1700 réponses à ce sujet

[Therion942]

Kai Hohiro wrote...


This game is a Heist plot. Not sure if you know the slightest thing about storytelling, but the whole point of it is that the majority of the story is building up the team and ressources in order to complete the heist at the end (Dirty Dozen, Ocean's Eleven, etc)

You want to know what all those movies you listed have in common? They tell us it's a heist plot and elaborate on how they're going to do it instead of winging it, even if winging it is involved in later stages of the plan. A two line exchange between the Illusive Man solves the lack of coherency. Shepard expresses doubt to TIM, expresses worry about odds of survival, expresses fact that Normandy SR2 is not a frontline fighter, TIM replies "Shepard you and I both know that the most efficient way to take down cruiser class and greater ships is via a boarding party, you have the best boarding party available to you. Or were you not paying attention in History class?" Illusive man goes on to reminisce about a ship, any ship, being taken down by a well planned infiltration team

Show not tell.

[Iakus]

Moiaussi wrote...

Oh, and if Harbinger was there then small unit tactics would have been the only chance, because there is no navy able to stand up to the reapers yet. Frankly though since Harbinger is with the Reaper fleet it would really just mean civilization is doomed... again....

Well, I just think that in that case the skillset would have leaned towards recruiting more Kasumis and fewer Grunts

It would have been a better game if they had found the collectors had a world, multiple bases, etc, were forced to flee for their lives and barely managed to seal off the relay somehow buying a few years time, but this time bringing back conclusive evidence of the threat.... rather than nothing at all..... they didn't even buy time really....

I think Shepard should have been raiding COllector bases and foiling their trades all through the game, but then I think the COllectors should have had a far stronger focus than they were given.

I think a perfect twist ending would have been, after all was said and done with the base, instead of cutting to the Reaper fleet waking up, we cut to another Collector base with a bunch of Collectors working on a half-finished dark space relay.  Congratualations, you have mildly inconvenienced them!  See you in ME 3!

Therion942 wrote...

What's annoing is that 85% of these issues (I love pulling statistics out of my rear, but bear with me) could be solved with a line or two of dialogue, not some monumental task of writing genius. Shepard asks the illusive man "We don't know what we're up against, why are you asking me to gather a team?" The Illusive Man then shows us some damning intelligence that points more to the fact that there is no collector homeworld and blah blah blah you get the picture. Yeah sure this tells about the Collector's plot-induced stupidity but I'd rather be able to go "well that's just silly" than "that doesn't make any sense"

My thought:  Shepard should have learned of the base at Freedom's Progress.

Imagine:  One of the colonists was former Alliance military and a biotic.  He uses his biotics to protect himself from the seeker swarms and fights the Collector ground troops.  He kills one or two before the rest bring him down.  Veetor, undetected by their instruments, manages to filch a damaged omnitool from one of the corpses.  He ends up giving it to Shepard  Cerberus techs can't get much off of it, but manage to get a basic schematic of the Collector base. 

::puffpuff:: "Shepard, this base seems to be where they're taking the colonists.  I'll need you to break into this base and find out all you can.  Find out if there are any survivors.  Sabotage whatever it is they're doing.  And most importantly, discover what their connection is to the Reapers." ::puffpuff::

"For what you're asking, I'll need an army.  Or a really good team"

::sip puffpuff:: "Defenses seem to be minimal.  They' are  relying on secrecy and the region's black holes to discourage visitors.  So you won't need an army.  For the team, I'll send you dossiers on the best fighters, infiltration experts, scientists, and biotics available."  ::sip::   You'll have a team ready for anything we think this base can throw at you, I promise" ::puffpuff::

There, definable targetl, information (albiet incomplete) about what you'll be up against, and a reason for recruiting a small number of ground troops rather than a small army.

Kai Hohiro wrote...

