462 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Its an RPG. We do these things in an RPG. Why our brave heroes always pause in our frantic pursuit of a villain to help a kitten out of a tree is beyond me but for some reason, we do. At least the character missions in ME2 had some loose assocation with the plot. At least in ME2, there was nothing urgent preventing us from helping our crew - it wasn't like ME1 where we kept Saren waiting because we had to help some Asari rescue her sister or help the alliance cover up a long lost nuke.

Maybe one day, RPGs will evolve so everything in the game makes sense but I'm not holding my breath.

I never said the loyalty missions were bad things.  Bioware games have always had them.  I approve of them, even.  But they have always been side missions  Optional content, which I, being a completionist in my games, do anyway.  However, in ME 2, these "side missions' became main missions without making them feel like main missions.  They still feel like side quests.  Well done sidequests, but aside from the "plot armor focus" they don't tie in to the main story.  What I would have liekd to see are more main story missions alongside the loyalty missions showing Shepard and the team preparing for the SM. 

Don't have Garrus whip up a thanix cannon by hauling a few tons of metal out of a planet, go somewhere and get the components!  Need shield upgrades?  Go hit  Heretic base and download some specs.  Need some new armor?  Do a favor for Anderson and maybe he'll "accidentally" leave some notes lying out where you can see them.

I enjoyed Mordin's joke that unlike the Spectres, the STG actually bought their people armor and weapons.

Yeah, cause working for Cerberus you not only have to buy/steal your own equipment, you have to mine the materials and build them yourself.  Much better.

[Shadow of Sparta]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

iakus wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

These people are not expecting to come back,like most people they have unfinished business. Being the good commander that you are (or should be) by solving their unfinished business they are more focused on the mission and thus more likely to complete/survive it. This is played out in real time when you actually do the suicide mission. 

 

Focus and closure is all well and good, but wouldn't a good commander also try to maximize your chances of surviving the mission via weapons, armor, and information?  Missions not just to recruit people, or solve their personal problems, but actually preparing for the mission.  Planet scanning and mining had more to do with that stuff, since that at least gives you the sources to upgrade the Normandy, which is the only real preparation for the mission you do.

Right! Like doing Garrus's and Wrex's missions is the first game seriously detracted from the whole thing. And all those alliance debacles had zero to do with sovereign and saren and gave us no weapons or equipment. Why the heck did we do those? Don't even get me started to why we were ferrying around Quarian children on their pilgramage or helping Asari prostitues clear up misunderstandings.

Its an RPG. We do these things in an RPG. Why our brave heroes always pause in our frantic pursuit of a villain to help a kitten out of a tree is beyond me but for some reason, we do. At least the character missions in ME2 had some loose assocation with the plot. At least in ME2, there was nothing urgent preventing us from helping our crew - it wasn't like ME1 where we kept Saren waiting because we had to help some Asari rescue her sister or help the alliance cover up a long lost nuke.

Maybe one day, RPGs will evolve so everything in the game makes sense but I'm not holding my breath.

haha.i actually refused to do lots of side missions on my first playthrough of me1 because i couldn't see how they helped with the plot.like the asari dancer/sister,why should i care about that when i've got a galaxy to save?agree with you.

[Iakus]

BobSmith101 wrote...

iakus wrote...

Upgrade purchases fine.  I can see that.

But a sizable chunk of the upgrades, plus pretty much all weapons besides your starting weapons/dlc are, I believe, stumbled upon while doing other people's missions.  Not what I'd call "preparing"

TIM is not a reliable source.  He most certainly doesn't give you "all" the information.

What research does Shepard do?

How is that any different from finding them in random chest #56? Which is how it was in ME1. 

He gets you were you need to go. It's not like anyone has actually been beyond the O4 relay so you can't exactly look it up at the library.

None- That's why we pick up Mordin. 

