356 réponses à ce sujet

[lillitheris]

And the Citadel in Control warrants a special mention. It'd kind of suck if it just took off with the reapers…with probably a couple million people still inside.

[TheOptimist]

I'm all for these scenarios, as they encompass everything I wanted out of the ending the first time. I am convinced that they CAN make the endings acceptable, if not brilliant, with the proper clarifications. The question is whether they will do so.

[lillitheris]

TheOptimist wrote...

I'm all for these scenarios, as they encompass everything I wanted out of the ending the first time. I am convinced that they CAN make the endings acceptable, if not brilliant, with the proper clarifications. The question is whether they will do so.

Indeed. Call me foolish, but I still have faith

…

Any improvement ideas? I realized that one aspect I may not be covering properly is Renegade. Not sure how well these fit a true-blue Renegade, and don't want to guess at it. Critique?

[TheOptimist]

lillitheris wrote...

TheOptimist wrote...

I'm all for these scenarios, as they encompass everything I wanted out of the ending the first time. I am convinced that they CAN make the endings acceptable, if not brilliant, with the proper clarifications. The question is whether they will do so.

Indeed. Call me foolish, but I still have faith

…

Any improvement ideas? I realized that one aspect I may not be covering properly is Renegade. Not sure how well these fit a true-blue Renegade, and don't want to guess at it. Critique?

Wouldn't it be true-red?

Afraid I won't be much help.  I play 95% or more Paragon.  I do some of the more fun Renegade interrupts, because why wouldn't you, and I always (ALWAYS) let Garrus shoot Sidonis, but as far as Renegade conversation options my knowledge is sadly deficient.  Still, from what I know of most Renegon/Renegade players, I can make a few recommendations.

1.  Synthesis- I honestly have a hard time seeing Renegade players choosing this, for any reason. (Feel free to contradict me, Renegade folks). As little sense as this tends to make to a lot of Paragon players, (given the whole stripping the galaxy of freedom of choice and individuality, and forcing the ultimate eugenics program on everyone) if anything I think it would tend to make less sense to someone playing a Renegade/Renegon, since it fuses people with the synthetics Renegades have tended to hate.  I suppose an epilogue for such a Renegade/Renegon would want to focus on Shepard's willingness to always make the tough choices, and that in the end, Shepard accomplished the mission and made sure the cycle could never repeat itself. 

2.  Control- This would probably need the most adjustment, as a Renegade Shepard might very well take the opportunity to use the Reapers as a larger enforcement method for his own views and goals, for instance uplifting humanity to the detriment of the other races of the galaxy.  The problem is that makes a lot of assumptions about RenSheps motivations, essentially turning him into a version of TIM who was better at keeping control of himself.  While I have no doubt that's what some RenSheps wanted, some would undoubtedly be of the opinion that driving the Reapers into the sun was the best strategy.  You might want some dialogue options here to determine just what it is RenShep plans to DO with the Reapers once he controls them.

3.  Destroy- I think your current destroy ending works just as well for Renegades as it would for Paragons, given that in this instance the Renegade just wants the Reapers DEAD.  The epilogue for the rest of the galaxy would be the difference between Paragon, which for instance will likely have cured the genophage, and a Renegade who decided to go ahead and betray the Krogan.

[lillitheris]

Been trying to puzzle out a reasonable solution to The Normandy Problem™. It's turning out to be harder than plausibly explaining Synthesis -.-

Does anyone have any theories? The main problem is the distance and, thereby, time.

• Normandy is somewhere reasonably near Earth.
• The planet
• FTL: Aside from being insanely risky to go go into FTL from inside a system, the nearest terrestrial planet from Earth is 10,7 LY away. Even above the maximum recorded 17 LY/d flight speed, this means at least 10 hours of travel time. TEN. HOURS. 10. Hours.
• Mass Relay: Travel time itself is much lower, except that it takes several hours to get to Charon from Earth. And it'd take hours to get from the other relay to the planets of its system.

Modifié par lillitheris, 16 avril 2012 - 11:04 .

[Ieldra]

TheOptimist wrote...
1.  Synthesis- I honestly have a hard time seeing Renegade players choosing this, for any reason. (Feel free to contradict me, Renegade folks). As little sense as this tends to make to a lot of Paragon players, (given the whole stripping the galaxy of freedom of choice and individuality, and forcing the ultimate eugenics program on everyone) if anything I think it would tend to make less sense to someone playing a Renegade/Renegon, since it fuses people with the synthetics Renegades have tended to hate.  I suppose an epilogue for such a Renegade/Renegon would want to focus on Shepard's willingness to always make the tough choices, and that in the end, Shepard accomplished the mission and made sure the cycle could never repeat itself.

