>Those people that go "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I WANT TO BE NEUTRAL! WHY DOESN'T THIS GAME ALLOW ME TO BE NEUTRAL!!?!?!? REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" in an RPG
Is there anything more pathetic?
And to all you neutralfags, please post some compelling choices (or non-choices) a neutral character could make.
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JUST
It's not about being neutral. It's about being reasonable.
Being either a boyscout or lucifer isn't compelling at all, especially when going full retard in one direction give you the best results.
I just dislike the fact there just two endings solely based on a crappy karma system that if you have 51 points on either side while the other has 49 you either end up becoming an angel savious of humanity or the edgiest guy in town. There's no need to have complicated system, but give me a neutral ending.
How about you actually choose games without simple "be nice" / "be a jerkass" choices?
Musubi>everything else
Your answer is literally given to you in the first Mass Effect game. There's a quest to get some girl's sister out of her undercover work, and you have to bust the people she's watching by buying some illegal shit they're selling.
Instead of being a fucking moralfag and trying to arrest him, which gets you yelled at, you just buy the shit without a complaint and finish the quest.
Not allowing someone to say 'wait, I don't like either of these options' without heavily penalizing them is an insult to their intelligence, as if the player can't find a better way out or have their own opinion of a situation.
>post some compelling choices (or non-choices) a neutral character could make.
Letting a villain live once he's no longer an immediate problem
Ditching your friends, but not in the name of evil
Cooperating with villains to come to a compromise
Retiring/fleeing and ending the story early
>Good choice: "Me and my wife son enjoy thinks you are a mean poopy head >:-(."
>Evil choice: "Pshhhhh... notting personnel... kid"
>results are the same in the end
That or evil is comically evil.
Neutral would be what benefits you, but games always put it as evil because everyone who isn't altruistic is evil for some reason. For instance, while fleeing a prison who is falling apart, a moral choice would be to save someone even if they have nothing to offer, an evil choice is to let them die because you believe they deserve it, and the middle ground is ponder what benefits would it bring to you, does he have money? Fame? Should I care?
There is also the problem of games not tempting people to do wrong, just doing wrong for the sake of it. I think one of the worst cases was on Fable, there was a choice to kill my sister and get super sword, or destroy the super sword and keep my sister. I chose to keep my sister, turns out I get a massive weapon too, albeit with lower stats, and even then, I already was too strong then to care about sword stats. Then what is the point of going evil? People aren't evil because they feel like it. Give me an almost impossible boss later that would require that sword to beat to tempt me.
>Letting a villain live once he's no longer an immediate problem
Good
>Ditching your friends, but not in the name of evil
???
>Cooperating with villains to come to a compromise
Good
>Retiring/fleeing and ending the story early
Closest thing to neutral I've seen posted in this thread
Also letting the villains win, but not directly helping them
I wanted to roleplay Shepard who was playing it straight by the book in the beginning who slowly descended into Renegade, starting with death in ME2.
It was pretty disappointing, he just got kind of ugly scars by the end of ME3.
I'd say strawmanning your opponent in all caps is pretty pathetic.
This is why SMT has the best allingment system
Every end can be considered "good" or "bad" depending of your views. There is no "good" and "bad"; there is Law, Chaos and Neutral.
This is not your safespace. If you feel triggered, you are free to leave.
Pick paragon for the objectively most beneficial choice that always goes perfectly and has no consequences, or pick renegade to be an edgy moustache twirling dick that has everything go totally wrong all the time.
Great choice
>Closest thing to neutral I've seen posted in this thread
You know neutral doesn't just mean 'eh, whatever', right? A neutral choice can lean many ways.
Except SMT has a light and dark system too; in fact, in If... the SMT I protag was classified as Dark Neutral.
Ironically Mass Effect itself had a good neutral moral choice. Save Kaiden or Ashley, it's up to whom you personally enjoy more and think would benefit the mission more.
> fight God
> fight Saran
> fight both at the same time and replace them
Smt is pretty cool desu
Nocturne true neutral route
I agree user. In one playthrough I wanted to make the worst Shepard possible and almost every single time I had to go renegade. Also make Shepard a woman. Try to play realistically.
See op i never looked at it like that.For me i just did what felt right.
>Ya that includes punching that cunt reporter! Goddamn that felt so right.
> there are people who prefer Paragon over Renegade
My first play through was Renegade and it was a blast. Paragon was so boring fuck
Anyways I try to do Renegade options as much as possible but in some scenarios I do Paragon for the sake of my crew.
