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[Dr. Catt]

AnttiV wrote...

Dr. Catt wrote...

Surely collecting war assets is a rather fundamental part of the gameplay and therefore to say these choices are pointless is just wrong. A bit like saying scoring 1 billion points in space invaders is pointless because it doesn't change the story - scoring points is part of the objective of the game and therefore by definition poinful. Maybe crudely put but hopefully comprehensible.

I think it's more accurate to see the ME series as an interactive film trilogy. It's not, and never has been, an RPG except in the sense that you take control of a protagonist. From what I can tell people who complain about the RPG elements of the game are playing under a misapprehension.

Except it is marketed as a RPG,so it most definitely should be one. Otherwise somebody has a problem.
And, for the most part, it is. ME2 actually has a huge amount of content (dialogue, mostly) that differs quite drastically from playthrough to playthrough, if you make different choices. 

Read my above post about the assets. Yes, collecting assets is a fundamental part of the gameplay mechanics and it is easily achieved via a few MP matches. That makes the original decisions, if not totally, then mostly pointless gameplay-wise. Story-wise they are totally pointless regarding the ending, that isn't even up to arguing. It is EXACTLY the same game-mechanics AND story-wise whether you save the Rachni every time, or not at first and do the second time or you play ONE match of multiplayer. (or more if your assets are low, but then you couldn't get the best ending anyway, so there's no point)

You see I didn't notice any great difference between ME2 and 3 in terms of RPGness.

The fact that you can get war assets from playing multiplayer (MP) no more invalidates a choice in the SP then one SP choice vs another SP choice. Saving the Council isn't pointless just because it gives the same points as, say, finding a crashed frigate (illustrative example, actual points probably wildly different).

And from a gameplay perspective surely actually just making the choice is part of the gameplay. The option to even choose in the first place. Wanting to see some dramatic change may be desireable (I would agree with you) but to claim the choice itself is rendered pointless because the consequence isn't as obvious as you'd like outside war asset system seems to miss the wood for the trees to my mind.

Modifié par Dr. Catt, 22 mars 2012 - 04:50 .

[idspisp0pd]

Dr. Catt wrote...

You see I didn't notice any great difference between ME2 and 3 in terms of RPGness.

The fact that you can get war assets from playing multiplayer (MP) no more invalidates a choice in the SP then one SP choice vs another SP choice. Saving the Council isn't pointless just because it gives the same points as, say, finding a crashed frigate (illustrative example, actual points probably wildly different).

And from a gameplay perspective surely actually just making the choice is part of the gameplay. The option to even choose in the first place. Wanting to see some dramatic change may be desireable (I would agree with you) but to claim the choice itself is rendered pointless because the consequence isn't as obvious as you'd like outside war asset system seems to miss the wood for the trees to my mind.

The crux of the complaint by the OP and others (including myself) is that there are essentially no consequences for the main plot of the game. Yes, you still get to make a decision, and technically it's not completely pointless, but adding or subtracting a few numbers in a formula (usually less than 100 points out of 7000+) and maybe getting an email or short paragraph of exposition in the war terminal seems like pretty weak tea when we are talking about decisions that everyone assumed would have a significant effect on the overall plot of the game.

[AnttiV]

Dr. Catt wrote...
And from a gameplay perspective surely actually just making the choice is part of the gameplay. The option to even choose in the first place. Wanting to see some dramatic change may be desireable (I would agree with you) but to claim the choice itself is rendered pointless because the consequence isn't as obvious as you'd like outside war asset system seems to miss the wood for the trees to my mind.

That's why I wrote "regarding the ending". I actually like the rest of ME3 quite a lot. But, as long as the ending is considered, yes the decisions are mostly entirely pointless. It doesn't matter if you "endangered the galaxy" by saving the Rachni and the Krogan or you bought a few fish. Or played a few MP matches. The choices you make during the game have such a minimal effect on the ending that it isn't even funny. 

Oh, and story wise... "Not-Mordin".. Really?

[Dr. Catt]

I will agree that I think they could have fleshed out what happened to the major characters more in the ending - it seemed a bit compressed (having a few step out of the Normandy wasn't satisfying).

Tying this into the war assets more obviously would help but I would stil say that I felt my choices had reall consequences. Also sometimes no matter what choices you make, life ends up the same way.

Modifié par Dr. Catt, 22 mars 2012 - 05:01 .

[AnttiV]

idspisp0pd wrote...
The crux of the complaint by the OP and others (including myself) is that there are essentially no consequences for the main plot of the game. Yes, you still get to make a decision, and technically it's not completely pointless, but adding or subtracting a few numbers in a formula (usually less than 100 points out of 7000+) and maybe getting an email or short paragraph of exposition in the war terminal seems like pretty weak tea when we are talking about decisions that everyone assumed would have a significant effect on the overall plot of the game.

