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Mass Effect Dev: 92% of Players Chose Paragon

Do you usually lean towards good or evil playthroughs when given the choice?

  • Good (Paragon)

    Votes: 1,200 85.2%

  • Bad (Renegade)

    Votes: 208 14.8%
  • Total voters
    1,408
Darkstorne

Darkstorne

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,812
England
I found this interesting. Lots of us appreciate having the option to be a bad guy in games, to the point we'll complain when a game like Fallout 4 is too focused on good guy gameplay, yet when we're provided those bad guy options most of us will rarely ever take them.

Potentially raises some questions about the dev time being dedicated to the bad guy playstyles, and whether it's worth the time and resources over more dev time for the playstyles the vast majority will opt for anyway.

I guess many of us just like to know the option is there? I think for me it means when I choose to be the good guy it was a genuine choice, and not just the way the game always plays out.

 
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,847
I mean Shepard as a Renegade is a straight up war criminal. Punching journalists was cool but some stuff in ME3 were genuinely too fucked up


I played neutral with actions on both sides to the point I could choose every action and I knew some actions were too much for me. You could even tell your companions they were worthless piece of shits..
 
Hella

Hella

Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,397
Suddenly the action(?) mode in ME3 makes a lot more sense. If I'm remembering my stats right, something like 80% of players were all male shepard, soldier-class, and paragon.

Why, god, why are gamers so boring.
 
Grenchel

Grenchel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,294
As much as I love the series, it didn't do a really great job at making the renegade options feel canonical. It wasn't The Old Republic moustache-twirling, but it wasn't that much better.
 
chandoog

chandoog

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,071
I mean .. yeah ...

first play through always 'positive', second play through .. fuck everything and everyone.
 
Yuntu

Yuntu

Prophet of Regret
Member
Nov 7, 2019
10,669
Germany
If I create the character and am supposed to be him then I'm gonna be nice. Though I did punch the journalists.
 
Molecule

Molecule

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,691
I almost always play as the good guy. I always think I want to play as the bad guy but I don't like how it makes me feel so I never get outside of the beginning.

I have picked renegade options in certain situations but for the most part I don't.
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
42,949
I was a mix, though likely more Paragon. My Shepard was honest, but did what was necessary to get things done. For instance, I thought blowing up the Collector Base was ridiculous, its asinine. It's one of our few changes to study Reaper technology and hopefully come up with a counter weapon and yet we're gonna blow it up?! The thing I hate most about the choice is that there is no option to just tell the Alliance or Council about the Base so they can have it instead of Cerberus.

So dumb. I always chose to keep the base.
 
Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,833
Netherlands
I think this stat is solely about ME1. Renegade in Mass Effect 1 was way more interesting, so that's a shame. But I feel the main reason was that the game incentivized going only full goody two shoes or full colossal dick. When you tried to roleplay like an actual human being, it penalized you by blocking out dialogue options. And people find it easier to stick to being nice to everyone, also to people who don't deserve it, than being an asshole to people who didn't deserve it.

In the later MEs where they allowed you to roleplay a bit more, I got into the groove of being Paragon to my teammates and being Renegade to the outside world for maximum Dirty Dozen.
 
AWizardDidIt

AWizardDidIt

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,461
This is actually probably even more skewed towards Good in most games that allow it since Mass Effect's Renegade isn't even really full 'evil' but just pragmatic and sorta dickish.
 
Ambient

Ambient

Member
Dec 23, 2017
7,054
I've replayed Mass Effect a bunch of times and have never done a full renegade play through. I like being the nice guy or girl.
 
Amibguous Cad

Amibguous Cad

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,033
Why would you play Renegade? The whole idea of a Renegade is "do what's needed to get the job done," but they're never, ever gonna punish a Paragon player for superficially doing the right thing. Blow up a war-defining and huge source of enemy technology, maerial, and intelligence? Maybe you get dinged a few readiness points in ME3, but I'm not even sure about that. So why not stay Paragon? You get to do the superficially righteous thing AND no one else has to suffer for your self-righteousness.
 
wollywinka

wollywinka

Member
Feb 15, 2018
3,094
Something about Jennifer Hale's delivery made her sound evil, even during my Paragon playthrough.
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
The problem is that renegade dialogue options and choices run the gamut from "sarcastic anti-hero asshole" to "murderous evildoer" in a way that always made me afraid to pick the renegade option. Shepard is, at the end of the day, the hero of a space opera epic and it feels out of character for her to be doing evil things while also saving the galaxy. It just never gelled with me. I've done five or six trilogy playthroughs and I'm always like 90% paragon.
 
Tuco Benedicto Pacifico

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
8,466
Eh, they could have experienced more mixed interactions if they didn't build the franchise on a "morality system" that absolutely punished you for going any other route than the two extremes "Archangel Gabriel" and "Adolf Hitler with a badge".
 
Luxorek

Luxorek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,162
Poland
Guilty as charged. That saying I'm not surprised people don't want to play as a murderous psychopath. It's all fun and games in ME1, but in the subsequent games Shepard is straight up commiting war crimes, executing people, threatening them with violence and so on. ME3 Renegade Shepard is just evil, no other way to describe it.
 
funky

funky

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,527
Yeah. What did they expect?

