913 réponses à ce sujet

[Raynulf]

Elyiia wrote...

omikron199 wrote...

my codex says this

1st

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

3rd

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

5th

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

8 ships of the 5th fleet were lost due to saving Destiny ascension, we do not know how much more they lost during the citadel fight in me1. We only know that it was 1/3

That's a retcon, in ME1 it's only the fifth fleet that comes through the relay.

One retcon of many in Mass Effect 3, almost all designed to try and force the player to accept the Crucible as the only option.

Tiny data cache on Mars (ME1)? Nope. Now a massive library of Prothean lore, which a miniscule alliance team have been slowly working on for 40 years with barely any significant progress.

Alliance 5th fleet alone joined the Citadel battle, and lost 8 ships to the Geth (and Sovereign)? Nope, now most of the Alliance fleets lost 1/3rd of their number.

Citadel being a massive trump card that shuts down the relay network? Nope, now its the home of the Catalyst - the ancient creator of the Reapers, and no longer does what it used to.


Looking at Mass Effect 3 in isolation, the "You cannot win conventionally" does have a little more credibility, and certainly with the game having hackett constantly beat that deceased equine throughout the game. But Mass Effect 3 is not just a sequel, it's the finale to the Mass Effect trilogy. And when you take Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 into account... the Crucible being "The only way out" is just... lame.

[Elyiia]

Raynulf wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

omikron199 wrote...

my codex says this

1st

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

3rd

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

5th

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

8 ships of the 5th fleet were lost due to saving Destiny ascension, we do not know how much more they lost during the citadel fight in me1. We only know that it was 1/3

That's a retcon, in ME1 it's only the fifth fleet that comes through the relay.

One retcon of many in Mass Effect 3, almost all designed to try and force the player to accept the Crucible as the only option.

Tiny data cache on Mars (ME1)? Nope. Now a massive library of Prothean lore, which a miniscule alliance team have been slowly working on for 40 years with barely any significant progress.

Alliance 5th fleet alone joined the Citadel battle, and lost 8 ships to the Geth (and Sovereign)? Nope, now most of the Alliance fleets lost 1/3rd of their number.

Citadel being a massive trump card that shuts down the relay network? Nope, now its the home of the Catalyst - the ancient creator of the Reapers, and no longer does what it used to.


Looking at Mass Effect 3 in isolation, the "You cannot win conventionally" does have a little more credibility, and certainly with the game having hackett constantly beat that deceased equine throughout the game. But Mass Effect 3 is not just a sequel, it's the finale to the Mass Effect trilogy. And when you take Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 into account... the Crucible being "The only way out" is just... lame.

To be fair, if you look at everything they retconned the entire Reaper force could be taken out with fighters.

[MakeMineMako]

Elyiia wrote...

Raynulf wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

omikron199 wrote...

my codex says this

1st

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

3rd

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

5th

This fleet lost a third of its vessels protecting the Council during the Battle of the Citadel two years ago. Unfortunately, the Alliance did not have time to rebuild the fleet to its previous strength before the Reapers invaded.

8 ships of the 5th fleet were lost due to saving Destiny ascension, we do not know how much more they lost during the citadel fight in me1. We only know that it was 1/3

That's a retcon, in ME1 it's only the fifth fleet that comes through the relay.

One retcon of many in Mass Effect 3, almost all designed to try and force the player to accept the Crucible as the only option.

Tiny data cache on Mars (ME1)? Nope. Now a massive library of Prothean lore, which a miniscule alliance team have been slowly working on for 40 years with barely any significant progress.

Alliance 5th fleet alone joined the Citadel battle, and lost 8 ships to the Geth (and Sovereign)? Nope, now most of the Alliance fleets lost 1/3rd of their number.

Citadel being a massive trump card that shuts down the relay network? Nope, now its the home of the Catalyst - the ancient creator of the Reapers, and no longer does what it used to.


Looking at Mass Effect 3 in isolation, the "You cannot win conventionally" does have a little more credibility, and certainly with the game having hackett constantly beat that deceased equine throughout the game. But Mass Effect 3 is not just a sequel, it's the finale to the Mass Effect trilogy. And when you take Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 into account... the Crucible being "The only way out" is just... lame.

To be fair, if you look at everything they retconned the entire Reaper force could be taken out with fighters.

Yep. And too bad. The Alliance builds carriers to get around treaty restrictions on dreadnoughts. Lots of fighters being hauled around.

[omikron199]

Elyiia wrote...

That's a retcon, in ME1 it's only the fifth fleet that comes through the relay.

Well blame Bioware, they did it

[D_Dude1210]

a.m.p wrote...

D_Dude1210 wrote...

The sad thing about this all is that people who feel that the ending made sense really do genuinely believe that the Starchild ending was an extremely logical ending without a whole ton of hindsight cognitive bias involved.