And not only "assumed", but we were actually bluntly TOLD what they would:

Mac Walters:
The thing I will say about Mass Effect 3 is that the choices you’ve made previously, and the differences that those choices represent, are much bigger than they’ve been in the past. There are certain missions that are simply not available at all because of something you’ve done in the past. Those are usually on a smaller scale. Is Conrad Verner alive or dead? [The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.
http://popwatch.ew.c...-3-mac-walters/ 

So.. huge consequences...? 100 Assets? Yeeeah, right.

[AnttiV]

Dr. Catt wrote...
Tying this into the war assets more obviously would help but I would stil say that I felt my choices had reall consequences.
 

 
Can you give me an example? Because, honestly, that never happened to me. I never felt that during the game. (I had the illusion on my first playthrough, but then on the second when everything was about the same, that illusion vanished.. "Not-Mordin" being one of the worst/best examples of this).

Dr. Catt wrote...  
Also sometimes no matter what choices you make, life ends up the same way.

Yes, however, this is a game.

[dekkerd]

1st run through I hit cronos with 4011 ems. So, yeah, those decisions mattered for me.

[idspisp0pd]

AnttiV wrote...

idspisp0pd wrote...
The crux of the complaint by the OP and others (including myself) is that there are essentially no consequences for the main plot of the game. Yes, you still get to make a decision, and technically it's not completely pointless, but adding or subtracting a few numbers in a formula (usually less than 100 points out of 7000+) and maybe getting an email or short paragraph of exposition in the war terminal seems like pretty weak tea when we are talking about decisions that everyone assumed would have a significant effect on the overall plot of the game.

And not only "assumed", but we were actually bluntly TOLD what they would:

Mac Walters:
The thing I will say about Mass Effect 3 is that the choices you’ve made previously, and the differences that those choices represent, are much bigger than they’ve been in the past. There are certain missions that are simply not available at all because of something you’ve done in the past. Those are usually on a smaller scale. Is Conrad Verner alive or dead? [The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.
http://popwatch.ew.c...-3-mac-walters/ 

So.. huge consequences...? 100 Assets? Yeeeah, right.

Yup. That was one of the quotes I was thinking of when I referenced developer promises in my first post in this thread.

Some other ones that undercut the whole "let's reduce big choices to a few numbers that have little to no actual effect" mechanic:


http://www.gameinfor...PostPageIndex=2

Interviewer: [Regarding the numerous possible endings of Mass Effect 2] “Is that
same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?”
Hudson: “Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to
build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about
eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is
coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot
more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many
decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that
stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings,
where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got
ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and
variety in them.”


http://www.computera...ly-good/?page=2

Casey Hudson:
“There is a huge set of consequences that start stacking up as you approach the end-game. And
even in terms of the ending itself, it continues to break down to
some very large decisions. So it's not like a classic game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things
- it really does layer in many, many different choices, up to the
final moments, where it's going to be different for everyone who
plays it.”

[OoKORKYoO]

MartialArtsMaster wrote...

OoKORKYoO wrote...

Ok so appart from 1 or 2 decisions made in ME 1 & 2, ie if you let Wrex live or die and if you destroy Maelon's/Mordan's data. Pretty much all other BIG decisions become pointless. Here are some examples

1. Collector Base
If you hand over the base to Cerburus, they end up with the Human Reaper and it's brain (makes sense).
If choose to destroy the base, Cerburus still ends up with the Human Reaper (by the way was blown to bits and scattered amongst all that other debris at the centre to the Galaxy) but this time with it's heart.
Decision is pointless

2. Rachni Queen
If you let the Queen live, she gets captured by the Reapers and forced to make an army for them.
If you kill the Rachni Queen (the very last one in existence), The Reapers somehow clone another one from a Rachni and they force her to make an army for them.
Decision is pointless

3. Geth
If you re-write or kill the Geth with Legion, all you get is a quick line of dialogue from Legion about how what you did  didn't work.
Decision is pointless

4. Anderson
I chose to make Anderson the Council member at the end of ME1, not Udina! This was confirmed in ME2 and although Anderson said he was not sure if he liked it, he was still the Councillor at the end of ME2.
So at the start of ME3, why is Udina now the Councillor and Anderson an Admiral back on Earth?
Decision is pointless

5. The Council
If you let the Council all die at the end of ME1, they just get replaced by another set of generric characters that say maybe 1 or 2 lines of dialogue about it.
Decision is pointless

I was really excited for ME3, I had multiple saves ready for all the different outcomes of the choices I made along the way. After 2 or 3 playthroughs I realised there was no point in playing the rest...
Don't get me wrong I do like ME3 as a game but surely these decisions were supposed to have a bigger impact!

