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On July 04 2014 22:13 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 20:09 Torte de Lini wrote:
The beauty about Mass Effect is that they took basic moral decisions and situations and put them in a setting. I won't spoil anything, but the two extremes were always contrasting to have you weigh out the repercussions of morality and perception of "good"/"bad" My problem with ME morality is that Paragon is almost always the smarter choice, and one that a commander would do. This is especially apparent in 3 where + Show Spoiler +Renegade chooses quite frequently to wipe out large swaths of the forces you're supposed to be gathering. Especially in the Quarian/Geth missions. Getting both is just flat out superior for the goal of stopping the reapers, letting one die off completely would always leave you with the inferior force.
Good thing then that those choices dont really have any effect on gameplay at all. It just changes a single cutscene.
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Snatched Drive on Moscow, it's only 2,99 right now.
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I do have to say that Paragon/Renegade choices were a little "bad" in ME1, mostly because Sheppard in ME1 as Paragond was a little pussy... at least they put him some "cojones" in ME 2 and 3
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Shepard is just a bland character, and so is the whole morality angle in the Mass Effect series. The NPCs and subplots are what made the games for me (mostly the subplots in ME1 and NPCs in ME2, overall ME3 just seemed tacked on for completeness' sake).
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On July 04 2014 22:13 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 20:09 Torte de Lini wrote:
The beauty about Mass Effect is that they took basic moral decisions and situations and put them in a setting. I won't spoil anything, but the two extremes were always contrasting to have you weigh out the repercussions of morality and perception of "good"/"bad" My problem with ME morality is that Paragon is almost always the smarter choice, and one that a commander would do. This is especially apparent in 3 where + Show Spoiler +Renegade chooses quite frequently to wipe out large swaths of the forces you're supposed to be gathering. Especially in the Quarian/Geth missions. Getting both is just flat out superior for the goal of stopping the reapers, letting one die off completely would always leave you with the inferior force.
In my opinion, the game plays best when you debate yourself the qualities of each decision and how impactful the events leading up to that decision affected you and the characters you personally cared about (especially true in ME1 and ME3). If you play the game for the most optimal way to succeed in the grand scheme of the story, you're missing the true fun of the whole pathway.
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On July 04 2014 23:14 calh wrote:
Shepard is just a bland character, and so is the whole morality angle in the Mass Effect series. The NPCs and subplots are what made the games for me (mostly the subplots in ME1 and NPCs in ME2, overall ME3 just seemed tacked on for completeness' sake).
Yeah especially your squad members, some of them are miles better than Shepard
+ Show Spoiler +NOTHING beats the amazingness of Garrus, Wrex and Mordin... NOTHING
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On July 04 2014 16:23 phagga wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 12:19 TheYango wrote:On July 04 2014 06:38 gruff wrote:ME1 was fun but calling the story good is a bit of a stretch. It's every popular space opera fiction squeezed into one game. It's fun though.  It's also every prior Bioware game just adapted to a new setting. That's just wrong.
Fine, sorry, just the same as KotOR, borrowing heavily from BG2, and reused again in DA:O. Lets see:
- Start the game on some basic low-level mission to aid the prevailing order of the world (the Republic, the Citadel Council, Ferelden) against the big dark threat which aims to control the world/universe (the Sith, the Reapers, the Darkspawn)
- This mission ends in disaster and you barely escape with your lives. In two of these cases, the disaster is caused by the betrayal of an esteemed character from your side (Saren, Loghain).
- The player is instated into the "special" order for good (the Jedi, the Spectres, the Grey Wardens). Beyond this, the main character always has something unique which makes them stand out among them (+ Show Spoiler +the main character's past as Revan
- The main character is tasked with going to 4 different places to investigate/enlist aid. While the specifics of the locales are adapted to each setting, every game follows this "go visit 4 places in any order" pattern.
