Mass Effect 3 reputation system to allow 'morally gray' playthrough

In Mass Effect 3, BioWare is promising a tweaked reputation system for those that like to play a "morally gray" Shepard.

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One of the gimmicks of the Mass Effect series has been the ability to play as the "good" or "bad" guy while saving the universe. Your actions earned Paragon and Renegade points--and you needed a certain amount to unlock some of the more important conversation options. Unfortunately, that meant that players that didn't play exclusively in one direction were penalized, unable to acquire a sufficient amount of morality points.

That problem is finally being fixed in Mass Effect 3, with BioWare promising a rewarding experience even for those that like to play a "morally gray" Shepard.

The reputation system has been tweaked in Mass Effect 3 to allow for "neutral" character growth. "In Mass Effect 2, after a mission that didn’t have any major choices, we would give both Paragon and Renegade points, to show that even without a major decision, Shepard was more famous and had more influence as a result," Patrick Weekes explained on the BioWare Blog. "This confused some players and made others angry – people who wanted to play pure Paragon didn’t like getting rewarded with both Paragon and Renegade points."

To rectify that, there is now a general "reputation" score that determines both Charm and Intimidate options. Every action can increase your generation reputation, including actions that didn't really have any morality choices to be made. Simply playing more will help unlock the game's more taxing conversation options. "You're still rewarded for being a completionist player and doing as much content as you can, but you can do it as a Paragon or Renegade player without penalty," Weekes explained, adding that your overall reputation is "determined by adding your Paragon and Renegade scores together."

While this sounds like a well-intentioned solution to enable more flexible playthrough, we'll have to play the game to see if it works as expected. Thankfully, it's only a few days until Mass Effect 3 releases on March 6th.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 2, 2012 7:30 AM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Mass Effect 3 reputation system to allow 'morally gray' playthrough.

    In Mass Effect 3, BioWare is promising a tweaked reputation system for those that like to play a "morally gray" Shepard.

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      March 2, 2012 7:35 AM

      [deleted]

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      March 2, 2012 7:45 AM

      People were not penalized in previous games. They just got a different outcome than some who went pure renege or paragon.

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        March 2, 2012 8:00 AM

        The "penalty" was potentially not having enough paragon or renegade points to pick some of the later game paragon/renegade options.

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          March 2, 2012 8:56 AM

          For example, keeping both Miranda and Jack loyal required a 100% paragon or lessor renegade check.

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        March 2, 2012 8:35 AM

        Conversations options were locked out if you didn't have enough Jedi or Sith points. You weren't allowed to play a random crazy bastard that rescued babies one minute, then started a war the next.

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        March 2, 2012 8:58 AM

        Not having loyal characters for the final mission is potentially penalizing, so this statement isn't accurate.

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        March 2, 2012 9:10 AM

        Actually, you were penalized if you wanted to finish the game with all the crew members surviving. See my post below about the Jack/Miranda quarrel.

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        March 2, 2012 9:13 AM

        you are rewarded for having lots of paragon or renegade points. You are not rewarded for switching back and forth between them and ending up grey. Therefore you are penalized for being in the grey area.

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      March 2, 2012 8:04 AM

      gotta go asshole shepherd or not at all

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      March 2, 2012 8:17 AM

      I'm getting confused. so there's 3 different playthrough methods, then 3 different moralities, and a rep system?

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      March 2, 2012 8:23 AM

      [deleted]

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      March 2, 2012 8:33 AM

      I always thought the renegade shephard was morally grey. He does what's necessary regardless of the morality (eg stabbing a mechanic when recruiting Garrus).

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        March 2, 2012 8:46 AM

        That's not morally grey at all. He was a batarian.

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          March 2, 2012 9:14 AM

          Technically he was a human...

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            March 2, 2012 9:21 AM

            I'm playing that mission right now. Cathka's a Batarian, not a human. And Shep doesn't stab him, he electrocutes him into unconsciousness.

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              March 2, 2012 9:27 AM

              Like I said. Perfectly justified.