Bioware "are you engaging in reproductive behaviour with this one?"

The decisions most certainly are not meaningless, it's just that their effects are either minor or don't become apparent "right away."

The Collector Base decision is not pointless because the Reaper Brain and Reaper Heart do not have the same Military Strength. The Reaper Brain you get from preserving the base has a Military Strength of 110, while the Reaper Heart you get from destroying the base has a Military Strength of 100. Also, which decision you made also changes some of the requirements for the ending. If you preserved the base, the game will tolerate a lower EMS score and still save the Earth if you pick the Control option. If you destroyed the base, the game will tolerate a lower EMS score and still save the Earth if you pick the Destroy option.

The Rachni Queen choice is not only not pointless, but it can bite you in the butt if you do it wrong. If you save the Rachni Queen in ME1, you can save her again in ME3 without penalty. But if you kill the rachni queen in ME1, but you save the artificial replacement in ME3, she eventually turns on you, takes away the Rachni Workers War Asset, and reduces the Alliance Engineering Corps from 130 to 30. The Rachni Workers have a higher strength than Aralakh Company, but that won't matter if the fake turns on you. So killing or saving the rachni queen in ME1 determines whether your greater advantage is in saving the rachni again or saving Aralakh Company. If you saved the ME1 queen, you're better off saving the rachni in ME3. If you killed the ME1 queen, you're better off saving Aralakh Company.

Rewriting or destroying the geth heretics in ME2 can make it harder or easier, respectively, to gain peace. That's because destroying the geth heretics in ME2 earns 2 "peace points" (out of a maximum of 7) while rewriting the geth heretics earns 0 points. If you rewrote the heretics, you have to get ALL the other possible points, to get a score of 5 (which is the bare MINIMUM allowed to make peace between quarians and geth).

As for the Anderson decision, you need to read the novels, it was not done for no reason, nor is it a bug. Anderson gets fed up with all the political bull**** with the Council, so he voluntarily resigns and gives his job to Udina since Anderson thinks he can make a better difference with the military.

Finally, saving or sacrificing the Council has a huge impact on your War Assets. Saving the Council results in a few of the Alliance Fleets being cut, but you gain the Destiny Ascension, and saving the old salarian councilor's life gives you a stronger War Asset than saving the new salarian councilor's life. Sacrificing the Council results in the loss of the Destiny Ascension, and you gain a weaker War Asset from saving the new salarian councilor's life, but you get full-strength Alliance fleets and gain Rear Admiral Mikhailovich as a War Asset.

Please take all the relevant information into account before declaring these decisions pointless.

When I play through as my Main Paragon Shepard, of course I want the best ending. But the other Renegade Sheps, I don't expect the best ending because I pissed everyone off so much... Thats the point! I wanted my decisions to have more impact than just a few numbers on a computer terminal on the Normandy and whether 1 or 2 people live at the end. When I found out the Rachni Queen was cloned by the Reapers, I could not believe the cop-out Bioware made. When that Asari in ME2 told me the Rachni Queen was there to help me when I needed her, I couldn't wait to see what would happen. And the Collector Base... Was blown to bits in the middle of the Galaxy... Come on am I to believe in the space between games Cerburus was able to go there and look for all that stuff? I shouldn't have to read the novels to find out how characters in the games are where they are or what they're doing. I wanted Gameplay impact not numbers on a terminal!! That is mu complaint!

[SyyRaaaN]

Yes. This is the reason why an ending fix won't make ME3 a good final game to the trilogy. ME3 was a missed opportunity, i could have lived with that if the ending was decent... Ah well =).

[SyyRaaaN]

AnttiV wrote...

idspisp0pd wrote...
The crux of the complaint by the OP and others (including myself) is that there are essentially no consequences for the main plot of the game. Yes, you still get to make a decision, and technically it's not completely pointless, but adding or subtracting a few numbers in a formula (usually less than 100 points out of 7000+) and maybe getting an email or short paragraph of exposition in the war terminal seems like pretty weak tea when we are talking about decisions that everyone assumed would have a significant effect on the overall plot of the game.

And not only "assumed", but we were actually bluntly TOLD what they would:

Mac Walters:
The thing I will say about Mass Effect 3 is that the choices you’ve made previously, and the differences that those choices represent, are much bigger than they’ve been in the past. There are certain missions that are simply not available at all because of something you’ve done in the past. Those are usually on a smaller scale. Is Conrad Verner alive or dead? [The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.
http://popwatch.ew.c...-3-mac-walters/ 

So.. huge consequences...? 100 Assets? Yeeeah, right.

Grrr.... Its obvious they lowered the bar and ambition for the series somewhere along the way. Honestly, they should make a traditional expansion-set where they take the time to polish the game into what they originally planned it to be.