This game is a Heist plot. Not sure if you know the slightest thing about storytelling, but the whole point of it is that the majority of the story is building up the team and ressources in order to complete the heist at the end (Dirty Dozen, Ocean's Eleven, etc)
What kind of heist would it be if they arrived at their target location, decided it's too much and flew home?
That would be a godawful ending.

My experience with heist plots, particularly ones with an ensemble cast, is that they spend the first act recruiting the team, the second act preparing for the heist and learning how to work together. 

I have already gone over (at length) how I think ME 2 utterly failed at the latter.  The major problem with the former is that this team doesn't even know what they're heisting until after the Collector Ship mission.  Is the cruiser based at a mothership or dreadnaught?  a base?  A planet?  What numbers are they up against?  Heist stories typically have the crew scouting out the location ahead of time.  Counting guards, checking alarm systems, looking for weak points.  They plan things out and practice for various contingencies. 

Now if Shepard did have access to information about the base, and could recruit his/her team based on that information, and choose one of several plans on how to attack the base (recruiting the team that the player thinks best fits that plan) that would be cool, and really add to the replayability of the game.  As it is, it's about as much a "heist" game as Starcraft 2.

[Nightwriter]

Confounded text chains. You can't sink your teeth into the current debate unless you do 3 pages of backreading. 

Let's talk about how fast ME2 moves. I want to talk about that. I don't like it.

The Illusive Man has you off recruiting people before you even have the chance to absorb the situation or what's really happened.

You died! - Lazarus! - TIM! - Collectors! - OMEGA!!

[Dasher10]

I disliked how you couldn't buy weapons at shops and how squadmates were nerfed. I liked having two character who were almost as powerful as I was on my team. If it seems overpowered to the devs, then they need to create tougher bosses.

[Revan312]

Dasher10 wrote...

I disliked how you couldn't buy weapons at shops and how squadmates were nerfed. I liked having two character who were almost as powerful as I was on my team. If it seems overpowered to the devs, then they need to create tougher bosses.

What I dislike more is the fact that in most cutscenes, squadmates are shown as demigods.  My last playthrough I went and got Jack first, she busts out of her restraints, flys towards 3 mega mechs and destroys all of them.. Blows holes through solid steel walls, kills nearly everyone on the ship until I get to her and when I recruit her? Well, she gets 3 points to put into skills and dies to a single blue suns merc peon....

Again a point I liked about ME1, nobody was shown taking on entire companies of men or blasting through reinforced ship hulls or jumping 30 feet into the air to grapple onto a gunship like spiderman. They were people with grounded personalities and abilities..

[Moiaussi]

iakus wrote...

Well, I just think that in that case the skillset would have leaned towards recruiting more Kasumis and fewer Grunts

Really? And where are all these master thieves who are not just as skilled as Kasumi, but also are sufficiently trustworthy to work together for you rather than against you? And if you end up in a situation where brute strength is needed in a particular situation, even if just lifting a bulkhead quietly? Not to mention Grunt's overall durability...

The point of being prepared is being able to handle a wider variety of options. By the way, your concept of a special missions small unit team would have failed. How would the "Kasumi Dozen" have gotten Shepard past the seeker swarms of the long walk?

I think Shepard should have been raiding COllector bases and foiling their trades all through the game, but then I think the COllectors should have had a far stronger focus than they were given.

Ah, so you figure that Shepard, with a frigate that is not stealthed to the Collectors (not to mention a shuttle that isn't stealty to anyone) should have been able to take out as many bases as need be while the collectors just wring their hands and conveniently turn off their defences to allow this? It might work if most of the bases were not directly collector controlled or were minor enough to have no significant anti ship defences... but past a certain point, the Normady would likely just meet enemy fleets.

I think a perfect twist ending would have been, after all was said and done with the base, instead of cutting to the Reaper fleet waking up, we cut to another Collector base with a bunch of Collectors working on a half-finished dark space relay.  Congratualations, you have mildly inconvenienced them!  See you in ME 3!

