129 réponses à ce sujet

[LostHH]

Yeah I miss the exploration. I can understand the need for less due to impending invasions/reapers attacking etc but hell, I still want my own time to run around exploring every nook and cranny.
It might not be to everyones tastes but whatever.
I thought ME1 had loads of potential with DLC by adding new planets and systems to explore after the end game. I guess they just chucked that whole idea down the toilet after selling out the EA

[wizardryforever]

Fixers0 wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Calinstel wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Calinstel wrote...

For what it's worth, off the top of my head is Major Kyle, ME1

That one doesn't count, as it can be resolved with gunplay, if your social skills suck, or you just want to shoot stuff.

Ah, but it DOES count.  It can be resolved without any gunfire what so ever. 

The question was about missions with no gunplay whatsoever, not missions that can be resolved that way if you happen to play your cards right.

Yes, Freedom of choice, Remember that, now name me one instance post Me1 outside of Mordin 's Recruitment Mission where the player has a choice to engage the enemy or not.

Way to shift the goal posts there.  But whatever.  There's many instances post ME1 that involve not shooting someone (as in, choosing not to), but they're all in cutscenes.  The numerous renegade interrupts in ME2 removed the need to exit the cutscene in order to shoot someone, or otherwise kill them.  Aside from that, there's a lot of places where squadmates kill someone or not based on your actions or inactions.  Do I really need to list them all?

[Cadence of the Planes]

DWH1982 wrote...

Honestly, they could have implimented exploration within the plot by adding one simple line from Hackett after Earth:

"Shepard, one more thing: To aid with the construction of the crucible, you have a mandate to search for prothean technology wherever you might find it."

And, with that, you have justification for exploring uncharted worlds, even in the middle of a war - and presumably stumbling on to side missions along the way.

I thought it was okay. Too much exploration would have detracted from the sense of urgency in the game.

[abaris]

Cadence of the Planes wrote...

I thought it was okay. Too much exploration would have detracted from the sense of urgency in the game.

It was nice touch to make some side missions only available for a short time until they blew up in your face. Totally OK with that. But otherwise there's no real sense of urgency, not even artificial.

[Cadence of the Planes]

abaris wrote...

Cadence of the Planes wrote...

I thought it was okay. Too much exploration would have detracted from the sense of urgency in the game.

It was nice touch to make some side missions only available for a short time until they blew up in your face. Totally OK with that. But otherwise there's no real sense of urgency, not even artificial.

I mean-  I guess it's just opinion vs opinion- and that hardly makes for productive debate.

I liked the feel of ME1, ME2, and ME3 - though there were many elements which were similar, the overall feel was definitely different in ME1

[AlanC9]

abaris wrote...

Cadence of the Planes wrote...

I thought it was okay. Too much exploration would have detracted from the sense of urgency in the game.

It was nice touch to make some side missions only available for a short time until they blew up in your face. Totally OK with that. But otherwise there's no real sense of urgency, not even artificial.

Really? What game did it better?

If anything, I thought ME3 really showed us how badly DA:O handled this aspect.

[abaris]

AlanC9 wrote...

Really? What game did it better?

If anything, I thought ME3 really showed us how badly DA:O handled this aspect.

Did it now?

But as always I assume you're not looking for any kind of answer in your sweet little lair under the bridge. I'm giving it anyway, since that thread should move to a more prominent position again.

Honestly, I don't even care about a sense of urgency, since I'm always fully aware of playing a game. That said, there is none and I didn't mean that to be criticism, only clarification.

And as I said, the closest thing to urgency are those side missions that blow up if you let the stew. And that was kind of a nice touch.

Modifié par abaris, 25 avril 2012 - 11:46 .

[Lord Phoebus]

They could have added a sense of urgency by adding time limits, or having the outcome dependent on the amount of time you take, e.g. the longer you take on the Geth dreadnought, the fewer Quarian war assets you get. However, people hate time limits in games, even generous limits.

Modifié par Lord Phoebus, 25 avril 2012 - 12:17 .

[abaris]

Lord Phoebus wrote...

They could have added a sense of urgency by adding time limits, or having the outcome dependent on the amount of time you take, e.g. the longer you take on the Geth dreadnought, the fewer Quarian war assets you get. However, people hate time limits in games, even generous limits.

Yeah, but then we're almost in the pure shooter realm.

I for one don't care for that kind of playstyle.

[MakeMineMako]

mauro2222 wrote...

Lack of patience seems to be the problem...

Shoot and... shoot again <_<

That's pretty much what it boils down to. The reasoned excuses against are just a cover for the impatience.

