Because I can't say I ever had a situation where I had to play full one or the other.
There's been talk that some Shadow Broker choices don't care if your paragon is full, it cares how many times you chose the paragon option out of the total available. If there's 10 choices, and to use certain Shadowbroker choices(and I think some of the arguments are like this as well). If you need 8 Paragon out of the whole game, and you only made 7 Paragon and you're out of choices, you can't get it.
Now if you do it earlier in the game where say up to that point you only have 4 of these tracked choices available, and you'd need 3 at least according to how it scales and you have 3, you can make the choice you want to make. I can sorta see why it was done, but it means the graphical representation of the bars is useless and represents a system that isn't being used.
Because I can't say I ever had a situation where I had to play full one or the other.
There's been talk that some Shadow Broker choices don't care if your paragon is full, it cares how many times you chose the paragon option out of the total available. If there's 10 choices, and to use certain Shadowbroker choices(and I think some of the arguments are like this as well). If you need 8 Paragon out of the whole game, and you only made 7 Paragon and you're out of choices, you can't get it.
Now if you do it earlier in the game where say up to that point you only have 4 of these tracked choices available, and you'd need 3 at least according to how it scales and you have 3, you can make the choice you want to make. I can sorta see why it was done, but it means the graphical representation of the bars is useless and represents a system that isn't being used.
Don't forget that you carry over Paragon and Renegade points from the first game, so you have some decent leeway unless you play straight down the middle of the road - and even that would be able to get most of the prompts.
The system workd by determining the percentage of available P/R points you have, which is why the further into the game you the harder the checks get.
Tali/Legion and LotSB only stand out because most players leave them until the end. Try getting Thane's loyalty intimidate post-suicide mission.
Yeah, I know, but what I'm saying, if my blue or red bar is maxed, I get to say whatever Paragon (or Renegade) choice I want, none of this "Oh you picked 2 renegade responses, sucks to be you."
viper is faster than mattock at stripping armor, so my vanguard takes it to snipe scions.
Pfft. Real men beat Scions to death with their bare hands.
I did this once. Charge lets you get past their shot, so you just have to wait for them to fire, charge, punch them twice and immediately back off. Didn't even get hit.
man, you don't even have to back off. they'll do their immediate-area ground-pound attack, which will strip your shield, but by then charge has cooled down.
vangod is pretty much the ONLY class that can toe-to-toe with a fully-armored scion and win. :^: (excluding the stasis thingy)
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
The system workd by determining the percentage of available P/R points you have, which is why the further into the game you the harder the checks get.
Tali/Legion and LotSB only stand out because most players leave them until the end. Try getting Thane's loyalty intimidate post-suicide mission.
Doesn't this mean that it actually makes very very little sense to attempt to balance paragon and renegade(or go for anything but maxing one of them)?
I thought that the whole point of the system was that it was a break from the KotOR LS/DS system by having the two archetypes not be mutually exclusive, but if they're penalising the player for veering off one path then aren't they putting you right where KotOR put you, and exactly in the situation that ME set out to avoid.
What would be wrong with reintroducing charm/intimidate attributes but keeping them distinct from the other stats. Say every two levels you get a point that can only be spent on C/I, and the maximums of these are determined perhaps by which choice you made at key story points(such as the end of nearly every loyalty mission). This way you get to have a paragon character who occasionally makes renegade choices but isn't necessarily punished for it.
Also, there need to be fewer charm checks that are essentially interchangeable with intimidate checks(and vice versa). These only really serve to punish players who go straight down the middle.
you craft a reputation through your cumulative choices
so by the time one of those hard checks comes up where you actually have to CONVINCE someone, they know:
paragonshep practices what he preaches, wears his dedication on his sleeve, and is sincere as hell. he's being totally honest when he says that he needs them to X because of Y
renegadeshep has demonstrated many times that she will not hestitate to fuck your shit up if you get in her way. the mission comes first, she's shot people for less, and therefore you better fall the fuck in line.
neutralshep has shown that he's no saint, but she's no monster either. middle of the road, cumulatively speaking, and therefore intensely human. nobody's put neutralshep on a pedestal as some kind of superhero. neutralshep's probably the most accessible shep, but why should anyone listen? they've seen you muddle through choices just like anyone else.
so really it's better to go with one alignment or the other and sprinkle your favorite interrupts to taste, regardless - i mostly go paragon and still push people out of buildings. i've never had a problem with hard checks playing like that, but if you're alternating the upper right/lower right dialogue choices the whole game then you may run into issues.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
The problem in many respects with morality systems is that it's IMPOSSIBLE to add enough nuance to satiate people, because if you tried to then the developers opinions on how certain moral dilemmas should be resolved would start to leak through too strongly.