I don't know. I get the impression that people who do like the ending like it being vague and interpreting it in various ways that seem far detached from what I think the original intention was.

Then again, I'm at times extremely confused with the original intention. It would have really helped if someone actually tried talking about what that vision was that apparently formed the current ending. They did mean to say something with it, right?

Liking the ending and thinking that the ending made sense are two different things. I actually feel good about people liking the ending.  And to be frank, I feel like people who hated the ending should just let them enjoy it, no need to drag them into our misery.

It's when they start explaining about how much it makes sense is when they start falling over their own feet.

[a.m.p]

Elyiia wrote...

Hey a.m.p, shouldn't it be possible to work out the strength of a FTL ship missile seeing as we know how much a 20kg slug hits for going 1.3% faster than the speed of light?

Well. We know how strong a dreadnaught's main gun is. So... does it have just one of those? If not, then how many? What about thanix cannons? It's never directly stated, but it's implied dreadnaughts have those too, and they work better than kinetic weapons. How much better? Again how many of them on one dreadnaught? Can all of this be fired simultaneously?

Too many unknowns in the statement "four dreadnaughts' fire can drop a reaper's shields".

So far my desired performance characteristics are as follows:
1) range: what is the range of a reaper beam? double that.
2) accuracy: a reasonable probability to hit a reaper from that range.
3) cost of mass production: low enough to be able to mass produce in a galaxy under reaper attack.
4) energy output: whatever optimum we can manage considering those previous conditions, that are all interconnected too.
Nice addition would be some degree of stealth - low heat emissions until it locks on and fires up the drive.

Modifié par a.m.p, 21 avril 2012 - 07:47 .

[Elyiia]

a.m.p wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

Hey a.m.p, shouldn't it be possible to work out the strength of a FTL ship missile seeing as we know how much a 20kg slug hits for going 1.3% faster than the speed of light?

Well. We know how strong a dreadnaught's main gun is. So... does it have just one of those? If not, then how many? What about thanix cannons? It's never directly stated, but it's implied dreadnaughts have those too, and they work better than kinetic weapons. How much better? Again how many of them on one dreadnaught? Can all of this be fired simultaneously?

Too many unknowns in the statement "four dreadnaughts' fire can drop a reaper's shields".

So far my desired performance characteristics are as follows:
1) range: what is the range of a reaper beam? double that.
2) accuracy: a reasonable probability to hit a reaper from that range.
3) cost of mass production: low enough to be able to mass produce in a galaxy under reaper attack.
4) energy output: whatever optimum we can manage considering those previous conditions, that are all interconnected too.
Nice addition would be some degree of stealth - low heat emissions until it locks on and fires up the drive.

There was a thread where we worked out the strength of a Reaper's shield based on it taking somewhere from 1seconds to 30 seconds of continuous fire from 4 Dreadnoughts but I can't remember what the values were.

[a.m.p]

Elyiia wrote...

To be fair, if you look at everything they retconned the entire Reaper force could be taken out with fighters.

Well, then they could have written a sufficiently powerful reaper force that took all of this to take out and still almost won and then maybe we could have seen some of that "our numbers will darken the sky".

*must resist the urge to write fanfiction*

Seriously though, the only real downside of conventional reaper-fighting is that it's hard (but not impossible) to write a videogame story with a sufficiently satisfying conclusion based on it - victory would likely not come in one glorious and epic final battle.

[a.m.p]

Elyiia wrote...

There was a thread where we worked out the strength of a Reaper's shield based on it taking somewhere from 1seconds to 30 seconds of continuous fire from 4 Dreadnoughts but I can't remember what the values were.

I totally missed that. If you happen to find it again, I'd like to see it.

Modifié par a.m.p, 21 avril 2012 - 08:04 .

[Elyiia]

a.m.p wrote...

I totally missed that. If you happen to find it again, I'd like to see it.

Unfortunately, it's been a while. We were talking about how anti-matter weapons were retconned out and how they could match a dreadnoughts firepower on a fighter.

[D_Dude1210]

My version of a conventional victory would involve using cloaked geth fighters packing a nuke and a bait dreadnought.

Launch various wings of different fighters, outfit random ones with a nuke and a cloaking device, entice the Reaper to fire its main gun at the dreadnought. Geth figher uncloaks and kamikazes into the mouth of the the Reaper cannon, blowing it up.

Rinse. Reapeat. Dead reapers.

Modifié par D_Dude1210, 21 avril 2012 - 08:15 .

[a.m.p]

@D_Dude1210
This is not about strategy and tactics, you heretic.

I think we should go and gather all the reasonable lore-based reaper-fighting solutions people have come up with, compile a list with all pros and cons and drop it it into the feedback thread. Not sure I'll find the time this weekend though.
Edit, after quickly scanning through some of the linked threads: or ever:pinched:

Modifié par a.m.p, 21 avril 2012 - 08:41 .

