27744 réponses à ce sujet

[chris2365]

 

IMO, that whole ME2 sequence after entering the Omega 4 relay was without a doubt the best and most exciting thing Bioware's done in a game, ever, and the closer they can get to recreating it the better. Very few things in other games have accomplished what they did in that mission, and a significant part of that was in the way it tied together most of the other game systems - upgrading the Normandy, the loyalty missions, the player's understanding of their squadmates' strengths and weaknesses...

 

Agree with this example. I just wish it wasn't so easy to save everyone. I mean, it was a Suicide Mission, after all.

 

Anyways, maybe we should take this conversation about choices and consequences elsewhere. Very interesting debate to have, but we all know they are watching 

[Tonymac]

Agree with this example. I just wish it wasn't so easy to save everyone. I mean, it was a Suicide Mission, after all.

 

Anyways, maybe we should take this conversation about choices and consequences elsewhere. Very interesting debate to have, but we all know they are watching 

 

Actually, it took a lot more game play time to save everyone - and you also had to understand the "Hold the line" defense mechanics in order to save everyone.  

 

Thank BSN for that one - Occam's Razor for one and a few others.  Without them I would have never figured it out because the devs never explained it ANYWHERE in the game.  Their hard work made our Perfect Possible Ending possible.

[chris2365]

Actually, it took a lot more game play time to save everyone - and you also had to understand the "Hold the line" defense mechanics in order to save everyone.

Thank BSN for that one - Occam's Razor for one and a few others. Without them I would have never figured it out because the devs never explained it ANYWHERE in the game. Their hard work made our Perfect Possible Ending possible.

I know I'm just contradicting my own advice to take this convo elsewhere, but 1 time won't hurt

I agree it took a lot more game time, but the problem was that it was fairly evident what you had to do to get a perfect mission.

Do all the loyalty missions, do upgrades, choose the right people. The problem is that if you are a completionist, it's quite likely you would do all this stuff before even going on the Suicide Mission. I got a perfect run on my first playthrough, and while I was happy to see everyone survive and it was one of the best missions of the trilogy, it wad missing the "Suicide aspect"

I'm not saying it should have been impossible to get a no casualties run. I just think they should have made it a challenge to do so, even for completionists. I'm not sure how they would do that. Randomizing would disappoint a lot of people.

Maybe a solid idea would have been for the squadmate you choose to escort the Normandy crew back to the ship to get attacked and their group split. Squad mate got seperated, and you have to decide whether you should send your team to :

1) Stay where they are, out of precaution
2) Save squad mate
3) Save crew

If team is loyal, they survive and can save either squadmate or crew withouy casualties, but you have to choose.

Just an idea to make it more Suicidy

[Jos Hendriks]

Actually, it took a lot more game play time to save everyone - and you also had to understand the "Hold the line" defense mechanics in order to save everyone.  

 

Thank BSN for that one - Occam's Razor for one and a few others.  Without them I would have never figured it out because the devs never explained it ANYWHERE in the game.  Their hard work made our Perfect Possible Ending possible.

 

How so? The roles that needed filling got called out as specifically requiring a specialist in those fields, and over the course of the game you get to know your squadmates, so you would understand where each of their specialties lies.

[Vazgen]

How so? The roles that needed filling got called out as specifically requiring a specialist in those fields, and over the course of the game you get to know your squadmates, so you would understand where each of their specialties lies.

This^

The game also limited options, so you could not have Tali to hold a biotic bubble, for example Some combinations that allow everyone to survive might require multiple playthroughs, yes. For example, I would've never thought that Jacob can save everyone as a squad leader. Or that Grunt can hold the line on his own and save everyone with him. Or that Kasumi can be a tech specialist. But some choices are pretty obvious. Tali - best tech specialist you have. Garrus and Miranda - the only people with squad leader experience in your team. Biotic bubble - Samara and Jack are the strongest biotics you have. 

