481 réponses à ce sujet

[Gexora]

Joccaren wrote...

Ok, a question:
Why do so many people feel that it is impossible to defeat the Reapers conventionally. Yes, they are strong, but I was always given the impression from the game that we could defeat them if we united the Galaxy against them, so could someone please provide some compelling evidence for why a 100% completionist fleet at 7.8K EMS would be unable to defeat the Reapers.

Firstly, a few disclaimers:
-No "Hackett says so".
Saren says its impossible to stop Sovereign. Did you stop Sovereign?
It is said to be suicide to attack the Collector base. Can you get your whole squad out alive?
-Secondly, use in game stuff to prove your point. For example, 4 Dreadnoughts without Thanix guns take down 1 Reaper Capital Ship. In Codex, check it. Thanix guns are more effective, and thus less Dreadnoughts are needed. It also cites that most ships have been outfitted with Thanix guns.
-No "Another cycle would have done it were it possible". There are numerous refutes to this. 1: Attrition. Another cycle failed, but they weakened them enough for us to succeed. 2: We are the first cycle to have not had the Citadel taken and Relays shut down. Every other cycle has had to rely on conventional FTL travel and isolated planet defences, whilst we get the Relay network and united fleets.
-Assume the beset possible fleet to fight the Reapers. Highest EMS possible, every ship from every fleet.

I will accept a "It would take away from the power of the Reapers IMO" thing - as that is a legitimate opinion. I, however, feel opposite. Not every enemy devastates Thessia, Earth, Palavan, Dekuuna, Irune, Kar'Shan, [Forgotten name of Hanar Homeworld]. Not a single enemy has killed a member of Shepard's squad before [Remember, assuming best case until now] - but Thane and Legion MUST die, whilst Mordin, Grunt, Jack, Miranda, Morinth {Actually, Morinth is turned to a Banshee in the end no matter what so...} Ashley/Kaiden - all can end up dead. Yeah, that's Cerberus too. Cerberus are working for the Reapers however, thanks to Indoctrinated TIM.

So. Why can the Reapers no be defeated conventionally. I'm not saying it should be easy. It should require every damn fleet in the Galaxy and most of them will still die. However, I see comments saying not only that we wouldn't win the war against the Reapers, but many saying we wouldn't even win the battle for Earth. I don't see why.

So, respectfully, could someone explain this to me? Thanks.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Especially given that I completed literally every single ****ing sidequest in the Galaxy, I think at least the most dedicated players should have gotten the option to just nuke the Reapers.
Of course the losses would have been horrible, but, well, it IS intergalactic Apocalypse

[bpzrn]

The insulting part is that it was never "the team's" vision. The ending wasn't written by "the writers of Mass Effect", because Hudson and Walters

[Versidious]

Joccaren wrote...

Ok, a question:
Why do so many people feel that it is impossible to defeat the Reapers conventionally. Yes, they are strong, but I was always given the impression from the game that we could defeat them if we united the Galaxy against them, so could someone please provide some compelling evidence for why a 100% completionist fleet at 7.8K EMS would be unable to defeat the Reapers.

Firstly, a few disclaimers:
-No "Hackett says so".
Saren says its impossible to stop Sovereign. Did you stop Sovereign?
It is said to be suicide to attack the Collector base. Can you get your whole squad out alive?
-Secondly, use in game stuff to prove your point. For example, 4 Dreadnoughts without Thanix guns take down 1 Reaper Capital Ship. In Codex, check it. Thanix guns are more effective, and thus less Dreadnoughts are needed. It also cites that most ships have been outfitted with Thanix guns.
-No "Another cycle would have done it were it possible". There are numerous refutes to this. 1: Attrition. Another cycle failed, but they weakened them enough for us to succeed. 2: We are the first cycle to have not had the Citadel taken and Relays shut down. Every other cycle has had to rely on conventional FTL travel and isolated planet defences, whilst we get the Relay network and united fleets.
-Assume the beset possible fleet to fight the Reapers. Highest EMS possible, every ship from every fleet.

