rather than knowing "I am shepard, just hit the blue button regarless of logic and it will all work out in the end, somehow..."

 

Sure, there should be consequences for making a given choice.  But they should be consequences that make sense in a given context, not "You chose wrong" (or "SO BE IT!!!")

@Iakus:  Those are good, I support that style - but I still want the NPCs to have strong opinions and react to actions that matter to them regardless of whether or not the player likes them.

 

I also support the occasional - "This option turned out bad."  or "This option turned out good."  because sometimes that's how life works.

Wouldn't have it any other way   

[themikefest]

Sure

 

The biggest dilemma I faced was trying to decide what hair color to give Shepard for whatever playthrough

[EpicNewb]

Bros b4 hoes.

The best example of a moral dilemma that I can even remember in ME1 was the Virmire choice: Kaidan or Ashley. Now, this was never hard for me, being a heterosexual male, I always threw Kaidan to the dogs. However, what I would like to see is difficult choices (like this may have been for some) to be more frequent and happen more often.

 

Yea? Or nay?

Decisions like Kaidan or Ashley produce a higher degree of player engagement with the game.

 

I thought Ash was the better squaddie in the initial game while Kaidan was much more useful than her in ME3.

 

There was that N7 missile mission in ME2.  Your choice hit the military base or civilian colony.  There was no consequences associated with either decision

[Kabooooom]

With regards to the Virmire choice, somehow Ashley always ends up defending the bomb for me (its been awhile since I played ME1, but I was under the impression that it depends on who you choose to lead Kirrahe's group). Anyways, my Shep always reasons that helping save Ashley to defend the bomb and make sure it detonates is more important than whatever nonsense Kaiden is doing in the comm tower. So, sorry Kaiden, you go kabooom.

The most morally ambiguous choice in the trilogy, to me, was the genophage cure. I thought it was well presented and well done.

[von uber]

Sorry, moral choices in Mass Effect? Bioware don't know the meaning of the word:

 

Spoiler

[Revan Reborn]

Bros b4 hoes.

Decisions like Kaidan or Ashley produce a higher degree of player engagement with the game.

 

I thought Ash was the better squaddie in the initial game while Kaidan was much more useful than her in ME3.

 

There was that N7 missile mission in ME2.  Your choice hit the military base or civilian colony.  There was no consequences associated with either decision

The ME2 example is a good example of a moral dilemma that had no bite. It was instant gratification without any word from a storytelling perspective. I'd like BioWare to use that as a template, yet weave that process into impacting decisions later on in the game to lead to unexpected consequences.

 

With regards to the Virmire choice, somehow Ashley always ends up defending the bomb for me (its been awhile since I played ME1, but I was under the impression that it depends on who you choose to lead Kirrahe's group). Anyways, my Shep always reasons that helping save Ashley to defend the bomb and make sure it detonates is more important than whatever nonsense Kaiden is doing in the comm tower. So, sorry Kaiden, you go kabooom.

The most morally ambiguous choice in the trilogy, to me, was the genophage cure. I thought it was well presented and well done.

I don't really see what's "morally ambiguous" as ME1-3 provides you plenty of reasons why the genophage has had a detrimental and negative impact on all krogans. They were diminished from a proud people into self-interested mercenaries and fighting over scraps. You can argue whether krogans might try to conquer the galaxy again, but without a doubt the galaxy committed a horrible sin against the krogans, especially since they defeated the rachni.

[Malanek]

It's neither a moral choice nor a tactical one.

 

You're asked to pick between two squad mates with no consequences other than the one you didn't pick dies. It's more an emotional choice than anything else, provided you actually care about either of them. If you don't care, then it's just an arbitrary choice.

 

If you metagame it down to do you want to save Ashley or Kaidan then yeah, its not really a tactical choice but at the time of the mission they are doing different tasks and you can evaluate what is more important etc so that is a tactical choice. But just like almost every other decision in ME1-3 it doesn't really matter what you pick. And that is the big problem with all their choices imo. It feels hollow.

 

Since they can't afford the cost of actually making the consequences of the choices genuinely visible, I think they should leave most choices open ended. We should never have seen the Rachni again no matter what, maybe just hear about the outcome in an epilogue.

 

They also need to be a bit smarter about some of the scenarios. In ME2 there was a choice whether to save the city or the space port from a missile strike. The Renegade choice was to save the spaceport because it was a more valuable asset while the Paragon choice was to save the City to keep more people alive. But I'm afraid that a city is always going to have a vastly greater capital value than a port. Just things like that ruin what could have been a pretty difficult choice. They just need to use a bit more commonsense in these things.

[Malanek]

I don't really see what's "morally ambiguous" as ME1-3 provides you plenty of reasons why the genophage has had a detrimental and negative impact on all krogans. They were diminished from a proud people into self-interested mercenaries and fighting over scraps. You can argue whether krogans might try to conquer the galaxy again, but without a doubt the galaxy committed a horrible sin against the krogans, especially since they defeated the rachni.