In many respects its the problem with having paragon or renegade choices backfire: because it becomes the developers opinion on the choice.
I don't really know how this could be resolved: in some respects I guess you simply need choices which become about raw numbers, the player then gets to try it out: make fights easier or harder based on them etc.
My problem with black and white morality systems that reward you, is that I don't end up making the choices that I want to make. Going in, I know that I am going to choose paragon/renegade even if I disagree with it, because that's what I need to choose in order to succeed at conversation later in the game. It feels like the game's playing me.
you could always just cheat and max out both paragon and renegade and never have to worry about the game "playing you"
Even if you max out the bars, it still keeps track of how many paragon and renegade choices you made, so it will still tell you you aren't enough of a saint if you do certain missions near the end.
Once I max out my class skill, I more or less always pick the +100% Charm/Intimidate option. As long as you pick a few of both choices early in the game, you won't ever be barred from an answer.
Personally, I wish it wasn't so non-committal. The neutral option should be easier than Paragon or Renegade, but P/R should give you other benefits.
I've always thought Bioware did a top notch job with the conversation systems in ME because they're not polarised to "good v evil" but rather "honourable job done vs get the job done." The result is that you can freely move about on the conversations and get interesting effects. But yeah in my first game I played paragon, but it didn't stop me throwing in a renegade choice every once in a whie. In my current game i'm doing the opposite.
My problem with black and white morality systems that reward you, is that I don't end up making the choices that I want to make. Going in, I know that I am going to choose paragon/renegade even if I disagree with it, because that's what I need to choose in order to succeed at conversation later in the game. It feels like the game's playing me.
but 90% of the time you're NOT going to be doing 50% paragon/50% renegade as "the choices that I want to make"
feel FREE to make whatever decisions you want. all you need is a maxed passive skill and a general TENDENCY towards an alignment. it's quite flexible, really.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
Can't say I've ever had to make a paragon/renegade response I don't agree with. And if their was one I would just choose the neutral or opposite option. Really, didn't have too much trouble.
For what its worth, I don't think ME2's system is any worse than ME1. Oh, don't have enough points in your charm/intimidate skill? Tough shit. At least ME2 is actually somewhat based on your behavior in that particular playthrough; in ME1 my level 60 soldier is nearly maxed in both charm and intimidate just from doing so many playthroughs.
Finished my Insanity wInfiltrator playthrough: absolutely plowed through the game this time around. My only hiccup was that when I first arrived on Illium, and spoke with Liara, I went down the Lair of the Shadow Broker path, and completely bypassed the whole section where you help her track down the mole. Also, Conrad Verner never, ever showed up, and I can't figure out why. Is he somehow connected to the Liara missions in a way I can't remember, or is it just a bug?
Anyway, that's the only thing I seem to have missed in the game, which only bothers me because I'm sure he'll make another appearance in Mass Effect 3, and I somehow missed out in interacting with him at all on Illium. Is that a common bug, or did I do something to mess it up potentially?
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
A quick question about the last push in the collector base:
As long as you have all your people alive, and they're all loyal, and I send Mordin to escort the crew back to the Normandy, is there any chance someone will die holding the line while you kill reaper baby?
Going by the Mass Effect wiki, it says Tali and Kasumi would be the first to die, so I brought them with me the first time I played, and Tali and Miranda the second time. If I brought Grunt or Garrus with me, does that screw everything up?
TexiKen on
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Finished my Insanity wInfiltrator playthrough: absolutely plowed through the game this time around. My only hiccup was that when I first arrived on Illium, and spoke with Liara, I went down the Lair of the Shadow Broker path, and completely bypassed the whole section where you help her track down the mole. Also, Conrad Verner never, ever showed up, and I can't figure out why. Is he somehow connected to the Liara missions in a way I can't remember, or is it just a bug?
