4309 réponses à ce sujet

[Sgt Stryker]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Skill has nothing to do with anything.
As I said before, commandos die just as often as regular grunts (if not more) and they are the most skilled fighters in any army.

Shep should be able to save SOME party memebrs...or people in general. If he's realisticly in position to do so.

So if you feel that the position from which Shepard can save someone is unrealistic, don't take it. Simple.

So I want to RP a smart, caring Shepard who tries to save everyone he can....and yet I can't because he has to deliberately sabotage himself?

What qualifies as deliberate sabotage, though? Would you say that choosing Samara or Zaeed as a fireteam leader qualifies as sabotaging your mission?

Modifié par Sgt Stryker, 20 octobre 2011 - 07:58 .

[Yezdigerd]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Yezdigerd wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

So I want to RP a smart, caring Shepard who tries to save everyone he can....and yet I can't because he has to deliberately sabotage himself?

And that's exactly the problem. The optional squad deaths doesn't allow this. If someone dies, it's because my Shepard didn't accurately assess the situation, not because the death was out of his hands.

That is how it works in reality as well. If the NATO forces in Afghanistan always accurately gauged the situation they would have no casualties.

Now that's silly. Casualties are an accepted risk in even the most accurately guaged situations. The goal of warfare isn't to lose no one: it's to get objectives done. Low casualties are an ideal, but they don't go away simply if you prepare enough with perfect knowledge.

If you have perfect knowledge in hindsight they would. No soldier could get ambushed or step on a mine. Anything that posed threat would get an airstrike. The usual reason for someone dying is something that would have been easily avoided had they known.

[Dean_the_Young]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The Collector Cruiser and Occuli could see the Normandy... and you think the Reapers can't?

If the Normandy is destroyed, then at least half of the squad and EDI and Joker will die with Garrus.

That's a situation I'd only want if things are going bad because of my actions.

Because it'd be pretty annoying if everything I owned and cared for just went up in flames. AGAIN.

And what if the Normandy is merely badly damaged, and the gunnery control station blows up killing just Garrus?

Reapers still not good enough to justify that death?

(Though I agree that probably wouldn't be a good death scene. Team deaths should come on the ground... though if Shepard leaves the LI in the cabin after the sex scene, and the Reapers shave the top of the Normandy off before the LI leaves...)

[Dean_the_Young]

Yezdigerd wrote...

If you have perfect knowledge in hindsight they would. No soldier could get ambushed or step on a mine. Anything that posed threat would get an airstrike. The usual reason for someone dying is something that would have been easily avoided had they known.

Or because they entered a fire-fight in pursuit of a target that couldn't be bombed. Which is actually not that uncommon, especially in capture/intelligence/hostage retrieval missions. Firefights when you're on the offensive can just as easily lose people whether you know about the traps in advance or not.

Wars are much bigger than individual missions. If you simply hit 'back' every day you lost a person, you'd never advance. After a point you'd hit 'no win' situations: the only way to avoid losses is to avoid contact, which is a non-winner in any war.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Skill has nothing to do with anything.
As I said before, commandos die just as often as regular grunts (if not more) and they are the most skilled fighters in any army.

Shep should be able to save SOME party memebrs...or people in general. If he's realisticly in position to do so.

So if you feel that the position from which Shepard can save someone is unrealistic, don't take it. Simple.

So I want to RP a smart, caring Shepard who tries to save everyone he can....and yet I can't because he has to deliberately sabotage himself?

What qualifies as deliberate sabotage, though? Would you say that choosing Samara or Zaeed as a fireteam leader qualifies as sabotaging your mission?

When the game tries to beat you over the head with the 'experts'? It certainly does come of as 'player failure,' but then the whole suicide mission was hyped up as how only a 'good' Shepard could succede, and was in practice only a 'bad' decider would lose people.

The SM mission was just about everything you can put together on 'how not to enable character deaths.'

