PC Games Sales Thread - Page 524

On July 05 2014 06:40 TheYango wrote:

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.

Mastery bonuses are only applied to the main player character in the PC version of the game

On July 04 2014 11:39 Liquid`Jinro wrote:

It's basically Star Control (aka Ur'Quan Masters). Or the Relevation Space series of books.

On July 05 2014 06:43 Gorsameth wrote:
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.

On July 05 2014 07:05 TheYango wrote:

I mean, both games are easy enough that the effect of alignment isn't enough to make or break a playthrough.

Fundamentally, both games really fail to create an alignment system of real consequence. The purpose of alignment is to create a framework for decision-making that dynamically alters the flow of the game based on the choices you make and how you interact with people (Planescape: Torment does this well). Neither game presents their alignment systems in a manner that actually has real consequences outside of your ability to slaughter your own party members if you choose to.

On July 05 2014 07:14 WolfintheSheep wrote:


I think that's generally why I liked Mass Effect's morality more than other Bioware games. They dropped the pretenses that all these morality choices were actually important. You could be a dick, or a nice person, but you were still saving the universe either way.

It was probably the first time I just made "choices" based on whatever I felt like doing. Almost every other game I've played with any kind of morality system ended up being me trying to figure out what kind of rewards I would get at the end of it all.

On July 05 2014 07:14 WolfintheSheep wrote:
I think that's generally why I liked Mass Effect's morality more than other Bioware games. They dropped the pretenses that all these morality choices were actually important. You could be a dick, or a nice person, but you were still saving the universe either way.

On July 05 2014 07:39 ZenithM wrote:
And as long as games won't have procedural dialogue and quest generation, you won't have awesomely deep and broad dialogue trees that depend on what you've been doing and how you've been answering since the beginning of the game. People need to understand the amount of work and lines of dialogues that would imply.

On July 05 2014 06:43 WolfintheSheep wrote:


Light side mastery
Guardian: +3 STR
Sentinel: +3 CON
Consular: +3 CHA

Dark side mastery
Guardian: +1d8 damage
Sentinel: Poison Immunity
Consular: +50 to Force Points

Okay, some of the Dark side ones are negligible. The others, not so much.

On July 05 2014 07:28 TheYango wrote:

I just don't see how they dropped those pretenses. There's still a mechanical benefit to extreme alignment, alignment still locks you out of certain speech paths (which are superfluous and generally inconsequential anyway in both games), and all of it is still ultimately just as poorly done as any of their other games.

There doesn't seem anything out of this that seems unique to Mass Effect here. You could have played KotOR the same way, and had the same experience--you just chose not to and therefore felt Mass Effect was better.

On July 05 2014 15:49 WolfintheSheep wrote:


Can't remember anything in Mass Effect that certain alignment would lock you out of. Not having enough locked you out, but the thing was you could always build up both. In fact...being extreme was usually a detriment, because having a good meter in both gave you access to all the items, better stats, and more dialogue options.

KotOR, being light side meant you could never access dark side options, and vice versa. Being neutral meant you had access neither. And it also limited your gameplay options as well, because you either picked a side from the start to choose your powers/classes, or you made all your decisions to stay on the neutral line to use both (sub-optimally).

On July 05 2014 18:08 Kipsate wrote:
IIRC if you didn't follow either Renegade or Paragon through during your ME2 project

+ Show Spoiler +

I actually liked ME3's mechanic, it meant that you could be a dick to people you thought were a dick or if you felt like being a dick but still be nice to others, you weren''t forced into options.

On July 05 2014 07:39 ZenithM wrote:
I think that what Mass Effect added in term of good/evil alignment compared to KotOR comes down to the better dialogues and voice acting. It's much more fun for me to hear the guy act like a douche (even if nothing comes out of it) rather than just read some mildly assholish text. I was more motivated to use the "evil" dialogue options that way. I don't really buy into the RPGs which make every single character except yours have a voice and actually speak.

And as long as games won't have procedural dialogue and quest generation, you won't have awesomely deep and broad dialogue trees that depend on what you've been doing and how you've been answering since the beginning of the game. People need to understand the amount of work and lines of dialogues that would imply.