301 réponses à ce sujet

[Tony_Knightcrawler]

Gameplay-wise, ME3 looks like a hybrid of the best parts of ME1 and ME2... minus exploration.

[Candidate 88766]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

I would argue that the writing has gotten better while the storytelling has gotten worse

O_o ???

For me storytelling is all about structure. Its the thing you have in your notes before writing anything. Its the thing you make flow charts of. Its the logical progression of events from the introduction to the conflict to the climax and the resolution.

The writing is how you convey those events. What words and phrases you use, what imagery you utilize, the symbolism (if any), what lines you have your characters speak.

A story can have excellent imagery, dialog, and description but still be a rushed mess, ending abruptly or not resolving certain plot threads.

I can agree with this.

ME2 had amazing characters and writing, and the loyalty missions were generally fantastic, often tackling surprisingly mature issues for a videogame. However, the overarching story of assembling a squad to destroy the Collectors wasn't that great and didn't really advance the plot very much. It was more an exploration of the ME universe. For what its worth, I absolutely loved it. It could've advanced the Reaper plot further, but the fact that I and so many others enjoyed it so much despite it not really going anywehere speaks volumes about the characters and writing - that is what people loved with ME2.

Bioware nailed a gripping story with great twists in ME1, while in ME2 they nailed characters and the more personal character-based stories. If they can combine the two for ME3, then it has the potential to be truly great.

[Alex_SM]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

It's my personal belief that ME2's main plot and overiding narative failed not because of EA (for reasons I explain here) and not because Bioware are selling out (for virtually the same reasons as the former) but because they had too many great characters. Because of the dirty dozen design concept they went with, Bioware had 2 years to fix all the problems in that thread AND create, from scratch (relatively) 8 new squadmates as well as each of their loyalty missions.

With just a rudimentary concept of what it takes to make this stuff that to me sounds like a hell of a lot of work. You need to write the sequences, storyboard the sequences, develop the artwork, design the levels, script the sequence, balance the combat, and troubleshoot glitches, script failures, and so on for each mission (of which there were ten during main development).

It's not so hard to manage a "dirty dozen" structure. Only thing you need to have in mind, is that you need a really exciting (ME2, check) and quite long (ME2, fail) third act. The third act must be at least 1/3 of the story (I would say even 1/2) in this kind of stories. 

Then another failure of ME2 is that it's story looks irrelevant for ME trilogy, and that can never happen. It looks like it's main story doesn't go forward a single line in the whole main story. You could have jumped from ME to ME3 without loosing too much, and that's a problem. Bioware weren't brave enough to continue with the ME2 squad (killed? bad luck for you) or giving real trascendence to the Collector's base, which are the pivotal points of ME2, the squad and the collector's base. 

I hate when writters do the "oh, I'm not totally satisfied about the ending of the last one... --> Reset button, now it doesn't matter at all"

[Gatt9]

Mx_CN3 wrote...

They took out a few bloated number systems (armors, weapons, mods, skill points), so that's dumbing it down? In ME2, you didn't have the numbers for rate-of-fire, clip size, etc displayed to you in a convenient little stat box, but the stats were still there. You just had to use them to get a feel for them. Instead of having 60 different shotguns that differed only in their numbers, you had 5 shotguns which were each very unique, and if you polled 5 different players about which was the best, you'd get 4 answers (because let's face it, nobody liked the Katana). How is having to make your own judgements based on your playstyle on things dumbing anything down?

Conversely, what was "smart" about ME1? The overall story was better, sure. The Mako was driving a tank didn't give a damn about OUR laws of physics through incredibly bland terrain for hours on end, often involving incredibly frustrating cliffs. Then you get to run into the same bunker 80 times and shoot the place up, then leave. Any time you looted a box, you ended up omni-gelling everything in it 98% of the time, because you had your convenient little spreadsheet to tell you exactly what you should do.

The ideas of ME1 (planet exploration, armor/weapon mods) were good, their implementation is awful. Sorry, but ME2 was streamlined (with a few oversights), not dumbed down.

Actually,  it's dumbed down.

-You kill a YMIR with your starter weapons,  and you're still killing a YMIR at the level cap.  That's as hard as it gets.  So every weapon is essentially fluff,  you don't need them,  you killed the hardest thing in the game at level 2 with a starter gun.

-Which describes the leveling system as well.  None of that matters either.

-You probably shouldn't complain about duplicate missions either.  In ME2,  you walk around till you see a pile of boxes,  then you fight,  and repeat a couple of times.  Nearly every battle ends with you fighting either a YMIR,  a VTOL,  or a Asari.

ME2 was "streamlined" for the masses who hate RPG's.  You could quite literally remove the whole leveling system,  remove all of the extra weapons,  and still have the game play out just as effectively.  There's no battle you cannot win.

[Darth Asriel]

@Gatt9- Thank you for posting something logical. The inventory system in ME1 wasn't the best, but it was also the one a lot of RPGs use. ME2 through the baby out with the bathwater. Changing the color of Sheps armor was cool, but in no way is that depth. And the weapon system was a joke. What happened to leveling up your weapon skill? Or leveling up you charm or intimidate? All "streamlined"

ME3 remains to be seen how it will handle it's rpg aspects.

