Yeah, she's probably better than dude!shep.
And his blandness is clearly a choice - his NPC have lots of colour.
That's my impression as well after hearing some of the other voice work he has done such as the vorcha from Mass Effect and Jethann from Dragon Age II. I've found that it can actually be very difficult to spot his voice.
I think Meer's delivery is better - and it's more even between the two, so a paragade doesn't come across as unstable. Hale plays the two tones as two separate people. Meer plays them as two sides of the same person. And his blandness is clearly a choice - his NPC have lots of colour.
I agree that Meer's blandness is clearly a choice - the dude's a great voice actor, with a lot of range - but I don't find Hale's performance particularly 'unstable', and I'm playing more or less a Paragade right now.
Meer might be a great VA in general and a great guy, but I dislike his Shepard.
I almost never found myself marveling on how great his delivery was. Either I cringed because something sounded really dumb (not difficult with Shep), or was neutral about it. Hale and her smoky(?) voice sounded much more in character to me, and somehow smarter(?)... I guess.
I think Meer's delivery is better - and it's more even between the two, so a paragade doesn't come across as unstable. Hale plays the two tones as two separate people. Meer plays them as two sides of the same person. And his blandness is clearly a choice - his NPC have lots of colour.
I agree overall and prefer Meer's "more neutral" delivery overall. There are some specific lines where I like Hale's more emotional delivery a bit better. I absolutely hate, however, the tone of her "I'm more interested in just talking for a bit" line with Jacob... totally cringe worthy and nearly impossible to interpret as anything but a come on.
If all consequences in the game were "desirable," they would not really be consequences at all, would they? If only desirable consequences are what people want out of an RPG, then the writer is not going to be able to write anything but a "heroic" Mary Sue who every NPC ass kisses 100% of the time - which is something that people here emphatically say they don't want.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to have a dimension of PC that is less persuasive (IRL, not everyone is as persuasive as everyone else)...
and the P/R system in ME2 allows me to play that sort of character...
There was nothing wrong with the way that the P/R system in ME2 was constructed to count and test an accumulation of actions within the game.
Call it by different labels if you wish... I'm personally not hung up on that part of it.
I'm sorry, but that's just silly. Consistent, progressive skill growth is a reward players expect as they play any game. What you seem to be suggesting here is that the consequences of certain dialogue wheel choices should limit character skill growth.
I think when players say they want consequences with their choices, they are typically referring to things that are actually related. Killing Wrex in ME1 means that he won't be present in the rest of the trilogy. Destroying Maelon's research data in ME2 means that you won't have that data available to help Eve survive in ME3. These things are actually related, and are natural consequences of previous choices.
How a character might choose to deal with a quarian, volus, and C-Sec officer arguing over a credit chit, a krogan wanting fish from the Presidium, and a batarian bartender who tried to kill her are completely unrelated - but ME2 restricts one based on how you dealt with the other.
I agree, which is why I would favor a reputation system or investing points in a coercion skill (ala DA:O).
Any of the games allow you to play a non-persuasive character. All you need to do is choose the non-persuasive options.
I disagree. There was a lot wrong with it. So much so, that Ieldra wrote a detailed guide to explain the mechanics and help people navigate their way through the game.
The reason that I'm referencing a reputation or coercion system is to get away from the ME2 mechanics that required you to have accumulated 70% of all available paragon points to enable paragon choices or 70% of all available renegade points to enable renegade choices. These mechanics made it very, very difficult to play a balanced character, and also required you to do much of the side content to earn those points. And if you screwed up early on - once you lost the paragon options (for example), you had no way to earn any more paragon points.
I'd prefer a system that allows the growth of general persuasion skills while still playing a more balanced character.
Not silly when it comes to "persuasiveness" because IRL it's not something that's just reliant on skill... but also on circumstance, the depth of passion the other party feels towards their position, the overall "morality" of both parties, etc. It is perfectly logical that even the most skilled, persuasive orator is not going to be able to convince everyone (i.e. both sides of an argument) all of the time with just a snappy phrase.
There was nothing wrong with a percentage level check since the result of not passing the check was not a "punishment" - It merely opened up another path (consequence) in the game... one that could be fairly easily worked around (i.e. even non-loyal players could survive). The only real "negative" might be that the player lost an ability to romance that player... but that's a logical consequence of not siding with your love in an argument... and when the test was failed, the player could freely choose to side with their LI or not.
There were also many, many places where "neutral" options could be selected and no P/R points were missed out on (and the system was based more on the number of opportunities you missed rather than how many you collected). By taking the neutral choices over the renegade ones in the places where there are no actual P/R points on the line - you can construct a fairly "non-psycho" but completely renegade character in ME2. You can also take one some paragon actions and dialogues in places where you won't lose any renegade (and vice versa). Yeah, that's metagaming... but you don't have to metagame to make it work... because you can still save even non-loyal characters.
