990 réponses à ce sujet

[Schattenkeil]

I think the problem with the lack of choice that many people feel was really a lack of providing the proper sense of urge to the player. The "vision" induced from the reaper should have been better. It wshould have been more clear that it was meant to be indoctrination but Shepard is pretty much hardened for that. And above all I think it should have been obvious that, yes, the reapers are coming and if you don't want the galaxy overrun with reapers that's the only way you can do it.

It was a bit strange when first they told you exactly what you have to do to stop the reapers and suddenly it turns out they're with the reapers. At first I thought it was a setup to make me destroy the system and trigger a war with the batarians, playing me well known reaper delusions. Since they needed a well known human warrior to reap the blame for the whole thing to work. So it would have been really important to let the player know, it's not a trick, while it doesn't make sense telling Shepard this, the reapers are indeed coming.

The only thing I can guess is that the Dr. was only finally, fully and ultimately indoctrinated when she saw the artifact again.

[BarryMEA]

Good:

• New dlc
  
• Cut scene's look great

Disappointing:

• Gameplay on X360 buggy:

While playing Adept targets often don't lift, they just turn blue and keep shooting.
Numerous times my shep shifted a few meters aside while behind cover / trying to aim.
While playing engineer. Half of the time my drone just doesn't attack an ennemy, It just sits there doing nothing.

• Music dropped out on me couple of times.
  
  
• Going solo.

While i didn't mind it in Overlord I really don't like going solo, the power of the mass effect game is you work with a team, Make combo's with your team, hear their comments and advice etc. You miss out on it this way.

• t's lineair. There are no choises you can make, it all ends up the same way.

I really hope they do a better job with ME3. If it's up to me postpone the launch by a year if needed.
LotSB was great
Overlord was great

Arrival not so much ;-(

Modifié par BarryMEA, 30 mars 2011 - 07:46 .

[implodinggoat]

Raanz wrote...

Just so I am straight; the whole point of this was to rescue a Hackett operative (whom he might have the hots for) from a Batarian prison, investigate evidence, get knocked out by an indoctrinated crew on the asteroid, for two days, then destroy a relay so reapers won't come through..delaying them by a couple of months, while destroying a whole system in the process.  Even for my renegade Shep, that made no sense.  Did I miss something?

1:  The Tactical Advantage the Alpha Relay would give the Reapers.

The Alpha Mass Relay would allow the Reapers to go instantly to any system.  By destroying it the navies of the galaxy will be able to engage the Reapers as they travel from gate to gate.   With the Alpha Gate intact the Reapers would be able to choose where and when they would enter battle.

2: Time to build your defenses.

A couple months gives you time to prepare defenses which could save countless lives.

3: Inevitability.

Those 300,000 people were inevitably doomed.   If you blow them up then they die instantly if you don't then they get to be the first planet exterminated by the Reapers, either way they're screwed.

[Winterfly]

There was to many minor flaws. Such as people with assault rifle in close combat missing every bullet while Shepard knocked the gun and a lady out. Electrical switches like h_pepon proclaimed was like five meters away. Clearly, the Batarians are not dumb but this DLC made them seem like stupid for putting everything so close by, outside their own prison they leave a open electricity closer so Shepard can get inside?

Also still very annoyed at the "no excuses" for sendin Kasumi and Thane.

Cerberus, Shepard....yeah well everyone should by now learn how the hell the Reapers work. How many traps have Shepard stepped into right now? Atleast three of them in ME2.

EDIT: I believe the whole idea behind the Arrival is for Shepard to forcefully with no other option, blow up a Batarian star system, be on the brink of war and on Earth for trial as the Reapers attack. Which you escape from with the SSR Normandy 2 to get help. 

Modifié par Winterfly, 30 mars 2011 - 06:49 .

[Raanz]

implodinggoat wrote...

Raanz wrote...