[nitefyre410]

Imperium Alpha wrote...

 
Fail thread seal of approval. Now you can continue bash **** up on internet because thats the only thing people are able to do this day. 

 

^ This .... sooo much win  

[nitefyre410]

Draconis6666 wrote...

The only dumbing down is the people who continue to rant how much more stuff ME 1 had that the others dont, when all it really has is a skill system that makes no sense to the story, (lol I R elite soldier but i cant shoot yet cus got no skillz), the "awesome exploration" of the same planet 45 times with slightly different geography which amounts to 4 hours of trying to drive up mountains in the mako to get to something, The "Awesome customization" of having 20 armors and 20 different guns that all look the same but have different names and levels! Lets also include into this the awesome customization of having tons of weapon and armor mods (50% of which are pointless and suck anyway). The story in ME 1 is just as railroaded as ME 2, peoples nostalga does not change that no matter how much they think it does. And finally of course the awesome ability to spend 2 hours managing your inventory to get rid of your 10 copies of the same thing that you dont want anyway.

Just because things are removed is not "dumbing down". It is not "dumbing down" to remove or simplify things that are horribly done to the point of being over complex or just plain pointless. Mass effect never has been and never was intended to be a true RPG if thats what you want then your playing the wrong game.

 


This sir is the  post of the day.... and of thread.  Well said.

[Il Divo]

Darth Asriel wrote...

The inventory system in ME1 wasn't the best, but it was also the one a lot of RPGs use. ME2 through the baby out with the bathwater..

Uhh, I think you're giving the ME1 system too much credit. I'm inclined to call it the single worst inventory system ever implemented in RPG. So no, it's not the system alot of RPG systems use. After that terrible first attempt, I can't say I wanted to watch Bioware's efforts at redesign.

Modifié par Il Divo, 20 février 2012 - 04:45 .

[dreman9999]

philippe willaume wrote...

Well yes Bioware acknowledged that the difficulty level in ME2 was not on the same scale as ME1.
I.E ME2 was to easy

.......ME1 was broken easy. ME2 can set to be insanly hard.......What did you play?

[Alex_SM]

dreman9999 wrote...

philippe willaume wrote...

Well yes Bioware acknowledged that the difficulty level in ME2 was not on the same scale as ME1.
I.E ME2 was to easy

.......ME1 was broken easy. ME2 can set to be insanly hard.......What did you play?

What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

[AlanC9]

Gatt9 wrote...

Actually,  it's dumbed down.

-You kill a YMIR with your starter weapons,  and you're still killing a YMIR at the level cap.  That's as hard as it gets.  So every weapon is essentially fluff,  you don't need them,  you killed the hardest thing in the game at level 2 with a starter gun.

So if an RPG doesn't have progression in the types of enemies, it's "dumbed down"?

That's an odd use of "dumbed down," but since that's a pretty vacuous concept anyway  it doesn't really matter. The problem with the idea is that it really limits how RPGs can work. Making YMIRs untouchable in the early game would cause severe credibility problems for the ME universe; if Shepard's squad can't beat one YMIR they can't do their job, unless the galaxy is conveniently arranged so they don't actually run into any YMIRs until they're ready for them.

I don't know why this sort of silly arrangement of the universe works better in fantasy. It just does. Note, however, that Dragon Age largely was not arranged this way. Darkspawn emissaries and Alphas pop up fairly early, but they scale to the party. Ogres are a partial exception since they don't scale as much as other darkspawn do, which lets them go from a boss at the Tower of Ishal to a mob leader by Denerim.

Incidentally, your rhetoric there is a little misleading, as I've told you before and will probably do again. At level 2 with a starter gun you kill a single YMIR while in optimal terrain with medigel and HW reloads at hand. In later battles you face either YMIRs with infantry support or multiple YMIRs, without resupply and in terrain ranging from fairly good to really bad. Try going to the supply cache Aria refers you to early in the game and you'll see.

[AkiKishi]

I think it's a fair point that maybe there was a bit of an over reaction and ME2 went a bit too far in the other direction of ME1.

Rather than having pointless loads of crap to carry and modify you get no crap to carry and modify.

Everyone is always going to have preferences, but there is a difference between doing something different and something being wrong.

[dreman9999]

Gatt9 wrote...

Mx_CN3 wrote...

They took out a few bloated number systems (armors, weapons, mods, skill points), so that's dumbing it down? In ME2, you didn't have the numbers for rate-of-fire, clip size, etc displayed to you in a convenient little stat box, but the stats were still there. You just had to use them to get a feel for them. Instead of having 60 different shotguns that differed only in their numbers, you had 5 shotguns which were each very unique, and if you polled 5 different players about which was the best, you'd get 4 answers (because let's face it, nobody liked the Katana). How is having to make your own judgements based on your playstyle on things dumbing anything down?