I don't know why people still come up with this. If your DNA was suddenly based on a different chemistry, how would this affect your freedom of choice and your individuality. In fact, gaining the nanotech-based synthetic symbionts which appear to be the most prevalent explanation for "how it works", individuals are much more likely to have more ways to express themselves than ever before.

I agree that (full) Renegades would be unlikely to choose Synthesis, but that's more because the Reapers appear to be left off the hook and Renegades tend to distrust the good intentions of enemies even after peace has been achieved. Renegades would also be less likely to believe in the Catalyst's reasoning in the first place, but that's another problem. But in the end, I don't think there should be a Paragon/Renegade variant for the Synthesis.

[Ieldra]

lillitheris wrote...
Been trying to puzzle out a reasonable solution to The Normandy Problem™. It's turning out to be harder than plausibly explaining Synthesis -.-

Does anyone have any theories? The main problem is the distance and, thereby, time.

• Normandy is somewhere reasonably near Earth.
• The planet
• FTL: Aside from being insanely risky to go go into FTL from inside a system, the nearest terrestrial planet from Earth is 10,7 LY away. Even above the maximum recorded 17 LY/d flight speed, this means at least 10 hours of travel time.
• Mass Relay: Travel time itself is slower, except that it takes hours to get to Charon from Earth. And it'd take hours to get from the other relay to the planets of its system.

What about this:

(1) The Normandy went FTL within the Sol system to reach the Charon relay fast. Insanely risky perhaps, but what's not insane about the whole situation in the Sol system at that point?
(2) It then started a relay jump. The explosion caught it mid-jump. Relay jumps are instantaneous (ignore the presentation), so let's assume that the target relay failed before the jump was initiated, which made the Normandy attempt a jump into "nothing". Results of that can be arbitrary.

The biggest problem remains: why? Why did Joker think that hightailing it out of the Sol system ASAP was necessary? And how did the team get on board?

[lillitheris]

Ieldra2 wrote...
What about this:

(1) The Normandy went FTL within the Sol system to reach the Charon relay fast. Insanely risky perhaps, but what's not insane about the whole situation in the Sol system at that point?

OK, top speed Earth-Charon travel time would be something on the order of 0.5 seconds. Let's assume it's actually possible to accelerate in that space, and adjust for the delta-v's…this is OK, we'd still be dealing with minutes rather than hours, with reasonable confidence. Hooray!

(2) It then started a relay jump. The explosion caught it mid-jump. Relay jumps are instantaneous (ignore the presentation), so let's assume that the target relay failed before the jump was initiated, which made the Normandy attempt a jump into "nothing". Results of that can be arbitrary.

The instantaneous is a big problem. Essentially, it should either work – or not. We can probably introduce a virtually instantaneous qualifier where it would be theoretically possible that the fault occurred in that minuscule frame. If it doesn't, then the Normandy would make it to the other side. The description of a “mass free space-time tunnel” doesn't really tell us much about what happens if the tunnel collapses. Hell, maybe they'll end up in the same place, just in the future?

Modifié par lillitheris, 16 avril 2012 - 11:30 .

[lillitheris]

There we go, I granted BioWare the permission to use the ideas in the OP just in case they feel like they need an extra licence

[Ieldra]

lillitheris wrote...
There we go, I granted BioWare the permission to use the ideas in the OP just in case they feel like they need an extra licence

You didn't put a Synthesis scenario in.... are you still unclear about its effects? I thought we had that down with the exception of the relay question.

BTW I still think that your setup, specifically with the higher EMS scenarios, is unbalanced in favor of Destroy unless there are tangible high-EMS benefits for the other options as well, for instance regarding the relays, which in their "best" version, would have to end up significantly better than in Destroy. This is because  for the player, the state of the organic/synthetic conflict, which you use as a balancing factor, has little impact because it's too abstract, totally overshadowed by the more tangible risks and benefits. It's also mostly denied by those who choose Destroy, and almost never brought up as an argument by those who choose Synthesis. Which lets the Destroyers end up with all the tangible goodies in your high EMS Destroy scenario. I am seeing no downside that isn't cosmetic. Were this in the game, I'd scream "blatant favoritism".  

Modifié par Ieldra2, 16 avril 2012 - 12:43 .

[lillitheris]

Ieldra2 wrote...

lillitheris wrote...
There we go, I granted BioWare the permission to use the ideas in the OP just in case they feel like they need an extra licence

You didn't put a Synthesis scenario in.... are you still unclear about its effects? I thought we had that down with the exception of the relay question.

Oh, mostly. Haven't had the energy to write it down. It's a living document I was updating some other posts. It's really hard to try to get any to stay visible for any amount of time on BSN because of the volume of posts complaining about the same problems you're trying to offer solutions to

This is because  for the player, the state of the organic/synthetic conflict, which you use as a balancing factor, has little impact because it's too abstract, totally overshadowed by the more tangible risks and benefits.