[chris2365]

How so? The roles that needed filling got called out as specifically requiring a specialist in those fields, and over the course of the game you get to know your squadmates, so you would understand where each of their specialties lies.

 

That too. Just curious Jos, if you did work on the Suicide Mission, did it ever strike you that it might not be as suicidal as it was made out to be? Maybe too easy for completionists? I understand that most people will lose squad mates by the simple fact that they are not 100% dedicated to the game (miss some loyalty missions, don't install upgrades, etc.), but for those of us who did, did you feel it was lacking in the ''suicide'' aspect, since it was relatively easy to save everyone if you just did a completionist playthrough?

[Tensoconix]

Example of them grandstanding the choice? That's mainly in TW1, with those montages while geralt monologues about how x choice solely happened because he did something, and then ponders what would have happened if he'd picked the other choice. TW2 doesn't have a whole bunch of consequence to my recollection, outside of the obvious act 2.

Okay, to be completely honest I haven't played TW1 as of yet.  It's just that in TW2 it seems to be very well done if you don't think too much about it (and maybe even if you do, i just never did). Something like Triss' absence at the summit starting a worldwide witch hunt was shocking considering her (kinda) insignificance, especially when you realise that saving her instead of Phillipa/Annais was a 'politically wrong' and selfish choice.

 

 

And it's one thing to claim that everything is connected because of "the butterfly effect," but It's another for reality to be that way. I wish I could think of an example (I agree with you that mass effect hasn't gone there yet), but suffice it to say that complex theory is not a space magic "explain it all away" tool.

I only mentioned butterfly effect to demonstrate how consequences hardly need to appear logical at first sight in regards to choices that caused them.

 

 

Anyways, maybe we should take this conversation about choices and consequences elsewhere. Very interesting debate to have, but we all know they are watching 

Absolutely not, if Jos may debate this here, we may as well. 

[InterrogationBear]

Question for Jos:

 

As a Dutchman, can you survive without Gouda cheese? How big is your reserve in case the Yeti apocalypse breaks out?

[Iakus]

That too. Just curious Jos, if you did work on the Suicide Mission, did it ever strike you that it might not be as suicidal as it was made out to be? Maybe too easy for completionists? I understand that most people will lose squad mates by the simple fact that they are not 100% dedicated to the game (miss some loyalty missions, don't install upgrades, etc.), but for those of us who did, did you feel it was lacking in the ''suicide'' aspect, since it was relatively easy to save everyone if you just did a completionist playthrough?

My only problem with the Suicide Mission was the feeling of having a huge team and only a few spots for people to shine (assuming you recruited everyone). 

[Jos Hendriks]

That too. Just curious Jos, if you did work on the Suicide Mission, did it ever strike you that it might not be as suicidal as it was made out to be? Maybe too easy for completionists? I understand that most people will lose squad mates by the simple fact that they are not 100% dedicated to the game (miss some loyalty missions, don't install upgrades, etc.), but for those of us who did, did you feel it was lacking in the ''suicide'' aspect, since it was relatively easy to save everyone if you just did a completionist playthrough?

 

I did not work on the Suicide Mission, but it maybe feeling easy as a completionist is an inherent problem to being a completionist, not to the game. Most if not all games do not rely on players to engage with every bit of content there, because that would increase the threshold for completion exponentially. People don't complete games as-is (heck, I don't complete some of the games I play), so keeping the threshold to story and content progression balanced is important. 

If it makes it more interesting to you, try doing a playthrough where you only do the loyalty missions for the squadmates that you like or take with you all the time as that particular Shepard. Or, play a fresh game with a fresh Shepard on Insanity. That'll up the difficulty a bit.

 

Question for Jos:

 

As a Dutchman, can you survive without Gouda cheese? How big is your reserve in case the Yeti apocalypse breaks out?

 

In theory I think it is possible to survive without Gouda cheese, but I have never been crazy enough to attempt it. My reserve is plentiful.

