20 réponses à ce sujet

[Jafroboy]

Some of the Loyalty quests were done very well, letting you participate and even effect the course of the galaxy, Mordin is a prime example here.
But some were done very surprisingly badly, I say surprisingly, because they had the buildup, but not the delivery. Such as Jacobs, Samaras, and especialy Mirandas.

Jacobs for instance, never really explains whats going on, Shepard even asks Jacob, but covers up the need for a proper answer by saying

"or is it as bad as it looks?"

while Jacob just grunts something about talking to his father.
 And the funny thing is all the buildup is there, the logs, Jacob constantly going on about needing to hear explanations and justifications, but even when you are as reasonable as you have an option to be, and ask for an explanation, all his dad will say is;

"We had to establish a means of control, by then we got used to the perks"

WTF does that mean? Means of control? You control the men by humping the women?
For some reason no one will actually say it, really reducing the build up and effect of a great "other culture" weird-trip, by denying us a dramatic revelation, and leading us to just kinda assume that he probly had sex with the women, mayby raped them, oh well, gues we go now.

Samara even more so, theres tons of build up - plenty of conversations with her in the ship where you can say that killing people just cos of thier genes is wrong, I heartily dissaproved, and wanted to be able to intervene in thier fight and make them stop, show them fighting is wrong, hug tears, love you mum ect. I'm not saying it should have worked, but I should have been able to TRY! And the convos made it look like I would be able to, but no, the only "alternative" option is to spaz out and KILL samara! Something no sane Shepard (who had enough para/rene to not be controled) would do, as Morinth was still very unstable at this point, and had just tried to kill you.
My solution to senseless killing is to STOP it, not make MORE!

And Miranda, the main one. Her mission was full of reveals; 

"*Gasp* the twin was just a baby"
"*Gasp* Niket was helping eclipse"
"*Gasp he was acting as he thought best, mayby Miranda is in the wrong"

With MULTIPLE dialouge choices where you can say what Miranda did might have been wrong. But do any of these revelations or choices make any difference? Nope! You still have to fight the commando, and Keep the kidnap going, you are unable to say that perhaps Niket is right, and the game forcing me to go along with Mirandas daddy issues when we have only her word hes bad, just makes me want to slap her and walk away.

And as a Final insult, even Niket, just before his railroaded death, suddenly starts talking about helping Miranda! Jeez Bioware! Mayby I DONT want to help her anymore!

I dont really know what I can ask to be done about this as ME2 is out, but mayby, dont do it in ME3? Let us tell our squadmates they are berks?

[CheeseEnchilada]

 Well, they're your companion's quests, not yours. It isn't really Shepard's place to interfere with what they want to do, which leads to the common argument about Garrus' mission--paragon Shepard blatantly interferes with his revenge when it wasn't his/her place to do so. Luckily, Garrus defers to Shepard for everything and accepts it. Trying that on the other squadmates, however, probably wouldn't work out so well.

As for the specifics:

-Ronald Taylor does give an explanation. He and the other officers controlled both the men and women until Taylor killed the other officers and exiled the men. He set up his own private kingdom, and had full control until the hunters finally started striking back. No specifics were given because he was trying to give an emotional response, trying to justify what he had done; if he had outright said he had his own harem, that's not going to gain him much sympathy. It's all in the phrasing.

-About Samara's mission; you already said it. "Morinth was still very unstable at this point, and had just tried to kill you." If you don't have enough paragon/renegade points, it's even worse, as Shepard was under Morinth's control and would have been killed if Samara wasn't there to stop her. Samara became a justicar to hunt down Morinth. Morinth is actively trying to kill her mother, and will if Shepard lets her. Neither of them is going to listen to mediation, and it would have been foolish for Shepard to attempt it. The game doesn't always give you every choice you'd like, so that means you'll have to roleplay a little. 