It sounds pretty morally ambiguous to me, especially when you consider that the galaxy might not exactly be in a good place to deal with the situation at the end of ME3 if it gets out of hand. It will also be interesting to see how they handle this in Andromeda. If the genophage doesn't exist and there are at least a few breeding krogan that get there, then they will quite quickly have the potential to become the dominant milky way species over there.

[Vox Draco]

*sigh* What can I write? Of course making decisons is meant to be fun, and supposed to make you think what to choose, and not just clicking some answer to get to the next battle. But a decision on some morale dilemma without consequences shown and felt later are kinda pointless...

 

And that will be the main problem for any writer I guess. Not one myself though, but I can only assume how difficult it might be to not only create "morale dilemmas" in a story, but letting us decide in very different ways, AND adressing these very different decisions later with very different outcomes. And maybe to make it worse those different outcomes should of course be adressed in alter games as well - I can only imagine that a writer like, dunno, George Martin?, would run amok if he had to write his books in that form.

 

Save the Wildlings? Go to page 588 and see how they aid the armies of Westeros defeat the White Wanderes.

Or doom them beyond The Wall? Resume reading on page 1297 ... And see the armies of the dead march deep into the lands to the south unchallenged ...^^ 

 

Just to be clear: I am all for decision-making and all that but .. I think it would be advisable for gamers not always expect too much of this, and keep expectations real. All these choices have to be incorporated into a coherent story - which wasn't the trilogies strongest points lately

[Quarian Master Race]

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.

The incentive in Reegar's case is that he makes the fight vs the Colossus & endless geth "platoon" a little easier if you put him at risk by telling him to keep shooting, but saving him in that regard requires you to take advantage of this to end the fight fast enough that he isn't killed. The only real problem is that ME singleplayer gameplay is so absurdly easy on even the highest difficulties that it isn't really a tradeoff at all either way, because Reegar (or any NPC, for that matter) barely makes a difference in gameplay. Imagine if they had designed that encounter around having him as a temporary 4th squadmate, and it had actually gotten really hard if you didn't accept his help but also put him at risk.

For Veetor, handing him to Cerberus really is worse in every way (lots of Renegade decisions end up like this). The problem there was the forced friendship with Tali. It'd be kind of silly and OOC if she reneged on giving you the omni tool data like she said she would in return for letting her take Veetor back, unless she just didn't like/trust you from your actions in ME1 or how you handled the initial confrontation on Freedom's Progress. Perhaps a less sympathetic face being behind the quarian side of that decision could have made handing him over less ideal via a loss of intel or something. If they did that, though, I'd actually want Tali to get livid at you for torturing Veetor, and there to be a consequence to this, instead of her just going typical Biower cultist follower, protesting for 2 seconds and forgetting about it later.

Lets not forget that ultimately their contributions can be rendered completely irrelevant if you simply build up enough boy scout or jerk points to be able to magically use blue/redspeech to autowin. That's really the biggest problem with that sub-arc's design.

[Iakus]

Sorry, moral choices in Mass Effect? Bioware don't know the meaning of the word:

 

Spoiler

Well, that one is kinda cheapened by...

 

[spoiler ... it taking place in an alternate timeline that is subsequently undone [/spoiler]

 

Not that the game didn't have other powerful moral choices to make 

[MrFob]

I also think that there were plenty of morally ambiguous choices in the ME trilogy (I am with kaboooooom, the genophage was one, just look at the discussions about it on this board, puts war and piece to shame).

 

That said, I am also for scrapping the paragon renegade system. Just having that color coding is already taking away from choices. IMO, DA:I went in the right direction with the dialogue, I wouldn't mind something similar.

 

Oh yea, one important factor (as I said in the brig thread), just don't force a hard choice by not giving us the sensible middle ground dialogue option please! That is lame.

[Sarayne]

Sorry, moral choices in Mass Effect? Bioware don't know the meaning of the word:

 

Spoiler

That picture is giving me PTSD right now...

[Iakus]

*sigh* What can I write? Of course making decisons is meant to be fun, and supposed to make you think what to choose, and not just clicking some answer to get to the next battle. But a decision on some morale dilemma without consequences shown and felt later are kinda pointless...

 

And that will be the main problem for any writer I guess. Not one myself though, but I can only assume how difficult it might be to not only create "morale dilemmas" in a story, but letting us decide in very different ways, AND adressing these very different decisions later with very different outcomes. And maybe to make it worse those different outcomes should of course be adressed in alter games as well - I can only imagine that a writer like, dunno, George Martin?, would run amok if he had to write his books in that form.

 

Save the Wildlings? Go to page 588 and see how they aid the armies of Westeros defeat the White Wanderes.

Or doom them beyond The Wall? Resume reading on page 1297 ... And see the armies of the dead march deep into the lands to the south unchallenged ...^^ 

 

Just to be clear: I am all for decision-making and all that but .. I think it would be advisable for gamers not always expect too much of this, and keep expectations real. All these choices have to be incorporated into a coherent story - which wasn't the trilogies strongest points lately

This is why I support doing away with game imports altogether.  Such choices have to be minimized because in subsequent games everyone has to be in pretty much the same place.  Thus we can't have anything be too divergent.  So in the end, we end up with canonized Councilors, rachni/breeder queen choices, and entire crews being dumped because they can be dead.