Ironicly, the suggestion that Shepard has merely mildly inconvenienced them is exacly what I was suggesting happened in ME2. That everything Shepard did could have been done as well or better by conventional forces, other than (maybe) rescuing his own crew.

::puffpuff:: "Shepard, this base seems to be where they're taking the colonists.  I'll need you to break into this base and find out all you can.  Find out if there are any survivors.  Sabotage whatever it is they're doing.  And most importantly, discover what their connection is to the Reapers." ::puffpuff::

"For what you're asking, I'll need an army.  Or a really good team"

::sip puffpuff:: "Defenses seem to be minimal.  They' are  relying on secrecy and the region's black holes to discourage visitors.  So you won't need an army.  For the team, I'll send you dossiers on the best fighters, infiltration experts, scientists, and biotics available."  ::sip::   You'll have a team ready for anything we think this base can throw at you, I promise" ::puffpuff::

There, definable targetl, information (albiet incomplete) about what you'll be up against, and a reason for recruiting a small number of ground troops rather than a small army.

And that person on Freedom's Progress would have known all that how? The collectors just simply chatted him up inexplicably in a language he understood while he was standing there in an obvious glowing bubble that they could shoot through? The Normandy is intended as a recon vessel. Recon is almost all small unit tactics. Shepard, as a Spectre (and prior to that as N7) was special forces, which is small unit tactics. Interestingly, Shepard could probably have handled ME2 a lot easier if he had an equivalent cost Heavy Cruiser rather than the Normandy, especially since upgrading a heavy cruiser's guns with the thanix tech would probably have provided the ability to one shot the Collector cruiser, and possibly the base as well.

My experience with heist plots, particularly ones with an ensemble cast, is that they spend the first act recruiting the team, the second act preparing for the heist and learning how to work together. 

I have already gone over (at length) how I think ME 2 utterly failed at the latter.  The major problem with the former is that this team doesn't even know what they're heisting until after the Collector Ship mission.

I agree with your criticism here. The problem is that it is mixing a heist plot with a mystery plot and doing neither well.

[Moiaussi]

Revan312 wrote...

What I dislike more is the fact that in most cutscenes, squadmates are shown as demigods.  My last playthrough I went and got Jack first, she busts out of her restraints, flys towards 3 mega mechs and destroys all of them.. Blows holes through solid steel walls, kills nearly everyone on the ship until I get to her and when I recruit her? Well, she gets 3 points to put into skills and dies to a single blue suns merc peon....

Again a point I liked about ME1, nobody was shown taking on entire companies of men or blasting through reinforced ship hulls or jumping 30 feet into the air to grapple onto a gunship like spiderman. They were people with grounded personalities and abilities..

That bugged me too. The ME1 crew were all busy so even though they all proved themselves and grew stronger under Shepard's command, we now somehow need some new 'uber' crew?

Not to mention most of the character development gets tossed out the window for most of them. The vermire survivor forsakes you, Garrus tosses aside any development towards a paragon path. Liara suddenly can't do anything off of Illium (at least without the LotSB). Wrex is at least believable especially given his background from ME1. I get that they were trying for a 'dirty dozen meets mission impossible' feel, but in both those the team is already recruited.

It is interesting to note that the SR-1 had a marine complement of 4, who are never seen. Strangely, despite the extra decks, the SR-2 doesn't seem to have any such complement, and the recruits are all stashed in innane places (assassin in life support and Geth in the AI core being the most mind boggling).

[Turin_4]

...expresses worry about odds of survival, expresses fact that Normandy SR2 is not a frontline fighter...

Aren't frigates expressly frontline fighting warships?  I remember the Codex entry from ME 1 on frigates, and that was one of their key roles.  They also saw the most action being the smallest single-deployed warships deployed if I remember correctly, meaning they would see action against things like pirates and mercenaries solo.