[Sgt Stryker]

So it can't be argued that Samara can command "respect through experience", despite hundreds of years of combat experience? Zaeed can't lead a fireteam, despite all his war stories? Granted, those stories usually end up with him being the only survivor, but that should be a subtle hint that he's not the best choice. Still better than someone like Jack, Thane, or Grunt, which is who a truly incompetent Shepard would choose.

Like I said before, right/wrong choices need to be presented in such a way that the player has little or no idea which choice is right/wrong, outside of having played the game already or having read a walkthrough.

[Yezdigerd]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Yezdigerd wrote...

If you have perfect knowledge in hindsight they would. No soldier could get ambushed or step on a mine. Anything that posed threat would get an airstrike. The usual reason for someone dying is something that would have been easily avoided had they known.

Or because they entered a fire-fight in pursuit of a target that couldn't be bombed. Which is actually not that uncommon, especially in capture/intelligence/hostage retrieval missions. Firefights when you're on the offensive can just as easily lose people whether you know about the traps in advance or not.

Wars are much bigger than individual missions. If you simply hit 'back' every day you lost a person, you'd never advance. After a point you'd hit 'no win' situations: the only way to avoid losses is to avoid contact, which is a non-winner in any war.

As I understand it, you are complaining that replaying the suicide mission with hindsight, not applying your experience of previous decisions would make you feel like you are intentionally killing off people.
My point is that applying metagame knowledge in such a way isn't realistic. If you can simply reload a firefight everytime you are not happy with the result, sooner or later you will get one with zero casualties.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

So it can't be argued that Samara can command "respect through experience", despite hundreds of years of combat experience?

I would argue not. She has hundreds of years of experience... but approximately zilch of them have been team based, let alone her in a leadership position. She certainly isn't a stabilizing element or much of a team player: if she weren't sworn to Shepard, she'd be obligated to try and kill/capture most the cast, and may yet try to do so.

Leadership, they name and exemplifier is not Samara.

Zaeed can't lead a fireteam, despite all his war stories? Granted, those stories usually end up with him being the only survivor, but that should be a subtle hint that he's not the best choice.

Well, his major hint is that he is betrayed and lost control of his own band. Granted, that's similar to Garrus... but then, Zaeed was originally intended to be a passable team leader. (Diddy's sound files, I believe.)

Still better than someone like Jack, Thane, or Grunt, which is who a truly incompetent Shepard would choose.

I'd actually believe in Grunt more than Samara, given the wide expanse that 'tank imprints' can be exploited to. They certainly didn't build him up as one... but then, the 'Team Leader' position was pretty much the weakest part of the whole suicide mission.

Like I said before, right/wrong choices need to be presented in such a way that the player has little or no idea which choice is right/wrong, outside of having played the game already or having read a walkthrough.

Now this I agree with.

(I just also think that about any occassion in which the 'right' choice saves the team member would be a bad setup.)

[Dean_the_Young]

Yezdigerd wrote...

As I understand it, you are complaining that replaying the suicide mission with hindsight, not applying your experience of previous decisions would make you feel like you are intentionally killing off people.

Actually, I don't like the suicide mission because it's so blatantly telegraphed in almost every respect but one (the team leader) that it's harder to screw up than not... and that the setting is a poor 'suicide mission' as well because itundermines its own attempts at drama and weight. That metagaming (or simply genre-savvy) is the difference between 'bad' and 'perfect' is a weakness of the design.

If I were to design the suicide mission, not even metagaming would get you away scott-free. Like this person did.

My point is that applying metagame knowledge in such a way isn't realistic. If you can simply reload a firefight everytime you are not happy with the result, sooner or later you will get one with zero casualties.

But what you can do to a individual process you can't do to an entire system of magnitudes greater scale. You aren't going to progress in a war if you demand perfection on every front... which, as a matter of course for all those involved, would get boring and mistakes from complacency would slip in. Not only would you have the chance to 'repeat', but eventually your enemies would as well and they'd get the same chance to 'repeat' as well. Gradually you'd just stall in time, as both sides learn to mix things up. Insurgents would learn to use RNG's that vary with the time loop (like, say, NATO signal routines) to determine their attacks.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 20 octobre 2011 - 08:32 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

I just wouldn't have tried to market the game by calling it a suicide mission, I'd have just called it a risky proposition. The whole "suicide mission" thing is just hype.