- After this "go visit 4 places" segment, the player is sent to one of the villains' main seats of power (in ME and DA:O the villain here is the betrayer character from before). They confront the villain here, and the encounter leads to losing one or more party members (Bastila leaves till the end of the game and you can possibly lose more party members if you're evil; choice between saving Kaidan or Ashley; choice between Loghain and Alistair)
- After regrouping from that encounter, your party goes to tackle the final battle. At long last, the armies of the order which you're trying to save enter the battle rather than sitting and watching you do everything. You are presented with the single actual moral outcome of the game based on your decisions.
In terms of characters, we've got:
- The annoying, career-soldier type who has the moral compass of a 12-year-old, and always ends up as the romantic interest for a female character (Carth, Kaidan, Alistair)
- The stuck-up bitch "strong female character" that eventually just softens up and gets in bed with a male character (Bastila, Ashley, Morrigan)
- The naive, happy-go-lucky skill user girl (Mission, Tali, Leliana)
- The strong-hearted fighter bred from a warrior culture that lives for battle (Canderous, Wrex, Oghren)
And some others I'm probably forgetting.
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And you didn't even mention Jade Empire. But that's Ok because Kung-Fu is always formulaic.
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On July 04 2014 23:32 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 22:13 deth2munkies wrote:On July 04 2014 20:09 Torte de Lini wrote:
The beauty about Mass Effect is that they took basic moral decisions and situations and put them in a setting. I won't spoil anything, but the two extremes were always contrasting to have you weigh out the repercussions of morality and perception of "good"/"bad" My problem with ME morality is that Paragon is almost always the smarter choice, and one that a commander would do. This is especially apparent in 3 where + Show Spoiler +Renegade chooses quite frequently to wipe out large swaths of the forces you're supposed to be gathering. Especially in the Quarian/Geth missions. Getting both is just flat out superior for the goal of stopping the reapers, letting one die off completely would always leave you with the inferior force. In my opinion, the game plays best when you debate yourself the qualities of each decision and how impactful the events leading up to that decision affected you and the characters you personally cared about (especially true in ME1 and ME3). If you play the game for the most optimal way to succeed in the grand scheme of the story, you're missing the true fun of the whole pathway.
Well yeah, about 90% of the decisions are just "Kill enemy you just beat"/"Not kill enemy you just beat" or "Be a dick"/"Not be a dick". Those could go either way for me (for instance, in my paragon playthroughs, I always say, "Enough of your tabloid journalism/snide insinuations" because it's funny as hell, and actually more poignant than the paragon path in 3.)
But nearly all the ones that impact the continuing story are all better and make more sense when you choose paragon.
+ Show Spoiler +
The Destiny Ascension is the most powerful ship in the galaxy, worth half the human fleet. Not saving it makes the galaxy remarkably weaker.
Letting Kirrahe die is freaking pointless, it doesn't change how hard the mission ultimately is and given he's on your side, you need all the allies you can get.
Killing Wrex is pointless for the same reason.
Handing over all the research in the Collector base to a known terrorist/human supremacist organization is dumb. If it was the alliance, maybe it'd be a closer call, but still.
As I mentioned before, 2 fleets are better than one, letting the Quarians or Geth kill the other one is always worse.
The one exception I can think of is Udina. He was a dick to you the ENTIRE game, but given how you're well aware that the council is steeped in politics, appointing him is probably the smarter move.
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It's a problem with any morality system. The world doesn't have these polar "good and bad". Often times the "bad" choice is so ridiculous it's more in place for a cartoon villain than actual moral choice. Hardly any games actually have a good moral choice system that gives you real options that you can debate with yourself about. It gets even worse when they tie gameplay/abilities to the choices. Now you have to do dumb choices just to achieve the most you can in terms of gameplay.
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On July 05 2014 04:54 Haiq343 wrote:
And you didn't even mention Jade Empire. But that's Ok because Kung-Fu is always formulaic.
I didn't because I didn't play it and didn't feel confident about working it into the formula without fucking something up, though I'm told it fits the bill as well.