'Show not tell' is a good rule of thumb, generally speaking, it's true.  But it's not an ironclad rule like a mathematical term or something.  I mean, I just saw The Town with I believe there were at least three separate heists including one very elaborate one and they had perhaps a grand total of five minutes tops of exposition on all of them before, after, and during total.  One of the rules of storytelling is that there are no absolutes.  In that film they neither showed nor told, they just did it, similar to how the 'heists[/i] were done in ME2.

Another little rule of storytelling, generally speaking, is that if the vast majority of audiences out there who usually respond well to good stories and poorly to poor ones responded well to ME2 as is obviously the case here, maybe some of the criticism being leveled ought to be reconsidered in its harshness, but *shrug*.  Please note the careful use of the term 'harshness', because I'm fine with saying, "Darn, it could have been better if..." but I've always felt and still feel that complaints that, "This made the game bad complaints are just plain silly."

Modifié par Turin_4, 03 octobre 2010 - 02:10 .

[MassEffect762]

Revan312 wrote...


What I dislike more is the fact that in most cutscenes, squadmates are shown as demigods.  My last playthrough I went and got Jack first, she busts out of her restraints, flys towards 3 mega mechs and destroys all of them.. Blows holes through solid steel walls, kills nearly everyone on the ship until I get to her and when I recruit her? Well, she gets 3 points to put into skills and dies to a single blue suns merc peon....

Again a point I liked about ME1, nobody was shown taking on entire companies of men or blasting through reinforced ship hulls or jumping 30 feet into the air to grapple onto a gunship like spiderman. They were people with grounded personalities and abilities..

Listen to Revan312 Bioware, he/she is making perfect sense.

I know it's Sci-Fi and all but get REAL Bioware.

Alot more Captian Picard and a whole less Matrix.

[Frybread76]

Revan312 wrote...

Dasher10 wrote...

I disliked how you couldn't buy weapons at shops and how squadmates were nerfed. I liked having two character who were almost as powerful as I was on my team. If it seems overpowered to the devs, then they need to create tougher bosses.

What I dislike more is the fact that in most cutscenes, squadmates are shown as demigods.  My last playthrough I went and got Jack first, she busts out of her restraints, flys towards 3 mega mechs and destroys all of them.. Blows holes through solid steel walls, kills nearly everyone on the ship until I get to her and when I recruit her? Well, she gets 3 points to put into skills and dies to a single blue suns merc peon....

Again a point I liked about ME1, nobody was shown taking on entire companies of men or blasting through reinforced ship hulls or jumping 30 feet into the air to grapple onto a gunship like spiderman. They were people with grounded personalities and abilities..

Yeah, I could somewhat forgive Jack's cutscene super-heroics because she has biotics (magic), but Kasumi's just ticked me off.  We have a regular human jumping 20-30 feet onto the top of a gunship.  It's ridiculous, IMO.

[DPSSOC]

One disappointment I had with the game was it didn't give me the same sense of accomplishment. In ME1 you're given a goal and every main mission is a step toward that goal and it gives a real impression that you're doing something, that you're making progress. ME2 doesn't pull that off because the main missions are recruitment/loyalty missions none of which have any connection to the main goal. That's why I liked ME1 because the recruitment of you team was worked into the mission it didn't become the mission. You're looking for information and told to look for some guy and when you get to some guy he gives you the info and asks to join you.



I would have much preferred if, in pursuit of the Collectors you encounter the squadmates rather than finding the squadmates then pursuing the Collectors. Personal preference however and to each their own.

[Puzzlewell]

I'd say my biggest complaint on ME2 comes from more a technical standpoint. The amount of glitched data importing from ME1 really bothered me. All through production they doted the fact that so many choices we make from 1 would carry into 2. In theory that is amazing and lets us see the outcome of the choices we made, but in practice so many of them are flagged to read wrong that it just becomes exasperating. When I kept hearing about the consort leaving the Citadel about leaks in her information I thought "What the hell is this, I solved that :|" Same goes for Conrad. I played off my Paragon import first and with him saying I put a gun in his face I thought "What the hell are you talking about? I did nothing of the sort"

I get the idea that these things are never going to be patched, so it almost feels like if it carries into 3 it'll carry over broken from the start. I love BioWare, have for many years but this is just sloppy and it makes me go into 3 pondering "I wonder if my actions will even carry over correctly this time..." 1,000s of choices supposedly carry over, but the fine print should be "they don't all carry over correctly..."