[Dean_the_Young]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

I just wouldn't have tried to market the game by calling it a suicide mission, I'd have just called it a risky proposition. The whole "suicide mission" thing is just hype.

Hell, I would have tossed out the entire 'the team can die on the suicide mission' crap.

Maybe killed off the Virmire survivor instead, after giving them a bigger role.

[sorentoft]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

If I were to design the suicide mission, not even metagaming would get you away scott-free. Like this person did.

That is stupid. I think we're all better off not having someone like that design the game.

[Sgt Stryker]

I'm glad the guy who wrote Renegade Reinterpretations doesn't work for BioWare.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

I'm glad the guy who wrote Renegade Reinterpretations doesn't work for BioWare.

I have a short list of people I'm so very glad do not work for Bioware. 

[Dean_the_Young]

sorentoft wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

If I were to design the suicide mission, not even metagaming would get you away scott-free. Like this person did.

That is stupid. I think we're all better off not having someone like that design the game.

On the contrary, that fits the model of a suicide mission to a t, and answers many of the common criticisms besides the 'I can't stand any death of anyone.'

Shepard survives and accomplishes the mission without resorting to being stupid to suffer any loss.

No individual in particular is required to die.

The characters who do are reasonable consequences of Shepard's choices, not chance or scripted: player agency is not denied.

No metagaming reduces the narrative buildup to 'the suicide mission.' The mission is neither soft-balled or oversold in the main story.

Character specialties are established more firmly in the pre-mission and early game, reflect character tendencies, and don't come out of the blue.

Post-ME2 plot, by its design, has to more firmly embrace the reluctant fact it's already taken in: all characters who can die can no longer be key companions, so knowing that a number will die forces more focus on the story afterwards.

[Dean_the_Young]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Sgt Stryker wrote...

I'm glad the guy who wrote Renegade Reinterpretations doesn't work for BioWare.

I have a short list of people I'm so very glad do not work for Bioware. 

And thankfully, I'm on it!

(Could I use that as a reference in a few years? 'KC did not want me' would be a good recommendation.)

[jeweledleah]

sorentoft wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

If I were to design the suicide mission, not even metagaming would get you away scott-free. Like this person did.

That is stupid. I think we're all better off not having someone like that design the game.

I wouldn't buy that game at full price for sure.  on steam sale for 2 bucks?  probably, casue hey - 2 bucks, if I don't like it, i just lost a cup of coffee at most.  definitely woudln't replay it.

[Il Divo]

Xilizhra wrote...

So basically, you want nothing wrong to be your own doing? You want to have completely blameless tragedy? Is that really superior?

What? No, not at all. But if something goes wrong and Shepard's responsible, it shouldn't be a result of incompetency on the player's part. Virmire is a great example of how to do it. Bad situation, no "good" solution possible. Shepard, as the Commander, is already "blame-worthy". In that sense, a squad-mate dying is his fault. But it shouldn't be anything preventable through gameplay, which means that I'm purposely making my Shepard do something worse.

Even Wrex's handling is better, because there killing Wrex isn't necessarily a result of incompetency on the player's part, but because he's a soldier disobeying my orders, so killing him is, to a large extent, based around my character's motivation.

Modifié par Il Divo, 20 octobre 2011 - 09:22 .

[Xilizhra]

But it shouldn't be anything preventable through gameplay, which means that I'm purposely making my Shepard do something worse.

It's just a roleplaying choice to get you the story you want and feel is more realistic. I'm still not really sure where the difference lies. Perhaps feeling you have no time to do a sidequest or something, or wanting nothing to do with one person's allies.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 20 octobre 2011 - 09:23 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Il Divo wrote...

Even Wrex's handling is better, because there killing Wrex isn't necessarily a result of incompetency on the player's part, but because he's a soldier disobeying my orders, so killing him is entirely for RP purposes.