-With Miranda's loyalty mission, we come to the crux of the matter, the one I mentioned in the first paragraph. This is not Shepard's mission. It's Miranda's. You can disagree with her all you want, but you're taking her on a suicide mission. You need your crew to be focused, free of distractions, and most importantly, to trust Shepard. Imagine what would happen if Shepard walked away from Miranda halfway through. Not only would she be upset and distrust Shepard, but there's no doubt the story would spread. This is a classic example of putting honor before reason--you may have reinforced your moral code, but you've doomed at least one squadmate. If you grit your teeth, go through with it, and nod your head at Miranda, you've gained trust, focus, and you've just raised your chance of success. To have a shot in hell at coming back from the Omega-4 Relay, you need your team at 100%. If that means Shepard has to swallow some pride and let his/her companions run the show regardless of personal feelings, so be it. 

Modifié par CheeseEnchilada, 21 juillet 2011 - 07:21 .

[Jafroboy]

Yes but the whole point of the RPG is to choose, mayby Id prefer to have miranda angry than help her kidnap some kid.

For instance in zaeds you can go after the prisoners instead of the boss.
In Mordins you can tell him he was wrong and he should cure the genophage.
In Talis you can use the evidence or not.
In Thanes you can lose the turian and let his boy kill him if you dont like the anti human.

Yes he gets depressed, and your right its THIER mission, so yes they are entitled to yell at you if you dont help them, but it should be up to you if the Yelling is the preferred option.

And BTW, I can convince Saren to kill himself but not samara to spare her daughter? You underestimate the power of the talkside.

[CheeseEnchilada]

 Developers aren't going to give a thousand choices for every mission. Frankly, I was surprised you could fail loyalty missions--Thane's was a nasty shock. You're right in that they do give us some freedom with the loyalty missions, like Zaeed's, but we're just not going to see them in every one of them. Walking out on Miranda's mission doesn't make a ton of sense from the command perspective; neither does actively failing Thane's loyalty mission, but that was due to a gameplay mechanic, not a choice of dialog. As much fun as it would be to see my Shepards constantly ragequit and get everyone on the squad angry, I don't expect the developers to put that in game. Options are well and good, but there's only so much you can do. That's when roleplaying comes in. 

And I never seemed to manage to keep Toombs from killing himself, so I wouldn't say I'm well versed in the power of speech 

Modifié par CheeseEnchilada, 21 juillet 2011 - 08:32 .

[Quething]

CheeseEnchilada wrote...

And I never seemed to manage to keep Toombs from killing himself, so I wouldn't say I'm well versed in the power of speech 

Play renegade! It's like a five-point intimidate to shoot Wayne yourself, and double that in persuade to get him to take it to trial. One of the things I liked most about ME1's persuasion system; there are a few places in ME2 where there's an offset (easier to renegade the Miranda/Jack fight, easier to paragon the Legion/Tali one), but the difference is nowhere near as stark.

Aaaaanyway I mostly agree with the OP, with the exception of the Samara loyalty, which I think has too much choice already, since it's a nonsensical one; if the player wants a Shep who puts principle above loyalty that's perfectly fair and should be a consistent gameplay option, as it was with Zaeed's. Price of Revenge was very well done that way, though I'd be inclined to remove the paragon persuade at the end that completely negates any semblance of consequence to the choice (and I say this as someone who generally saves the workers even as a renegade Shep). And considering you only need three loyal party members to save the whole squad on the Suicide Mission, it's perfectly fair to roleplay it as "Shep is such a badass that she doesn't even need her squad to be 'focused' to save the day," which... frankly if these guys can be distracted from their best effort by their personal problems they're hardly the best of the best anyway. But that's a whole different discussion.

[CheeseEnchilada]

 See, this is what I get for trying to be a paragade. I never get to make any decisions!

Fully agree with your point about Zaeed's mission. That paragon choice always annoyed me; there should be some limits to Shepard's magical persuasion. 