Just so I am straight; the whole point of this was to rescue a Hackett operative (whom he might have the hots for) from a Batarian prison, investigate evidence, get knocked out by an indoctrinated crew on the asteroid, for two days, then destroy a relay so reapers won't come through..delaying them by a couple of months, while destroying a whole system in the process.  Even for my renegade Shep, that made no sense.  Did I miss something?

1:  The Tactical Advantage the Alpha Relay would give the Reapers.

The Alpha Mass Relay would allow the Reapers to go instantly to any system.  By destroying it the navies of the galaxy will be able to engage the Reapers as they travel from gate to gate.   With the Alpha Gate intact the Reapers would be able to choose where and when they would enter battle.

2: Time to build your defenses.

A couple months gives you time to prepare defenses which could save countless lives.

3: Inevitability.

Those 300,000 people were inevitably doomed.   If you blow them up then they die instantly if you don't then they get to be the first planet exterminated by the Reapers, either way they're screwed.

So the answer to my question is "yes", correct?  You gave the reason for the story, but I got it right?  The only reason this makes some convoluted sense, is because you had no real choice.  Even if you don't buy the DLC, ME3 will have that scenario all wrapped up for you in a nice little bow.  The Alpha relay got destroyed, Shep was responsible, so he must stand trial to try and avoid a war with the Bats....oh yeah looky here, you are on Earth now and look who's coming to dinner.
Oh well, I guess they thought the story was good enough to give folks a reason to shoot bad guys for a couple of hours.

Thanks again for the reply.

[general numa19]

Ah ha, but I'm not complaining, am I? It's so easy to criticize when you've done none of the work and forums are so readily available. Call me whatever you want, chief...I'm one of these crazy people that doesn't feel entitled to everything. I paid money, I was entertained. More Mass Effect is good Mass Effect. If you need to have so much control over the story, write your own. The BioWare peeps work hard to make great games that we love to play. I'm so very sorry if I offended your critical sensibilities, but reading page after page of straight vitriol made me feel the need to throw BioWare a compliment. Have a nice day, chucklehead.

[Octomac]

I'm sure many of the sentiments I'm about to post here have been laid out by other users, but I want to offer my two cents regardless, especially since this seems to be the "official" feedback thread.  My experience with "Arrival" was mostly negative, and I believe it falls far short of the bar set by the previous DLC offerings, "Overlord" and "Shadow Broker" in particular.

LIKED:

- The combat sections were well-done and fairly challenging.  Defending Object Rho is a difficult but rewarding fight.

- The setting was unique and well-done, for the most part, upholding the excellent standard of art design the series is known for.  The asteroid base's architecture made it feel like a real place where actual people would live and work.

- The return of Admiral Hackett was a welcome one, and I was very happy to hear his original voice actor return to his role.

DISLIKED:

- The solo gameplay felt hobbled and unnatural.  One of the biggest parts of the Mass Effect experience is effectively using your teammates and their abilities.  This is a personal gripe, but I dislike the idea of adding challenge to a game by taking away an integral part of the gameplay.  I'm more fond of new situations that force you to use your existing array of powers and abilities in different or unconventional ways.  Playing without a squad felt cramped, and not having the character interaction with my favorite squadmates made this mission very lonely.

- The lack of dialogue and characters was a huge issue for me.  "Shadow Broker" was so good, in part, because the player had an opportunity to become emotionally invested in the characters and the events surrounding them.  The scarcity of conversations, coupled with the generic NPC driving the story, made "Arrival" feel like a middle-of-the-pack N7 side-quest -- I found myself recalling the mission where Shepard must stop a group of batarians from firing missiles on a human colony more than once as the climax played out.  I felt next to no emotional involvement in the events, and the "twist" involving the scientist was, I thought, telegraphed from a mile away.  The threat of the Reapers' arrival felt similarly empty; was this the true story, the real threat that was going on while we were all messing about with the Collectors?