 

Absolutely not, if Jos may debate this here, we may as well. 

 

Caveat that when there's tweets to discuss, we do that in here, and we stay on the rails with these discussions.

[ElitePinecone]

Thank BSN for that one - Occam's Razor for one and a few others.  Without them I would have never figured it out because the devs never explained it ANYWHERE in the game.  Their hard work made our Perfect Possible Ending possible.

 

But conversely, I like that they never explained it, and that the "Hold the Line" scores of each squadmate are still pretty opaque. I understand why maybe perfectionists want to be able to engineer their perfect ending via metagaming - and that information should ideally be available somewhere outside the game - but I think it's a bad idea to go into detail about how Zaeed is worth 5 points against some number check.

 

A system of choices/consequences/narrative that works behind the scenes like that is vastly preferable to "you need 4000 of this arbitrary war readiness score to unlock variation X". IMO, that was also one of the biggest advantages of ME2's ending compared to ME3.

[Tonymac]

How so? The roles that needed filling got called out as specifically requiring a specialist in those fields, and over the course of the game you get to know your squadmates, so you would understand where each of their specialties lies.

 

No - I know the roles part man - that was all quite simple.  I am referring to the "Under the Hood" mechanics of the total Hold the Line defense mechanics.  What was the Bogey and all of that.  That was not intuitive, and never explained except on BSN.  In fact, I think its a brilliant bit of work - one of the things that made ME2 great.

[BronzTrooper]

I did not work on the Suicide Mission, but it maybe feeling easy as a completionist is an inherent problem to being a completionist, not to the game. Most if not all games do not rely on players to engage with every bit of content there, because that would increase the threshold for completion exponentially. People don't complete games as-is (heck, I don't complete some of the games I play), so keeping the threshold to story and content progression balanced is important. 

If it makes it more interesting to you, try doing a playthrough where you only do the loyalty missions for the squadmates that you like or take with you all the time as that particular Shepard. Or, play a fresh game with a fresh Shepard on Insanity. That'll up the difficulty a bit.

 

Yeah, doing the Suicide Mission on insanity helped with my immersion immensely.  It genuinely felt like a suicide mission, especially when Harbinger started assuming direct control.  Would do it again if I wasn't so focused on DA:I now.  

[chris2365]

 

Caveat that when there's tweets to discuss, we do that in here, and we stay on the rails with these discussions.

 

Fair enough. Just wanted to be sure 

[cap and gown]

That too. Just curious Jos, if you did work on the Suicide Mission, did it ever strike you that it might not be as suicidal as it was made out to be? Maybe too easy for completionists? I understand that most people will lose squad mates by the simple fact that they are not 100% dedicated to the game (miss some loyalty missions, don't install upgrades, etc.), but for those of us who did, did you feel it was lacking in the ''suicide'' aspect, since it was relatively easy to save everyone if you just did a completionist playthrough?

 

I will take issue with this:

 

I started in ME3, then went and got ME1 and ME2. Since I had already played ME3 a few times, when it got to the SM in ME2 and Jacob said "it's practically a suicide mission. I volunteer." I was convinced the game was going to kill no matter who I picked. So I started picking people I hadn't seen in ME3. So Thane went down the vents and died. My suspicions seemed confirmed. So next I picked Grunt for the 2nd fire team and Samara for the biotic specialist. Can't remember who I sent with the crew (Kelly got turned to goo because I did one more mission after the kidnapping thinking the game was going to end and wanting to get in that last mission.) Well, Samara worked out, but Grunt died. But that was it, just Grunt and Thane.

 

I would also point out that lots of people have problems keeping Mordin alive. Christopher Odd lost Tali in his playthrough (he even missed the cut scene of the Collectors walking by her body) because he took Garrus and Grunt to the boss fight. Other people have used Zaeed as a fire team lead thinking he had the necessary experience and lost their vent specialist.