Furthermore, ME1 was a skill tree - i.e. the player voluntarily added the skill points into a bar that would determine what options were available later in the game. Yeah, you had to use some charm or intimidate options to open up more of the bar... but with the exception of the last couple of spaces, the requirement wasn't that high... and the last couple of spaces only counted before the very end in 1 place (12 charm needed to charm Jeong) and only counted in the very end if the player opted not to charm or intimidate Saren on Virmire.
I was thinking more of Snake Plissken...
...but Craig's portrayal of Bond works, sure.
Snake Plissken is pretty much the Renegade options we already have though. In both movies he makes extremely foolish decisions, not because it was right or it benefited him, but simply because he wanted to be petty and/or screw over authority.
Like at the end of the first film, where out of spite he destroys the only tape in existence detailing how to make viable fusion reactors. This was something that would have ended the energy crisis completely and benefited the entire world, as well as eased global tensions since it was the President's gift at the peace conference. Instead Snake's decision is probably one of the reasons that causes America to slide even further into a dystopia, turning the country from a fascist police state to authoritarian theocracy by the time of the sequel. At the end of second film he ends up further screwing up the entire world by triggering a global EMP, sending the entire planet into a new Dark Age for no other reason than his own amusement.
Let's be honest, if Snake Plissken was our Mass Effect protagonist, he'd have stood by and let the Reapers win by the first game.
I love James Bond. I love English accents 
Not silly when it comes to "persuasiveness" because IRL it's not something that's just reliant on skill... but also on circumstance, the depth of passion the other party feels towards their position, the overall "morality" of both parties, etc. It is perfectly logical that even the most skilled, persuasive orator is not going to be able to convince everyone (i.e. both sides of an argument) all of the time with just a snappy phrase.
There was nothing wrong with a percentage level check since the result of not passing the check was not a "punishment" - It merely opened up another path (consequence) in the game...
Furthermore, ME1 was a skill tree - i.e. the player voluntarily added the skill points into a bar that would determine what options were available later in the game.
The problem isn't so much that Renegade choices are pragmatic and violent, it's that they don't work on the renegade's own terms, since they typically get worse results than the supposedly idealistic choices do. This is a problem with Bio games in general.
It depends. Slavishly going full Renegade gets bad results whereas doing the same full Paragon is mostly successful (loses assets here and there but nothing huge), but several of the best resolutions work out better with at least some if not mostly Renegade choices.
-best Genophage outcome is actually to shoot Wrex and Mordin with Eve alive, getting both full Salarian and Krogan support. 2nd best is to have Eve dead and Mordin live to work on the Crucible
-For Rannoch arc, destroying Geth Heretics is objectively superior to rewrite. Loses nothing and makes getting both geth and quarian support very easy instead of very difficult
-If you haven't that option, the quarians are worth slightly more War Assets than the geth overall
-Preserving Collector Base is objectively superior to destroying it
-many if not most of the various ME3 "arguments" between NPCs get better results by supporting the option that gives Renegade points (e.g. Daro'Xen vs Tali or Han'Gerrel vs Raan)
-Using Jack's Grissom Students as frontline fighters is superior to having them serve support roles
The primary difference is that some of Renegade's lows are a lot lower than Paragon's, and it can backfire way harder. If you don't recruit squadmates/lett them die (or say, send Legion off to Cerberus for instance), you get much worse results later on than, say, a Paragon that backs down from shooting Wrex (who will still get a ton of krogan war assets, albiet not quite enough to fully counter the loss of Salarian support). Paragons are never really adequately punished for bad decisions like Renegades. Something like having the preservation of the geth heretics making ceasefire between the geth and quarians impossible, or making the Salarians worth a lot more in relation to the krogan (like they should have been anyway, being a highly advanced spacefairing civilization vs a bunch of barely sapient primitives engaging in terrestrial tribal warfare) would have went a long way to remedy that.
But that's also because many of the choices are insane. It's very hard to pick out a renegade choice that's genuinely pragmatic AND expressed in a way that it's psychotic or racist.
See any of the above, although definitions of "insane" may vary, and Paragon Shepard has their fair share of that anyway (slavishly supporting and parroting the propaganda of the institutionally racist Council oligarchy, destroying the only thing that potentially makes ME2's plot worth anything at all due to a comically idiotic value judgement overriding all logic, enacting genocide on the quarians due to racially motivated preference for the geth etc.)