- This last point segues into the final and most glaring issue I had with "Arrival," which is with the story itself.  At the end of the mission, after being debreifed by Admiral Hackett, I found myself thinking, "This little one-hour mission has just managed to completely undermine everything that came before it."  At the end of "Arrival", the Reapers are a scant few minutes away from zipping into the galaxy, where they can then use the Mass Relay network to spread to anywhere in the galaxy.  The ending of Mass Effect 1, however, seemed to imply that the Reapers needed the Conduit -- that the Citadel represented their only way back into the galaxy from dark space -- and that without it, they were forced to resort to alternative measures.

So, my question after completing "Arrival" is, if the Reapers were this close to being able to leap into the Mass Relay network from the beginning, why was the Conduit ever an issue?  What was to stop them from simply taking a couple more years and jumping in via a different Relay?  It required the combined forces of the human, turian, and asari fleets to destroy a single Reaper ship -- a fact that Hackett recounts in his debreifing in this very DLC.  The races of the galaxy would have stood no chance whatsoever against a combined Reaper assault.  Why, then, would the Conduit ever have been required?  To shut down the Mass Relay network?  If this could only be done from the Citadel -- as was my impression -- what was to stop the Reapers from entering via a different Relay and then immediately moving on to the Citadel?  What could have stopped them?  Why, in fact, were the events in Mass Effect 1 allowed to occur?

If this is the case -- if the Reapers were truly this close to entering the galaxy without the Conduit -- then why would they initiate the abduction of human colonists when the galaxy was still linked by the Mass Relays?  Why not invade from a tertiary Relay such as the one in the Bahak system, immediately jump in full force to the Citadel, and override the Relay network, preventing travel between systems.  The Reapers could then have raided any human colony they wished if their goal was still to construct a human-Reaper hybrid; without any means of getting to these colonies, the human fleet would be helpless.  By siccing the Collectors on human colonies before their arrival, the Reapers accomplished nothing except to tip their hand to their organic opponents.  In summary, why were the events in Mass Effect 2 also allowed to happen?

The Reapers are not well understood, and it's taken as a given that their motivations for cultivating and exterminating life in the galaxy are somewhat inscrutable at best, but this DLC seems to imply that they lack any kind of sense whatsoever.  They have an overwhelming force and a stated desire to end all civilized life in the galaxy.  Prior to "Arrival," these goals seemed to have been foiled by the actions of Shepard and the crew of the Normandy.  After the revelations in this newest DLC, though, it seems as though the Reapers themselves are mostly to blame for their lack of success.  Shepard blew up Soverign, true, but if Soverign's fleet was a mere, say, two years (accounting for the time between Mass Effect 1 and 2) away from entering the Galaxy through one of many back doors, what possessed it to orchestrate an incredibly elaborate scheme to get them in through the front gate a mere two years earlier?  Shepard stopped the Collectors, yes, but what were they doing abducting people from human colonies when the power to preemtively stop any kind of retaliation was such a short time away?  Two years is the blink of an eye in terms of the fifty thousand that the Reapers have waited for the current crop of intelligent life to mature, and an infathomable slice of time compared to the millions of years that they have repeated this cycle.  Did they really get that impatient?

My frustrations with "Arrival" had very little to do with any gameplay issues.  The combat was as well done as the rest of Mass Effect 2, and the objectives of each section were, for the most part, clear and easy to understand.  My problem with it lies in the implications of its story and the brief, almost nonchalant way that these revelations -- which should carry as much gravity as anything else in the main game's story -- are presented to the player.  The implications of the events given to us in "Arrival" seem to discount a vast swath of our actions in the prior two games.  In many other games, this would not be much of an issue, but BioWare games in general, and Mass Effect in particular, are so dependent on their incredibly well-executed storylines, and a flaw like this is all the more glaring for what has been accomplished before it.  When all is said and done, I would much rather the development team have re-thought the plotline for this more thoroughly and used it as a proper introductory chapter in Mass Effect 3, rather than giving us a comparatively weak final DLC for Mass Effect 2.

[LostJ]

Liked

Music (as always)
Level design
Having more than one path to choose from
Seeing Shepard destroying everything alone
Last battle with no sound (that was really cool)
_____________________

Disliked

The Reaper Hologram
Shepard break out was a bit random (c'mon, a bot control terminal inside where he is being held captive?)