 

The game is fairly good about telling you who is the best suited for which job (which it should be) but lots of people still get tripped up. Perhaps you should visit the ME2 forum once in a while. People are always posing questions about the SM there.

[cap and gown]

I'm not saying it should have been impossible to get a no casualties run. I just think they should have made it a challenge to do so, even for completionists. I'm not sure how they would do that. Randomizing would disappoint a lot of people.
 

 

You should not lose NPCs in the middle of a trilogy without a plan for replacing them with a specific, new NPC in the next title. Even then, the number of NPCs you can lose in the middle of a trilogy should be limited to one or two. ME2 set up a nightmare scenario for ME3. The developers admitted as much and many players were disappointed that their fav NPC only got a cameo. How could it be otherwise when any and all of the NPCs from ME2 could be dead by the time you got to ME3? Bad idea. Would have been better to save this mechanic for the last game.

[chris2365]

You should not lose NPCs in the middle of a trilogy without a plan for replacing them with a specific, new NPC in the next title. Even then, the number of NPCs you can lose in the middle of a trilogy should be limited to one or two. ME2 set up a nightmare scenario for ME3. The developers admitted as much and many players were disappointed that their fav NPC only got a cameo. How could it be otherwise when any and all of the NPCs from ME2 could be dead by the time you got to ME3? Bad idea. Would have been better to save this mechanic for the last game.

Oh I totally agree. If they wanted to do a Suicide Mission like in ME2 it should have been in ME3, where they don't have to take the consequences of the decisions into future titles. I was just trying to give an idea to improve the concept

[InterrogationBear]

Michael Gamble @GambleMike

. @ebellefeuille sent this around this morning. Doesn't even look like earth! Imagine exploring this! http://www.thisiscol...-by-owen-perry/

 

Looks like some of the concept art we've seen on N7-Day.

Spoiler

 

There are some really fantastic photographs on this site.

[JeffZero]

My solution to the suicide mission's only problem for my personal enjoyment -- that victory doesn't feel as deserved as it could when the uber-fan in me has indeed completed the entire game every time (because I view the games through the cinematic lens of a kind of interactive television series, and I love every episode) -- is to always, always kill off 2-3 squadmates so as to make it all feel like the hellish skirmish the writing sets it up to be all game long. I'm the rare kinda guy who genuinely finds lines like Garrus' "we're going to lose some people, there's no getting around that" potentially more jarring than the Catalyst's Organic/Synthetic oddities. In this case I have a way around it, though. I make it happen. (I'm also not big on "unstoppable heroes" storytelling; I like my Shepards not achieving total success. ME3's general tone = much love.)

I used to experiment with who didn't make it out, but since 3 hit I've admittedly narrowed the list down to some fairly routine casualties. I know, I know, how could I not continue shaking things up in BioWare games... well, truth be told, I've always been in it for mostly other reasons than the company's permutations. Besides, I'm only on my fifth Shepard, anyway.

For the record, it's Jacob and Zaeed who tend to go down. They probably will again on my current file. If there's a third, it's usually Samara. I don't dislike them, but I find Jacob's and Zaeed's ME3 content particularly unfulfilling without leaving much of a hole behind in 3 at all (especially Zaeed) and Samara feels like a fitting enough death following her dealings with Morinth coming to a close, anyway. Plus, Falore (I think that's her name...?) has a rather different, even darker tone to her when she views Shepard through the lens of a failure on a personal level back during the allegedly superheroic Omega-4 expedition, which again, ties in rather neatly with my Shepards never really being the saints of perfect achievement they're symbolized into becoming. I really dig that.

Also, has anyone ever noticed that like three Jacobs die in ME1? It's effing weird. I think Ronald Taylor's most cardinal sin was naming his son.

[TheLittleBird]

^ @JeffZero

 

While I agree with you in that the Suicide Mission could maybe have done with some more death... I find it infinitely more impactful if a character death is due to the choices I've made in the game. It makes me feel responsible for their deaths, you know, which is why the Suicide Mission is so utterly brilliant - in my opinion - and why I think it's been praised by fans and critics alike. 