I will accept a "It would take away from the power of the Reapers IMO" thing - as that is a legitimate opinion. I, however, feel opposite. Not every enemy devastates Thessia, Earth, Palavan, Dekuuna, Irune, Kar'Shan, [Forgotten name of Hanar Homeworld]. Not a single enemy has killed a member of Shepard's squad before [Remember, assuming best case until now] - but Thane and Legion MUST die, whilst Mordin, Grunt, Jack, Miranda, Morinth {Actually, Morinth is turned to a Banshee in the end no matter what so...} Ashley/Kaiden - all can end up dead. Yeah, that's Cerberus too. Cerberus are working for the Reapers however, thanks to Indoctrinated TIM.

So. Why can the Reapers no be defeated conventionally. I'm not saying it should be easy. It should require every damn fleet in the Galaxy and most of them will still die. However, I see comments saying not only that we wouldn't win the war against the Reapers, but many saying we wouldn't even win the battle for Earth. I don't see why.

So, respectfully, could someone explain this to me? Thanks.

Well, it could be pointed out that, as you gather your fleets to attack the Reapers, they are already winning *everywhere* , all at once. It could be pointed out that they waltz up to the heavily-defended Citadel and take it over in the space of the couple of hours it takes for you to storm the Cerberus base, and that in the invasion of Earth, they wipe out half the human Navy in the space of a day. It could also be pointed out that Saren was indoctrinated and a lone gunman, whereas Hackett is the Alliance's highest-ranking Admiral.

The Reapers still have many advantages. To remind you, they pretty much ignore kinetic barriers, as they have beams that are what Thanix cannons wish they were, and that 4 is the number of conventional dreadnoughts required to owerwhelm a Sovereign class Reaper's shield quickly enough that it doesn't destroy all of them. In other words, to win, you need a ratio of the equivalent four dreadnoughts to the each equivalent Sovereign-class Reaper, or better. In an engagement of equivalent numbers, the citadel races are at a severe disadvantage. We know that the Reapers are extremely numerous, though we of course don't know exactly how much that extremely actually is. But I suspect it does not favour that ratio. All this, by the way, is after they've effectively been nerfed from Mass Effect 1, where Sovereign was able to ignore  the combined firepower of the entire Arcturus fleet + remaining council fleet until Shepard disrupted its shields. They've also become less maneuverable, with the Turians managing to outmaneuvre them for a while (Until the Reapers use their own tactics against them: See codex entries), when in ME1 Sovereign is able to make 'a turn that would shear any of our ships in half', and move faster than any Geth ships whilst still having strong enough KBs to ram Turian dreadnoughts into itty-bitty pieces. The Reapers also have better scanners, better drives, and the ability to go through several mass relays at once, without having to pause between jumps. They can pretty much pick when and where they fight. They may not have decapitated galactic government at the beginning, but they clearly don't think that they needed to, because they didn't bother with it until near the end, when they had the crucible to worry about!

Honestly, I would much rather have spent the game trying to learn about the Reapers, discover their weakspots, then lure them into a trap and break their back in a big fleet battle, instead of building a superweapon. I would also have made there be relatively few full-sized Reapers (Though, then again, bear in mind that pretty much each harvested species becomes a Reaper, and that they've done this hundreds of times before. Even taking into account Prothean-like failures, and casualties, that's still a *lot* of Sovereigns), and much, much more badass. But that might have made it harder for the writers to find a good reason for Shepard to commit suicide on his own.   :-P

Edit: Fixed spelling

Modifié par Versidious, 08 avril 2012 - 02:19 .

[Versidious]

(Incidentally, I'm also one of those who would have liked it if a maxed out EMS could have let you win conventionally, or if perhaps there were hidden endings that you could get in replays, or once having downloaded certain DLCs to boost EMS beyond what is currently the maximum amount)

Modifié par Versidious, 08 avril 2012 - 02:23 .

[Zix13]

Yup. Probably the best description of the problems with the endings.

[TarielMaeda]

I'm bumping this because it is the best video evers.

[Ericus]

Great video. And it really blows the barn doors off of the 'artistic integrity' argument. You can't have artistic integrity if you violate the principles of your artistic medium. In this case the medium is storytelling, which this video clearly demonstrates relies on narrative coherence.