Anyways, 8/10. Made me get quite anxious for ME3.

[LostJ]

Octomac

The Reapers dont need the conduit. The conduit was only a shortcut. They are coming as ships (flying, floating or whatever) and once they got to the Alpha relay, they could easily spread throughout the galaxy.

[Lee337]

Shavon wrote...

Another WTF the moment: Shepard's been above the law so far. What's the deal with the whole, "Shepard, you are going to have to go to trial someday"

My Shepard is a Spectre, al Shepard's are former Spectres. Why do I get the feeling that was just another throw away line, one that will never be followed up on in ME3?

Oh, because there may not even be an earth to save by the time Shep returns to Earth.

I think ME3 will start with a trail or something. Shep may be a spectre but killing 300,000 may not be something they can get away with. May be differences in the outcome depending on which council was saved?

[Geowil]

Lee337 wrote...

Shavon wrote...

Another WTF the moment: Shepard's been above the law so far. What's the deal with the whole, "Shepard, you are going to have to go to trial someday"

My Shepard is a Spectre, al Shepard's are former Spectres. Why do I get the feeling that was just another throw away line, one that will never be followed up on in ME3?

Oh, because there may not even be an earth to save by the time Shep returns to Earth.

I think ME3 will start with a trail or something. Shep may be a spectre but killing 300,000 may not be something they can get away with. May be differences in the outcome depending on which council was saved?

I was thinking this as well, maybe they will brand him/her as a rouge specter like Saren?  All speculation a this point however.

[Octomac]

LostJ wrote...

Octomac

The Reapers dont need the conduit. The conduit was only a shortcut. They are coming as ships (flying, floating or whatever) and once they got to the Alpha relay, they could easily spread throughout the galaxy.

Yes, that's exactly my point; the conduit was a shortcut for them and nothing more.  One could even argue that it's a completely unnecessary shortcut, given that it really wouldn't have saved them all that much time on the kind of timescale that the Reapers are dealing with.  If they could so easily reach the Alpha Relay, why did they bother manipulating Saren into attempting to re-open the Conduit for them in the first place?  Wouldn't it have been better for Soverign to stay hidden, and for the Reaper fleet to just make haste toward the Alpha Relay?  Why would they do anything but that when they would risk alerting the galaxy to their presence in doing so?

[Tony_Knightcrawler]

The conduit was the Prothean shortcut onto the Citadel. The Citadel was the big mass relay leading to dark space... Anyway, the Reapers needed the Citadel to reduce their losses. TBH they are probably cannibalizing each other to get into the galaxy by discharging on each other (if that's possible). Even if they aren't, they can reduce their losses in the coming war by striking at the heart of galactic society, striking at the right time before dangerous technology had been developed and the galaxy learned about them, and... all this was covered in ME1.

Modifié par Tony_Knightcrawler, 30 mars 2011 - 07:33 .

[Winterfly]

Just me finding the count down hillarious?

We had one of those in my town before the handball worldcup lol.

[Lee337]

Would be nice to have different begginings to the game! Paragon paths would be doing the trial and renegades would be doing it the Jack Bauer way. Although I play paragade on my canon, I'm not sure where I'd be! Uniting the galaxy would be hard when everyones trying to arrest or kill you. Maybe he should go trail, clear the air.

[Mighty_BOB_cnc]

Likes come second so the post ends on a high note.  I'll try to keep this short.

Dislikes:
Quite short.  I'm not sure which was shorter, this or Kasumi, but Kasumi felt more "whole" because at the end you got a new squad mate, new weapon, etc..  I was expecting something between 3-4 hours (or however long Overlord was).  This was only about an hour and a half.

It didn't feel like the atmosphere was as convincing as Overlord, Kasumi, or LotSB.  Like, there wasn't as much emotional attachment.  Not as much immersion.

Not enough dialog, or the dialog felt kinda rushed.  Not many branches in the tree to give you choices.