 

Especially the first time through - sure, you get told that you need to get there as soon as possible, but so many games say that to add dramatic tension. When I first played Mass Effect 2, I had no idea how impactful all my choices would be and I didn't do enough missions before going on to get the ISS - of course, drama ensued. On top of all that, I botched Legion's Loyalty Mission, and lost him as well. And that hurt. 

 

And every time through, I keep getting nervous. Even though I know I've done everything correctly, there still is that fear that I assign the wrong fire team leader or biotic, or that I maybe I botched up some Loyalty anyway. It's absurd, I know, but it still makes me feel like that.

 

If the game were to kill off 2-3 squadmates anyway, that would probably be as impactful on the first playthrough, but on the second, third, fourth and ongoing, that wouldn't happen anymore. I'd know their deaths would be coming and it wouldn't phase me anymore. It'd feel more like a 'normal' game, making a character die for emotional value and drama because you need that. But games can be so much more. An interactive medium, where your choices define the direction a game takes. Depending on the player, ME2 can end in a very lonely way, or have the player emerge victorious.

 

Of course, it could be so that the game kills of a squadmate anyway, but who it is depends on your choices. But, I don't know... there's something immensely satisfying about proving everyone wrong - everyone who said the mission would be 'suicide', that is. So basically everyone.

[ElitePinecone]

But, I don't know... there's something immensely satisfying about proving everyone wrong - everyone who said the mission would be 'suicide', that is. So basically everyone.

 

Yep, I definitely loved this part of it too. In some ways a super-powerful (and loyal) team blitzing through the Collector Base and not losing a single person is more emotionally engaging to me than actually losing team members, because the optimal outcome shows the power of teamwork and smart leadership. It also just looks way cooler to have the whole team back on board the Normandy at the end. 

 

That's not to say character deaths based on player decisions can't be "satisfying" (Mordin ;___, but I find a positive outcome like a perfect Suicide Mission more engaging and fulfilling - especially since it happens at the end of the game. RPGs tend to demand investment of significant time and headspace, and I can't really see the sense in mandating something that makes the player feel disillusioned rather than empowered (*waves at ME3*). 

[Delacruz]

Yep, I definitely loved this part of it too. In some ways a super-powerful (and loyal) team blitzing through the Collector Base and not losing a single person is more emotionally engaging to me than actually losing team members, because the optimal outcome shows the power of teamwork and smart leadership. It also just looks way cooler to have the whole team back on board the Normandy at the end. 

Agreed, of my 16 ME2 playthroughs iv'e only lost 1 companion, on my second playthrough i brought Grunt and Garrus to the human reaper, which resulted in the death of Mordin. Even though i like the idea of importing a savegame to ME3 where as many companions as possible dies in the SM, i simply cannot bring my self to kill off any of my beloved teammates :s

stupid Bioware for making characters that are too likable 

[Pearl (rip bioware)]

Re: Suicide Mission

You have to remember that BSN is a small portion of the community. so while the majority of BSN may think something is too easy/too strong/whatever, that's still a tiny percentage of the overall playerbase. This is the kind of thing that would come up in the MP forums all the time when it came to weapon and difficulty balance.

[rapscallioness]

 

Michael Gamble @GambleMike

. @ebellefeuille sent this around this morning. Doesn't even look like earth! Imagine exploring this! http://www.thisiscol...-by-owen-perry/

 

Looks like some of the concept art we've seen on N7-Day.

Spoiler

 

There are some really fantastic photographs on this site.

 

 

 

these are beautiful. i look fwd to exploring these places. i hope there's some good action, too, though. honestly, i look at that first pic and all i can think is thresher maw. like i just know something's gonna come screeching up outta there when i least expect it.

 

me1 did that to me. gave me an irrational fear of suspiciously open places like that.