Mass Effect 1 had a combination of planetside exploration and orbital scanning (items and minerals). I throughly enjoyed the UNC assignments. Mass Effect 2 still had some interesting side missions, but most of the N7 assignments were mostly run 'n gun. As for the vehicle issue in ME2, Firewalker was boing and linear. Overlord was better, but the vehicle sections still felt railroaded and linear. But Overlord can be handwaved away in that it was a combat assignment. Firewalker had no such excuse.

Planet scanning for resources and mission locations in ME2 was interesting. More immersive than ME3's scanning, in any case. It felt rushed and lazy to scan for most of your quest items. ME3 should have been a combination of the two, much like ME1, if players didn't want the in-depth scanning of ME2.

A lot of the side missions and quests in ME3 were run 'n gun. No bypassing, no hacking, no real searching. Just smash and grab. Immersion is killed because people want more SHOOTAN and less RPG. And yes, even an "action RPG" will/should have strong RPG elements, and not focus the majority of the effort on blowing away the bad guys. They have Call of Duty for that.

Despite some arguements to the contrary, and people attempting to marginalize this by saying ME1 was limited also, Mass Effect 3 (no matter how you look at it) was extremely watered down when compared to ME1 and ME2. And considering the foundation layed for the franchise in ME1, the successful formula, there was no excuse for ME3 to be so lacking. 

Modifié par MakeMineMako, 25 avril 2012 - 01:02 .

[kumquats]

Games like Gothic and the Elder Scrolls are all about exploration. And they do that very well.
The exploration in ME1, is nothing more then a useless time sink. It's not working at all.

I wish they had added a mini game like in Jade Empire. Flying around with the Normandy in 2-D and shooting at Reapers would have been more fun then anything they did in ME1.
The Mako is my arch enemy.

Project Overlord was okay, but deep down inside, I hope I don't have to use a vehicle in Mass Effect again....

[TweedleDee66]

The lack of exploration in ME3 is insulting really.

Lets start at the Citadel. When did they put in Star Trek type elevators there that has you walk into a single elevator that takes you to all your destinations? I’m sorry but I’m not buying that Dock Bay D24, Docks; Holding Area, Citadel Embassies, Purgatory Bar, Huerta Memorial Hospital and Presidium Commons are all in what would essentially be in the same building.

All of those quests that had you rescue some group or find a particular item should have had you land on that planet to actually rescue and find the stuff. More so at least the rescue ones for sure. The shooting a probe to save the day and pick up the quest items was stupid at best. So much potential shot out the airlock.

Funny how many UNC missions there were in ME1 and N7 Missions in ME2 to now only have 6 in N7 missions ME3. That’s a whole whopping 6 missions you can leave the Normandy to do to add any sense of exploration to. Compare that to about 20 N7 missions in ME2 not to mention the loyalty ones that took you someplace different. At least with ME2 you had a few loyalty missions that took you places like Jacobs for example (although they never explained how they had thermal clips on that planet) and what did we get for ME3? A few glimpses of some home worlds that really didn’t impress me at all.

This is what you get when you turn what started as a sci-fi role playing game into a glorified third person shooter with some dialog choices and a few fetch quests.

To the people who may have said “but the Reapers are attacking so there shouldn’t be any exploration”. Oh sure, right, the Reapers are all over the place and the fate of Earth and the galaxy rests in Shepard’s hands. So that means we have to rush all over the place and we shouldn’t leave the ship (go exploring) a bit on these side quests right? Wrong, there is no actual sense that there ever is any rush to the main quest. Yet we certainly have a lot of those side quests to do don’t we? If they had done the game like Dragon Age Origins where after a certain point a town you visited got wiped out by the horde. In ME3 case it would be a hub world you were able to visit from the beginning but after doing a few key quests the planet fell to the Reapers. But nope, no actual urgency to the mission to save the galaxy at all. Go shopping for some new fish, we got time.

[obtuse4ngle]

TweedleDee66 wrote...
To the people who may have said “but the Reapers are attacking so there shouldn’t be any exploration”. Oh sure, right, the Reapers are all over the place and the fate of Earth and the galaxy rests in Shepard’s hands. So that means we have to rush all over the place and we shouldn’t leave the ship (go exploring) a bit on these side quests right? Wrong, there is no actual sense that there ever is any rush to the main quest. Yet we certainly have a lot of those side quests to do don’t we? If they had done the game like Dragon Age Origins where after a certain point a town you visited got wiped out by the horde. In ME3 case it would be a hub world you were able to visit from the beginning but after doing a few key quests the planet fell to the Reapers. But nope, no actual urgency to the mission to save the galaxy at all. Go shopping for some new fish, we got time.

I didn't miss exploration at all, but the game does feel small and linear.