[Frybread76]

DPSSOC wrote...

One disappointment I had with the game was it didn't give me the same sense of accomplishment. In ME1 you're given a goal and every main mission is a step toward that goal and it gives a real impression that you're doing something, that you're making progress. ME2 doesn't pull that off because the main missions are recruitment/loyalty missions none of which have any connection to the main goal. That's why I liked ME1 because the recruitment of you team was worked into the mission it didn't become the mission. You're looking for information and told to look for some guy and when you get to some guy he gives you the info and asks to join you.

I would have much preferred if, in pursuit of the Collectors you encounter the squadmates rather than finding the squadmates then pursuing the Collectors. Personal preference however and to each their own.

I agree.  But I think it's obvious that the main storyline (the Reaper story) is not the main story in ME2.  In fact, the main storyline really doesn't move forward much at all.

[Turin_4]

I agree that the uber-squadmate cutscene bit was both unnecessary and bothersome. I think they could have portrayed them as being quite badass without going over the top like that. After all, they didn't do it in ME1, and it was rated and received very well too. Still is, in fact.

[Iakus]

Moiaussi wrote...


Really? And where are all these master thieves who are not just as skilled as Kasumi, but also are sufficiently trustworthy to work together for you rather than against you? And if you end up in a situation where brute strength is needed in a particular situation, even if just lifting a bulkhead quietly? Not to mention Grunt's overall durability...

I didn't mean in this hypothetical scenerio that a "Grunt" wouldn't be needed.  I meant "more Kasumis" as in a group that was more stealth-oriented, and less "wade in and kill everything in sight"  As to where they'd come from?  Who knows?  Shepard only gets the dossiers TIM provides.

The point of being prepared is being able to handle a wider variety of options. By the way, your concept of a special missions small unit team would have failed. How would the "Kasumi Dozen" have gotten Shepard past the seeker swarms of the long walk?

1 "More doesn't mean "all"  I simply mean that if the suicide mission was more stealth based (due to an entire army of Collectors or a Reaper hanging around) TIM might have given out more dossiers of sneaky types.  More Kasumis, or Thanes.

2) Let me answer that question with a question:  What if there was no "Long Walk" But a massive bulkhead to blast through?  A demolitions expert might have come in handy there.  Shep didn't have one.  Fortunately one wasn't needed.

Ah, so you figure that Shepard, with a frigate that is not stealthed to the Collectors (not to mention a shuttle that isn't stealty to anyone) should have been able to take out as many bases as need be while the collectors just wring their hands and conveniently turn off their defences to allow this? It might work if most of the bases were not directly collector controlled or were minor enough to have no significant anti ship defences... but past a certain point, the Normady would likely just meet enemy fleets.

How many bases is "as needed?" As far as I'm concerned, one or two outposts would have been enough.  Plus busting up trades between them and mercs, Maybe some smaller ships or transports than the cruiser.  More opportunities to learn about them, More opportunities to make them scary, yet pitiable.  A chance to make them seems more than just cliched "bug eyed aliens" that they ended up being.

Ironicly, the suggestion that Shepard has merely mildly inconvenienced them is exacly what I was suggesting happened in ME2. That everything Shepard did could have been done as well or better by conventional forces, other than (maybe) rescuing his own crew.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how much they accomplished, save stopping the raids.  We gotta take it on faith that all the Collectors are dead.  We have no clue what purpose the Reaper was gonna serve, besides making a Reaper.  We don't know how this base was gonna facilitate the return of the Reapers.  We don't know what information EDI got, except for a schematic of a Reaper (presumably it's information about them, but we don't know what)  We did something that ticked off Harbringer.  I just don't knwo what, exactly.  Not like ME 1 where we stopped the dark space relay from opening.  That was a definitive goal.