Ending is the same no matter what you do.  There isn't much choice.  Either way the good doctor blows up and either way the relay blows up.  Choosing whether to call for evac or warn the colonies isn't much of a choice.  And as sad as it makes me feel to say it, I'm sure there are zero flags added to the save file that will import into ME3 (correct me if I'm wrong on that).  Harder to RP a character when you have essentially no choices.

This one is nit-picky, but come on, it doesn't take much effort to make a helmet with 4 eyes for the Batarians, especially when the rest of the character model can be reused.

There may not have been a good place for one, but, there was no paragon interrupt.  Would have been nice to have one to balance out the renegade interrupt.


Okay this one was all rumor and hopes, but, no Virmore Survivor.

Likes:
Music was good.

At the start the level design was less linear and combat wasn't absolutely required.   Unfortunately this tapered off later.

Getting back to the Reaper plot (finally).

Zomg Hackett.

I do like that it's impossible to save everyone.  There shouldn't always be a charm option that magically fixes your problems.

Pretty cool set piece at the end with the relay in the sky.

Some good references that connect it with ME1.  Remember, consistency good, retcons bad.

[Winterfly]

Even when you do the renegade one shot (it kills anything and auto wins normally) the "good" doctor gets blown up. Fuuuu

[implodinggoat]

Octomac wrote...

Yes, that's exactly my point; the conduit was a shortcut for them and nothing more.  One could even argue that it's a completely unnecessary shortcut, given that it really wouldn't have saved them all that much time on the kind of timescale that the Reapers are dealing with.  If they could so easily reach the Alpha Relay, why did they bother manipulating Saren into attempting to re-open the Conduit for them in the first place?  Wouldn't it have been better for Soverign to stay hidden, and for the Reaper fleet to just make haste toward the Alpha Relay?  Why would they do anything but that when they would risk alerting the galaxy to their presence in doing so?

While I agree that it seems a little convuluted and confusing.

My understanding is that....

1:  The "conduit"  was the shortcut from Illos to the Citadel which Saren wanted so he could launch a surprise attack on the Citadel and open the Citadel Relay from the control panel in the Council chamber.  The "conduit" was also the means by which the Protheans boarded the Citadel and reprogrammed the Keepers so that they wouldn't open the Citadel Relay for the Reapers.

2:  Plan A for the Reapers was the Citadel Mass Effect Relay which Saren was attempting to activate in the council chamber since it was the only relay which linked to the Reaper's location in dark space.  Once Shepard stopped him the Reapers had to go to Plan B.

3:  Plan B is the Alpha Relay which due to its location at the edge of the galaxy is presumably the closest relay to the Reaper's hibernation spot in dark space should they have to travel without the benefit of the Citadel Mass Relay.  The Reapers were travelling to the Alpha Relay at which point they would then revert to Plan A and launch an attack on the Citadel.

Speculation:

My guess would be that the Citadel Mass Effect Relay has the same capacity to link to any relay as the Alpha Relay does and that the Alpha Relay is effectively just a backup.  In fact the Vigil VI on Illos says that from the Citadel the Reapers could launch attacks on the rest of the galaxy using the Mass Effect gates.  I'd figured this just meant that they would use the standard method of hopping from gate to gate; but perhaps Vigil was speaking more literally and meant that from the Citadel they could jump to any gate the pleased.

With the Alpha Relay destroyed the Reapers are going to have to fly to the next closest Mass Effect relay which should extend their journey by a couple months.

Modifié par implodinggoat, 30 mars 2011 - 07:57 .

[Never]

Likes
-Level design was amazing. I loved the first part of the prison.
-Last Stand. I play on normal, but holy **** that was intense with my infiltrator. And not knowing what would happen when that bar completed... Totally awesome.
-Hackett, of course.

Dislikes
-No VS  I had already mostly squashed my hopes, but not even a mention of them at all? Not one word!
-No choices.
-Not enough reasoning to be forced into the choice. I understand why you have to do it, but as a gamer playing a mission that kept me in suspense, I was like whoa, when did I decide to do this? It just didn't flow well at all.
-Too little dialogue. The Hackett convo was much too short at the end.
-Would have been better post-SM. I feel like they could have done so much more with it if it was between ME2 and 3.