You won't need exploration if they had just expanded on the homeworlds and let you choose which one you want to visit. And after you save a homeworld, it becomes a hub like Illium and Omega in ME2.

Also, to address Tweedle's "sense of urgency" comment, change the Citadel based on Shepard's (support A vs support choices throughout the game.

Modifié par obtuse4ngle, 25 avril 2012 - 04:38 .

[AlanC9]

abaris wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Really? What game did it better?

If anything, I thought ME3 really showed us how badly DA:O handled this aspect.

Did it now?

Yep. And you didn't answer the question. Not that I care, but then what's it doing in the quote?

But as always I assume you're not looking for any kind of answer in your sweet little lair under the bridge. I'm giving it anyway, since that thread should move to a more prominent position again.

You know,  abaris.... I've detected a certain level of hostility in your posts lately.

Modifié par AlanC9, 25 avril 2012 - 04:48 .

[AlanC9]

TweedleDee66 wrote...
Lets start at the Citadel. When did they put in Star Trek type elevators there that has you walk into a single elevator that takes you to all your destinations? I’m sorry but I’m not buying that Dock Bay D24, Docks; Holding Area, Citadel Embassies, Purgatory Bar, Huerta Memorial Hospital and Presidium Commons are all in what would essentially be in the same building.

So you're taking an elevator to a skycar pad someplace. The ME1 Citadel was hartdly any better if you used the elevators rather than the rapid transit system

All of those quests that had you rescue some group or find a particular item should have had you land on that planet to actually rescue and find the stuff. More so at least the rescue ones for sure. The shooting a probe to save the day and pick up the quest items was stupid at best. So much potential shot out the airlock.

Sure. With infinite resources any aspect of any game can be improved. But the question is how to allocate finite resources. If ME3 had had 20% more content, I still wouldn't have wanted a bigger proportion of them spent on stuff like UNC missions.

Funny how many UNC missions there were in ME1 and N7 Missions in ME2 to now only have 6 in N7 missions ME3. That’s a whole whopping 6 missions you can leave the Normandy to do to add any sense of exploration to. Compare that to about 20 N7 missions in ME2 not to mention the loyalty ones that took you someplace different. At least with ME2 you had a few loyalty missions that took you places like Jacobs for example (although they never explained how they had thermal clips on that planet) and what did we get for ME3? A few glimpses of some home worlds that really didn’t impress me at all.

If you're counting ME2 loyalty missions where you go places other than the hub worlds, then ME3 side missions like Grissom Academy and the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery also count. (I presume side missions on Tuchanka and Rannoch don't count for your purposes because those planets are plot locations). ME3 still has less of this sort of thing, yep. But compare apples to apples.

To the people who may have said “but the Reapers are attacking so there shouldn’t be any exploration”. Oh sure, right, the Reapers are all over the place and the fate of Earth and the galaxy rests in Shepard’s hands. So that means we have to rush all over the place and we shouldn’t leave the ship (go exploring) a bit on these side quests right? Wrong, there is no actual sense that there ever is any rush to the main quest. Yet we certainly have a lot of those side quests to do don’t we? If they had done the game like Dragon Age Origins where after a certain point a town you visited got wiped out by the horde. In ME3 case it would be a hub world you were able to visit from the beginning but after doing a few key quests the planet fell to the Reapers. But nope, no actual urgency to the mission to save the galaxy at all. Go shopping for some new fish, we got time.

I agree that this didn't work as well as it should have; ME3 does this better than other RPGs have done, but it's not all that great at it . But  your answer is to make that aspect even worse?

[abaris]

AlanC9 wrote...

You know,  abaris.... I've detected a certain level of hostility in your posts lately.

Nope. Just a lack of care.

[Feanor_II]

The lack of exploration and the excess of autodialogue are the REAL problem of the game, not an ending that, with it's flaws, isn't the disaster  people claims to be

[Fixers0]

wizardryforever wrote...

Fixers0 wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Calinstel wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Calinstel wrote...

For what it's worth, off the top of my head is Major Kyle, ME1

That one doesn't count, as it can be resolved with gunplay, if your social skills suck, or you just want to shoot stuff.

Ah, but it DOES count.  It can be resolved without any gunfire what so ever. 

The question was about missions with no gunplay whatsoever, not missions that can be resolved that way if you happen to play your cards right.

Yes, Freedom of choice, Remember that, now name me one instance post Me1 outside of Mordin 's Recruitment Mission where the player has a choice to engage the enemy or not.

Way to shift the goal posts there.  But whatever.  There's many instances post ME1 that involve not shooting someone (as in, choosing not to), but they're all in cutscenes.  The numerous renegade interrupts in ME2 removed the need to exit the cutscene in order to shoot someone, or otherwise kill them.  Aside from that, there's a lot of places where squadmates kill someone or not based on your actions or inactions.  Do I really need to list them all?