Anyway, that's the only thing I seem to have missed in the game, which only bothers me because I'm sure he'll make another appearance in Mass Effect 3, and I somehow missed out in interacting with him at all on Illium. Is that a common bug, or did I do something to mess it up potentially?
Conrad only shows up if you're playing an import where you didn't kill him off. If you aren't playing an import, you'll never see him.
Orca on
0
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
A quick question about the last push in the collector base:
As long as you have all your people alive, and they're all loyal, and I send Mordin to escort the crew back to the Normandy, is there any chance someone will die holding the line while you kill reaper baby?
Going by the Mass Effect wiki, it says Tali and Kasumi would be the first to die, so I brought them with me the first time I played, and Tali and Miranda the second time. If I brought Grunt or Garrus with me, does that screw everything up?
...it might.
Grunt (in particular) and Garrus have exceedingly high "hold-the-line" scores, and you want your average hold-the-line score to be fairly high. Zaeed also has a high score. If you have all three, you can safely take one with you. I can't be bothered to check if more than one might cause problems. There's a link in the OP to the formula. You can figure it out yourself from there, based on the crew you have and their loyalty.
Orca on
0
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
A quick question about the last push in the collector base:
As long as you have all your people alive, and they're all loyal, and I send Mordin to escort the crew back to the Normandy, is there any chance someone will die holding the line while you kill reaper baby?
Going by the Mass Effect wiki, it says Tali and Kasumi would be the first to die, so I brought them with me the first time I played, and Tali and Miranda the second time. If I brought Grunt or Garrus with me, does that screw everything up?
The three best hold-the-liners are Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed. You can bring one of them with you and not lose anyone, but bring two and I think you can probably say goodbye to Tali.
So, with my brand new 360, I decided to be lazy and not play through ME1 again and jump straight to 2... well, that wasn't the greatest idea. The game practically assumes I took every damn renegade option throughout 1, and why the hell would they think Udina would make a better Counseler? I know MY renegade Shepard wouldn't choose Udina *grumbles*. At least I keep my Cerberus account access through my gamertag... and a bonus 200,000 credits... and a bonus 50,000 to each mineral... okay, I can work with this.
Finished my Insanity wInfiltrator playthrough: absolutely plowed through the game this time around. My only hiccup was that when I first arrived on Illium, and spoke with Liara, I went down the Lair of the Shadow Broker path, and completely bypassed the whole section where you help her track down the mole. Also, Conrad Verner never, ever showed up, and I can't figure out why. Is he somehow connected to the Liara missions in a way I can't remember, or is it just a bug?
Anyway, that's the only thing I seem to have missed in the game, which only bothers me because I'm sure he'll make another appearance in Mass Effect 3, and I somehow missed out in interacting with him at all on Illium. Is that a common bug, or did I do something to mess it up potentially?
Conrad only shows up if you're playing an import where you didn't kill him off. If you aren't playing an import, you'll never see him.
Hmm. I am playing an import, and I didn't kill him off in ME1 (I didn't even know you could kill him off -- I mean, I knew you could threaten him with a gun, and I think I did, but I had no idea you could off Conrad), so I'm not really sure. I'll keep looking into it.
Posts
That's pretty awesome.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
There's been talk that some Shadow Broker choices don't care if your paragon is full, it cares how many times you chose the paragon option out of the total available. If there's 10 choices, and to use certain Shadowbroker choices(and I think some of the arguments are like this as well). If you need 8 Paragon out of the whole game, and you only made 7 Paragon and you're out of choices, you can't get it.
Now if you do it earlier in the game where say up to that point you only have 4 of these tracked choices available, and you'd need 3 at least according to how it scales and you have 3, you can make the choice you want to make. I can sorta see why it was done, but it means the graphical representation of the bars is useless and represents a system that isn't being used.
Don't forget that you carry over Paragon and Renegade points from the first game, so you have some decent leeway unless you play straight down the middle of the road - and even that would be able to get most of the prompts.
Tali/Legion and LotSB only stand out because most players leave them until the end. Try getting Thane's loyalty intimidate post-suicide mission.