Overall I'd give it a 5/10. It was entertaining, but I didn't get that warm fuzzy feeling that Bioware games tend to leave me with. Although when I think too much about ME2's story the only feeling I get is nausea...

[Lee337]

mynameisdanza wrote...

-No VS  I had already mostly squashed my hopes, but not even a mention of them at all? Not one word!

Actually, they are in it!

If you let the time bar run out in the final fight while you fly towards the mass relay, a vision appears and there is a milllisecond where you see Ashley next to TIM and Mirandas shoulder in the foreground. Also Kelly turning into goop.

[XXIceColdXX]

 I really enjoyed this piece of DLC. It was to be expected that there wouldnt be a huge amount of choice in the outcome of it as these events will play out into ME3 if you played the DLC or not. I feel like ive already made enough decisions that will carry onto ME3. Also ive seen alot of complaints about going solo, but even though i do prefer having my teammates with me. I understand why Hackett requested going solo. Also one mission out the whole game solo was a nice change. Loved Hackett's closing comment that my ship was no longer a Cerberus vessel. THANKYOU BIOWARE 

[Tekyu]

It was groovy, a little short and...abrupt for my taste. However, we got to see Admiral Hacket in the digital flesh, also to mess with Batarians and that's almost always its own reward and then there's the freaky indoctrination/Reaper reveal, which has me gripping my buttocks with terrified excitement. Thanks for giving me another reason to turn on ME2, AGAIN.

It's not worth buying on my other two versions of ME2 (PS3/PC), but I don't regret my purchase on the Xbox 360. I enjoyed the "option" to run and gun, but I didn't care for it being so excessively LIGHT in its application of the stealth alternative in the Batarian prison nor did I care for the doofy runaround that finished off the Asteroid base, both felt tired and half-done. As though things were missing. It was weird.

And while I'm picking nits, since when did doors mouth off at you when they chose not to open??? Seriously, Batarians SUCK. Friggin' mouthy doors... Furthermore, why can't you hack the doors you NEEDED to hack given the "ohgodohgodohgod don't 'splode!" tension tied to the latter half of the mission?!? The Elevator Action style on/off elevators and into hallways full of thugs seemed sort of uninspired and heavily padded to bleed things out.

Additionally, there is the Renegade/Paragon stuff... which is mostly pointless and unused in this entire DLC making less about the player's interaction and more about playing by playing through to play through.

I hope this DLC gets some serious recognition in the third game because it covered some EXTREMELY important matters and while you couldn't really CHOOSE what you did, it's stuff that will haunt Shepard and this whole mess definitely forced an emotion or two from me, I loved it. It just wish it could have gone differently or had been more substantial overall, still glad to get something after Shadow Broker.

[Japkap79]

In general i liked this DLC was a bit short but story rocked for me, and same goes for overall feel of it and also the choices you get faced with also quite nice, really had to think about it before decideing what to do.

[CptAwesomePhD]

I think one of the main reasons Arrival is catching so much flak right now is probably that it's the last story DLC for ME2 and we all sort of hoped/expected the game would go out with a bang and maybe a curtain call for all those awesome characters we spent the whole game recruiting. The original endgame was great in that regard, because everyone got some screen time and it was just a fun and wholesome finale for all the character arcs. Arrival is not horrible by any means, but it lacks that sense of involvement and feels a little empty. Simply having one or two random team members besides joker in the cockpit during the showdown would have done a lot to alleviate this.

Mass Effect has never had the most intricate or well thought-out storylines. It's pretty much always been rooted in the Joss Whedon/Stephen King school of storytelling where you're willing to gloss over some inconsistencies simply because you like the characters so much and the universe feels interesting and alive. Take that away, and a game that was otherwise stellar is suddenly merely 'okay'. If anything, the disappointment over Arrival shows the high standard Bioware has set with the base game and the earlier DLCs.