Yeah i noticed that too actually, it's like bioware ability to program is devolving  over the course of the games, i could give some examples but that's the point here.

And thanks for proving my point, outside of Mordin's loyalty mission there is no way to avoid Combat situations through dialogue post Me1.

[sf0749]

For me, I think exploration can work against a game. When I study an area closer, I find that level design in many games, including Mass Effect 3, raises more questions than answers. In the first game, for example, in the Citadel Tower, I could never figure out how people got to the upper level overlooking the Council Chamber. There were no doors on the second level. In other situations, I find that the interior of a structure or a ship doesn't match the exteroir.

If I magically given the task of a project director, I would require that my level designers would blueprint their levels. They would insure that when a player explores a level. that they can see the connections between points in a level. The player might not reach all the points in a level, but the level would be understandable and believable. For example, in the example above, I would have doors on the second level. The player may not have been able to get past the doors on the lower level, but they would implicitly understand that other people did pass these doors, took an elevator to the second level, and entered upon the balcony from a door on this level.

I can't think of a video game where the maps didn't feel small or linear. For those who want larger and less linear maps, can you please name an example?

[Feanor_II]

simfamSP wrote...

Feanor_II wrote...

The lack of exploration and the excess of autodialogue are the REAL problem of the game, not an ending that, with it's flaws, isn't the disaster  people claims to be

<_< what kind of 'exploration' was there in ME2? My fist is bigger than Omega for christs sake! People make it seem so grand and mighty, hell you'd think it's Vizima from The Witcher, or Flotsam.. but Illium and Omega?

True..... BUT

ME2 has more variety and maps for sidequests, in ME3 we only have the Priority and N7 missions and the later take part in the multiplayer maps, the rest of the sidequests are resolved by galaxy scanning.

[wizardryforever]

Fixers0 wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Fixers0 wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Calinstel wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Calinstel wrote...

For what it's worth, off the top of my head is Major Kyle, ME1

That one doesn't count, as it can be resolved with gunplay, if your social skills suck, or you just want to shoot stuff.

Ah, but it DOES count.  It can be resolved without any gunfire what so ever. 

The question was about missions with no gunplay whatsoever, not missions that can be resolved that way if you happen to play your cards right.

Yes, Freedom of choice, Remember that, now name me one instance post Me1 outside of Mordin 's Recruitment Mission where the player has a choice to engage the enemy or not.

Way to shift the goal posts there.  But whatever.  There's many instances post ME1 that involve not shooting someone (as in, choosing not to), but they're all in cutscenes.  The numerous renegade interrupts in ME2 removed the need to exit the cutscene in order to shoot someone, or otherwise kill them.  Aside from that, there's a lot of places where squadmates kill someone or not based on your actions or inactions.  Do I really need to list them all?

Yeah i noticed that too actually, it's like bioware ability to program is devolving  over the course of the games, i could give some examples but that's the point here.

And thanks for proving my point, outside of Mordin's loyalty mission there is no way to avoid Combat situations through dialogue post Me1.

What the frell does it matter if their deaths occur in or out of cutscenes?  You still make the choice of whether they live or die.  That choice is what matters, and the death scenes for characters can be more detailed in cutscenes anyway.  You are the one who made a big deal about the freedom of choice, and now you dismiss that choice because it occurs in a cutscene instead of actual combat?  Hypocritical much?

[wizardryforever]

Feanor_II wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

Feanor_II wrote...

The lack of exploration and the excess of autodialogue are the REAL problem of the game, not an ending that, with it's flaws, isn't the disaster  people claims to be

<_< what kind of 'exploration' was there in ME2? My fist is bigger than Omega for christs sake! People make it seem so grand and mighty, hell you'd think it's Vizima from The Witcher, or Flotsam.. but Illium and Omega?

True..... BUT

ME2 has more variety and maps for sidequests, in ME3 we only have the Priority and N7 missions and the later take part in the multiplayer maps, the rest of the sidequests are resolved by galaxy scanning.

People act like exploration can only occur on the ground, and completely dismiss all of the galaxy exploration.  Hell, some people dismiss any ground exploration that isn't in a vehicle, for some stupid reason.  They do this so that they can whine about the lack of exploration, even though there is plenty.  I've already outlined how the galaxy exploration is stronger in ME2 than ME1, and ME3 does it even better.

Besides, the side missions in ME3 didn't just consist of N7 and filler missions.  The Ardat-Yakshi monastery, Grissom Academy, and so on were side missions as well.  And well done side missions at that.