-best Genophage outcome is actually to shoot Wrex and Mordin with Eve alive, getting both full Salarian and Krogan support. 2nd best is to have Eve dead and Mordin live to work on the Crucible
Wrex doesn't have to be shot. Just don't recruit him in ME1
I just don't understand why we need to even bother with percentage-based representations of our actions. BioWare should be at the point where they're able to consider our actions on an individual level for each persuasion check. Ideally, we could have a gradient of results depending on how an NPC views the various combinations of our prior actions, but realistically I could live with pass/fail persuasion checks that consider our actions on a case by case basis à la Priority: Rannoch (the aftermath section illustrates my meaning).
I thought we were talking about game mechanics, skill progression, and certain choices influencing options available for role-play. At least, that's what I've been discussing.
No, it closed a lot of options. Permanently.
Did you even look at Ieldra's guide? Do you understand how the ME2 mechanics work, and just how much they influence?
ETA:
Earning paragon points by taking paragon options would unlock levels of the Charm skill. Ditto renegade with Intimidate.
If you're just talking about game mechanics - then why are you arguing with me and calling me names like "silly"? A skill tree was there in ME1 and people still took issues with it. My point is regardless of how or what specifically the game "counts" to set up a "consequence" that the player doesn't get to just choose separately... someone is going to associate it with "good" vs. "evil" and/or take exception to whatever that consequence would be. If the player is allowed to choose every consequence of every action on their own, it's not a consequence really... there's no game, it's just the player writing their own book using the images made by the game developer... and then there would still be people who would take issue because the game developer cannot possibly make sequences that would cover every possible choice that players want to make combined with every possible outcome they think their choices should lead to. I"m not fighting the notion of the skill tree, I'm just saying that having no system at all wouldn't work and that the P/R system of ME wasn't really all that bad either. (What's silly around here is how anyone can't even say what ME Trilogy did already wasn't really all that bad without being called "silly" or "stupid" or "over analyzing" etc. - and I'm done with it here... goodbye.)
If you're just talking about game mechanics - then why are you arguing with me and calling me names like "silly"?
My point is regardless of how or what specifically the game "counts" to set up a "consequence" that the player doesn't get to just choose separately... someone is going to associate it with "good" vs. "evil" and/or take exception to whatever that consequence would be.
I"m not fighting the notion of the skill tree, I'm just saying that having no system at all wouldn't work and that the P/R system of ME wasn't really all that bad either.
Wrex doesn't have to be shot. Just don't recruit him in ME1
Where's the fun in that?
As for the R/P system. I think consequences work best when they totally blindside the player. The player makes a choice they believe is the best for that situation only to have some consequences for that choice down the line, in some cases those consequences can outweigh the benefits and in other cases they don't.
What I didn't like about the system was that it actually was a pick your own reward/consequence system. Paragon was almost always the best long term choice with the most rewards and content whereas Renegade felt pointless at the end because the best choice was always Paragon, and if you want to bend everyone to your will, just spam one side most of the time.
Meanwhile in TW3 I still have no idea if it was the right choice to help the spirit trapped in the tree or do the job I was asked to do for the witches. However, not even TW3 can escape morality choices, like turning the baby into a good spirit, is obviously a morally good choice with a good outcome.
I actually don't think the R/P system is bad I just think that BW sucks at implementing it because it was done in such a simplistic way. Perhaps they should have just given us two different story paths based on the amount of P or R choices. Sort of how the Sith and Jedi in SWTOR have their own storyline, locations et al.
Where's the fun in that?
As much fun as I have letting my Shepard or Ashley shoot the character, it gets old after a few times. So I don't recruit him
With the exception of there needing to be more consequences for Paragon choices, I'm fine with the morality system as of Mass Effect 3 and the reputation reputation system, you didn't need to level up Charm/Intimidate to have persuasion options open to you like in ME1, nor did you need to stick to one path, or mix/max your morality points like crazy, to avoid getting locked out from dialogue options like in ME2, you could do whatever you wanted and all options would be available to you, which is how it should have worked since the beginning. If Bioware kept this system going forward I would be completely fine with it.
It has never been a good/evil system anyway, a lot of the fanbase have seen it that way for some weird reason, even though Hudson(it might have been Walters actually) clarified in an interview back in around 2011 that the players have never/will never be given the option to be truly evil(in the original trilogy at least, Andromeda may change that), e.g. betraying the galactic forces to side with the Reapers, so I don't know how that viewpoint still persists.
The worst thing that Renegade could be accused off is being an antihero, and no, you don't have to be like Batman to qualify as an antihero. There's a wide spectrum of anti heros, ranging from Classical no-kill Batman(though his position on the spectrum depends on who's writing him, some Batmans are more extreme than others) to my main man the Punisher. The Punisher murders, tortures people, kidnaps them, threatens to kill them in order to get information, and employs extortion, stuff which Renegade has done plenty of in Mass Effect lol and yet nobody except the most naive of goody two shoes would call the Punisher evil. The thing that makes someone evil is their motivations, an anti hero can employ all the methods of a villain and still not be seen as evil because he's doing it to ultimately save lives or get rid of the true evil doers. Shooting Falere because there's a very large chance she'll bottle her suicide, get captured by the Reapers, get turned into Banshee and end up killing loads of people is not evil, shooting Falere because you don't like Asari and you hope they all get killed (lol), is.