Since Indoctrination Theory didn't pan out (I was one of those who thought maybe Bioware planned IT before release), I've been leaning more and more to the fan-cut endings that just delete the starchild. The simplicity of those endings is actually quite satisfying, and even motivated me to start replaying the trilogy.

After seeing this video, I now have a much better understanding of why the starchild is so problematic. It also means that I probably won't even bother downloading any new ending DLC that keeps the starchild. And I certainly wouldn't buy another ME game set after ME3 in that case, because the entire story would be built on an inappropriate premise. To be fair, if they did some sort of prequel I might still consider buying that since it wouldn't depend on the starchild.

[InsaneAzrael]

. www.youtube.com/watch

To the original poster of this vid.

Oh man, I damn near cried watching this.. Not just venting here, but that is exactly what the idea of the great renouned companies are to me. The guys who started with a dream and rolled out games that they loved.

The players would have their qualms, but the games came down to a work of passion.

I realise Bioware still work with their passions in mind. Yet it is buried so deep in a corporate cloud that we the fans lose heart and our minds when everything seems awry.

Perhaps they played the artistic integrity card because as far as Bioware was concerned, they were doing what they always were doing. Making games they loved. Unfortunately it was lost on them what the players were loving it for.

[braisbr1]

awesome video

[StrawberryRainPop]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I've not seen this. Watching now. Thanks for posting!

Holy moley! A mod who doesnt want to close a thread or ban people, but instead wants to watch a video we posted?

I already love you.

[InsaneAzrael]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

bad, plothole-riddled writing which introduces a deus ex machina shortly before the ending is NOT art. it is the very ANTITHESIS of art. Just look up the definition of a deus ex machina somewhere.

This is not art

vid from the same vid producer.

[Laurcus]

For me. Having had time to reflect on the ending. I don't think I hate it as much as I thought I did.

Or rather, some of that hatred is misplaced. I really don't like the concept of the Crucible at all. It's kind of the obvious solution. Back before ME2 came out, I kind of knew it would happen. Or at least I suspected.

Really what made me expect it was Halo. Halo and Mass Effect both have a similar problem. They're sci-fi settings where the good guys are completely outmatched. And no matter how good any one individual soldier is, the enemy is too strong to defeat in a military engagement. In Halo, the problem of the Covenant was solved by the Flood. And the problem of the Flood was solved by Halo.

I realized BioWare had kind of written themselves into a corner. The Reapers were too powerful. They couldn't be defeated without some kind of trump card. And I knew, that if no significant advantage was gained in ME2, BioWare would have to use a Halo style weapon of mass destruction to defeat them. There just aren't many other options, and it's by far the easiest way to wrap of the series. And that last sentence may have been slightly more negative sounding than I meant. I don't mean to imply that BioWare took the easy way out.

I really didn't want to see a repeat of Halo though. And on one level, that's what we got with ME3. So part of my dislike of the ending is definitely just a dislike of the Crucible. So I guess part of it is just that the final story arc of ME just isn't to my tastes.

I've always been more of a fan of Dragonball Z, and stories like that. Where the heroes win through some kind of dramatic act of heroism in straight up combat. Shepard just isn't that kind of hero though, and Mass Effect isn't that kind of story.

I guess, I was hoping that the game would just end with some kind of colossal space battle, with Shepard taking out Harbinger on the ground. And EMS determines if you win the space battle, and if you do win how much you lose. I wanted something less philosophical and unknown, and more grounded in reality.

Modifié par Laurcus, 08 avril 2012 - 02:53 .

[bpzrn]

The awesome 39 minute review, which is worth every minute.



He also made a video about the indoctrination theory. (I don't really lean one way or the other)



This one is about EA and Bioware.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6TmTv6deTI&feature=channel

And this one was made after the PAX panel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_x64921ls&feature=channel

[Njald]

Narrative matters. Bioware don't have the time or the money to fix it. So they spew PR garbage until we all leave.

[Njald]

StrawberryRainPop wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I've not seen this. Watching now. Thanks for posting!

Holy moley! A mod who doesnt want to close a thread or ban people, but instead wants to watch a video we posted?

I already love you.

He's not a mod. He is one of those guys who likes making good Bioware games. Let's hope his team(DA3) doesn't f*uck things up as much as ME team with Mac'n'Caseys out of the hat BS.