Game needed more ambiguity. Do you save the hostages and let the ship blow up or try to defuse the bomb but risk innocent lives? In the current system, paragon always wins, but the whole point was renegade is the hard pragmatic choice, paragon is the altruistic hopeful one. The pragmatic choice should naturally work more than the altruistic one, but I can't think of a single situation where the paragon choice didn't lead to literally the best possible outcome
it's ignorant to dedicate yourself to monistic ideologies. when people try to attack a neutral mentality, it's because they feel their own mindset is threatened. neutralfags don't have that problem, because they're open to change if necessary. "picking sides" is the height of immaturity.
>tips fedora
Not being stalwart enough to pick a side is the sign of true immaturity
LOTR is better literature than Game of Thrones
Why pick good or evil when you can pick a variety of ambiguous answers on a scale. That's how most irl moral issues are
You hate both sides so you rather fuck them both up.
Neutral is the only way to go.
The issue was locking players out of choices and forcing them down some schoolyard categorization of good and bad. You can be a good person without having to be a god damn "paragon". Likewise you can break the rules every now and then without becoming a total jerk. The system was pretty dumb and poorly executed. I just ended up neutral leaning towards paragon anyway.
Well, in ME2, on the Archangel mission where you rescue/recruit Garrus, there's a renegade prompt before the start of the mission to take out the Batarian mechanic by electrocuting him. Doing so makes the gunship easier to deal with when it shows up at the end of the mission. So that's at least one.
In general, I totally agree with you, though.
Oh look, it's THIS thread again.
>And to all you neutralfags, please post some compelling choices (or non-choices) a neutral character could make.
Neutral character can stay focused on the task at hand.
Imagine some CRPG, but with timer. If you do all the sidequests like you usually do, you will lock yourself out of the golden ending. This type of mechanic can give you interesting, meaningful choice.
In Mass Effect morale system is broken. This user said it:
But you're not being stalwart, you're just caving into a need for internal stability. It's easier to just pick a side and stick with it. You're confusing neutrality with inaction, but don't you think it's absurd for someone to be motivated into inaction?
This is not your hugbox. If you feel attacked, you are free to leave.
I like SMT's approach to Neutral, which is to balance Lawful/Paragon and Chaotic/Renegade actions
What I really hated was how after the first game Renegade went from being rebellious and chaotic to being just senselessly evil or mean. Almost to the point of comedy
>please post some compelling choices (or non-choices) a neutral character could make
In mass effect 1 at lest there was almost always an option to be professional. Usually the middle option. I find that professionalism is a good way for a neutral path.
Light only means those dieties are worshipped and Dark means those deities are seen as evil.
And it's mostly based on class which has a gameplay purpose which is Dark demons can't (or rather shouldn't) be recruited and Light demons don't usually appear as enemies.
Wait, so the SMT I protag is seen as evil?
That's definitely not true, he's hailed as a hero.
"Neutral is a choice"
Who came up with this?
Neutrality is just a state of whatever seems the best response by an individual to a situation. It's not an autistic grunt that doesn't portray emotion or action, it's literally just you always deciding what's best for your goals.
The problem is that morality is too broad and faceted to be expressed with just "good" and "evil", not to mention the possibility of being seen in a way in some circles and in another way in other circles.
Solution: hire Toady to make the morality system
the interrupts were a pretty great way around it, Renegade ones being the option to take out enemies before they become overly hostile. Emphasizing the pragmatic nature of it. It's not the nice/right thing to do, but it makes things a lot easier.
Wut.
Neutrality is being given two or more choices and either refusing all of them, or choosing your own. The concept always exists in relation to others.
Renegon is the best choice. Why?
You give people the carrot and if they don't take well to it, then you bring out the whip. Renegon means striving for the best possible solution, and sometimes that is killing every single motherfucker in the room. Sometimes it's saving an innocent when you can gain nothing and lose everything.
Exactly. So I don't get the confusion of how choosing a paragon or renegade action/dialogue isn't itself considered neutral depending on what the player wants to achieve.
Neutrality isn't being a fucking sociopath.
Because it's based on context. There is no more extreme option either way than Paragon or Renegade, so they're not neutral.
>RPG
>instead of roleplaying i always choose the paragon route because otherwise i don't have acces to the best options in lategame dialogues
yeah great fucking RPG tright there
I don't care about neutrality. It's Bioware interpretation of Renegade is incredibly shallow. It could have been an option for roleplaying as a human nationalist who puts the benefit of home world and race before the galaxy as a whole. It could have a been an antihero-type character who can sacrifice a few people to gain the edge in a galaxy wide war.