As long as an antihero avoids crossing the line like Kratos did then it's all good lol
It has never been a good/evil system anyway, a lot of the fanbase have seen it that way for some weird reason, even though Hudson(it might have been Walters actually) clarified in an interview back in around 2011 that the players have never/will never be given the option to be truly evil(in the original trilogy at least, Andromeda may change that), e.g. betraying the galactic forces to side with the Reapers, so I don't know how that viewpoint still persists.
Well I guess genocide is no longer evil then...
Shep's motivation and the player's are different. The player can choose to genocide people for teh evulz, but for Shepard it's (ostensibly) always an unintended consequence of something else.Well I guess genocide is no longer evil then...
Shep's motivation and the player's are different. The player can choose to genocide people for teh evulz, but for Shepard it's (ostensibly) always an unintended consequence of something else.
At best one could argue it gross negligence.
The one I guess you could argue an exception on is ME1 Shep telling the Rachni to "stay dead", but even then it's motivated by historical evidence of the species violent tendencies.
Right, and in the case of the Krogan and no cure, it's them and their own violent stupidity that causes them to die off.
And RE: player motivation vs Shepard's motivation, in my original ME1 run, I let the Queen go with the rationale that I could possibly later use them to overthrow the council races and well..... that didn't exactly go according to plan.
Not silly when it comes to "persuasiveness" because IRL it's not something that's just reliant on skill... but also on circumstance, the depth of passion the other party feels towards their position, the overall "morality" of both parties, etc. It is perfectly logical that even the most skilled, persuasive orator is not going to be able to convince everyone (i.e. both sides of an argument) all of the time with just a snappy phrase.
There was nothing wrong with a percentage level check since the result of not passing the check was not a "punishment" - It merely opened up another path (consequence) in the game... one that could be fairly easily worked around (i.e. even non-loyal players could survive). The only real "negative" might be that the player lost an ability to romance that player... but that's a logical consequence of not siding with your love in an argument... and when the test was failed, the player could freely choose to side with their LI or not.
There were also many, many places where "neutral" options could be selected and no P/R points were missed out on (and the system was based more on the number of opportunities you missed rather than how many you collected). By taking the neutral choices over the renegade ones in the places where there are no actual P/R points on the line - you can construct a fairly "non-psycho" but completely renegade character in ME2. You can also take one some paragon actions and dialogues in places where you won't lose any renegade (and vice versa). Yeah, that's metagaming... but you don't have to metagame to make it work... because you can still save even non-loyal characters.
Furthermore, ME1 was a skill tree - i.e. the player voluntarily added the skill points into a bar that would determine what options were available later in the game. Yeah, you had to use some charm or intimidate options to open up more of the bar... but with the exception of the last couple of spaces, the requirement wasn't that high... and the last couple of spaces only counted before the very end in 1 place (12 charm needed to charm Jeong) and only counted in the very end if the player opted not to charm or intimidate Saren on Virmire.
I disagree. Things worked reasonably well in ME1, but in ME2 playing a more neutral character meant you were automatically less persuasive everywhere, and set to fail all the more difficult opportunities, and that's complete and utter BS. Also, ME2's system was really unfriendly to the the more neutral types by making it so that every non-one-sided choice you made made all following persuasion attempts more difficult. If you played a neutral alignment, around the end of the game you wouldn't be able to convince anyone of anything, while the same situations, dealt with earlier in the game, might've been easy. ME2's system, as far as I'm concerned, was a complete failure.
@Pasquale1234:
Nice to see someone still finds my old thread useful
Shep's motivation and the player's are different. The player can choose to genocide people for teh evulz, but for Shepard it's (ostensibly) always an unintended consequence of something else.
At best one could argue some of them gross negligence/incompetence.
The one I guess you could argue an exception on is ME1 Shep telling the Rachni to "stay dead", but even then it's motivated by historical evidence of the species violent tendencies.
Right, and in the case of the Krogan and no cure, it's them and their own violent stupidity that causes them to die off.
And RE: player motivation vs Shepard's motivation, in my original ME1 run, I let the Queen go with the rationale that I could possibly later use them to overthrow the council races and well..... that didn't exactly go according to plan.
Yep, the reasons for Shepard doing something should never be conflated with the reasons the player is doing something. We have seen on the forums over the years people saying that they intentionally let squadmates die or species get wiped out for no other reason than they hated them, but that most assuredly isn't the in universe reasoning for why that stuff happened, like QMR said it's pretty much always an unintended consequence on Shepards part.
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