I guess the way I see it is that Shepard has no reason to blow off the squad members; if you don't know what's going to happen beyond the relay, why go out of your way to irritate the people who are supposed to be watching your six? But of course, I'm basing this off of my own interpretation. A more prideful Shepard may very well act on principle, and more options are always nice.

Ahh, this is what I get for posting in the wee hours of the morning. So focused on specifics I don't see the main point. Time for a nice cup of tea then.

[I'm starting to think that the loyalty missions are just a way of taking the edge off your squad's crippling emotional problems. Is there anyone well-adjusted on that team?]

Modifié par CheeseEnchilada, 21 juillet 2011 - 09:56 .

[magelet]

Not everyone can have problems that effect the course of the galaxy. If you ask me, it would be weird if all of your squadmates needed to do something monumentally important in order to be able to head off on a suicide mission.
The purpose of the loyalty quests wasn't to change the world, they were just to make sure everyone was prepared to change the world.

[Asari Commando]

jacobs LM was written pretty well i thought, it gave some extra backround on his family. also, prior to the loyalty mission jacob is about as interesting as a box of rocks. you get a little information on why he left the alliance and joined the cerberus, but thats about it.
im not sure how you didnt understand what was going on? i suppose if you just sprint thru and shoot everything without investigating.. upon arriving
 

• you can enter the ship and listen to some audio logs from the crew, hinting that they had short term-memory loss and the officers had little control. the logs also explain that the decay effected the crews memory, they were forgetting who they were.
  
  
• after leaving the ship you can interact with the beacon, which explains the ship crash and why ronald taylor was acting commander. also the beacon will explain the food decay, and how the ship had little reserves.
  
  
• after meeting some crazy locals, you eventually see that lady who gives jacob the log book. which explains EVERYTHING that is going on, and how it got to that point. the ship food was saved for the officers while the rest of the crew had to be subject to the decay and hope for treatment later. females were assigned to officers, while the acting captain had all his mechs to keep the crew in line. even after the beacon was repaired the message was never sent, it was pretty obvious that he was enjoying himself. he had begun to kill off all remaining officers, and deploying mechs on anybody who questioned his authority.
  
  
• well, by now its obvious that jacobs dad is a corrupt old man who likes to abbuse power. so unless you spammed X thru the whole dialogue, im not sure how you would be confused.
  
  
• after finishing off the hunters who are attacking the commanders holdout and killing the mechs he had deployed, you finally get to see this ass. of course he tries to come up with a terrible excuse, and make it like he was being taken captive by his crew.
  
  
• now he will fill in any of those plot holes, explaining how he didnt feel that revealing the situation was a good idea. others wanted rescue, the commander had the mechs so it wasnt much of a discussion. he even said, "dining for one can stretch things out a bit," which just makes me want to curb stomp him so hard.

[*]after he explains his position and why he killing off the officers, why the crew was angry and crazy, it was still obvious that his father was a loser. so you havea couple choices, let him go to prison, or leave him to the hell he created (my personal fav). its a nice touch to see the people he screwed over sucker punch him in the jaw. not sure if you can actually kill him yourself (or jacob), the bottom option "id kill him" doesnt really affect much if i remember correctly.

Modifié par Asari Commando, 22 juillet 2011 - 03:42 .

[Heavensrun]

Actually, I loved the renegade solution to Jacob's loyalty mish. It made Jacob -way- cooler to me.

And, yeah, I gotta agree with Asari Commando. I can't understand how you could end that mission confused unless you skipped all the dialog, and if you skipped all the dialog, I don't see that you have grounds to complain that nothing was explained.

[Heavensrun]

Jafroboy wrote...