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Honestly, Mass Effect felt like the first time I could just pick the option that I wanted. Don't think I ever played a pure paragon or pure renegade. Was nice to the characters I liked, punched the annoying ones in the face. And hanging up on the council is the most satisfying experience in a video game ever.
Not like KotR where it's like "Oops I said something mean, lose all max-Jedi power", or "I'm sick of doing petty chores for everyone in the universe, guess I gotta be an evil overlord".
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On July 05 2014 06:05 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Not like KotR where it's like "Oops I said something mean, lose all max-Jedi power", or "I'm sick of doing petty chores for everyone in the universe, guess I gotta be an evil overlord".
Extreme Paragon/Renegade actually do have gameplay implications (75%+ Paragon gives 10% reduced First Aid cooldown, 10% max HP increase, and 5% reduced cooldown on all powers, while 75%+ Renegade gives 10% reduced weapon power cooldown, 1 HP/s regen, and 5% damage/duration increase on all weapons and powers), and it actually is favorable to be very extreme from a gameplay standpoint. That you didn't notice it doesn't mean it's any different from KotOR.
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On July 05 2014 06:14 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2014 06:05 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Not like KotR where it's like "Oops I said something mean, lose all max-Jedi power", or "I'm sick of doing petty chores for everyone in the universe, guess I gotta be an evil overlord". Extreme Paragon/Renegade actually do have gameplay implications, and it actually is favorable to be very extreme from a gameplay standpoint. That you didn't notice it doesn't mean it's any different from KotOR.
IIRC, the most you get are bonus Charm points in ME1, and sometimes extra chat wheel options for high enough levels. And more importantly, the points weren't mutually exclusive, and you got enough that you were never actually limited by picking whatever option you wanted. I can't remember a single circumstance where I was forced to pick something because I needed Paragon/Renegade points ASAP.
KotR and Jade Empire actually had significant character buffs for having maxed out meters, and the good/bad morality was mutually exclusive to one another. You either had to play purely one style or another, or consult a walkthrough and be a munchkin to get certain rewards and get high enough morality when you needed it.
Edit: Oh, you're talking about ME3. Well, haven't actually played that one yet. Been avoiding Origins like the plague.
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On July 05 2014 06:29 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Edit: Oh, you're talking about ME3. Well, haven't actually played that one yet. Been avoiding Origins like the plague.
I haven't played ME3. The stat buffs I'm talking about apply to ME1.
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On July 05 2014 06:32 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2014 06:29 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Edit: Oh, you're talking about ME3. Well, haven't actually played that one yet. Been avoiding Origins like the plague. I haven't played ME3. The stat buffs I'm talking about apply to ME1.
Still very minor stuff when compared to some of other morality systems like for example KotoR.
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On July 05 2014 06:32 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2014 06:29 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Edit: Oh, you're talking about ME3. Well, haven't actually played that one yet. Been avoiding Origins like the plague. I haven't played ME3. The stat buffs I'm talking about apply to ME1.
Ah. Well, there were enough bugs in ME1 that you could just max both bars and stop caring. Or just play on new game+ and still get 75% on both easily.
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On July 05 2014 05:38 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2014 23:32 Torte de Lini wrote:On July 04 2014 22:13 deth2munkies wrote:On July 04 2014 20:09 Torte de Lini wrote:
The beauty about Mass Effect is that they took basic moral decisions and situations and put them in a setting. I won't spoil anything, but the two extremes were always contrasting to have you weigh out the repercussions of morality and perception of "good"/"bad" My problem with ME morality is that Paragon is almost always the smarter choice, and one that a commander would do. This is especially apparent in 3 where + Show Spoiler +Renegade chooses quite frequently to wipe out large swaths of the forces you're supposed to be gathering. Especially in the Quarian/Geth missions. Getting both is just flat out superior for the goal of stopping the reapers, letting one die off completely would always leave you with the inferior force. In my opinion, the game plays best when you debate yourself the qualities of each decision and how impactful the events leading up to that decision affected you and the characters you personally cared about (especially true in ME1 and ME3). If you play the game for the most optimal way to succeed in the grand scheme of the story, you're missing the true fun of the whole pathway. Well yeah, about 90% of the decisions are just "Kill enemy you just beat"/"Not kill enemy you just beat" or "Be a dick"/"Not be a dick". Those could go either way for me (for instance, in my paragon playthroughs, I always say, "Enough of your tabloid journalism/snide insinuations" because it's funny as hell, and actually more poignant than the paragon path in 3.) But nearly all the ones that impact the continuing story are all better and make more sense when you choose paragon. + Show Spoiler +
The Destiny Ascension is the most powerful ship in the galaxy, worth half the human fleet. Not saving it makes the galaxy remarkably weaker.