[Erethrian]

23:48 When talking about Narrative Coherence... So true... I hope IT is right somehow... If it's not, I just hope they'll release the best explained "Extended Cut" ever made...

[Esoretal]

Best video I've seen yet. Could not be more thorough and clear.

[Isichar]

Its true that there is a lot of minor things that people notice but are capable of ignoring because it does not generally take away from the main plot/theme/story. Most people say the first 99% is really good and then it all goes downhill. Lets be honest the first 99% is not a perfect game. Its an incredibly well built game that raises the standards but it still has noticeable flaws, but when the game is at its best it does not just do well it soars and easily makes up for the weaker moments.

The ending has a lot of flaws, and to be fair it has some really interesting concepts. Iv always liked the feeling of the unknown and the final theme of "where do we go from here" is quite a nice way to end a series. Where it becomes difficult to ignore the ending for me is that i simply just cannot really understand any choice I am making other then on a philosophical level, which feels rather detached for such an emotionally charged and intellectual series.

The normandy scene is a good example. The scene on its own would almost be fine if it did not require me to speculate as to; how my ground crew got on it, why joker was leaving, where exactly he was, how he survives a crash (if its not synthesis) and more. Also lets not forget the odds of a ship getting blown out of FTL or whatever mode it was in and then crashing onto an habitable planet (absurd odds... there's a thread on it somewhere lost in these forums). Had most these questions been answered i don't see how it would have taken away from the feeling of the unknown and the "where does the story go from here" aspect still presented in that final scene.

I'm happy Bioware is standing by their endings yet still willing to acknowledge that there are issues with the narrative consistency even if just from the fans pov that should be addressed, and hopefully the fans are willing to compromise a little too (which involves asking what the context of the scene is and not just focusing on the content). The best part about this video is how it shows there's a line between what many fans can ignore in favor of a well done scene, and when it becomes simply too much. Bioware just needs to find the right balance between mystery, coherency as to what your choices are as well as to what is happening in general, and emotional payoff for what mattered to the individual player.

Anyways interesting video. I enjoyed his star trek references quite a bit as it is a series that has aged very successfully, something I hope mass effect achieves too.

Modifié par Isichar, 08 avril 2012 - 03:15 .

[Yougottawanna]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Okay, my thoughts.  Initial high level stuff:  (NOTE: GIANT WALL OF TEXT ALERT, AND I WROTE IT WHILE TIRED SO IT MIGHT GET WEIRD BY THE END)

I enjoyed the attempts to add some humor.  In general that was good, although I would have liked to have seen all the questions he had posed that challenged narrative coherence.  And Wrex-Shepard went on a bit too long...  But alas!


I'll make my comments mostly in the same order points are brought up in the video.


His first serious beef is about the uncertainty of the Crucible's abilities.  He even states there isn't a codex entry.  Say what you will about the psuedo-Macguffin, for myself part of the intent of it was that it was mysterious and unknown.  Hackett even discusses with Shepard that he has uncertainties because he's not even sure if it will do what we want it to, so I'm not sure I entirely agree that this is a justified attempt at being nitpicky due to a lack of description.  Nitpicky justification comes at the inclusion of the Crucible in general as a plot device, but that's not an issue related directly to the ending.  I think it's fair to think the Crucible is lame, but I suppose a refutation is that we don't have any choice but to go with it.

Though the reason I don't mind a superweapon is that I did buy in that the Reapers could not be defeated conventionally.  Perhaps other alternatives could be explored, but this is what we were given as game players.  The feeling that it doesn't belong in the setting I think is a fair one, which the video does touch on.  Though IMO if you have issues with the Crucible in general, it undermines some of the events that happen in the ending because it's kind of liking counting twice.  If you think the Crucible is lame, then it stands to reason you're going to find other aspects of the Crucible lame as well.


As result, I do not agree with his concerns that the results of the consequences are arbitrary.  Yes, they are arbitrary, but not for no particular reason, but because it's part of the uncertainty that Hackett alluded to when discussing the Crucible.  We created a device we didn't fully understand and it led to consequences that we may not have been expecting.  I do not feel this undermines the narrative coherence, or makes the choice poor (in the other thread I discuss why I appreciated the fact that the Geth would probably die too).

