If they just let us play the whole party, they wouldn't need to worry about reactions.
I'd love to be able to switch my PC around during the game... or even just to replay the missions after the fact as my own opponent/antagonist (to see if I can beat myself up - lol).
If they just let us play the whole party, they wouldn't need to worry about reactions.
You could have the rest of the world judge them as a group - guilt by association, as it were.Sure they would - it would be worse. They'd need to be able to separately track reputation and personality for your party members. You'd have spokespersons, potentially people doing different actual public actions - while you can play your own created party as a hive mind entity without any individuality, they're all still individuals in the game.
Sure they would - it would be worse. They'd need to be able to separately track reputation and personality for your party members. You'd have spokespersons, potentially people doing different actual public actions - while you can play your own created party as a hive mind entity without any individuality, they're all still individuals in the game.
Not to mention that in order for it to work we'd have to return to blank slate companions, which would be a huge mistake.
They could have a background, but for us to play them they kind of have to be blank slate companions. As it is, it makes no sense that we can choose their abilities and combat behaviour but their personalities are entirelt beyond our control.Not to mention that in order for it to work we'd have to return to blank slate companions, which would be a huge mistake.
They could have a background, but for us to play them they kind of have to be blank slate companions. As it is, it makes no sense that we can choose their abilities and combat behaviour but their personalities are entirelt beyond our control.
I would prefer blank slate companions to that.
I've said before it would be interesting to see personality play more into combat, but in Mass Effect combat commands are limited to begin with. All we have is move, attack, or use ability.
I would rather have what we get in modern BioWare games where the companions are actual people. I'm not here to RP an entire group of people, and having companions I don't get to define the personality of allows the world to feel more natural rather than my group being judged as a single entity by everybody we meet.
As I recall Mass Effect also has an auto level feature. If you don't want to have control over their abilities, you don't have to. You also don't have to give them commands in combat to take control of them.
You could have the rest of the world judge them as a group - guilt by association, as it were.
Those were the good old days indeed. Sadly they won't return to Bioware games.I want choices that allow Ryder to stab his squad mates in the proverbial back. I'm talking, KOTOR levels of evil here. Dragon Age Inquisition was sorely lacking in this. So was Mass Effect 3. Jade Empire nailed it though. Can't we go back to the good old days?
Make it happen.
Do it. Do it. DO IT.
They could have a background, but for us to play them they kind of have to be blank slate companions. As it is, it makes no sense that we can choose their abilities and combat behaviour but their personalities are entirelt beyond our control.
I would prefer blank slate companions to that.
I want choices that allow Ryder to stab his squad mates in the proverbial back. I'm talking, KOTOR levels of evil here. Dragon Age Inquisition was sorely lacking in this. So was Mass Effect 3. Jade Empire nailed it though. Can't we go back to the good old days?
Make it happen.
Do it. Do it. DO IT.
Don't, don't, DON'T.
Jade Empire had one of the most disappointing moral systems of Bioware. At least KOTOR never pretends that the Dark Side is morally coherant, it merely gives a self-justifying ideology for sociopathy. Jade Empire sketched out an idea of Closed Fist as an austere and hard-hearted way to make people stronger rather than reliant, and then spent the game making it being about being pointlessly cruel and tormenting the weak everyone. The application and the rationalization had nothing alike.
I'd argue that Bioware's storytelling and moral delimmas have gotten better, not worse, as they've moved away from 'evil' ideologies. In Mass Effect, Renegade was at its most fun and popular when it was coached in greater-good/ends-justify-the-means/risk-mitigation justifications, not petty greed, racism, or unamusing cruelty. Inquisition didn't have pointlessly cruel options like DAO... and also didn't have the rather stupid-evil options that frequently littered DAO, like trying to kill your much-needed allies before you have any guarantee of a replacement (ie, Redcliffe, the dialogue path to recruiting Werewolves).
Playing a sociopath can be fun in KOTOR because the game knows what it's trying for and doesn't pretend it's good. Mass Effect frequently tried to cast it's decisions as different forms of morality which, while unbalanced, still could often be justified. The two styles don't mesh, and I disagree that the 'Evil' path of older RPGs was in any way superior.
A true RPG would allow us to be sadists if we choose to RP that way.
A good RPG, however, would make Role Playing choices that are interesting for more than just a tiny minority. Strangely, the opportunity to be a cruel, racist, short-sighted dick for petty reasons and marginal advantage aren't that interesting for most people.
Bioware is in the business of computer RPGs, which, among other things, are limited in their options. Typically, two or three. The good choices- the choices people actually spend time talking about and being impressed about and arguing for months and sometimes years later- have never been the 'sadistic' ones, where one option is nice and good and the spot is petty, vanal, and pathetic. The best Bioware choices have been when people can strongly argue the merits of the other side.
No one argues strongly for the merits of sadism. It's not merely unpleasant, but quite frequently boring and even counter-productive to those wanting an amoral, less-holy-than-though self-serving pragmatist playthrough because sadism isn't pragmatic. Sadism entertains the people who want to be sadists- it doesn't support the role playing of people who just want a less preachy alternative to nice and good.