1) Because ME 1 was an investigation, not preparing for a mission beyond known space.  You're gatheing the bioggest, baddest, toughest killers in the galaxy, but can't take the time to trick them out with top of the line weapons?  Gotta scavenge them off dead mercs?  You'd think you'd go for every possible edge. 

2) TIM sticks your former squadmate out as bait without telling you, sends you into an Collector trap, leaks to the Alliance that you're working for them, possibly before you're even revived.  Yeah he gets you where you need to go, but it feels a lotmore  like "herding" than "helping"

3) Who spends more time talking about the genophage than the Collectors.  Both interesting topics, believe me, but one is a wee bit more central to the story than the other.

[Whatever42]

iakus wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Its an RPG. We do these things in an RPG. Why our brave heroes always pause in our frantic pursuit of a villain to help a kitten out of a tree is beyond me but for some reason, we do. At least the character missions in ME2 had some loose assocation with the plot. At least in ME2, there was nothing urgent preventing us from helping our crew - it wasn't like ME1 where we kept Saren waiting because we had to help some Asari rescue her sister or help the alliance cover up a long lost nuke.

Maybe one day, RPGs will evolve so everything in the game makes sense but I'm not holding my breath.

I never said the loyalty missions were bad things.  Bioware games have always had them.  I approve of them, even.  But they have always been side missions  Optional content, which I, being a completionist in my games, do anyway.  However, in ME 2, these "side missions' became main missions without making them feel like main missions.  They still feel like side quests.  Well done sidequests, but aside from the "plot armor focus" they don't tie in to the main story.  What I would have liekd to see are more main story missions alongside the loyalty missions showing Shepard and the team preparing for the SM. 

Don't have Garrus whip up a thanix cannon by hauling a few tons of metal out of a planet, go somewhere and get the components!  Need shield upgrades?  Go hit  Heretic base and download some specs.  Need some new armor?  Do a favor for Anderson and maybe he'll "accidentally" leave some notes lying out where you can see them.

I enjoyed Mordin's joke that unlike the Spectres, the STG actually bought their people armor and weapons.

Yeah, cause working for Cerberus you not only have to buy/steal your own equipment, you have to mine the materials and build them yourself.  Much better.

Yup, I agree. Cerberus builds you a ship worth billions of credits and here you are mining and trying to scavange a few thousand credits to buy an upgrade. If they scapped that, though, people would be screaming even louder that its only a stripped down shooter.

And I do agree with you that the missions could be more central and pertinent. They are optional but the price for not doing them is high, if you care about that sort of thing. And if that was the specific complaint, I would agree. But how does that make ME2 pointless or ME1 significantly better? That the side missions are more meaningful than in  ME1 so that makes them less optional and that ruins the game? Its enough to simply say that they could be even more significant, so keep going Bioware.

Modifié par Whatever666343431431654324, 09 février 2011 - 12:04 .

[AkiKishi]

iakus wrote...

1) Because ME 1 was an investigation, not preparing for a mission beyond known space.  You're gatheing the bioggest, baddest, toughest killers in the galaxy, but can't take the time to trick them out with top of the line weapons?  Gotta scavenge them off dead mercs?  You'd think you'd go for every possible edge. 

2) TIM sticks your former squadmate out as bait without telling you, sends you into an Collector trap, leaks to the Alliance that you're working for them, possibly before you're even revived.  Yeah he gets you where you need to go, but it feels a lotmore  like "herding" than "helping"

3) Who spends more time talking about the genophage than the Collectors.  Both interesting topics, believe me, but one is a wee bit more central to the story than the other.

Your edge is that you take "stock" weapons and upgrade them buying weapons would be pointless because yours are better anyway.They also send you a ton of free stuff as long as you have the DLC

That's just symantics, the point is he gets you where you need to go, it's not much different to when the council say oh by the way we just discovered this on Virmire.

He tells you two important things about the collectors. 1, They are no better than husks, 2 They can't be saved.
Nothing special, since they are easy to kill you really don't need to know much more than that.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 09 février 2011 - 12:23 .

[SSV Enterprise]

iakus wrote...