This leads to a point that, at this poitn in the film, what he's really looking for is an explanation of what will happen.  Since he's not in favor of the idea of the extended DLC, he feels that this type of choice should be made explicit for the gamer prior to making the choice.  I disagree, but it's also clear to me that I am much more willing to accept that things were not entirely defined.  My conclusion is that the Catalyst is not an all knowing being, so even if he were to spend more time detailing out all the consequences, I have no problem if not every consequence is brought up.  I think the Catalyst's falliability is demonstrated in that Shepard can survive the decision.  This leads me to believe that it's possible with enough EMS that our Crucible is perhaps more precise than the Catalyst appreciated.  I do think that any resolution that the ending DLC may have (which I am also eagerly awaiting) may help a lot of people in this regard.  So I actually don't necessarily think "will this kill the Quarians" at the time is as reasonable as he feels.  Agree to disagree in that regard.

Concerns for the control ending are valid, although from a Shepard stand point I hesitated with it because my Shepard had doubts about what exactly it meant.  What level of control would I have?  What does it mean to control something even though I am dead?  That these questions existed, coupled with being uneasy with the Catalyst's intentions, made it hard for my Shepard to understand.  This goes double for the synthesis ending.  I can't really comprehend it as a person myself, which makes it difficult for me to decide to choose it.  Personally I think the choices were too similar to Deus Ex, and with the Catalyst being a Diabolus Ex Machina, I did have reservations with the situation.  I don't know why they were necessary, though I don't believe they're as logically inconsistent as others feel.  It's an easy cop out, which isn't a good thing, but unexplained things can be rationalized due to the unexplained nature of the Crucible itself.

Although, I think that spending a large amount of exposition detailing the consequences of my decision wouldn't have seemed right.  In my opinion, there is actually still a sense of urgency here, that needed to be better explained.  The Crucible is vulnerable, and delays will completely undermine it from doing anything as it is destroyed.  So I can understand a lack of additional explanation about the options themselves.  What I think would ahve been really good here is an opportunity to explicitly refuse these ideas.  You can sort of due this by just dying on the Crucible, but an ending that is "Critical Mission Failure" isn't really an ending.  Some sort of sequence of Shepard preserving the knowlege of this cycle for the next cycle would have been great.


Number two Character focus

I totally agree that caring about characters helps us care about what happens to them.  It's actually why I like the sacrifice of the Geth, because I do care about them.  It made me think about choosing destroy.

As for the Normandy scene, it's a scene I don't understand either.  I actually don't like it because it just seems so random and confusing.  I would have liked it for those scenes to have not existed at all.

The rest of this sequence I think details with closure, which is something I think is pretty subjective.  I am pretty indifferent and don't really feel a burning need to know the details of what happened, though at the same time I would have still enjoyed it if I did know.  The reason why I don't mind not knowing the details is I appreciate the idea of really not knowing any more than Shepard knows, and the idea that I have to make my choice with the hope that it is the right one, which I liked because the idea of hope is prevalent throughout the series.

Number Three: Central Conflict

I actually entirely agree that the Reapers didn't really need to be explained.  SImilar to how The Force didn't need to be explained, in doing so you diminish the mystique and potentially create additional confusion and questions.  I think this may have happened... hahaha.  (For the same reasons I would never have shown Tali's face).

Though I do feel that the Catalyst is the antagonist of the scene, not the protagonist.  I don't feel that the end choices are meaningless either.  

Unfortunately, combined with it being late (and me now being sleepy... haha) and some of his drawing parts out for humor, I think this area loses some steam after getting off to a really good start.


Narrative Coherence

I find this part more difficult to address based on preferring to see all the questions he had.  My concern was that to prove his point he starts to bring up issues the lie more with the general plot (what was the Crucible supposed to do) or issues that I didn't consider relevant (How did the Citadel move) to strengthen his point.

Narrative coherence does fall apart, but I think it's still maintained pretty well right up until Shepard is on the lift to see the Catalyst.  That's when the OMGWTFBBQ moment starts to happen and the uncertainty that the Crucible allows us to have goes really extreme. 