Since Bioware makes cRPGs, which by your definition will never be 'true RPGs' since they lack absolute freedom, I'd much rather them focus on making a good moral delimma than something they'd never be able to make in the first place.
That's a problem. The setting should be built around the mechanics. The mechanics should describe the physical realities of the setting.It makes as much sense as any gameplay mechanic, which is to say, absolutely none in-setting.
There's no such thing as a good moral dilemma, because there's no such thing as a moral dilemma. If you understand your own moral system, making moral decisions should be simple arithmetic.Since Bioware makes cRPGs, which by your definition will never be 'true RPGs' since they lack absolute freedom, I'd much rather them focus on making a good moral delimma than something they'd never be able to make in the first place.
It would still be the same team, just with different members.Sure - but that would have to be part of your setting. It would need to be acknowledged. And then the game would still have to deal with you potentially swapping out your party.
How? It could work just the same way BG did it, where the world views any character that's in your party equivalently.It would become further complicated by a game that also has its own NPCs you could recruit.
I did back them when they mentioned the create-your-own-party feature. I eveb publicly offered to double my support if they would have let any party member act as party spokesperson (like how Wasteland 2 and BG do it). Alas, Obsidian did not do that.But I may be wrong - I do not enjoy games were you create your own party and do not play them unless the they are designed around a single protagonist and the created party is superfluous - like POE. Even then, that was the main reason I didn't support their kickstarter. I had no assurance how they would incorporate creating your own party and how it would affect my SP experience and so I did not want to advance them money.
My preference would be to have a wide variety of solutions for problems that are complicated. I actually think in some aspects DA:I did this, but it bungled the execution by not putting them in context, so it wasn't really effective. Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts is mostly what I'm thinking of here. In theory it's a great quest: multiple possible endings where you influence who will be the leader of a nation and most gains are achieved through diplomacy and intrigue, although combat is utilized and can be an alternative. However, there's not enough information about the contenders and not enough attachment to the results for it to feel really meaningful or personal, and the way you achieve certain endings makes little sense. (To get the most politically manipulative result, you basically have to spend the most time outside of talking to people wandering around and opening the exact right doors?).
I mean, I would like dialogue options and solutions that are not righteous in nature, but I really dislike the split between good/evil and I think when choices in a videogame are delineated between good/neutral/bad, it often leads to less interesting narratives than perspective a/perspective b/perspective c...which in itself can include ruthless, dark, or selfish actions, as long as it makes sense for the problem at hand.
As in shooting children evil or "Now witness the fire power of this full armed and operation battle station!"....because the latter was Kotor evil. If the latter, then I would prefer kotor 2 evil. As in mind f*kery twisting and turning evil that was really depressing.
Uh btw. your avatar looks a little like a villain to me or at least she looks a bit evil or quite angry
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That's Ruby Rose (from RWBY) and she definitely does look quite sinister in that shot, but in actually is about as Paragon as it gets.
There's no such thing as a good moral dilemma, because there's no such thing as a moral dilemma. If you understand your own moral system, making moral decisions should be simple arithmetic.
The only confusion ever is when we're not given enough information about the choices we're making (such as the option to reprogram the geth in ME2), but I would argue that this simply removes any moral component from the decision.
And I still think saving Redcliffe is an idiotic thing to do.
Even with that line of thinking, it's a far more interesting setup to give us Legion's loyalty mission as a moral choice rather than standard black and white choices.
Choosing between "good to a fault hero" or "Saturday morning cartoon villain" is boring.
I'd also argue that Legion's mission gives you enough information about the choices themselves. What it doesn't do is tell you what the consequences of rewrite will be, but it shouldn't be telling you that. Any good RP setting isn't going to spell out all the consequences of your actions for you.
Makes you think about how bad of an RPG the Mass Effect trilogy actually is:Any good RP setting isn't going to spell out all the consequences of your actions for you.
Makes you think about how bad of an RPG the Mass Effect trilogy actually is:
Bioware: "You should save the rachni queen." *wink *wink
"You should destroy the Collector base." *wink *wink
"You should cure the genophage." *wink *wink
I think the biggest problem there was that at the end of the day, most of our important decisions prior to Earth in Mass Effect ended up being nothing but a number in the EMS.
It'd have been more interesting is killing the Rachni queen meant the Reaper ground forces in ME3 were weaker because they don't have Ravagers now, since there are no Rachni left.
GrossMakes you think about how bad of an RPG the Mass Effect trilogy actually is:
Bioware: "You should save the rachni queen." *wink *wink
"You should destroy the Collector base." *wink *wink
"You should cure the genophage." *wink *wink
There's no such thing as a good moral dilemma, because there's no such thing as a moral dilemma. If you understand your own moral system, making moral decisions should be simple arithmetic.
I think the biggest problem there was that at the end of the day, most of our important decisions prior to Earth in Mass Effect ended up being nothing but a number in the EMS.
It'd have been more interesting is killing the Rachni queen meant the Reaper ground forces in ME3 were weaker because they don't have Ravagers now, since there are no Rachni left.
Point 1: Agree...sucked.
Point 2: Man, that's the kind of unintended consequences I wanna see in a game...leaving the Queen alive. Of course, I'd let her live just to have more varied enemies to kill later:)
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