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              March 2, 2012 1:13 PM

              Ohh I thought you were saying Shep was a Batarian. I was thinking you were nuts. lol

      • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        March 2, 2012 9:38 AM

        There are only even a few choices like that, more often than not it's just about whether or not you choose to act like an asshole.

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      March 2, 2012 8:49 AM

      It is interesting to hear that some people were upset because they got paragon points when they wanted only renegade points. When playing "for points", it seems to me, that you are no longer role playing, you are gamming the system just to fill a gage or to experience a certain outcome based on the type of points you accumulate.

      I prefer to play more organically. I craft a story behind my character. Then, I make decisions that he would make in each given situation (regardless of the type of points I will receive for said decision) and I experience the outcome of those choices. Quite honestly, I don't even look at that renegade / paragon meter. I think it disrupts the experience for someone who want to truly role play.

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        March 2, 2012 8:58 AM

        Just being able to role play would be nice, but Bioware's inclusion of paragon- and renegade-locked dialogue makes that impossible.

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          March 2, 2012 9:08 AM

          Exactly, the game punishes you for not being pure nice guy or pure douche hat.

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            March 2, 2012 9:48 AM

            I can see how some gamers might feel that way, because most gamers want access to all of the content that is possible in a game. However, I really don't see not being able to access all dialogue as punishment. In fact, all dialogue options are not really for my character. I like the idea of making choices that actually effect what you get (in terms of dialogue options). For example, in my Mass Effect 2 playthrough, I wasn't able to Charm or Intimidate a crewmate and I lost her in the suicide mission. And you know what? I'm ok with that. I'm even ok with quests being locked out because of how I play my character. That's why it is a personal experience that only I have with that Shepard. What's the purpose of even having "choice" in a game, if you are just going to allow all paths to be open anyway? You might as well have a mechanic to set either "Renegade" or "Paragon" at the beginning of the game and then just set the dialogue to autoplay. Playing "gray" simply means that you will not see everything on one path or the other and quite honestly, that's ok with me.

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              March 2, 2012 10:50 AM

              The game doesn't offer enough options to really explore your own personalized adventure. It would be a daunting project to offer all of the gray area available to one throughout the game. But while you may be okay being locked out of experiencing a part of the game or don't mind playing through a dozen times playing in different ways, that's great. For you.

              You, however, are in the minority. Because Bioware has dialog set into a metric that affects how you experience the game, people are going to get the max one way or another to make sure they meet the metric to play how they wish to play. It's the other side of your own coin and a problem with morality systems in games in general.

              If you think the bitching about ME is bad, you should hear the angst about lightside/darkside points in SWTOR.

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                March 2, 2012 11:41 AM

                I agree with your point that it would be quite an endeavor to make a game that allows gamers to really explore and personalize their adventures. Furthermore, although the renegade / paragon system works well for me, because I choose to be ok with how it limits me, I understand how min-maxers would find it frustrating. Let's hope Mass 3 gets us closer to delivering the perfect experience that works for both types of gamers.

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                  March 2, 2012 1:41 PM

                  It worked fine in Dragon Age and other older RPGs. Just remove the morality point system and give more dialog options.

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                  March 2, 2012 2:59 PM

                  It's somewhat like the situations you can get in if you don't specialize in a skill in other RPG games, especially Stealth and Speech skills. If you don't max those out, they often end up completely useless late in the game. They tend to be all or nothing, you either avoid the combat or you don't or get the boost or don't, and if you don't have the skill level to make those checks in that part of the game, the points you put in it are useless and you go into the combat at a disadvantage.

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        March 2, 2012 9:15 AM

        Well the whole point of this is to facilitate that. The problem before was that not playing your character to an extreme hurt you in the game.

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        March 2, 2012 9:18 AM

        Totally agree with you. The only thing I hated was that when I played how I wanted to play, Miranda ends up becoming disloyal and dying no matter what, and for an incredibly stupid reason that had no logical connection to the decisions I made. I always play through the game the first time the way I want, then go back and explore the Paragon and Renegade options with different characters and classes. However, I also wanted to get the Achievement for keeping the entire team alive.

        It's not that I care that much about the Miranda character. What irritated me was simply the fact that the survival of a character had more to do with me having to "game the system", rather than the decisions that I made having real consequences. I'll be really disappointed if the same is true for ME3.