I wouldn't hesitate to pay $30/$40 for that. Imagine, many of the scanner quests becoming real quests where we visit Dakuna (elchor homeworld) in hub-areas, expanding on the lore... Imagine if we help the human 6th fleet escape the reapers in some dramatic way... A good ME3 expansion, with say 15-20 h of gameplay, thats what this game needs.

Not an ad hoc solution to the ending.

[Jeremy Winston]

I think this is a very unrealistic view of what ME 3 was going to be.

Fact: No matter how screwed up your ME1 and ME2 games were, BioWare simply HAD to give you a way to beat ME3.  Imagine the outcry from heavily Renegade import players when they discovered that, say, the combination of killing Wrex, losing the data, killing the queen, and sacrificing the council added up to a NO WIN situation.

You think the complaints from the ending is bad?  I think this would have been much worse.

So, BioWare HAD to make it so every saved game could somehow win.

Thus:

• Galactic Readiness -- Able to DOUBLE your EMS, in case you had a really, REALLY bad import.  They even provided a non-MP method (requiring Android or iOS) to up GR. EDIT: Not available for Androd.  
• Minimizing those decisions by providing scenarios there were actually quite different but often ended up with minor strategic differences.

Also.. seriously... how 'significant' were those decisions on an overall galactic scale?  None of them impacted Cerberus' ability to operate (hence all those missions were the same).  None of them really impacted the Reapers' capabilities (hence the 'win' requirements were about the same). 

Finally, even if BioWare did decide to make hugely different storylines... that's like making several different games.  It would have taken forever to get to market.

Frankly, I think they did OK.  I've played a couple of variations, and I always felt that my choices did affect the world in strange and interesting ways.  But, since I never really considered any of my decisions earth-shattering, I wasn't expecting huge twists.  The only exceptions were the Queen and the Base.  But, mishandling those could have been very much game breaking, or even requiring, essentially four games (or two if only half changes) to handle all the plot/mission changes.

Modifié par Jeremy Winston, 22 mars 2012 - 07:35 .

[Lightweight Nate]

The plot doesn't differ terribly, but your decisions really do have a pretty big effect in the grand scheme of things. So many things are messed up and different with the non-import character that I created to get Kaidan's bonus powers. The decisions really come together to affect your war assets. The whole council thing plays out kind of intricately.

[AnttiV]

Jeremy Winston wrote...

I think this is a very unrealistic view of what ME 3 was going to be.

Fact: No matter how screwed up your ME1 and ME2 games were, BioWare simply HAD to give you a way to beat ME3.  Imagine the outcry from heavily Renegade import players when they discovered that, say, the combination of killing Wrex, losing the data, killing the queen, and sacrificing the council added up to a NO WIN situation.

You think the complaints from the ending is bad?  I think this would have been much worse.

So, BioWare HAD to make it so every saved game could somehow win.

Thus:

• Galactic Readiness -- Able to DOUBLE your EMS, in case you had a really, REALLY bad import.  They even provided a non-MP method (requiring Android or iOS) to up GR.
• Minimizing those decisions by providing scenarios there were actually quite different but often ended up with minor strategic differences.

Also.. seriously... how 'significant' were those decisions on an overall galactic scale?  None of them impacted Cerberus' ability to operate (hence all those missions were the same).  None of them really impacted the Reapers' capabilities (hence the 'win' requirements were about the same). 

Finally, even if BioWare did decide to make hugely different storylines... that's like making several different games.  It would have taken forever to get to market.

Frankly, I think they did OK.  I've played a couple of variations, and I always felt that my choices did affect the world in strange and interesting ways.  But, since I never really considered any of my decisions earth-shattering, I wasn't expecting huge twists.  The only exceptions were the Queen and the Base.  But, mishandling those could have been very much game breaking, or even requiring, essentially four games (or two if only half changes) to handle all the plot/mission changes.

They could've easily included some content in ME3 that would end up as a "minimal win" (like similar to what is now if you have too low assets - earth is destroyed even though you technically "win").

1. Look above, the "war assets" mechanic is totally not needed at all, and just appears to be a lousy way of "dealing with loose ends" (Also, iOS only, no Android love at all, unless I'm totally mistaken.)

2. There's like dozens well-written complete examples of how alternatively the story could've been made so that all/most decisions would matter. There just simply is no need to tone down the choices that much.