Definitely a good point. In fact, Wrex's delimma was also boosted by in some cases being unsolvable, but not for lack of competence: not having the persuasion points is hardly a sin on Shepard's point, and there are a million good reasons to not have done the armor quest first. Without the persuasion points or family armor, saving Wrex is impossible.

Unlike, say, the Garrus Cannon/Tali Shielding/Jacob Armor character deaths, when 'character dying' equated to 'did not buy clearly obvious product.' And 'did not buy' meant 'could not be bothered to mineral mine triveal task.'


It's close to what the Tali loyalty mission was bar the persuasion checks: you could get Tali exiled, expose the truth and keep her from being so, or a conditional (but not obvious/direct) enabling of a third way depending on other choices.

(Mind you, all the rest of the handling was junk.)

[Il Divo]

Xilizhra wrote...

But it shouldn't be anything preventable through gameplay, which means that I'm purposely making my Shepard do something worse.

It's just a roleplaying choice to get you the story you want and feel is more realistic. I'm still not really sure where the difference lies.

My Shepard's goal is to get everyone out, if possible. I also want my Shepard to be as competent as possible, meaning he knows what he's doing. Scenarios like the Suicide Mission prevent that. Squad-death is entirely possible, but it's entirely contingent on my Shepard not knowing what he's doing, since it results in squad-death and there's a clear "right" course of action.

Or imagine that Bioware created some scenario which allowed you to save both Kaidan/Ashley, but you had to play through an extra gameplay sequence. My Shepard would do it, if given that chance because it demonstrates his abilities as a leader. But at the same time, this prevents squad death.

Modifié par Il Divo, 20 octobre 2011 - 09:28 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Xilizhra wrote...

But it shouldn't be anything preventable through gameplay, which means that I'm purposely making my Shepard do something worse.

It's just a roleplaying choice to get you the story you want and feel is more realistic. I'm still not really sure where the difference lies. Perhaps feeling you have no time to do a sidequest or something, or wanting nothing to do with one person's allies.

You don't see the difference between 'I have to choose to not be a completionist and make good decisions in order to get a sub-optimal outcomes to maintain versimilitude' versus 'I can be a completionist, make a good decision, and not sacrifice versimilitude'?

[Xilizhra]

My Shepard's goal is to get everyone out, if possible. I also want my Shepard to be as competent as possible, meaning he knows what he's doing. Scenarios like the Suicide Mission prevent that. Squad-death is entirely possible, but it's entirely contingent on my Shepard not knowing what he's doing, since it results in squad-death and there's a clear "right" course of action.

All right, but isn't your argument that no one is so competent, realistically, as to be able to keep everyone from dying?

[Dean_the_Young]

Xilizhra wrote...

My Shepard's goal is to get everyone out, if possible. I also want my Shepard to be as competent as possible, meaning he knows what he's doing. Scenarios like the Suicide Mission prevent that. Squad-death is entirely possible, but it's entirely contingent on my Shepard not knowing what he's doing, since it results in squad-death and there's a clear "right" course of action.

All right, but isn't your argument that no one is so competent, realistically, as to be able to keep everyone from dying?

You're confusing him and me. My argument is that 'no one is so great that, even if they do everything right, they keep everyone from dying in a war.'

And while Shepard certainly stepped up space-Jesus vibes in ME2, it was certainly true in ME1 and in Arrival that Shepard's best didn't mean perfect.

[Il Divo]

Xilizhra wrote...

All right, but isn't your argument that no one is so competent, realistically, as to be able to keep everyone from dying?

My argument is that even the best, most competent, commanders lose people. Losing Garrus because there's nothing I can do to save him is very different than losing Garrus because I, as his commanding officer, made a very bad call. 

The first is an issue of helplessness; I'm responsible for Garrus only in so far as I'm his Commander, but something happened which I cannot prevent. Ex: Virmire. I'm not fast enough to get to both Kaidan and Ashley. The second is an issue of the player/character making a mistake, when a scenario existed for a good outcome. Ex: Making Miranda the biotic expert when she wasn't the best choice.

Modifié par Il Divo, 20 octobre 2011 - 09:35 .