Samara even more so, theres tons of build up - plenty of conversations with her in the ship where you can say that killing people just cos of thier genes is wrong, I heartily dissaproved, and wanted to be able to intervene in thier fight and make them stop, show them fighting is wrong, hug tears, love you mum ect. I'm not saying it should have worked, but I should have been able to TRY! And the convos made it look like I would be able to, but no, the only "alternative" option is to spaz out and KILL samara! Something no sane Shepard (who had enough para/rene to not be controled) would do, as Morinth was still very unstable at this point, and had just tried to kill you.
My solution to senseless killing is to STOP it, not make MORE!

Okay, see, the thing is, you're not killing Morinth because of her genes.   You're killing her because she seduced and murdered an innocent young girl, as the latest in a long line of SERIAL KILLINGS.  Each killing leaves her more addicted to the act.  The more she kills, the more she needs to kill, ands he's been killing for a -long- -time-.  And if you give her a chance, Shep is absolutely the next stamp on her cockpit.

And honestly, the only opportunity you have to intervene is in the middle of a biotic death match. anyway.  Negotiations have broken down at this point.  If they were launching artillery at each other, would it make sense for shepard to jump in the middle and say "Can't we all just get along?"  Eh.

Actually, -my- main problem with the Samara/Morinth choice is that there's not really any good reason to pick Morinth.  I mean, I didn't really get the impression that she was any more powerful, and she's certainly more of a threat to you and your crew.  Everywhere else in the game, "renegade" means "willing to sacrifice others to save the galaxy".  On that mission, "renegade" means "Dark Side of the Force Evil Psycho option."

[Jafroboy]

I worked out jacobs mission, I didnt skip any dialouge, but you just have to kinda assume that he date raped all the woman, no evidence is ever presented that would stand up in a court of law.

"And as for Morinth, this "kill her cos she kills people" thing is just retarded! How many hundreds of Asiari join merc bands and go around killing people? Kill all asari? After all they have the ability to kill people. Morinth probly killed no more people than a random eclipse asari.

And yet still it makes no sense to randomly kill Samara either.

[Raven4030]

Jafroboy wrote...

I worked out jacobs mission, I didnt skip any dialouge, but you just have to kinda assume that he date raped all the woman, no evidence is ever presented that would stand up in a court of law.

So when Jacob said that they were assigning women to officers and exiling the men, what did you think was going on? The men kept crapping on the floor of the officer's quarters so they assigned women to keep the place tidy?

[Jafroboy]

Thats what a Lawyer would say.

[DPSSOC]

Jafroboy wrote...
I worked out jacobs mission, I didnt skip any dialouge, but you just have to kinda assume that he date raped all the woman, no evidence is ever presented that would stand up in a court of law.

You greatly over-estimate the justice system.  Or you have a much better justice system than I've ever witnessed.

Jafroboy wrote...
"And as for Morinth, this "kill her cos she kills people" thing is just retarded! How many hundreds of Asiari join merc bands and go around killing people? Kill all asari? After all they have the ability to kill people. Morinth probly killed no more people than a random eclipse asari.

It's not just that she kills people it's that she's addicted to it.  She's never going to stop, ever, leaving 3 options; kill her, lock her up, or let her go.  Her ability to effect the minds of others makes locking her up too dangerous and letting her go is just insane.  It's essentially taking a reasonable stance on Batman.  Time and again Batman captures Joker, the Riddler, Two Face, etc. and time and again they escape.  The system can't hold them and they're too dangerous to be left to run free, which leaves one option.

[Jafroboy]

Jack's addicted to killing, kill her? Practically every Krogan in the galaxy is addicted to killing, kill all Krogans? Commander Shepard is so addicted to killing he comitted genocide, kill commander Shepard?

Ardait Yakshi like killing, so ddo plenty of other people, have them kill the bad guys.

When you talk about "the system" are you talking in ME, or do you mean if this was something happening now on real earth with people?

Im not quite sure if we're talking;

Modifié par Jafroboy, 25 juillet 2011 - 06:09 .

[DPSSOC]

Jafroboy wrote...
Jack's addicted to killing, kill her? Practically every Krogan in the galaxy is addicted to killing, kill all Krogans? Commander Shepard is so addicted to killing he comitted genocide, kill commander Shepard?