I agree with the sentiment and the analysis…although: I'm approaching this mostly from the perspective of the hypothetical character. I think they're mostly balanced if viewed from the perspective of someone actually living in that reality. Mostly – there's definitely tweaking to be done.

So, the question becomes how much the player should affect the matter. It's a single-player game so nobody is ‘cheating’, but are there other considerations? How much should it matter to us whether or not the player can really play the character and evaluate the options in that context? Does trying to build in such safeguards do injustice to the options from the character perspective? We're also somewhat restricted by the source material.

It's an interesting philosophical problem!

Modifié par lillitheris, 16 avril 2012 - 12:57 .

[lillitheris]

Looks like I also need to add a note about the prerequisite of Catalyst data dump or equivalent, in addition to Synthesis. Thought I already had.

[lillitheris]

lillitheris wrote...

Looks like I also need to add a note about the prerequisite of Catalyst data dump or equivalent, in addition to Synthesis. Thought I already had.

So noted.

[lillitheris]

lillitheris wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
What about this:

(1) The Normandy went FTL within the Sol system to reach the Charon relay fast. Insanely risky perhaps, but what's not insane about the whole situation in the Sol system at that point?

OK, top speed Earth-Charon travel time would be something on the order of 0.5 seconds. Let's assume it's actually possible to accelerate in that space, and adjust for the delta-v's…this is OK, we'd still be dealing with minutes rather than hours, with reasonable confidence. Hooray!

(2) It then started a relay jump. The explosion caught it mid-jump. Relay jumps are instantaneous (ignore the presentation), so let's assume that the target relay failed before the jump was initiated, which made the Normandy attempt a jump into "nothing". Results of that can be arbitrary.

The instantaneous is a big problem. Essentially, it should either work – or not. We can probably introduce a virtually instantaneous qualifier where it would be theoretically possible that the fault occurred in that minuscule frame. If it doesn't, then the Normandy would make it to the other side. The description of a “mass free space-time tunnel” doesn't really tell us much about what happens if the tunnel collapses. Hell, maybe they'll end up in the same place, just in the future?

I think the plausibility of this theory falls because of the relay jump. If that tunnel failed in that tiny midjump timeframe (the probability of which is really low), I have to think the results would be catastrophic at like 1:10^20 probability for landing safely on a lush planet.

The why-question is important too. I suppose it'd be feasible that Joker decides they need to go to FTL when they see explosions or whatever, but in the implied time shortage, would the decision be to jump specifically to Charon (with an unknown situation awaiting and having to do the relay plotting calculations), or just pick an arbitrary direction for a temporary retreat? Plus, obviously, the problem of actually having gathered the group in good health.

In short, although Ieldra2 pointed out a theoretically possible scenario, any explanation involving actual travel is so infinitely improbable that I don't think it can be done satisfactorily. Agree/disagree?

Modifié par lillitheris, 17 avril 2012 - 09:45 .

[FabricatedWookie]

The only way this can work out is if you include one Slim Pickens in this here ending clarification.

[lillitheris]

FabricatedWookie wrote...

The only way this can work out is if you include one Slim Pickens in this here ending clarification.

You thinking more King Kong, or something to do with horses?

[FabricatedWookie]

lillitheris wrote...

FabricatedWookie wrote...

The only way this can work out is if you include one Slim Pickens in this here ending clarification.

You thinking more King Kong, or something to do with horses?

[lillitheris]

So both

Anyway, anybody got anything on the Normandy situation? I still have to add the Synthesis and data dump stuff…

It's probably a bad time of day for most people, too early or too afternoon…but evenings are terrible with the FTL forums 

Modifié par lillitheris, 17 avril 2012 - 11:43 .

[lillitheris]

Added a note about blue and/or orphan children.

[lillitheris]

I still have to reply to TheOptimist, but does anyone else have a “true” Renegade's perspective on my suggestions or any portion thereof?

[lillitheris]

TheOptimist wrote...

1.  Synthesis- I honestly have a hard time seeing Renegade players choosing this, for any reason.

Tend to agree here, though frankly I don't really see any reason to choose it in any case. If the Renegade options were just “get it done by any means necessary”, maaaybe.

There's not much in the way of consequences, so I'm not sure whether there's much to adjust anyway.

2.  Control- This would probably need the most adjustment, as a Renegade Shepard might very well take the opportunity to use the Reapers as a larger enforcement method for his own views and goals, for instance uplifting humanity to the detriment of the other races of the galaxy.  The problem is that makes a lot of assumptions about RenSheps motivations, essentially turning him into a version of TIM who was better at keeping control of himself.  While I have no doubt that's what some RenSheps wanted, some would undoubtedly be of the opinion that driving the Reapers into the sun was the best strategy.  You might want some dialogue options here to determine just what it is RenShep plans to DO with the Reapers once he controls them.