And that person on Freedom's Progress would have known all that how? The collectors just simply chatted him up inexplicably in a language he understood while he was standing there in an obvious glowing bubble that they could shoot through? The Normandy is intended as a recon vessel. Recon is almost all small unit tactics. Shepard, as a Spectre (and prior to that as N7) was special forces, which is small unit tactics. Interestingly, Shepard could probably have handled ME2 a lot easier if he had an equivalent cost Heavy Cruiser rather than the Normandy, especially since upgrading a heavy cruiser's guns with the thanix tech would probably have provided the ability to one shot the Collector cruiser, and possibly the base as well.

I didn't explain that too well.  What I propose is that, Veetor got a damaged Collector omnitool (or something that they use as such) which had that information.  The biotic was just a reason why such a thing would be lying around.  That way, Cerberus can analyze at elast a little data about the base, and TIM can justify the dossiers as being those most liekly to have skills useful in assaulting the base.  Instead of Shepard going in blind and everything magically working out.

The problem is Shepard was forming a team which had no idea what they were reconning.  Simply knowing that it was a base they were infiltrating, rather than a ship, a planet, or something else would have made the logic behind squad selection easier to understand.  (well, logical aside from the fact that  it was a team largely of people who didn't know each other, not used to working together, and several have a "doesn't play well with others" mentality. 

I can't disagree on the heavy cruiser concept.  I guess having another Normandy is nostalgia or something.

I agree with your criticism here. The problem is that it is mixing a heist plot with a mystery plot and doing neither well.

Given the "mystery" is solved on Freedom's Progress, no arguements here

Modifié par iakus, 03 octobre 2010 - 08:23 .

[Iakus]

Turin_4 wrote...


Another little rule of storytelling, generally speaking, is that if the vast majority of audiences out there who usually respond well to good stories and poorly to poor ones responded well to ME2 as is obviously the case here, maybe some of the criticism being leveled ought to be reconsidered in its harshness, but *shrug*.  Please note the careful use of the term 'harshness', because I'm fine with saying, "Darn, it could have been better if..." but I've always felt and still feel that complaints that, "This made the game bad complaints are just plain silly."

Sorry, but meeting the Virmire Survivor on Horizon kills any desire for me to play ME 2.  Personal opinion, but that "make it bad" for me followed close behind by "Ah, yes, 'Reapers'" and the final boss

Maybe those are just particularly good examples of what I dislike about ME 2,  But while the stuff I've been saying about squad banter, Collector story and whatnot might have made it a better game, horrible scenes like that made the game much much worse.  I think that's why so maybe people, even ME 2 detractors, enjoyed teh Shadow Broker DLC.  It at least somewhat rehabilitated the horrible treatment Liara received in the game.  In essence, it was BIoware correcting it's mistakes (at $10 apiece)

[Iakus]

MassEffect762 wrote...

Alot more Captian Picard and a whole less Matrix.

I like this phrase.  I may have to steal it

[smudboy]

iakus wrote...

MassEffect762 wrote...

Alot more Captian Picard and a whole less Matrix.

I like this phrase.  I may have to steal it

Oy.  Don't play Overlord then.

I always say, for sci-fi, "Steal Straczynski."

[Frybread76]

iakus wrote...

Turin_4 wrote...


Another little rule of storytelling, generally speaking, is that if the vast majority of audiences out there who usually respond well to good stories and poorly to poor ones responded well to ME2 as is obviously the case here, maybe some of the criticism being leveled ought to be reconsidered in its harshness, but *shrug*.  Please note the careful use of the term 'harshness', because I'm fine with saying, "Darn, it could have been better if..." but I've always felt and still feel that complaints that, "This made the game bad complaints are just plain silly."