Yeah, cause working for Cerberus you not only have to buy/steal your own equipment, you have to mine the materials and build them yourself.  Much better.

It's not like Cerberus gives you a whole armory and the ship you need before even thinking about getting upgrades.  And pays you for every mission you complete.  Oh wait...

[Nightwriter]

Praetor Shepard wrote...

I guess it were just different then what was expected or desired?

Yes.

[lolwot]

allankles wrote...

 Wow. I can't believe people are actually seriously arguing that the whole game is pointless simply because the Reapers will attack Earth in the end game. We don't even know if that accounts for the whole Reaper armada, either way, where did people think the story was leading? Did you expect not to fight the Reapers directly after ME 2?

Harbinger tells us in the end that all Shepard's efforts upto that point are pointless, that the Reapers are still coming. We're even shown evidence of their fleets on the move.

The point of ME 2 as I saw it was to save humanity from the Collectors. Largely because of Shepard's interference in ME 1, the Collectors begin targeting humans to create a new Reaper. We're even told that the Collectors have enough capacity to target Earth eventually.

Given their deadly technology, (Seeker Swarms) it becomes a matter of great urgency to stop the Collectors before they achieve mass genocide on humanity. ME 2 is all about humans specifically becoming the victims of an inhuman threat. 

What makes the Collectors even more insidious than Saren and Sovereign ever were is that we have no idea what their ultimate goal is until we hit the Collector Ship, and even after that we have no idea that a human reaper is being created.

But... they don't. As far as we know, they only have one ship, which was no more powerful than the upgraded Normandy. It wouldn't even seem plausible that the Collector ship wasn't taken down earlier if Bioware hadn't turned the alliance into idiots in ME2.

[Palathas]

I haven't read the vast majority of posts in this thread but ME 2 wasn't pointless for me. I liked the story, I enjoyed the game.

Other things like in Overlord show that Shepard can be controlled by machines, which I assumed was because of all his/her cybernetics from the Lazerus project, which could make for some interesting times.

It also filled in and progressed the story, like how the reapers believe that destroying the highest form of organic life and turning them into a Reaper then discarding the rest is a form of ascension that not only advances the chosen race but also the entire universe along with the Reapers themselves. Well that's what I got from Harbinger's dialogue anyway.

Although the way the Illusive Man acts and his obsession with improving the human race I can't help but see parallels between him and the Reapers and their actions. Maybe I've seen too much Star Trek but it's almost like the Illusive Man is the start of the Reapers and there's going to be some temporal loop going on here.

[SSV Enterprise]

lolwot wrote...

But... they don't. As far as we know, they only have one ship, which was no more powerful than the upgraded Normandy. It wouldn't even seem plausible that the Collector ship wasn't taken down earlier if Bioware hadn't turned the alliance into idiots in ME2.

It's implied in the Collector Ship mission that the Collectors had more.  EDI talks about comparing the ship to known Collector signatures in order to confirm that it was the same one that attacked Horizon.

Modifié par SSV Enterprise, 09 février 2011 - 04:17 .

[Zulu_DFA]

SSV Enterprise wrote...

lolwot wrote...

But... they don't. As far as we know, they only have one ship, which was no more powerful than the upgraded Normandy. It wouldn't even seem plausible that the Collector ship wasn't taken down earlier if Bioware hadn't turned the alliance into idiots in ME2.

It's implied in the Collector Ship mission that the Collectors had more.  EDI talks about comparing the ship to known Collector signatures in order to confirm that it was the same one that attacked Virmire.

It is also implied, when two more colonies are reported abducted in between Horizon and the Collector ship mission. The "Our" Collector ship could not be on that while laying the trap for Shepard.

As to the Alliance being idiots, they aren't. They are just bureaucratic.

As for the Collector ship being "weak", it's the "weakness" of ME cinematics mostly. No need to go elsewhere for examples: during the Collector Ship destruction that cinematic is the same with or without the Thannix cannon. Hence it's can't be used to prove anything.