Yeah, I know, but what I'm saying, if my blue or red bar is maxed, I get to say whatever Paragon (or Renegade) choice I want, none of this "Oh you picked 2 renegade responses, sucks to be you."
man, you don't even have to back off. they'll do their immediate-area ground-pound attack, which will strip your shield, but by then charge has cooled down.
vangod is pretty much the ONLY class that can toe-to-toe with a fully-armored scion and win. :^: (excluding the stasis thingy)
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
XBL: MightyManotaur
PA: TheSecretSeventh
wait....
Probably January-February of 2012 at the earliest
Next DLC?
yeah i might have to buy it for PS3 when it comes out. TROPHIES.
XBL: MightyManotaur
PA: TheSecretSeventh
wait....
Haha same, I see the words Mass Effect and DLC and my brain gets excited, every time I see the thread title, even knowing its not about new DLC.
I thought that the whole point of the system was that it was a break from the KotOR LS/DS system by having the two archetypes not be mutually exclusive, but if they're penalising the player for veering off one path then aren't they putting you right where KotOR put you, and exactly in the situation that ME set out to avoid.
What would be wrong with reintroducing charm/intimidate attributes but keeping them distinct from the other stats. Say every two levels you get a point that can only be spent on C/I, and the maximums of these are determined perhaps by which choice you made at key story points(such as the end of nearly every loyalty mission). This way you get to have a paragon character who occasionally makes renegade choices but isn't necessarily punished for it.
Also, there need to be fewer charm checks that are essentially interchangeable with intimidate checks(and vice versa). These only really serve to punish players who go straight down the middle.
you craft a reputation through your cumulative choices
so by the time one of those hard checks comes up where you actually have to CONVINCE someone, they know:
paragonshep practices what he preaches, wears his dedication on his sleeve, and is sincere as hell. he's being totally honest when he says that he needs them to X because of Y
renegadeshep has demonstrated many times that she will not hestitate to fuck your shit up if you get in her way. the mission comes first, she's shot people for less, and therefore you better fall the fuck in line.
neutralshep has shown that he's no saint, but she's no monster either. middle of the road, cumulatively speaking, and therefore intensely human. nobody's put neutralshep on a pedestal as some kind of superhero. neutralshep's probably the most accessible shep, but why should anyone listen? they've seen you muddle through choices just like anyone else.
so really it's better to go with one alignment or the other and sprinkle your favorite interrupts to taste, regardless - i mostly go paragon and still push people out of buildings. i've never had a problem with hard checks playing like that, but if you're alternating the upper right/lower right dialogue choices the whole game then you may run into issues.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
In many respects its the problem with having paragon or renegade choices backfire: because it becomes the developers opinion on the choice.
I don't really know how this could be resolved: in some respects I guess you simply need choices which become about raw numbers, the player then gets to try it out: make fights easier or harder based on them etc.
which is why having both renegade and paragon choices result in success is such a beautiful thing
bioware's done a bangup job so far of making both resulting universes pretty convincing
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Even if you max out the bars, it still keeps track of how many paragon and renegade choices you made, so it will still tell you you aren't enough of a saint if you do certain missions near the end.
Personally, I wish it wasn't so non-committal. The neutral option should be easier than Paragon or Renegade, but P/R should give you other benefits.
but 90% of the time you're NOT going to be doing 50% paragon/50% renegade as "the choices that I want to make"
feel FREE to make whatever decisions you want. all you need is a maxed passive skill and a general TENDENCY towards an alignment. it's quite flexible, really.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Anyway, that's the only thing I seem to have missed in the game, which only bothers me because I'm sure he'll make another appearance in Mass Effect 3, and I somehow missed out in interacting with him at all on Illium. Is that a common bug, or did I do something to mess it up potentially?
Going by the Mass Effect wiki, it says Tali and Kasumi would be the first to die, so I brought them with me the first time I played, and Tali and Miranda the second time. If I brought Grunt or Garrus with me, does that screw everything up?
Conrad only shows up if you're playing an import where you didn't kill him off. If you aren't playing an import, you'll never see him.
...it might.
EDIT- Damn you
This article actually has the defensive values for each squad member spelled out.
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
Hmm. I am playing an import, and I didn't kill him off in ME1 (I didn't even know you could kill him off -- I mean, I knew you could threaten him with a gun, and I think I did, but I had no idea you could off Conrad), so I'm not really sure. I'll keep looking into it.