[D_Dude1210]

Wait, what is this about then?

Anyway, for a race that's supposedly unstoppable, they sure have quite a large and gaping Achilles Heel. Main gun needs to be opened for it to fire leaving it vulnerable. I'm surprised the Protheans didn't figure this out and exploited it (or at least leave behind the information for other reasons to find). Heck, multiple missles launced from a ground vehicles and personnel managed to take down a destroyer.

When I actually ran into this in the game, I almost thought they'd pull the whole Independence Day (the movie) type ending and have the alliance pick off the Reapers one by one via their weakness.

It almost makes sense that the Catalyst would try and trick Shepard into killing himself via the RGB ending so as for him not to escape, survive and coordinate the combined fleets into a focused strategy to defeat the reapers.

Modifié par D_Dude1210, 21 avril 2012 - 08:58 .

[a.m.p]

D_Dude1210 wrote...

Wait, what is this about then?

Hell if I know. Tubes, joysticks and jumping into beams of light?

D_Dude1210 wrote...
Anyway, for a race that's supposedly unstoppable, they sure have quite a large and gaping Achilles Heel. Main gun needs to be opened for it to fire leaving it vulnerable. I'm surprised the Protheans didn't figure this out and exploited it (or at least leave behind the information for other reasons to find). Heck, multiple missles launced from a ground vehicles and personnel managed to take down a destroyer.

When I actually ran into this in the game, I almost thought they'd pull the whole Independence Day (the movie) type ending and have the alliance pick off the Reapers one by one via their weakness.

It almost makes sense that the Catalyst would try and trick Shepard into killing himself via the RGB ending so as for him not to escape, survive and coordinate the combined fleets into a focused strategy to defeat the reapers.

As for the protheans, I never tire of repeating that they managed to catively fight reapers (as illustrated by Javik's story) decades after the initial attack, while being locked in their clusters with no chance of reinforcements or significant maneuver. I assume they did figure out some workimg strategies, or they'd be dead within a year and there would be no Javik to tell us the tale.

[D_Dude1210]

Yeah, I know. But my point is that why the strategy of hitting them as they fire their main gun wasn't common knowledge throughout the Prothean warnings about the Reapers. Hell, as Javik was a military commander and would no doubt be in the know regarding the latest strategy and tactics, why did he never discuss such a weakness during the entirety of the series of him following you around (or did he? I never used him much)? I mean the implication of such a reaper weakness was HUGE. With that weakness, the possibility of a conventional victory was pretty much a possibility.

Edit: Also, I'm NOT a heretic. You hoit muh feewings.

Modifié par D_Dude1210, 21 avril 2012 - 09:46 .

[a.m.p]

D_Dude1210 wrote...

Yeah, I know. But my point is that why the strategy of hitting them as they fire their main gun wasn't common knowledge throughout the Prothean warnings about the Reapers. Hell, as Javik was a military commander and would no doubt be in the know regarding the latest strategy and tactics, why did he never discuss such a weakness during the entirety of the series of him following you around (or did he? I never used him much)? I mean the implication of such a reaper weakness was HUGE.

Well there is still the matter of their shields. If Sovereign is any indication, shields are their main defense, once they are down they are relatively easy to finish off.
The codex says that when a reaper is on the ground, it has to lower it's mass, transferring power to the mass effect field generators from the shields, so the shields of those destroyers we shot were weakened, which would not be true for big fat sov-class reapers in space. It all comes down to numbers which we don't have. All we have is cutscenes and vague codex entries.

Edit: Also, I'm NOT a heretic. You hoit muh feewings.

Yes you are, you don't believe The Shepard when The Shepard says you don't need strategy and tactics. Neither do I, so I'm a heretic too. Welcome to the club.

Modifié par a.m.p, 21 avril 2012 - 10:17 .

[phantomdasilva]

Just a thought here

If the catalyst is the one that is controlling the reapers and it is their solution.

what happens is you destroy it. What happen if Commander shepard calls up Hackett or the normandy and say "pick me up and focus the fieet fire on the citadel and blow it up" . Or if they are unable to pick shepard up just get them to destroy the citadel with shepard on it and sacrifice his/her life

If the catalyst is the leader of the reapers, surely that must have some impact on the battle if the catalyst dies.

Is that another alternate ending?

edit: I just realised that Torudoom ending suggestion is similar where Shepard hack (although I would make it class specific where the tech hack, soldier shoot, biotics used their power) to destroy starchild.

This disrupt the fleet communication and therefore the reapers no longer attack in an organised manner and turns off their shields and then gives the fleet a chance of conventional victory

ok i'm choosing that ending because you get to kill starchild and actually makes the crucible not completely a waste of time as well

Modifié par phantomdasilva, 21 avril 2012 - 11:06 .