Simplest example I can think of in less than a minute:
A number of obstacles / goals needed for the "win". Depending on choices made previously you either automatically win a few of these or get help during said scene from the affiliated party. (Example: Disrupt reaper communications in planet X. If you have NOT saved the Rachni, you battle against reaper minions/cerberus alone. If you DID, there'll be numerous Rachni Warriors on YOUR side. If the ME3 Rachni is a must, then if you didn't save her in ME1 but did in ME3, then the Rachni on your side would turn against you mid-way to the quest. If you win, you get one goal closer to defeating the reapers. All goals = best ending, half = minimum to win. Less than half and the ending is one where the Reapers win.)

There. Less than a minute of thinking and War Assests are totally pointless, and choices you've made previously directly and visually affect your gameplay AND story.

Just rinse and repeat for each possible goal.

[AnttiV]

Lightweight Nate wrote...

The plot doesn't differ terribly, but your decisions really do have a pretty big effect in the grand scheme of things. So many things are messed up and different with the non-import character that I created to get Kaidan's bonus powers. The decisions really come together to affect your war assets. The whole council thing plays out kind of intricately.

So, tell me. What does that matter? How does it affect your war assets? by tens of points? out of FIVE THOUSAND you need... and then what. The ending is STILL the same red, green or blue. 

If I take my full-paragon character that I've played through ME1->ME2->ME3 with completionist achievements for all (two playthroughs for each game) that has about 9000 assets. (4500 effective with 50%, but I play MP, so 9000)

Compare that to a renegade that I started only with ME3 and half-assedly ran through the game, not even bothering with all side quests (but did a few). That character has 2400 assets. (2400 effective with GR at 100%)

The ONLY difference. ONLY difference! Is that one short clip of the N7 armor taking a breath (so possibly Shep lives). THE ONLY THING. I wouldn't call that a "pretty big effect in the grand scheme of things." We ARE talking about a galaxy here. The difference is ONE LIFE. (Probably, it IS only a hint.)

[Jeremy Winston]

AnttiV wrote...

Jeremy Winston wrote...

I think this is a very unrealistic view of what ME 3 was going to be.

Fact: No matter how screwed up your ME1 and ME2 games were, BioWare simply HAD to give you a way to beat ME3.  Imagine the outcry from heavily Renegade import players when they discovered that, say, the combination of killing Wrex, losing the data, killing the queen, and sacrificing the council added up to a NO WIN situation.

You think the complaints from the ending is bad?  I think this would have been much worse.

So, BioWare HAD to make it so every saved game could somehow win.

Thus:

• Galactic Readiness -- Able to DOUBLE your EMS, in case you had a really, REALLY bad import.  They even provided a non-MP method (requiring Android or iOS) to up GR.
• Minimizing those decisions by providing scenarios there were actually quite different but often ended up with minor strategic differences.

Also.. seriously... how 'significant' were those decisions on an overall galactic scale?  None of them impacted Cerberus' ability to operate (hence all those missions were the same).  None of them really impacted the Reapers' capabilities (hence the 'win' requirements were about the same). 

Finally, even if BioWare did decide to make hugely different storylines... that's like making several different games.  It would have taken forever to get to market.

Frankly, I think they did OK.  I've played a couple of variations, and I always felt that my choices did affect the world in strange and interesting ways.  But, since I never really considered any of my decisions earth-shattering, I wasn't expecting huge twists.  The only exceptions were the Queen and the Base.  But, mishandling those could have been very much game breaking, or even requiring, essentially four games (or two if only half changes) to handle all the plot/mission changes.

They could've easily included some content in ME3 that would end up as a "minimal win" (like similar to what is now if you have too low assets - earth is destroyed even though you technically "win").

1. Look above, the "war assets" mechanic is totally not needed at all, and just appears to be a lousy way of "dealing with loose ends" (Also, iOS only, no Android love at all, unless I'm totally mistaken.)

2. There's like dozens well-written complete examples of how alternatively the story could've been made so that all/most decisions would matter. There just simply is no need to tone down the choices that much.

Simplest example I can think of in less than a minute:
A number of obstacles / goals needed for the "win". Depending on choices made previously you either automatically win a few of these or get help during said scene from the affiliated party. (Example: Disrupt reaper communications in planet X. If you have NOT saved the Rachni, you battle against reaper minions/cerberus alone. If you DID, there'll be numerous Rachni Warriors on YOUR side. If the ME3 Rachni is a must, then if you didn't save her in ME1 but did in ME3, then the Rachni on your side would turn against you mid-way to the quest. If you win, you get one goal closer to defeating the reapers. All goals = best ending, half = minimum to win. Less than half and the ending is one where the Reapers win.)

There. Less than a minute of thinking and War Assests are totally pointless, and choices you've made previously directly and visually affect your gameplay AND story.

Just rinse and repeat for each possible goal.

The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate, had to be a best possible winnable import.

To handle the above example, you're essentially coding, testing, and balancing two missions.  Yes, the terrain might be about the same, but nothing else is.  But, I suppose you're right.  We could have waited another 12-18 months for them to come out with the whole enchilada.