Ardait Yakshi like killing, so ddo plenty of other people, have them kill the bad guys.

Shepard doesn't kill people because he/she's physically dependent on it, he doesn't suffer withdrawl if he doesn't kill something.  Same with Jack and the Krogan.  Addiction has very little to do with enjoyment.   I have a cousin who smokes 3 packs a day and he hates it.  He hates the taste, he hates the smell, he hates almost everything about it, but the physical reaction he has to not smoking means he needs it to function.  Also Shepard, Jack, and the Krogan show that they can and do reign in their urge to kill, Morinth has demonstrated over 400 years that she won't. 

Jafroboy wrote...
When you talk about "the system" are you talking in ME, or do you mean if this was something happening now on real earth with people?

In that specific instance I was referring to the particular system and characters in Batman but it can be applied anywhere.  If the system you have; be it ME's system, Gotham's system, or real world; continually fails to hold a criminal who is too dangerous to be set free you are left with a single option.

[Jafroboy]

Well after having read the secondary codex on ardiat yakshi... Yeah, Morinth is just out on some personal vendetta.

[CaptREDKangaroo]

Jafroboy wrote...

Yes but the whole point of the RPG is to choose, mayby Id prefer to have miranda angry than help her kidnap some kid.

Some kid? Yeah her cloned sister, just some kid....... Did you even pay attention to the mission?

I thought most of them were written well... and personal - every mission doesn't need a decision that effects the whole galaxy. I do agree Miranda's could ahve had more stern decisions even not effecting a broader level but her relationship, maybe finish the mission in a way that doesn't gain her loyalty and you need to charm/intimidate.

Samara's I thought was fine, Shepard isn't a family counselor. I think if he were able to have them make up would be horrible. Perhaps just trying would be enough but personally I was perfectly happy with the choice.

[Smeelia]

Quething wrote...

if the player wants a Shep who puts principle above loyalty that's perfectly fair and should be a consistent gameplay option, as it was with Zaeed's. Price of Revenge was very well done that way, though I'd be inclined to remove the paragon persuade at the end that completely negates any semblance of consequence to the choice (and I say this as someone who generally saves the workers even as a renegade Shep).

I think it's appropriate to have a persuasion option for the Paragon route of Zaeed's mission.  Zaeed messes up the mission by being insubordinate and not working as part of the team so it makes sense that Shepard can teach him that lesson (Shepard is a good leader after all), I'm not sure why there's not a Renegade equivalent persuasion though (focussed more on telling Zaeed to follow your orders).  It's a shame you only have the option to leave him behind if you do his loyalty after the Suicide Mission though, I wouldn't take him along if I knew I couldn't rely on him.

For Samara's loyalty mission it wouldn't hurt if there was an option to take a Pistol in and just shoot Morinth at the table in the bar (it could be the "goodbye" option).  It's unlikely that Samara would betray Shepard but it's not unreasonable to prefer to rely on yourself (especially since Samara has failed to capture Morinth before).  I suppose it's maybe better for the story (and Samara) to have Samara finally killing Morinth but I'd rather have "shoot Morinth myself" be the Renegade option than what we currently have.

[tjzsf]

Heavensrun wrote...
Actually, -my- main problem with the Samara/Morinth choice is that there's not really any good reason to pick Morinth.  I mean, I didn't really get the impression that she was any more powerful, and she's certainly more of a threat to you and your crew.  Everywhere else in the game, "renegade" means "willing to sacrifice others to save the galaxy".  On that mission, "renegade" means "Dark Side of the Force Evil Psycho option."

I do believe the actual implication is more of if you are too much of a renegade (sacrifice/kill too many "innocents" according to Samara's code), Samara will try to kill you as soon as the mission's over.

"We did it! We finally stopped the Reap-" *biotic necksnap*