But instead we got someone who is a sociopathic asshole for no fucking reason.
Reminder that Neutrality =/= Apathy
What most people mean when they say "Neutral" is "Pragmatic".
>please post some compelling choices (or non-choices) a neutral character could make
Making both evil and good choices depending on the situation.
You know, like any normal human being.
Hello, newfag. Every post is a repost of a repost.
Specially this post.
Neutrality doesn't just mean apathy you dumb nigger.
All the choices in The Witcher
Are you okay? Can you read?
No, I have a genetic disorder that causes panic attacks whenever I see slashes.
Learn to read.
>Reminder that Neutrality =/= Apathy
>Neutrality =/= Apathy
>=/=
It looks like you are the dumb nigger, actually.
"=/=" means "equals not".
"Pragmatic" doesn't have anything to do with apathy.
Read a book.
This. Just compare paragon/renegade to the ambiguity of KOTOR2's dark/light side choices
>implying evil is a "side"
>inplying fucking everyone up isnt just evil
>Calls someone a dumb nigger
>He's the dumb nigger
>implying
You are picking a side it precisely because it's the easy and convenient thing to do.
You probably think agnostics are cowards too.
Well, in KOTOR2 I get yelled at by some asshole evil woman who's tagging along with me for some reason no matter what I choose, so it's not that much of a step up.
>"=/=" means "equals not".
You dumb Zimbabwean, it's ≠
>He wasn't a renegon
>Or even a paragade
Playing this game simply by spamming the paragon or renegade option every time is super boring.
You could gain dark and light points that nulled each other when the dialogue branched in some ways.
Not sure if Visas ever came to pay a visit if you were neutral tho.
So when will we have a game that deals with morality same way as "Alpha Protocol" namely you get shit done and rest is how much of a smug cunt you are about it with characters reacting according to their in story preferences combined with how much of previous actions screwed with them.
Apathy is death.
stale pasta m8
At least he didn't use !=
The extremes of paragon and renegade in the games are so retarded at times that if I were to play with my own choices I would most likely be at or very close to neutral
>he didn't play ME1
>You probably think agnostics are cowards too.
Not him but I do
Why? It's completely reasonable.
>picking sides
>The idea that any berk knows the truth and everybody else's wrong - well, that's a chance a body shouldn't take. Who's right - the Guvners? The Mercykillers? The Chaosmen? Since when does a smart gambler play all his jink on a single throw? The short and long of it's simple: There's nobody who's got a sure key to the truth, so it pays to keep the options open.
Off topic but is there an -ist -ism or -ic that covers "Don't know, don't care"?
Not really off-topic isnce that's exactly what agnosticism is.
>Not going full renegade to your enemies
>Not going full paragon to your friends
Apatheism, which is just a brach of agnosticism.
See >Who's right - the Guvners? The Mercykillers? The Chaosmen? Since when does a smart gambler play all his jink on a single throw?
Agnosticism is more towards "Can't know, might care"
It implies some thought being put towards the topic, which typically means you care at least a little. But I digress.
Ah, cool, thanks man.
His class. He and all the other cameo protagonists are "Majin" as in the "Fiend" class, which has special properties due to being random, very random encounters.
Humans are actually Light based and that's why all humans are immune to Hama/Hamaon.
Alpha Protocol wasn't them trying to "do morality right", the point is to make everyone happy by subterfuge.
You are basically a conman playing as whatever personality an individual happens to like when dealing with them in order to get as many allies as possible. The game flat out tells you this, if you went through Alpha Protocol just being a "smug cunt" and pissing people off you were failing. The morality choices are not morality choices, they are gameplay puzzles.
Making this thread is more pathetic.
>Be ultra nice to everyone
>Get sick rewards and make very few enemies
>Be en evil scumfuck
>Get meh rewards, make tons of enemies and negative consequences
Are there any games that let you be an evil fuck that gets tons of good shit for free for being an asshole who just takes what he wants, but ends up screwing themselves over if they do? I mean games that really do tempt you to be bad because it's fun and gets you good shit? Games that have the option of being evil and getting lots of short term goodies, or being good and getting few long term benefits? All I can think of is Dishonored and it's hamfisted as hell.
Real life is not black and white you fucking dumbass.
If you go full good or full bad you will get fucking destroyed.
>please post some compelling choices (or non-choices) a neutral character could make.
This is not at all what a neutral character is about.