I definitely don't think that he hates Mass Effect.  No one that has spoken out with as much passion as the people that have hate the game.  If they hated the game they wouldn't care.  They wouldn't be posting clamouring for any type of response, and hanging on every announcement and making 30+ videos and sharing this video on several different threads.

I do agree that, while there's a unified movement for something to change for the ending, there are differences in what people want that complicate things.  I actually like the ending, and I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine that said she respected the ending, as she said it made her feel sheepish about how much she really wanted a happy ending which she said surprised her.  In this sense I suppose you could argue it's an artistic interpretation, but I came away thinking it wasn't fantastic, but I don't hate it either.  To be fair, I did go into the ending expecting it to be very bad based on the internet rumors, which definitely predisposed me to going into the ending with a more open mind than I otherwise would have.


My personal opinion of the ending is that an ideal solution of Shepard and his teammates all surviving, with minimal cost, undermines the Reaper threat as much as the Reaper explanation is, so I'm definitely a "tough choices" type of guy.  But, I'm not a complete nihilist because I actually never interpreted the galaxy as going to **** at the end.  A large part of this is that I never played Arrival, so I had no expectation of what would happen with the destruction of a relay.  Even then, though, I never felt it was as cataclysmic, as the explosions in the videos definitely didn't seem to be of the supernova variety.  But I was also expecting the ending to be more in line with the first two games, where you aren't really presented a choice like we are, but rather we accomplish the goal (defeat reapers) and that experience we see events that demonstrate the reactivity of our playthroughs.


I do think I'm probably more harsh than I should be.  I do prefer his breakdown than some of the other videos I have seen.

Anyways, I'm starting to fade pretty fast now and I should probably stop as the last several paragraphs probably make less and less sense... haha.  I'll have to stop by tomorrow and explain whatever gigantic confusing mess I've put myself into!

Hey, thanks for responding.  Thoughts:

The Wrex-Shepard bit can never go on too long.

About the Crucible: it's true that many of my complaints about the Crucible are ones that go beyond just the ending. The thing is that one of the things I hoped to reinforce in the video was the ending should be changed - and if I start saying that the entire main plot of the game should be changed, then what I'm suggesting starts to get less and less feasible and less and less likely to happen. It's true that these plot points are intertwined, and that it's difficult to change the ending without changing the Crucible plotline. But to me that's just part of the unavoidable sausage-making process of writing for a video game. I don't want to give specific suggestions (I do have my own head-canon though), but I think with a bit of ingenuity these obstacles are not insurmountable.

About knowing the details of your choices: For me the core of the problem is that not only do I not know the details, almost everything about the ending's overall vibe seems designed to reinforce the idea that details are no longer important. In my video about the extended cut announcement I do some nitpicky whining about how it makes no sense that shooting a tube should be the way to activate the Crucible for the destroy ending.

Now I suspect that the reason shooting a tube was chosen is because they wanted something that thematically was consistent with the idea of destroying something. That's fine, but it's very jarring to see just how counterintuitive the actual events I'm witnessing are. In the rest of the series, thematic consistency and narrative consistency worked together to form a cohesive whole. In the ending, narrative consistency is jettisoned and thematic consistency becomes the only concern. This is part of what I mean when I say that Mass Effect abandons its genre in the end. It becomes something more like a morality play, where abstraction and symbolism are the orders of the day rather than storytelling. You shouldn't end a science fiction story with a morality play; you should end it with more science fiction.

Anyways, I'm glad you responded. Way more satisfying to talk to an actual person instead of 140whatever characters worth of damage control.

Modifié par Yougottawanna, 08 avril 2012 - 03:39 .

[killnoob]

this is the type of critics bioware should listen to, not the at at IGN....

Allan, can you make sure Hudson/Walters see this please.

[mr.surv]

Cool vids

[ImmovableMover]

Samurai_Smartie wrote...

This Alan Schumacher smells like a plant trying to mind**** us into liking what theyre attempting to do with the DLC.

Beyond Allan not being on the Mass Effect team the idea that he's trying to "trick us" into liking something is a touch paranoid don't you think? Or is your opinion of BSN members that they are easily tricked through simply agreeing with them on certain points?