[Slayer299]

allankles wrote...
The point of ME 2 as I saw it was to save humanity from the Collectors. Largely because of Shepard's interference in ME 1, the Collectors begin targeting humans to create a new Reaper. We're even told that the Collectors have enough capacity to target Earth eventually.

Allankles, we saw that they had enough pods for targeting Earth, but seriously, the CS wasn't going to get there. It gets taken out by a large frigate without the Thannix Cannons (if you don't upgrade). So how was it going to get past the Fifth Fleet at Arcturus Station?

Weapons technology. Information on their defensive countermeasures.
Information on their constitution from infancy to completion.

We get Thannix Cannons yes. What defensive measures are you talking about? The mass effect field? or the Indoctrination, becuase if its indoctrination we already know about that effect on people onboard the Reaper. Please explain how we learned about the constiution from birth to completion?

edit - fix.

Given their deadly technology, (Seeker Swarms) it becomes a matter of great urgency to stop the Collectors before they achieve mass genocide on humanity. ME 2 is all about humans specifically becoming the victims of an inhuman threat. 

I'll agree that the SS were dangerous, but there was never a real chance the Collectors were going to successfully raid SA space and not get noticed or stopped. While SA may not be concerned with human colonies disappearing in the Terminus Systems that would change in a heartbeat the first time they crossed over into Alliance space.

What makes the Collectors even more insidious than Saren and Sovereign ever were is that we have no idea what their ultimate goal is until we hit the Collector Ship, and even after that we have no idea that a human reaper is being created.

Personally, I have to disagree, the Collectors never felt insidious in any way, they were never introduced to you that way. We went to FP and "poof" we knew who attacked the colonies and why. The baby-Reaper was laughable to face (alhtough if that was their way of reproducing it is interesting) the intro did it poorly in making the Reapers seem a greater threat with that info. After Horizon, it was never a question of "can" we beat them, it was just when we finally launched the SM.

Modifié par Slayer299, 09 février 2011 - 03:30 .

[Slayer299]

SSV Enterprise wrote...
It's implied in the Collector Ship mission that the Collectors had more.  EDI talks about comparing the ship to known Collector signatures in order to confirm that it was the same one that attacked Virmire.

 I don't think you meant Virmire, because there were no Collec. ships at Virmire, only Sovereign.

[Zulu_DFA]

Slayer299 wrote...

SSV Enterprise wrote...
It's implied in the Collector Ship mission that the Collectors had more.  EDI talks about comparing the ship to known Collector signatures in order to confirm that it was the same one that attacked Virmire.

 I don't think you meant Virmire, because there were no Collec. ships at Virmire, only Sovereign.

He meant the Normandy SR-1.

[SSV Enterprise]

Slayer299 wrote...

SSV Enterprise wrote...
It's implied in the Collector Ship mission that the Collectors had more.  EDI talks about comparing the ship to known Collector signatures in order to confirm that it was the same one that attacked Virmire.

 I don't think you meant Virmire, because there were no Collec. ships at Virmire, only Sovereign.

Whoops!  I meant to say Horizon, but my brain told my fingers to type Virmire!  Thanks for catching that.

[Iakus]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Yup, I agree. Cerberus builds you a ship worth billions of credits and here you are mining and trying to scavange a few thousand credits to buy an upgrade. If they scapped that, though, people would be screaming even louder that its only a stripped down shooter.

I wouldn't say they should scrap it, just go about it differently.  Provide quests to upgrade your squad and the Normandy.  Tehy don't even have to be combat related, just something that makes it look like you're doing something to up the survival odds of the mission besides addressing people's daddy issues/survivor's guilt/personal vendettas/ethical dillemas/childhood taumas/parenting crises.

And I do agree with you that the missions could be more central and pertinent. They are optional but the price for not doing them is high, if you care about that sort of thing. And if that was the specific complaint, I would agree. But how does that make ME2 pointless or ME1 significantly better? That the side missions are more meaningful than in  ME1 so that makes them less optional and that ruins the game? Its enough to simply say that they could be even more significant, so keep going Bioware.