Sorry, but meeting the Virmire Survivor on Horizon kills any desire for me to play ME 2.  Personal opinion, but that "make it bad" for me followed close behind by "Ah, yes, 'Reapers'" and the final boss

Maybe those are just particularly good examples of what I dislike about ME 2,  But while the stuff I've been saying about squad banter, Collector story and whatnot might have made it a better game, horrible scenes like that made the game much much worse.  I think that's why so maybe people, even ME 2 detractors, enjoyed teh Shadow Broker DLC.  It at least somewhat rehabilitated the horrible treatment Liara received in the game.  In essence, it was BIoware correcting it's mistakes (at $10 apiece)

It seems to me that Bioware was giving fans the chance to interact with the original squad, while at the same time writing them off for the new squad mates you get in ME2 going into ME3.  They just went way overboard in making the interactions so negative, such as the Virmire Survivor and Liara acting completely out of character.

[Rhomer]

Shepard had no personal character growth, he remained wooden. I wanna see Shepard grow not just the side characters. Can we have some connection between The Illusive Man and him wanting Shepard. Like maybe he had ulterior motives to bringing him back like his "visions" from the Prothean beacon. Does he have an implant in Shepard's head? And does the Illusive Man know more than we thought how does he know anything about the collectors or reapers?
I want central story that has the characters and the theme follow with the plot. I feel this was sort of missing or it wasnt made obvious. I feel that we need more mystery but yet have it unfold. That is what was so rewarding about the first game.

Modifié par Rhomer, 03 octobre 2010 - 09:27 .

[Rhomer]

CalamityRanger wrote...

I'd say my biggest complaint on ME2 comes from more a technical standpoint. The amount of glitched data importing from ME1 really bothered me. All through production they doted the fact that so many choices we make from 1 would carry into 2. In theory that is amazing and lets us see the outcome of the choices we made, but in practice so many of them are flagged to read wrong that it just becomes exasperating. When I kept hearing about the consort leaving the Citadel about leaks in her information I thought "What the hell is this, I solved that :|" Same goes for Conrad. I played off my Paragon import first and with him saying I put a gun in his face I thought "What the hell are you talking about? I did nothing of the sort"

I get the idea that these things are never going to be patched, so it almost feels like if it carries into 3 it'll carry over broken from the start. I love BioWare, have for many years but this is just sloppy and it makes me go into 3 pondering "I wonder if my actions will even carry over correctly this time..." 1,000s of choices supposedly carry over, but the fine print should be "they don't all carry over correctly..."

I get this. I had it in mine as well. This is really sloppy you guys didn't catch this.

[Mr. Man]

The game is awesome. I doubt anyone truly disagrees otherwise they wouldn't be here.

[Spazmodian]

Mr. Man wrote...

The game is awesome. I doubt anyone truly disagrees otherwise they wouldn't be here.

ME1 is awesome.  ME2 is not.  The intent of this thread I believe is to highlight this point so that BW might return to what made ME1 awesome and not continue with what made ME2 not awesome.

[ganp0t]

The majority of the characters in ME2 were awesome, and I dare anyone to dispute that. There was also a lot of great humor in the game that in hindsight was lacking in the first installment. However, the main storyline was lacking, and the absence of a central villain really hurt the narrative. The pacing was also thrown off by the randomness of most of the side missions, which didn't help the already struggling story. As for the combat, well, it has it's ups and downs.



Don't get me wrong, I love ME2. It's just that I loved ME1 quite a bit more.

[Moiaussi]

iakus wrote...

I didn't mean in this hypothetical scenerio that a "Grunt" wouldn't be needed.  I meant "more Kasumis" as in a group that was more stealth-oriented, and less "wade in and kill everything in sight"  As to where they'd come from?  Who knows?  Shepard only gets the dossiers TIM provides.

But that is the point. For a three man fire team, if you need stealth you take Kasumi and Thane or possibly Garrus. For recon that is likely enough (and proves enough in the game). My 'where do they come from' comment is me asking why you assume that there are many, if any others that would meet your criteria.