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          March 2, 2012 9:55 AM

          Hmmm...yeah, I can see how that would suck. I find your observation that her death had nothing to do with the decisions that you made and more with you "gaming the system", pretty interesting. I hope they can fix that in later games?

          It seems that right now, this type of formulaic system is the closest thing we could get to the appearance of "choice and consequence". Hopefully, they can create systems in the future that allow for a more organic experience when you can see the direct impact.

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            March 2, 2012 11:26 AM

            I'd even be okay with random elements playing a part too, that is, you could do everything perfect and still there's a chance someone will still die, just like in real life. I could see myself replaying the final hour of the game a number of times just to see how things play out. But I guess that would remove the "gamey-ness" from the game and would upset people who feel they have to "beat" a game, rather than finish it.

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              March 2, 2012 11:30 AM

              Right. I think you and I are on the same page. Let's hope that Mass 3 gets close to what we are looking for. I'm certainly excited to find out!

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        March 2, 2012 11:32 AM

        Then you're exactly the kind of person that should be excited about this news. The problem is, the old design rewarded you for going pure paragon, and rewarded you for going pure renegade, but people that really wanted to "role play" and ended up somewhere in the middle missed out on a lot of cool story options

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          March 2, 2012 11:52 AM

          Right. I am certainly excited about this feature.

          I guess I was trying to explore why people get upset for "missing out on content". I was ok with "missing out" on content / dialogue because of the decisions my character made. But hey, I won't complain if they have now improved on how these systems work. If this means I see more content, that's cool. If it means I see different content, and some is still "locked away", that's cool too. Either way, I don't really think I'll get upset for not seeing everything that the game has to offer.

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      March 2, 2012 9:06 AM

      What frustrated me in ME2 was how the "Loyalty System" was tied to the Morality system to the point that you had to purposely "alter" Shepard's morality in order to resolve a character conflict, namely, the conflict between Miranda and Jack.

      Right near the end of the game, Miranda and Jack have a violent quarrel that results in Miranda refusing to talk to Shepard and becoming disloyal regardless of whether or not the player had completed Miranda's Loyalty Mission (in which Shepard risks his or her life as well as the lives of his teammates to help Miranda "rescue" her twin sister -- which in my opinion was one of the most selfish and reckless side-missions in the entire game, given the gravity of Shepard's primary mission to stop the Collectors). In order to regain Miranda's loyalty following the catfight, Shepard has to have enough Renegade or Paragon points to convince her to essentially "be the better woman". If you played as a morally gray Shepard or simply played how you wanted and just happened to not gain enough morality points in either direction, Miranda could not be convinced, and her disposition results in her perishing during a random event at the end of the game. The game's ridiculous concept of loyalty having anything to do with survival instincts or dumb luck was already stupid, but having to to march Shepard over to the Normandy's science lab to have him or her reassign morality points just to stop a girlish quarrel left an extremely sour taste in my mouth. That part of the game, more than any other, reminded me that the characters I was interacting with were really just binary talking heads, rather than comrades that were capable of making their own decisions, having principles, and self-dignity (though Tali helping me complete Legion's loyalty mission without a single complaint was a close second).

      Let's hope that this bit of news will mean an end to such gameplay blockades. Teammates in a game like Mass Effect should be loyal because of your actions and how you interact with them, not because you "gamed the system" with stats.

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        March 2, 2012 9:15 AM

        Spoilers if you are still playing through ME2.

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        March 2, 2012 9:20 AM

        You only have to regain loyalty of one of them if you pick the other one's side. The whole idea behind that scene is to force a choice on you.

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          March 2, 2012 9:30 AM

          WARNING, MORE ME1&2 SPOILERS.

          So, what is the point then of having to make a choice if you can just "reassign" your points and get the other person to see things your way as well?

          I realize how hypocritical this sounds, because I wanted to get the Achievement where everyone survives. I didn't do it on the first playthrough, I reloaded a save earlier in the game and after several attempts at trying to figure out what to do about Miranda, I went online and figured out that I had to reassign the points, which felt more like cheating than anything else.

