Is renegade a better option than paragon in the Mass Effect universe? I find the renegade options...

Is renegade a better option than paragon in the Mass Effect universe? I find the renegade options, while they get a lot of disdain from the NPCs, are actually much more effective in your missions than the paragon choices.

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In the first game I went Renegade for most options but doing something like saving the council makes your playthrough paragon.

>he doesn't do both

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renegade a best. the speech options and QTEs are more fun. good boy shep just doesn't seem right for a commander imho

I have always hated black and white morality systems that say "you must consistently be a dick or a pussy" because it's more fun when you forget about the retarded, arbitrary morality system in the background and just act as you would in reality.

However, if I had to choose between being a dick or a pussy, I would be a dick.

In Mass Effect 1 and 2 every single MAJOR story option, the Renegade choice is the only logical one and the Paragon choice is badshit stupid. Maybe it's the same in ME3, I don't remember.

Miranda had conflicting loyalties but at least she wasn't a traitor.

>Rachni Queen

You have literally zero reason to believe what the Queen is telling you. None. Zilch. The totality of the facts you know for sure is that the Rachni used to be an incredible almost apocalyptic threat to the Galaxy (to the point that the Krogans are what they are today because of how dangerous the Rachni were) and that she's currently completely at your mercy. And, that you and the Galaxy stand to gain absolutely nothing by saving her.

You have her assurance that it was all a misunderstanding and that she's no danger at all. But there's no evidence of that and you've got no reason to believe it.

By saving her, you're potentially imperiling the entire galaxy for no reason.

The Renegade choice is not only the most sane, but it's practically your job to make that choice. The Paragon choice is literally just hoping it all works out, you're doing it for no other reason than you feel that it'd be a bad thing to do, there's no logic or pragmatism there.

You choose the Paragon choice knowing the game won't punish you for doing so, it makes no difference. Would you choose it if you had reason to believe the Rachni would return and destroy the Citadel after you defeated Saren?

>Zhu's Hope

Similar deal. You've got these concussive grenades that may potentially disable these dangerous, zombie colonists... Hopefully? How long will they last? How effective are they? What kind of effect can we expect them to have on men vs women, or other species? You know absolutely nothing. Well, nothing except that you have to get a hell of a lot closer to use them and you're putting your squad in danger by not only using them, but by hoping that the people that get hit by them stay down and don't hit your team in the back.

It's nice to save these colonists, you absolutely should if it's reasonable to do so. But these colonists aren't your mission, they're not even a periphery to it, they're literally just random civilians that took a dangerous gamble and ended up with some bad luck. It sucks to be them, but your mission is to save the Galaxy, can you really risk losing one of your team to save these random civilians?

Again, you choose the Paragon choice because you know you're not gonna suffer any consequences. It's a completely ridiculous, irresponsible choice. Would you pick it so readily if one of the Colonists got up from being concussed and shot Liara in the back?

>Destiny Ascention

This choice is utterly ridiculous.

There's zero reason to save the Destiny Ascension. It's a disabled flagship that's got absolutely NOTHING to offer in the ongoing fight. You will lose hundreds of lives and scores of incredibly valuable ships to save it, and there's zero reason to do so.

You as a player knows that it doesn't matter because you'll win and defeat Saren/The Reaper anyway. But Shepherd doesn't know that. All he knows is that right now he needs every piece of firepower he has to destroy that Reaper. Throwing away a huge chunk of your army to save a useless figurehead is insane, you're gambling the fate of the entire galaxy on that.

And so, once again, you pick Paragon knowing you'll still win the game anyway. But would you pick it so readily if you actually believed there was a good chance that the Reaper would be able to hold off against the reduced forces and destroy everyone, completely nullifying your assault? What if it just meant that the Normandy was killed along with Joker and everyone on it?

Every single major choice, the only reason you can ever justify Paragon is when you metagame and know there's no actual consequences so it doesn't matter. If there were consequences, or if you actually put yourself in Shepherd's shoes, then the Renegade choice is ALWAYS the most reasonable.

2 is really the only one that had the retarded morality system. You could spec into charm and intimidate in 1 and in 3 it is just one bar. 2 is the only one where that shit is an issue, and if you play with a save from ME1 imported you can still do whatever you want in 2 and still pass all the checks. My save that I always import into 2 has 190 paragon and 89 renegade and I can do whatever I want and only rarely get the red option greyed out and never get the blue option greyed out

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I'm actually thinking about playing mass effect for the first time and was wondering if there is any real reason not to pick Paragon or Renegade as the situation demands?

>think about trying to play MEA again
>try to look up a good biotics build
>"and then you put points in charge"
>turn 360 degrees walk away and play ME2 instead
how did they fuck the combat up so much in MEA? Like jesus the enemies are all bullet sponges and not being able to use squadmate powers were retarded design choices

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Not really, Paragades and Renegons are fun playthroughs. You'll generally get enough points to get the choices that need full or almost full in either to succeed even if you do double dip. ME2 is looser with this than ME1 but both are fine.

they build up and you need a certain amount to be able to pick them in late game so splitting them means you won't be able to pick either

>You choose the Paragon choice knowing the game won't punish you for doing so, it makes no difference. Would you choose it if you had reason to believe the Rachni would return and destroy the Citadel after you defeated Saren?
cause I wanna see what happens to that character in the next game so I tried to make sure everyone lived, except fist got killed and maybe one other dude

>Getting "Bad Person" points for killing the big bad

Fucking kidding me? I ain't no faggot motherfucker. Look at me? What do you see? I god damn good boy is what you fucking see.

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I choose any option that gets me Ash ass

>not putting all your points in intimidate so that you can convince the bad guy to shoot himself

Counterpoint. In LotSB there is a paragon check where you get to intimidate the asari commando by pointing out that you don't give a shit about anyone's lives and literally released the rachni upon the galaxy

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In the first game, you use stat points to unlock higher checks. So you can do any of them if you put points into charm or intimidate.

In 2 and 3, performing a paragon or renegade action increases the stat for them respectively. So you need to stick to one to pass the high level checks.

>In 2 and 3, performing a paragon or renegade action increases the stat for them respectively. So you need to stick to one to pass the high level checks.

That's kind of gay. I actually like changing things up as the situation demands.

You don't need 100%, you can do something like 80% without issue. So long as you're mostly one or the other you'll be fine.

And IIRC there's only one truly difficult check, for the argument between Tali and Legion. But you can just side with Tali and appease Legion afterwards if you don't have the requirements for it anyway.

Isn't Miranda/Jack another tough one?

>sacrificing the many for the few is somehow Paragon
I don't understand this system. the true redpill is just doing whatever you want.

I just appreciate that occasionally dipping into the other side of the morality tree doesn't fuck you over gameplay-wise like KOTOR.

It's better to use save editor/console commands to max out both and use any option you want.

It was supposed to be the "ruthless but effective" option in ME1, compared to Paragon which is very standard and "diplomatic". It made sense in a game where you were basically a cop compared to Space Jesus.
They shouldn't have linked big choices to the Renegade/paragon system imo