Dialogue Mechanics thread

There were a couple of missions in ME1 that were almost impossible to accomplish using paragon/renegade because you needed a ridiculous amount of points. A small balance issue. The one on Feros colony comes to mind...

I'm going to miss the interrupts. I always thought that was a fun mechanic and added to my RP in the games. The binary alignments I can do without, but those interrupts were one of my favorite parts of the trilogy. It isn't going to be quite the same without them.

Pretty sure BioWare has mentioned wanting to keep interrupts. Though with out P/R I dunno exactly how they'll implement it as the 2 options kinda made it obvious what are intentions where when interrupting. They could still keep the binary concept in, or maybe add a third in. Make it context based, I mean renegade was pretty much always aggressive, take action first kinda thing.

Hope they find a good solution to keep them and haven't trashed the idea. Considering I know they've said way back when they wanted to advance the idea theres hope. Course I think we heard anything on that was like 2 years ago so who knows if they dropped it.

...But theres a chance!

Agree completely.  Most of my favorite ME2 playthroughs have been where my Shepard has been fairly evenly split between paragon and renegade choices and accepting the consequences of not being able to resolve everything is just a paragon or renegade dialogue option.  I also did one metagame playthrough where I very carefully monitored all my paragon and renegade choices on an Excel spreadsheet as a ratio of total available points to that point in the game.  I was able to organize everything such that I was able to resolve all the crucial events with P/R dialogue while finishing the game up with a Shepard who was about 60% Paragon and 40% Renegade.  There was lots of room to play around in the "gray" zone, but a lot of people just couldn't convince themselves to do it that way.  They got too hung up on not being able to use a P or R "magic" line to resolve everything.

Still, it won't hurt if they can shed the old impressions people had of what the Paragon/Renegade system was doing... but I wonder if people will still just attach their own good vs. evil meaning to any system Bioware uses and wind up mostly playing one way or the other anyways. 

I will miss the interrupts. 

Since I don't care about this other game yet, I guess it doesn't matter. But I think it characterized original Mass Effect well. I mean, they even screwed around with the concept in the endings. It was that integral to the whole deal.

In ME2 though, I see it as my "neutral" game (I like ME1 as R and 3 as P). So I often failed persuade checks things there. There's some I wish I could get easier... like Tela Vasir and scaring with a Paragon dialogue about rachni. It's unique when Paragon comes off like the hardass.

Oh people will always make a character with a specific leaning. More players tend towards good-ish and wont take the aggressive or angrish options just because. Making it less black and white does make it easier to flip flop with out seeming like a batshit crazy person. It's human nature anyway, anything that doesn't sit right with you is wrong (even if in your brainbox you know it's just another valid view point). Can be hard for people to suppress that and accept other views for what they are. Then you have shit like murderers and rapists and everyone disagrees with them mostly.

Anyway - why the crap do people keep saying they'll miss interrupts? That article never once mentions them. Did something happen? Tweet go out that declared there non-existence? Just cause P/R isn't around in that form doesn't mean they can't still exist. I know DAI doesn't have them but DA never has. But you still get intention Icons. They could just grey-ify the interrupt system by using the icons to show your general intent with this. Like that red aggressive fist to replace what we'd expect as renegade style interrupts.

Least I hope they still have em in. If anyone has like actual evidence to them not being in I'd like to see it.

Yeah, I always play both and in between when available. I always do my 'evil' playthrough. Started back in the 90s, probably driven by my love of anti-heros just doing it because they're forced into it being angry all the way killing shit. KoTOR was hilariously fun for that. One of my favorites was making an all evil aligned group in BG2. There was a small list, but large enough to fill out the 6 person team, with just a buncha assholes and it was faaantastic.

BioWare has always been good at making an evil, renegade or generally asshole 'playthrough' surprisingly entertaining. For me it's never been an issue since I'm playing a character. This is the person I'm playing for this playthrough lets see where it goes kinda thing. Most people though as a hole play either as them selves or some version of that and have trouble making the jerk choices to see those outcomes. And if they do it's usually on there 2nd or third playthrough.

As far as ME3, Oh man. I don't think I did a renegade playthrough but that was due to a combination of not wanting to 'deal with the ending' and MP destroying my enjoyment of the combat. Not in a bad way, I mean like I loved the MP a ton, played it for a year+ but it also meant all the shit I loved doing I couldn't do as Shepard lol.

I mean, Shepards awesome but he aint no Krogan you know? I can't sprint at absurd top speeds and bash a phantom across the map laughing and yell for Tuchanka. That is a pretty big bummer when you really sit down and think about it. Did a few 'half-throughs' but most the situations they came up with didn't feel as um... grey as the past games. Like you said, little to Stalin. They really felt like you where being a giant asshole for the sake of being an asshole. Especially when they all have an obvious 'everyone wins' outcome that required the same amount of work that resulted in what was arguably better for everyone.

I mean the Rachni? It's purely a moral choice, you either want to give the species another chance or you want to ensure the galaxy never suffers again. With the Genophage from a renegade stand point the Krogans are way more useful in a war then Salarians will be, and as a Paragon how can you be willing to doom them to that fate and kill Mordin? I mean fuck, I don't think I ever don't cure the Genophage regardless of character and that never happened in ME1/2. So I agree with ya on that.

I like Dragon Age system more, although each game there still has its faults. I would like your morality to be reflected by your companions rather than a some kind of meter (ME series, D&D also comes to mind). For silent protagonists there is the option of going for a complex morality like in PoE, but the ship has sailed.

That's OK for me.

I'm fine with losing the Paragon/Renegade system, something like Dragon Age would be a good replacement for me.

I'd still like to see interrupts return though.

I always thought that this made ME's companions feel rather shallow in comparison, because they just accept whatever you do. That this is the commander can only go so far, especially when we're dealing with a ragtag group that typically would not really care about that sort of thing (Like, does Jack really give two shites what rank Shepard is?). As for companions leaving, that's not an integral part of companion approval. Companions can stick to certain objectives, and approval can simply affect other parts of their character, like their general disposition when approached, locking out romance and possibly companion quests (after all, why would they want to get with someone or ask for help from someone they don't like, or maybe even hate?). Like, Alistair, for example, can't leave no matter how much he dislikes the character, since he has an obligation to stick with your Warden. I think that it's more interesting to see multiple sides of the same character based on what you do, but we don't really get that at all in ME. Garrus is always your best friend, Liara is always fond of Shepard. It makes them feel less believable the more I think about them. 

Considered I was among the people in favor of ditching the morality meter, I'm happy about it.

I felt such fitted better in settings like the Star Wars universe where dark-side and light-side made sense within the setting and was an actual part of it because of the force. In Mass Effect, it always seemed like an out-of-universe kind of thing that did not make sense within the setting and wasn't actual a part of it.

Part of the problem, I think, was that they tied it too much to morality as oppose to reputation. If they made it more about how other races might percieve Shepard then I think it would made the meter more a part of the setting and have made sense. How well that would have worked would have been another, of course.

I'm in favor, however, of keeping the interrupts and see no reason for their removal since they are basically action-orientated dialogue options; I feel they are great for roleplaying and so have a purpose outside of being tied to the morality meter.

Even though I would like to know what each interupt prompt does, I can deal with not knowing especially if they implement a pause option or a save and reload option during cutscenes. The only thing I want removed in regards to them is the sound because the sound detracted and distracted from the atmosphere of certain scenes for me especially the scenes that were quite and calm.