Modifié par Jeremy Winston, 22 mars 2012 - 07:27 .

[Atrumitos]

C'mon guys. How important did you expect your choices to be in the end game? "bad import means you miss half the missions" bad? That's terrible. A bad import (say dead jacob/jack) would end up with you losing EMS because the academy and arrae wouldn't be up. Same goes for miranda. Priority horizon not being available? Really?

The choices you make build on the plot. They don't create a plot.

I expected more from the ending for sure though. More on all my allies etc. But then again, the "breath" ending kinda points out that this ending isn't the "true ending" so I'm reserving judgement for then.

Plus, who the hell puts the normandy flying away from the warzone in the ending? Makes no sense. The indoctrination/dream theory has to be true.

[AnttiV]

Jeremy Winston wrote...

[*]The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate, had to be a best possible winnable import.

Excuse me, I don't think I understand this correctly. "the minimal win will not fly"?.. err.. excuse me that is the EXACT ending currently IN THE GAME. THAT really is a BioWare ending, currently incorporated. If you have <1700~<2000 effective assets (depending on criteria), Earth really does get destroyed and it IS counted as a win.

Also, Every import IS winnable if done as I said. Okay, let me explain a bit better. Say, there are a number of goals (like I said) that are needed to "win". Say there are 25 goals (or obstacles needed to overcome.) You need 10 to have that "minimal win ending". Decision carrying over from earlier games either outright grant a few automatic wins and/or affect the quest you undertake to achieve these goals (like I explained.) There are 25 possible goals to achieve in ME3. So you CAN achieve the highest ending solely by playing ME3, but it is that much harder, because you get no help and no automatic wins from earlier decisions. Say one of the goals is to secure funding for plan X. If you saved council in ME1, you automatically "win" that one and get that funding. Killed council? Yeah, do mission Y to secure their trust in you and you'll get that funding.

Can you now see what I'm talking about? Kind of similar to what ME2 had with the loyalty missions. You COULD do without them, but risk dying in the last mission. No need for arbitrary point pool.


EDIT: And you could combine the decisions. Another example: Take down one Reaper Assault thingy (similar to what you already do on Rannoch.) You have two missile launcher bases that take x amount of time to reload a missile. Without help you need to avoid the beam and fire the missiles manually, running form base to base. If you saved X in ME1 and did Y in ME2, the other base would be occupied and you'd only have to worry about one base. Re-programmed Geth in ME2? Saved BOTH races in ME3? There's a third, mobile base to help you fight the Reaper. Also, the Geth (now more powerful) have loaded themselves into the bases' mainframes, so the targeting thing is 25% faster (or targets as fast as always, even if you move).

There's literally hundreds or thousands of things that could be done instead of the "war assets" -mechanic, which just seems like a lazy way out if you ask me.

If there would be any point in it, I could probably come up with 30 of these "goal missions" in a week and have them polished in a month. There are multiple persons on these forums that could probably do that in day/week schedule. And come up with 500 more goals/guests.

There simply is NO other reason (than laziness/time constraints) for the War Assets mechanic.

Modifié par AnttiV, 22 mars 2012 - 07:46 .

[idspisp0pd]

Jeremy Winston wrote...
The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if
you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate,
had to be a best possible winnable import.

No it didn't. You had to be able to finish the game in some fashion by defeating the reapers, but there was nothing that said that you had to be able to get a "perfect" ending regardless of any of the choices you made in the previous games.

In fact, the devs repeatedly stressed that your earlier decisions would have "dire" consequences for ME3 (they actually used that word, IIRC). You can't have it both ways. They did everything they could to make it sound like you would have a hugely different experience depending on your import decisions, and that this wasn't going to be as one-size-fits-all as the ME2 plot arc.

You can't then turn around and defend them and say that our expectations, which they cultivated, were unrealistic.

[idspisp0pd]

Atrumitos wrote...

C'mon guys. How important did you expect your choices to be in the end game? "bad import means you miss half the missions" bad? That's terrible. A bad import (say dead jacob/jack) would end up with you losing EMS because the academy and arrae wouldn't be up. Same goes for miranda. Priority horizon not being available? Really?

The choices you make build on the plot. They don't create a plot.

Sure. I wasn't expecting an entirely different plot for my various imports. But I was expecting a mission or two to be added or subtracted, some battles to happen in one playthough but not in another, things like that. What some people seem to misunderstand is that there's a middle ground between "radically different plot for every playthrough" and "no discernable effect except for some numbers in a formula and maybe an extra line of dialogue."

And no, because I'm somewhat cynical, I can't say I was completely taken aback by the way it turned out, I was just a little disappointed. I still think ME3 is a great game minus the ending, I just think the hype machine leading up to it was pretty misleading.