A neutral character isn't about creating another route where you'll decide to always pick the "neutral" option and stick to it all thorough the game, it's about balancing between both, making a human character that is somewhere in between.
In this example, they'll pick a paragon answer when they feel like it, and a renegade when they want to.
The option asked by neutralfags is to be able to do so without the game locking them out of bonuses given to players going 100% on a route, which if they were to pursue it, would lock them out entirely of the freedom of making the earlier mentioned choices, which are always neat to have in RPGs.
tl;dr They mostly want some kind of neutral bonuses/ending.
I can't think of any, mainly due to the fact that so many devs confuse villainy with being a sadistic and shortsighted edgelord, which naturally has little benefits, if any.
Bioshock should have been this, but playing a good guy gets you teddy bears full of free stuff
>he didn't stay consistent for perks
>he didn't stay suave to kill marburg
In any other game this would be considered morality system also it is neutral in same way that you can be neutral in witcher 1.
>Not being stalwart enough to pick a side is the sign of true immaturity
It's not immature in any way. If no side has enough behind them to convince you to choose them, then you literally have no reason to pick a side.
Picking a side for the sake of picking a side is immature. LOTR is better literature than Game of Thrones because it tells a better story, not because of any sort of maturity. What makes for good literature doesn't make for good life choices in the real world.
It's not about being a neutral, but tailoring the response to the situations. Instead, the Paragon and Renegade system was still deeply rooted in Jedi philosophy instead of something that a soldier would follow.
>don't you think it's absurd for someone to be motivated into inaction?
I'm motivated into inaction every time I press the snooze button.
Being apathetic to religious matters would just be atheism.
Atheists are convinced that God(s) don't exist, so they do have an opinion on the topic.
>Are there any games that let you be an evil fuck that gets tons of good shit for free for being an asshole who just takes what he wants, but ends up screwing themselves over if they do?
Kind of. Best equipment in the game can be obtained by eating everything, including your party.
You end up as inhuman monster, though. Literally.
No, you have to care to actively deny something, because you've already acknowledged the topic in the first place.
I liked many things about paragon and renegade in ME1 and 2.
I sometimes prefered one, sometimes the other, sometimes being mean to save time and lifes, sometimes risking it for my crew members.
It really sucked though that it locked options in the endgame of ME2 to go 50/50, and I agree that many renegade choices were being a pure sociopathic asshole for no reason.
Compare "Backstab Mercenary to make your fight easier" and "Hit reporter in the face"
> You have to be either good or evil, there is no in between :^)
> You have to be black or white, there is no in between :^)
> You're either part of the solution, or part of the problem :^)
> You're either for us, or against us! :^)
Nothing is compelling about having a binary system of moral choices. Each choice has a consequence which might either affirm or undermine the choice made. Take something as simple as Mount & Blade.
You free a village from the bandits infesting it. Wanting to garner favour with the local populace and adhering to your moral code, you decline their offering of goods and gold so they can survive off it and prosper. Now you don't have any money to pay your troops and no food to give them. They get pissed at you and desert. Making one good choice can have bad consequences down the road.
Games with a binary system usually skip over that. You're either paragon of justice and sunshine or a baby-strangling killer. Worse is when you have a system in which you can wash out your bad acts like they never happened: You can blow up Megaton and become effectively Wasteland Hitler, but donate water to beggars and become Jesus again.
The neutral option is necessary to give a game more depth than a shallow kiddy comic book plot. Take the Witcher for example. He doesn't take a stance on the issue of persecuted elves dwarves etc. because both sides are fundamentalist and in inherently wrong. Both Scoia'tael and order of the flame rose use extreme measures to achieve their bigoted goals. The only winning move is not to play here.
The idea that you should either "pick my side or prepare to die" is a petty, narrow-minded, jingoistic idea. If you want to make a story like that compelling, make it like Lord of the Rings or WWII. IF evil is not absolute, there has to be a third option, because banding together to be either on the "good" or "evil" side can only be justified if there is such a thing as absolute good and absolute evil.
This is not entirely true. Being evil in MotB is more of a high-risk-high-reward kind of deal.
Making evil decisions and playing with max hunger eating everything has the potential of giving you the most powerful powers and items, but at the same time managing the curse becomes a real chore and a challange.
On the other hand making good decsions and playing with no hunger eating next to nothing at all doesn't give you as much power but managing the curse becomes very easy.
I realyl odn't understand people who didn't like the hunger mechanic. It fit perfectly with the theme of the game.