1 "More doesn't mean "all"  I simply mean that if the suicide mission was more stealth based (due to an entire army of Collectors or a Reaper hanging around) TIM might have given out more dossiers of sneaky types.  More Kasumis, or Thanes.

2) Let me answer that question with a question:  What if there was no "Long Walk" But a massive bulkhead to blast through?  A demolitions expert might have come in handy there.  Shep didn't have one.  Fortunately one wasn't needed.

1) But that is the thing.. you don't know in advance, so you take a broad spectrum so you are less likely to be shut out completely.

2) You figure that between Tali, Morden, Garrus and Legion there is noone who knows how to plant explosives? Bet Zaheed and Jack have some training in that area too.

How many bases is "as needed?" As far as I'm concerned, one or two outposts would have been enough.  Plus busting up trades between them and mercs, Maybe some smaller ships or transports than the cruiser.  More opportunities to learn about them, More opportunities to make them scary, yet pitiable.  A chance to make them seems more than just cliched "bug eyed aliens" that they ended up being.

It might have worked, but I think it would have worked even  better if you came across them in pursuing other things, never actually engaging them but learning more about them each step, including their ties to the Reapers. ME2 felt too clean and too self contained...

Unfortunately, I have no idea how much they accomplished, save stopping the raids.  We gotta take it on faith that all the Collectors are dead.  We have no clue what purpose the Reaper was gonna serve, besides making a Reaper.  We don't know how this base was gonna facilitate the return of the Reapers.  We don't know what information EDI got, except for a schematic of a Reaper (presumably it's information about them, but we don't know what)  We did something that ticked off Harbringer.  I just don't knwo what, exactly.  Not like ME 1 where we stopped the dark space relay from opening.  That was a definitive goal.

Heh, we will find that they each have a vulnerable exhaust port, and realize that if we can just fire a javelin torpedo down each and every one...

I didn't explain that too well.  What I propose is that, Veetor got a damaged Collector omnitool (or something that they use as such) which had that information.  The biotic was just a reason why such a thing would be lying around.  That way, Cerberus can analyze at elast a little data about the base, and TIM can justify the dossiers as being those most liekly to have skills useful in assaulting the base.  Instead of Shepard going in blind and everything magically working out.

The problem is Shepard was forming a team which had no idea what they were reconning.  Simply knowing that it was a base they were infiltrating, rather than a ship, a planet, or something else would have made the logic behind squad selection easier to understand.  (well, logical aside from the fact that  it was a team largely of people who didn't know each other, not used to working together, and several have a "doesn't play well with others" mentality.

You know.. if you know in advance that much about what you are reconning, is it still really recon?  As I have tried to explain, I don't see the selection as that strange. Ideally, Shepard should have recruited a full unit of other shepards (using the lazarus tech to make perfect clones), or been assigned an existing special forces or spectre unit. The whole 'build a new team from scratch' concept was problematic in a lot of ways. The broad talent base wasn't one of them though.

I can't disagree on the heavy cruiser concept.  I guess having another Normandy is nostalgia or something.

My preference is that the Collectors were not anywhere so obvious and that the plot be much better suited to a stealth frigate and small unit tactics. My point was really that the game would have been trivial if Shep had more naval firepower instead of a ship that wasn't really the best suited for the duties it ended up having to perform. In other words, the small unit tactics turned out to be for the most part neccessary only by virtue of the normandy's shortcomings rather than good writing.

Given the "mystery" is solved on Freedom's Progress, no arguements here

You figure a heist plot makes more sense than a mystery plot for a second act? If they stole anything important, wouldn't it result in ME3 being anticlimatic? Rather than recon, learn more about what they are up against, build allies and gather enough information that they have at least a fighting chance in ME3? Or alternatively, be forced into a desperate fighting withdrawl that buys enough time to achieve a comeback and subsequent victory in ME3?