[Jeremy Winston]

AnttiV wrote...

Jeremy Winston wrote...

[*]The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate, had to be a best possible winnable import.

Excuse me, I don't think I understand this correctly. "the minimal win will not fly"?.. err.. excuse me that is the EXACT ending currently IN THE GAME. THAT really is a BioWare ending, currently incorporated. If you have <1700~<2000 effective assets (depending on criteria), Earth really does get destroyed and it IS counted as a win.

Also, Every import IS winnable if done as I said. Okay, let me explain a bit better. Say, there are a number of goals (like I said) that are needed to "win". Say there are 25 goals (or obstacles needed to overcome.) You need 10 to have that "minimal win ending". Decision carrying over from earlier games either outright grant a few automatic wins and/or affect the quest you undertake to achieve these goals (like I explained.) There are 25 possible goals to achieve in ME3. So you CAN achieve the highest ending solely by playing ME3, but it is that much harder, because you get no help and no automatic wins from earlier decisions. Say one of the goals is to secure funding for plan X. If you saved council in ME1, you automatically "win" that one and get that funding. Killed council? Yeah, do mission Y to secure their trust in you and you'll get that funding.

Can you now see what I'm talking about? Kind of similar to what ME2 had with the loyalty missions. You COULD do without them, but risk dying in the last mission. No need for arbitrary point pool.


EDIT: And you could combine the decisions. Another example: Take down one Reaper Assault thingy (similar to what you already do on Rannoch.) You have two missile launcher bases that take x amount of time to reload a missile. Without help you need to avoid the beam and fire the missiles manually, running form base to base. If you saved X in ME1 and did Y in ME2, the other base would be occupied and you'd only have to worry about one base. Re-programmed Geth in ME2? Saved BOTH races in ME3? There's a third, mobile base to help you fight the Reaper. Also, the Geth (now more powerful) have loaded themselves into the bases' mainframes, so the targeting thing is 25% faster (or targets as fast as always, even if you move).

There's literally hundreds or thousands of things that could be done instead of the "war assets" -mechanic, which just seems like a lazy way out if you ask me.

If there would be any point in it, I could probably come up with 30 of these "goal missions" in a week and have them polished in a month. There are multiple persons on these forums that could probably do that in day/week schedule. And come up with 500 more goals/guests.

There simply is NO other reason (than laziness/time constraints) for the War Assets mechanic.

Then you'd have a zillion people complaining that the extreme 'Renegade' import got more game out of ME3.  They'd have more missions.  More game.

I think they decided they couldn't create a specific game varient for every possible decision matrix, so they found a way to equalize the stories.  They could have hidden the war asset concept.  You just play your missions, acquire help and, at the end, you win or lose.  There is ALWAYS an asset mechanic in play.  Even in ME2.  There was an asset mechanic for whether mates lived or died, especially for the group holding the line.  They just didn't spell it out.

As for the timeline... you're suggesting that 90% of the work involved was programming the engine? Or, perhaps, if you double the amount of goals you want to provide to handle the numerous decision trees made, there might be extra... voice acting, graphic assets, rendering time, story boarding, etc, etc. You make it sounds like you could take the combat engine and build a new ME game in a matter of weeks.

Modifié par Jeremy Winston, 22 mars 2012 - 08:03 .

[Jeremy Winston]

idspisp0pd wrote...

Jeremy Winston wrote...
The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if
you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate,
had to be a best possible winnable import.

No it didn't. You had to be able to finish the game in some fashion by defeating the reapers, but there was nothing that said that you had to be able to get a "perfect" ending regardless of any of the choices you made in the previous games.

In fact, the devs repeatedly stressed that your earlier decisions would have "dire" consequences for ME3 (they actually used that word, IIRC). You can't have it both ways. They did everything they could to make it sound like you would have a hugely different experience depending on your import decisions, and that this wasn't going to be as one-size-fits-all as the ME2 plot arc.

You can't then turn around and defend them and say that our expectations, which they cultivated, were unrealistic.

You're going to point at marketing materials?  In your very next post you describe yourself as being cynical, but you believed what they had to say about this?

And, yes... as someone coughing up $50 to purchase a game, I would expect to be able to get a perfect ending.  Since I might not even have an import, I have to be able to do that with the neutral/renegade defaults that are set up.  Likewise, if a particularly bad import has no chance of said perfect ending, then I should know before I buy that this is a possible issue.  Don't make me spend 40 hours with my import and THEN realize that there was never any chance of the ending I wanted.

ME2 let's you get the perfect ending, even though, in reality, your personality choices should have driven away any loyalty you might have garnered.  They simply ignored your ability to be a total and complete jerk.