Letting Kirrahe die is freaking pointless, it doesn't change how hard the mission ultimately is and given he's on your side, you need all the allies you can get.
Killing Wrex is pointless for the same reason.
Handing over all the research in the Collector base to a known terrorist/human supremacist organization is dumb. If it was the alliance, maybe it'd be a closer call, but still.
As I mentioned before, 2 fleets are better than one, letting the Quarians or Geth kill the other one is always worse.
The one exception I can think of is Udina. He was a dick to you the ENTIRE game, but given how you're well aware that the council is steeped in politics, appointing him is probably the smarter move.
Is destroying the Collector base the Paragon move? I always chose to hand it over to Cerberus (which is the better option in the end because you get the superior Reaper Brain from raiding their base at the end of 3 as opposed to the Reaper Heart.
But yeah, most of the Paragon choices are undeniably better. Saving the Rachni queen, for instance. Granted, there's no way you would know that since at that point you aren't aware that you're going to be assembling a massive multi-racial fleet, and at least one of your party--especially Wrex, if he is present--will urge you not to, but on a second playthrough there is no reason not to save her.
Mass Effect is still one of my favorite games just because the characters are great and the worldbuilding is very good, but the morality systems is flawed. I liked how TotalBiscuit described morality in, I think it was The Walking Dead? "Instead of 'you killed Bob's daughter, you get five evil points' it's 'you killed Bob's daughter, now Bob hates you'" or whatever similar consequences might arise in that hypothetical example. Kind of like in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where you're totally able to be a dick without a morality meter, but those choices are occasionally reflected later on (like how you treat Wayne Haas: if you get him fired by abusing him, you won't be able to reconcile with him later.)
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On July 05 2014 06:33 Gorsameth wrote:
Still very minor stuff when compared to some of other morality systems like for example KotoR.
I think that's actually quite debatable. KotOR's only mechanical influence is on Force Power costs (which are irrelevant in the long run), and in terms of those, the changes by alignments are tradeoffs rather than pure benefits. The cost penalty to using off-alignment powers is actually harsher than the cost benefit for using same-alignment powers, so unless you were already going in purely with the intention of min-maxing and only using same-alignment powers, the net benefit of the alignment bonuses are mixed, whereas ME's alignment bonuses are purely beneficial.
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On July 05 2014 06:40 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2014 06:33 Gorsameth wrote:
Still very minor stuff when compared to some of other morality systems like for example KotoR. I think that's actually quite debatable. KotOR's only mechanical influence is on Force Power costs (which are irrelevant in the long run), and in terms of those, the changes by alignments are tradeoffs rather than pure benefits. The cost penalty to using off-alignment powers is actually harsher than the cost benefit for using same-alignment powers, so unless you were already going in purely with the intention of min-maxing and only using same-alignment powers, the net benefit of the alignment bonuses are mixed, whereas ME's alignment bonuses are purely beneficial.
they are purely beneficial but the benefit is minor is my point. Your play through wont suffer because you dont choose X.
Same with the choices themselves. Sure paragon might better from a story standpoint but it again has no significant impact on the gameplay of the game.
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EPT