I agree: I basically think that Control – without any new options – is intended as continuous control, and it can easily be shown that way (essentially the Reapers won't agree to anything that will harm them unnecessarily). With new dialogue options, yeah… Still, I have opened up the Control ending a little bit and will try to open it a little more, to facilitate more options.

3.  Destroy- I think your current destroy ending works just as well for Renegades as it would for Paragons, given that in this instance the Renegade just wants the Reapers DEAD.  The epilogue for the rest of the galaxy would be the difference between Paragon, which for instance will likely have cured the genophage, and a Renegade who decided to go ahead and betray the Krogan.

Sounds about right.

…

Anybody playing true Renegade? Really could use some input here

[Ieldra]

I don't understand why the Synthesis "needs" the "Normandy is a hallucination" scenario.

Also, there's a contradiction: we have that "tunnel" effect, but the Codex says that relay jumps are instantaneous. And the Normandy can't be in non-relay FTL because that would not leave enough time to get to an unknown garden world. So we'd either have to dismiss the "tunnel" effect as an artifact of the presentation, made by cutscene designers who ignored the lore, retcon the Codex or put the whole thing off as a dream.

I think it's best to posit that the energy beam/blue wave from the Crucible reached the Charon relay just before the Normandy initiated the relay jump. Which would mean the Normandy would've jumped while the relay was changing but before it became dysfunctional, resulting in a lost connection and a "mass-free corridor" without an endpoint.

[Ieldra]

lillitheris wrote...

This is because  for the player, the state of the organic/synthetic conflict, which you use as a balancing factor, has little impact because it's too abstract, totally overshadowed by the more tangible risks and benefits.

I agree with the sentiment and the analysis…although: I'm approaching this mostly from the perspective of the hypothetical character. I think they're mostly balanced if viewed from the perspective of someone actually living in that reality. Mostly – there's definitely tweaking to be done.

Then it's even more important, because the balance depends on how much the character believes of the Catalyst's reasoning. The balance must be centered around the kind of approach that would give the best interpretation of a specific ending: Destroy is best (or rather feels best, ot Shepard and the player alike) if Shepard doesn't believe the Catalyst. In that situation, your high EMS scenario has no significant downside - all you have added is cosmetic. You have basically done away with everything that makes Destroy undesirable, but kept everything that makes the other options undesirable. That is not acceptable.
For comparison, Synthesis is best if you believe the Catalyst, and there is still a very significant downside with the relay situation and with Shepard's death. Control is best if you are undecided, and there is, again, the relay situation. So, I maintain that your scenario is heavily unbalanced in favor of Destroy. I say if you have a Destroy variant with no significant downsides, there absolutely must be variants of the other endings with no significant downsides.

I don't think you should be able to wriggle out of the relay destruction in Destroy. Else I come and say you should be able to wriggle out of Shepard's death in Synthesis.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 17 avril 2012 - 08:51 .

[lillitheris]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I don't understand why the Synthesis "needs" the "Normandy is a hallucination" scenario.

Also, there's a contradiction: we have that "tunnel" effect, but the Codex says that relay jumps are instantaneous. And the Normandy can't be in non-relay FTL because that would not leave enough time to get to an unknown garden world. So we'd either have to dismiss the "tunnel" effect as an artifact of the presentation, made by cutscene designers who ignored the lore, retcon the Codex or put the whole thing off as a dream.

I think it's best to posit that the energy beam/blue wave from the Crucible reached the Charon relay just before the Normandy initiated the relay jump. Which would mean the Normandy would've jumped while the relay was changing but before it became dysfunctional, resulting in a lost connection and a "mass-free corridor" without an endpoint.

It doesn't work at all if there's no tunnel (i.e. it's instantaneous). In that case, they're either here, or there. There has to be a microframe in the transit for something to happen in.

It's a somewhat attractive thought that the beam would've changed the relay to nondirectional without somehow aborting the jump in progress (and hoping that it wouldn't cause a catastrophic failure), but on the other hand, it is shown still directional in the animations, and of course Normandy isn't there in the animation either. Possible? I suppose, but I don't really see any evidence directly supporting it, and a whole lot of questions (not least of which the squad and the FTL jump inside a system).

But this is basically what I meant originally…it takes so much time and effort to explain the Normandy as a real event – and even then only barely plausible – that they'd be infinitely better off to not do so. Especially when it seems to be people's #1 grief, and will be dissected to absolute death.

[Tony208]

This ain't strangelove, it's just crap.