The question is:  Are these loyalty missions going to have anything to do with Mass Effect 3 whatsoever?  We can't even be sure the characters will be major factors in the game, so what about their missions?  There are three (Mordin, Tali, Legion) which have aspects that could potentially have ramifications in ME 3.  But does it matter what happens to Ronald Taylor?  Who cares if the Teltin facility blows up?  It's been abandoned for over a decade?  Will it matter if Sidonis lives or dies?  Or if Grunt joins Clan Urdnot, and under what conditions? 

Given the ME 1 comic for the Playstation 3, the Cipher and everything you do on Feros no longer means squat.  Who's to say many or most of these loyalty missions, or even whether or not you recruited many of these people is going to have an effect on ME 3?  They have no direct effect on this story at hand, I can't see how much of it can possibly affect the next game, so what else can I infer?

Maybe I'll be suprised and All these loyalty missions will have major ramifications later on.  But it's still a cheap thing to do, making ME 2's storyline totally dependant on ME 3

[bjdbwea]

Already in ME 2, it would have been better not to waste development time on the so-called loyalty system. Because it's so shallow and superficial, and the one scene in which the loyalty means anything at all is actually so unrelated to the concept of loyalty, that it would have been better to leave it out completely.

And in ME 3, the loyalty missions will unfortunately almost certainly only matter as a simple switch too. Either the companion was loyal, or not. The actual content of their missions will be forgotten. And if any of the companions remains a part of the crew, even their loyalty from ME 2 will probably be meaningless except for a small difference in dialogue or something like that. It might even be necessary to gain their so-called loyalty again regardless. It has to be another stand-alone game after all.

Of course I hope that BioWare will prove me wrong, but given the short development time for ME 3 and given how little they cared to make choices from ME 1 matter in ME 2, the above seems to me to be the most likely outcome.

Modifié par bjdbwea, 09 février 2011 - 06:09 .

[DarthSliver]

iakus wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Yup, I agree. Cerberus builds you a ship worth billions of credits and here you are mining and trying to scavange a few thousand credits to buy an upgrade. If they scapped that, though, people would be screaming even louder that its only a stripped down shooter.

I wouldn't say they should scrap it, just go about it differently.  Provide quests to upgrade your squad and the Normandy.  Tehy don't even have to be combat related, just something that makes it look like you're doing something to up the survival odds of the mission besides addressing people's daddy issues/survivor's guilt/personal vendettas/ethical dillemas/childhood taumas/parenting crises.

And I do agree with you that the missions could be more central and pertinent. They are optional but the price for not doing them is high, if you care about that sort of thing. And if that was the specific complaint, I would agree. But how does that make ME2 pointless or ME1 significantly better? That the side missions are more meaningful than in  ME1 so that makes them less optional and that ruins the game? Its enough to simply say that they could be even more significant, so keep going Bioware.

The question is:  Are these loyalty missions going to have anything to do with Mass Effect 3 whatsoever?  We can't even be sure the characters will be major factors in the game, so what about their missions?  There are three (Mordin, Tali, Legion) which have aspects that could potentially have ramifications in ME 3.  But does it matter what happens to Ronald Taylor?  Who cares if the Teltin facility blows up?  It's been abandoned for over a decade?  Will it matter if Sidonis lives or dies?  Or if Grunt joins Clan Urdnot, and under what conditions? 

Given the ME 1 comic for the Playstation 3, the Cipher and everything you do on Feros no longer means squat.  Who's to say many or most of these loyalty missions, or even whether or not you recruited many of these people is going to have an effect on ME 3?  They have no direct effect on this story at hand, I can't see how much of it can possibly affect the next game, so what else can I infer?