Conversely, what was "smart" about ME1? The overall story was better, sure. The Mako was driving a tank didn't give a damn about OUR laws of physics through incredibly bland terrain for hours on end, often involving incredibly frustrating cliffs. Then you get to run into the same bunker 80 times and shoot the place up, then leave. Any time you looted a box, you ended up omni-gelling everything in it 98% of the time, because you had your convenient little spreadsheet to tell you exactly what you should do.

The ideas of ME1 (planet exploration, armor/weapon mods) were good, their implementation is awful. Sorry, but ME2 was streamlined (with a few oversights), not dumbed down.

Actually,  it's dumbed down.

-You kill a YMIR with your starter weapons,  and you're still killing a YMIR at the level cap.  That's as hard as it gets.  So every weapon is essentially fluff,  you don't need them,  you killed the hardest thing in the game at level 2 with a starter gun.

-Which describes the leveling system as well.  None of that matters either.

-You probably shouldn't complain about duplicate missions either.  In ME2,  you walk around till you see a pile of boxes,  then you fight,  and repeat a couple of times.  Nearly every battle ends with you fighting either a YMIR,  a VTOL,  or a Asari.

ME2 was "streamlined" for the masses who hate RPG's.  You could quite literally remove the whole leveling system,  remove all of the extra weapons,  and still have the game play out just as effectively.  There's no battle you cannot win.

1. Level scaling kills that concept.

2. The leveling system matters for every rpg.

3. Samething in ME1, but with more locations.

ME2 has more function rpg element then ME1. ME3 has more rpg then both ME1 and ME2. Leveling in ME1 is very liniear and alot of thing where not functional. ME2 fix and cut out alot of the broken functions.

[AlanC9]

Alex_SM wrote...
What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

Even waves of husks? I always found those fairly difficult on Insanity. What's your method?

[dreman9999]

Alex_SM wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

philippe willaume wrote...

Well yes Bioware acknowledged that the difficulty level in ME2 was not on the same scale as ME1.
I.E ME2 was to easy

.......ME1 was broken easy. ME2 can set to be insanly hard.......What did you play?

What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

Play ME2 via +ng......Then tell me it's easy.

[AkiKishi]

Alex_SM wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

philippe willaume wrote...

Well yes Bioware acknowledged that the difficulty level in ME2 was not on the same scale as ME1.
I.E ME2 was to easy

.......ME1 was broken easy. ME2 can set to be insanly hard.......What did you play?

What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

It's quite challenging with a level 30 character at least initially. It does break after you get some upgrades and weapons. Thing with insanity is whether people play it "clean" or with DLC, if you have access to the DLC stuff from the start, its quite different than if you igonre it or don't have it.

[Sajuro]

MostlyAutumn wrote...

Platonian wrote...

We have gone from a game with open galaxy exploration to one where you have little reason to visit star systems that do not have a mission in them.

And what was the reason to visit those star systems in ME1 exactly?

Also to try and get the Matriarch writings, which I am convinced are the Asari version of Kama Sutra

[Sajuro]

MostlyAutumn wrote...

Platonian wrote...

We have gone from a game with open galaxy exploration to one where you have little reason to visit star systems that do not have a mission in them.

And what was the reason to visit those star systems in ME1 exactly?

Also to try and get the Matriarch writings, which I am convinced are the Asari version of Kama Sutra

[Chromie]

Alex_SM wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

philippe willaume wrote...

Well yes Bioware acknowledged that the difficulty level in ME2 was not on the same scale as ME1.
I.E ME2 was to easy

.......ME1 was broken easy. ME2 can set to be insanly hard.......What did you play?

What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

Aye, but Mass Effect 1 was still easier. No powers on cooldown, insane damage, biotic and tech protection really made insanity a joke.

[MostlyAutumn]

AlanC9 wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...
What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

Even waves of husks? I always found those fairly difficult on Insanity. What's your method?

I'm not  Alex_SM, but I'll answer. Wide singularity + unstable warp for example.

[AlanC9]

MostlyAutumn wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...
What? ME2 on Insanity is really fun, but very very easy. 

Even waves of husks? I always found those fairly difficult on Insanity. What's your method?

I'm not  Alex_SM, but I'll answer. Wide singularity + unstable warp for example.

Works great, if I'm playing an Adept.

But I should have been a little more specific -- how do you handle husks on a mission where you didn't prepare to fight husks because you're not metagaming? Though I guess on high levels you probably want someone with Warp in the party all the time.

Edit: you still reading, Gatt9? This tactic needs two evolved 4th level powers. I thought leveling up didn't matter.

Modifié par AlanC9, 20 février 2012 - 05:25 .

[aksoileau]

Streamlining =/= dumbing down. Thats all I'll say.

[nitefyre410]

aksoileau wrote...

Streamlining =/= dumbing down. Thats all I'll say.

 

To add to this and back up your point some more.  ...  convuluted =/=  smart.

[mornegroth]

Biotic Sage wrote...

(...) video game developers, Hollywood, and the media in general should have more faith in the intelligence of their players/viewers.

My thoughts exactly.