[a.m.p]

phantomdasilva wrote...

Just a thought here

If the catalyst is the one that is controlling the reapers and it is their solution.

what happens is you destroy it. What happen if Commander shepard calls up Hackett or the normandy and say "pick me up and focus the fieet fire on the citadel and blow it up" . Or if they are unable to pick shepard up just get them to destroy the citadel with shepard on it and sacrifice his/her life

If the catalyst is the leader of the reapers, surely that must have some impact on the battle if the catalyst dies.

Is that another alternate ending?

It could be. We have a few examples linked on the first page of how using that fact could weaken/disorient the reapers and help the fleet prevail. Some are quite profound. The beauty of the situation is that we know absolutely nothing about the catalyst and anything could be written in and it wouldn't contradict a ting.

Of course until something like this is actually in the game people can always say that it can't be done, because it wasn't in the game.

[Elyiia]

I like the concept of the Crucible being a Reaper plan B if they can't jump through the Citadel. At the very least it would make the Reapers seem less brain dead when it comes to tactics.

[Veloric Wu]

I'm not against the current Endings, save the part they're really rough and unfinished. But that transparent brat needs to disappear.

[the slynx]

phantomdasilva wrote...
edit: I just realised that Torudoom ending suggestion is similar where Shepard hack (although I would make it class specific where the tech hack, soldier shoot, biotics used their power) to destroy starchild. ...

Makes sense. I'll edit my post in the next couple days to indicate that would be a possibility.

[a.m.p]

phantomdasilva wrote...
edit: I just realised that Torudoom ending suggestion is similar where Shepard hack (although I would make it class specific where the tech hack, soldier shoot, biotics used their power) to destroy starchild. ...

By loose association that just made me remember my first fit of confusion about starchild. The general consensus is he is a hologram, but my first question even before he started talking was "why the hell does he look like a biotic field shaped like a child?".

Anyway, I digress. I'd argue against the class-specific ways to disable starchild. Soldier or engineer, torudoom rightfully points out that Shepard is not technologically inept and I really doubt technical specialization would give any advantage in hacking an ancient AI interface. And then there's the matter of what we're trying to do - which is cause damage. So I'd argue that it should be both - fiddling with the interface and shooting hardware, with a bonus for biotic Shepards to rip stuff out with biotics. Because as far as I know biotic Shepards never get to show off their biotics in cutscenes and they definitely deserve that.

Modifié par a.m.p, 21 avril 2012 - 04:40 .

[the slynx]

a.m.p wrote...

Anyway, I digress. I'd argue against the class-specific ways to disable starchild. Soldier or engineer, torudoom rightfully points out that Shepard is not technologically inept and I really doubt technical specialization would give any advantage in hacking an ancient AI interface. And then there's the matter of what we're trying to do - which is cause damage. So I'd argue that it should be both - fiddling with the interface and shooting hardware, with a bonus for biotic Shepards to rip stuff out with biotics. Because as far as I know biotic Shepards never get to show off their biotics in cutscenes and they definitely deserve that.

That's why I like the suggestion. One of the complaints people have had here is that the endings didn't seem to reflect their choices enough. Giving an ending sabotage choice that involves their class abilities is at least a step in the right direction. I tend to think a straight computer sabotage would work fine, but endings sometimes need that extra snazz.


Edit: Also, wait, are you sure just stomping on delicate technology doesn't fix it?

Modifié par torudoom, 21 avril 2012 - 06:18 .

[ragnorok87]

bump

[a.m.p]

torudoom wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

Anyway, I digress. I'd argue against the class-specific ways to disable starchild. Soldier or engineer, torudoom rightfully points out that Shepard is not technologically inept and I really doubt technical specialization would give any advantage in hacking an ancient AI interface. And then there's the matter of what we're trying to do - which is cause damage. So I'd argue that it should be both - fiddling with the interface and shooting hardware, with a bonus for biotic Shepards to rip stuff out with biotics. Because as far as I know biotic Shepards never get to show off their biotics in cutscenes and they definitely deserve that.

That's why I like the suggestion. One of the complaints people have had here is that the endings didn't seem to reflect their choices enough. Giving an ending sabotage choice that involves their class abilities is at least a step in the right direction. I tend to think a straight computer sabotage would work fine, but endings sometimes need that extra snazz.

All right then how about this:
Soldier: hack, then shoot, then shoot some more until something explodes
Engineer/Infiltrator: hack, then hack some more and overload something, shoot
Vanguard/Adept: hack, shoot, tear out stuff with biotics
Sentinel: hack, then hack more and overload, then tear out stuff with biotics

(Disclaimer: don't want my soldier Shepard to mindlessly shoot stuff without first trying to understand what's what)

@ragnorok87
That was a friendly bump, right?