Why should I expect they might make it truly important to the end of ME3?

Modifié par Jeremy Winston, 22 mars 2012 - 08:11 .

[OoKORKYoO]

Jeremy Winston wrote...

AnttiV wrote...

Jeremy Winston wrote...


[*]The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate, had to be a best possible winnable import.

Excuse me, I don't think I understand this correctly. "the minimal win will not fly"?.. err.. excuse me that is the EXACT ending currently IN THE GAME. THAT really is a BioWare ending, currently incorporated. If you have <1700~<2000 effective assets (depending on criteria), Earth really does get destroyed and it IS counted as a win.

Also, Every import IS winnable if done as I said. Okay, let me explain a bit better. Say, there are a number of goals (like I said) that are needed to "win". Say there are 25 goals (or obstacles needed to overcome.) You need 10 to have that "minimal win ending". Decision carrying over from earlier games either outright grant a few automatic wins and/or affect the quest you undertake to achieve these goals (like I explained.) There are 25 possible goals to achieve in ME3. So you CAN achieve the highest ending solely by playing ME3, but it is that much harder, because you get no help and no automatic wins from earlier decisions. Say one of the goals is to secure funding for plan X. If you saved council in ME1, you automatically "win" that one and get that funding. Killed council? Yeah, do mission Y to secure their trust in you and you'll get that funding.

Can you now see what I'm talking about? Kind of similar to what ME2 had with the loyalty missions. You COULD do without them, but risk dying in the last mission. No need for arbitrary point pool.


EDIT: And you could combine the decisions. Another example: Take down one Reaper Assault thingy (similar to what you already do on Rannoch.) You have two missile launcher bases that take x amount of time to reload a missile. Without help you need to avoid the beam and fire the missiles manually, running form base to base. If you saved X in ME1 and did Y in ME2, the other base would be occupied and you'd only have to worry about one base. Re-programmed Geth in ME2? Saved BOTH races in ME3? There's a third, mobile base to help you fight the Reaper. Also, the Geth (now more powerful) have loaded themselves into the bases' mainframes, so the targeting thing is 25% faster (or targets as fast as always, even if you move).

There's literally hundreds or thousands of things that could be done instead of the "war assets" -mechanic, which just seems like a lazy way out if you ask me.

If there would be any point in it, I could probably come up with 30 of these "goal missions" in a week and have them polished in a month. There are multiple persons on these forums that could probably do that in day/week schedule. And come up with 500 more goals/guests.

There simply is NO other reason (than laziness/time constraints) for the War Assets mechanic.

Then you'd have a zillion people complaining that the extreme 'Renegade' import got more game out of ME3.  They'd have more missions.  More game.

No not really cause you can do it in reverse too... For example saving the council might mean getting funding from them, removing that mission but somewhere else they could add another mission. What he was saying is there could be a total of 25 goals but you only need say 10 to win (bad ending) and maybe 20 to win (good ending), for both paragon or renegade Shepards.

[OoKORKYoO]

idspisp0pd wrote...

Jeremy Winston wrote...
The minimal win will not fly.  Any Shepard import.. ANY import, even if
you made every possible bad decision and lost every possible squad mate,
had to be a best possible winnable import.

No it didn't. You had to be able to finish the game in some fashion by defeating the reapers, but there was nothing that said that you had to be able to get a "perfect" ending regardless of any of the choices you made in the previous games.

In fact, the devs repeatedly stressed that your earlier decisions would have "dire" consequences for ME3 (they actually used that word, IIRC). You can't have it both ways. They did everything they could to make it sound like you would have a hugely different experience depending on your import decisions, and that this wasn't going to be as one-size-fits-all as the ME2 plot arc.

You can't then turn around and defend them and say that our expectations, which they cultivated, were unrealistic.

Agreed

So the "dire" consequences of al the decisions made were - Shepard takes 1 gasp of air or not... Wow how "dire" was that?

[Jeremy Winston]

OoKORKYoO wrote..
No not really cause you can do it in reverse too... For example saving the council might mean getting funding from them, removing that mission but somewhere else they could add another mission. What he was saying is there could be a total of 25 goals but you only need say 10 to win (bad ending) and maybe 20 to win (good ending), for both paragon or renegade Shepards.

But, again... you're expecting them actually code up those missions.. 25 instead of the 10 they need.

They didn't have the time/budget, or so I'm assuming. A slightly bigger problem is that you completely hide up to 1/2 the game for people without imports. In order to gain access to those missions you'd need to purchase ME1/2.

Now.. what would have been really cool (and still would be, IMO), would be a NG+ option where you can customize your decisions. I'd love to see some of the content I'm missing, but don't have the time to replay ME1/2 to get there.