          Personally, I would have preferred if there was no perfect ending to ME2, just like there was no perfect ending in ME1 (Either Kaidan or Ashley buys it). I also would have loved it if decisions you made had REAL consequences (e.g. recruiting Legion into your team causes Tali to leave, or not completing Zaeed's mission prompts him to betray you later, etc.). The original Dragon Age: Awakening had situations like these.

          If there's a perfect ending option, the completionist in me is obviously going to want to see how that unfolds, but I'd be even happier with various endings that unfold as a result of my decisions and leadership, rather than random events that kill off characters because of loyalty or "feelings".

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            March 2, 2012 9:55 AM

            Yeah, the ability to just go and reassign points screws up the whole thing. I never liked that.

            The "perfect" ending shouldn't be loyalty dependent, but you should still be able to do it (it should be a lot hard though). I actually liked DA2's approach to squad mate "loyalty". They either loved you or hated you, but there was a benefit to both.

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            March 2, 2012 10:04 AM

            I couldn't agree more. I actually prefer the imperfect ending that I got with my Shepard. I lost a few crew mates, but that's my story. I'm cool with that.

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        March 2, 2012 9:25 AM

        [deleted]

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        March 2, 2012 11:33 AM

        Man I don't remember that happening at all

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        March 2, 2012 11:33 AM

        actions have consequences man. simple as that. That's what I loved about ME2.

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        March 2, 2012 2:38 PM

        This is the exact reason I was not able to save all of my crew.

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      March 2, 2012 9:36 AM

      i held out hope that the game would appear on steam as long as i could.. stupid physical media.

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      March 2, 2012 9:53 AM

      Well I hope it works better than in ME2 where the repercussions and outcome of the paragon or renegade decisions were generally identical. At least in ME1 you had options to save an entire race or murder them and other hard decisions. ME2 was more about whether you win loyalty by being nice or by being an ass. Either way, though, your crew ends up loving you.

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        March 2, 2012 2:53 PM

        Shame all six endings are pretty much identical then.

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      March 2, 2012 11:54 AM

      One thing that is exciting about this game is the fact that... this is the end of the trilogy so they don't need to keep all the story lines reasonably close. I think in ME2 you only had so much freedom because all of the story threads need to lead you into ME3. Since this one ends the story though... you could go way off course with your behavior (if they chose to do this) and you could end up anywhere. It must have been more fun to make this game because they don't need to worry about future games so much.

      I know there will probably more Mass Effect games... but they don't necessarily need to tie into this one so much.

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        March 2, 2012 12:39 PM

        On my drive home yesterday I imagine what Mass Effect: Online would be like, based on the ME3 MP.

        I shat all over my seat.

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      March 2, 2012 1:03 PM

      I guess I understand the decision to announce or allow a more "morally gray" Shepard, but honestly I played through ME2 as such, and never felt hindered in the slightest. I rolled through my first play of the game with a pretty simple mindset. I played it cool and accommodating with anyone in my crew aboard the Normandy and everyone else (randoms/outsiders) I took a hard-nose approach to their situation. By the time I finished ME2 my renegade gauge was at half full, and my paragon side about 2/3 full. All my teammates were loyal, and everyone survived the final mission. So yeah, I'm happy to hear this news, but I was going to play through the same way I approached 1 and 2, anyway.

      Someone else stated this earlier, but I never pay attention to the paragon/renegade meters. I think it would ruin the magic. For me, one of the great successes of the ME games has been their ability to make me feel the same way I did back in grade school when I would read "choose your own adventure" books. At least here I don't die from being eaten by a carnivorous flower or fall to my death.

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      March 2, 2012 2:08 PM

      God damnit I read this as "morally gay" at least three times. Website of cock.

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      March 2, 2012 2:41 PM

      I am going to be a paragon of virtue; a cosmic white knight except for one thing. Jersey Shore edition Ashley, Donkey Kong James Vega, and the Jamaican alien are living on borrowed time. I am going to make sure all three of these characters die. First chance I get, they're gone.

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      March 5, 2012 10:03 AM

      wow, only took ya 3 games.....

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