Maybe I'll be suprised and All these loyalty missions will have major ramifications later on.  But it's still a cheap thing to do, making ME 2's storyline totally dependant on ME 3

Well just to add to this, I dont know if ME1 matters anymore. ME2 like some have said could be considered the 1st game. Both MEs are great, but it seems ME2 was intended to go to PS3 from the start. Like Bioware/EA was trying to work out the legal issues during ME2 creation. Since they found a road block with bringing ME1 to PS3, that may be the very reason ME2 is the way it is. So I hope they make a fourth installment so to speak and get the war with the Reapers going in ME3, I am sure the Reapers didnt wipe the galaxy out of sentient life over night every 50k years. 

ME1 connects to ME2 i know, but it does it in more of a prelude type of way and not as it should from what i get from you guys in this thread. 

Modifié par DarthSliver, 09 février 2011 - 06:08 .

[James2912]

I'm all for Bioware saying we made an oopsie and going for a quadrilogy! The more Shep the better!

[Aidoru Kami]

I didn't read through all 18 pages, so I'm sorry if this has been brought up, but...



Am I alone in thinking that this wouldn't be an issue if ME2 had been the /first/ entry in the series? Think about it. Sure, there would need to be some plot revisions, but I just think it would have worked much better. On top of that, Shepard never would have had to DIE, and though that is a powerful scene, (Until you realize that a person who's supposed to be stopping a galactic threat just got killed because s/he didn't have the sense to WALK ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE DOOR) it really completely ruined the plot for me.



Come to think of it, it would actually make perfect sense for ME1 to be the second game. I actually wouldn't mind that! It would have given BioWare a whole game to realize that the Mako was complete crap and I never would have had to drive through the same planet 30 times over.

[DarthSliver]

James2912 wrote...

I'm all for Bioware saying we made an oopsie and going for a quadrilogy! The more Shep the better!

Even if i just only did play PS3 version and never touched ME1. Still feels that way and the comic doesnt help on making ME1 seem like a prelude. Making ME2 chapter 1, ME3 Chapter 2, and a fourth chapter 3.

Like i said it will be unrealistic to beat that whole army of Reapers we saw at the end of ME2 all in the 3rd game. I also realistically think that the Reapers didnt reap the galaxy in one day, so to speak.

[James2912]

DarthSliver wrote...

James2912 wrote...

I'm all for Bioware saying we made an oopsie and going for a quadrilogy! The more Shep the better!

Even if i just only did play PS3 version and never touched ME1. Still feels that way and the comic doesnt help on making ME1 seem like a prelude. Making ME2 chapter 1, ME3 Chapter 2, and a fourth chapter 3.

Like i said it will be unrealistic to beat that whole army of Reapers we saw at the end of ME2 all in the 3rd game. I also realistically think that the Reapers didnt reap the galaxy in one day, so to speak.

I feel sorry for the Playstation owners ME1 was such a fantastic game! 

[SSV Enterprise]

bjdbwea wrote...

Already in ME 2, it would have been better not to waste development time on the so-called loyalty system. Because it's so shallow and superficial, and the one scene in which the loyalty means anything at all is actually so unrelated to the concept of loyalty, that it would have been better to leave it out completely.

Or just switch the name to something like "focus mission".

[bjdbwea]

SSV Enterprise wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...

Already in ME 2, it would have been better not to waste development time on the so-called loyalty system. Because it's so shallow and superficial, and the one scene in which the loyalty means anything at all is actually so unrelated to the concept of loyalty, that it would have been better to leave it out completely.

Or just switch the name to something like "focus mission".

Yeah, would that at least have been better. If these are supposed to be the best characters for the mission, it goes without saying that they'd all do their best regardless of whether they like Shepard or not. Their own life depends on it after all. But it would make sense that the characters are more focused after their respective quests. Still, whether you call it loyalty or focus, it makes no sense whatsoever to let that switch decide whether falling debris kills a companion or not. Who comes up with something like that?

[aeetos21]

We won't know the answer to this thread until ME3 comes out, though I'd be very surprised if BW comes up with lore that will paint ME2 as being pointless.