I hope in the future the "THERE ARE ONLY 2 SIDES GOOD OR EVIL" writing style Bioware uses needs to die.

In Mass Effect you are either Space Jesus or Space Hitler. Not middle ground. No chance for the player to think about the outcome of their choices. They just pick the clearly marked Good outcome or Clearly marked Bad Guy outcome depending on if its their Paragon or Renegade run.
 
The Traveller

The Traveller

Member
Oct 31, 2017
1,031
I think the binary choice of good vs evil was an interesting mechanic in games like Fable, KOTOR and Mass Effect. Although I prefer the 'grey option' in games like the Witcher where the outcomes aren't always so obvious from your choices.
 
denx

denx

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,321
In games that give you the choice, in my first playthrough I always try to choose what I feel I would honestly choose if I were there in any given situation. After that I start going bonkers in subsequent playthroughs.
 

Deleted member 864

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
17,544
I rarely picked the renegade options, and if I did it would just be for minor stuff.
BDS said:
The problem is that renegade dialogue options and choices run the gamut from "sarcastic anti-hero asshole" to "murderous evildoer" in a way that always made me afraid to pick the renegade option. Shepard is, at the end of the day, the hero of a space opera epic and it feels out of character for her to be doing evil things while also saving the galaxy. It just never gelled with me. I've done five or six trilogy playthroughs and I'm always like 90% paragon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Pretty much the same reasoning for me.
 
Unspecified

Unspecified

Member
Dec 9, 2017
27
The problem with Renegade / Evil options in games (and why I almost always lean toward Paragon / Hero) is that there's usually no real point to the evil choices. Like, if I'm gonna disagree with someone or cause problems, it has to be for a good reason. I'm not just gonna pick "steal the kid's lunch money and punch him in the face and say HAHA" for absolutely no reason whatsoever... there has to be a good story reason for it.

For example... maybe same town or colony I'm exploring is into some shit I don't like, or they treat their people a certain way I'm not cool with. You're damn right I'll punch the leader in the face and steal all their stuff, get the guards after me etc. while not giving a fuck, because I legit believe myself to be right when all these dudes are wrong. A good villain should be subjective - they do what they do for actual reasons, not just "evil lol".
 
Jay Shadow

Jay Shadow

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,604
ME games are short enough that I play both. ME2 is short enough that I played a 3rd time, got no one's loyalty, finished with everyone but 2 dead, and finished the game in 9 hours.
 
Crushed

Crushed

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,707
I always picked Paragon for two reasons

1) I always go the nice option by default in first playthroughs
2) Renegade always seemed pointless, since it was set up as "ends justify the means" except... you get nearly the same or even better ends with Paragon means. Like, you can see those options in the top-right and know they're going to work just as much. They kept teasing that maybe it would all go bad for Paragon players in 3 and it'd turn out that your altruistic choices were all naïve and short-sighted, but no! You end up perfectly fine, or better even. So tbh, Renegade Shepard ends up looking kind of... stupid, really, burning bridges and committing all sorts of ethically shady acts for zero payoff.
 
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,847
I think people forget what Renegade MEANT, especially in Mass Effect 3



It is impossible for me to do what just happened. That was too mean.
 
The Silver

The Silver

Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,708
They need to put in clear drawbacks for being a goody2shoes all the time. There's no real incentive to do a dickish or evil thing, you know it's all gonna work out in the end anyway.
 
Gunny T Highway

Gunny T Highway

Unshakable Resolve - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,997
Canada
I always do Good on the 1st playthrough then Evil on the 2nd. Usually Evil choices in games break down to you just being an asshole.
 
Spyware

Spyware

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,455
Sweden
I always play both when I get the choice and the game is good enough that I wanna play more. Basically if I played enough to beat it then I'm gonna try the other paths too. If the choices are black and white I most often start with the good path (inFAMOUS 1 and 2 are exceptions). If you can go somewhere in between then I start that way instead, it's more often what I think is reasonable. But I always try to see everything in a game.

Renegade Sheps have some great moments.
 

Phinor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,236
I was mostly paragon but went renegade when the situation called for it. I think that happened more in the first and maybe the second game. When the dialogue option and the actual reaction from my character start to differ, the threshold to react with renegade/evil option raises. Was it ME3 where it became an issue already? The dialogue option indicated something mild, but the actual reaction from the character could be anything from mild to horrible over reaction? Or was that Fallout 4 or Andromeda.. probably all of them? In any case if I can no longer trust the writer(s), I end up playing it safe.
 
Zukuu

Zukuu

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,809
Renegade isn't "bad" and it irritates me that people claim it is. It's just not "I don't need payment for my work" like the usual good-bullshit paths, but good nonetheless. It was very, very refreshing to finally have a chaotic good choice. I'm fucking saving the galaxy, so cut the crap.
 
ThreepQuest64

ThreepQuest64

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
5,735
Germany
Usually good. Though I like to play chaotic-good characters whenever possible. Fallout games, Bloodlines, Outer Worlds and the like... good in nature but completely out of my mind.

Renegade was often being the douchebag option in Mass Effect. But I've played that one strictly after my first paragon playthrough.
 
Giolon

Giolon

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,080
Despite most people choosing the "good" path, I think an important aspect that shouldn't be lost is giving players the choice itself. If there is no choice to be made at all, it can make the story feel like it's on autopilot.
 
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