531 réponses à ce sujet

[Father_Jerusalem]

Huitzil wrote...

The two previous games were situations where everyone and everything told us conventional victory was not possible, and we went and punched our way through them anyway. Commander Shepard does the impossible and sees the invisible.

Mass Effect was never a tragedy, trying to make it into one in the last 10 minutes is idiotic.

So I'll refer you to my earlier question;

"Which is it, then. Shepard kills all the Reapers singlehandedly, or everyone in the galaxy is as capable as Shepard?"

[Zix13]

Jagri wrote...

Zix13 wrote...

I believe it is, but you'd be looking at galactic grimdark for a few hundred years of geurilla tactics. Reapers can't replenish their numbers, allied forces can. This assumes that someone in the galaxy has a grasp of appropriate tactics for the situation.... unlike everyone involved in Priority: Earth.

Silence! When has long grueling guerrilla warfare ever let a inferior force defeat a superior force... Oh wait... But still nothing beats space magic!

Dat sarcasm. 

[RDSFirebane]

I'm going to have to say yes it is possible if it wasn't why would the catalyst waste his time even talking to Shepard. I'm sorry but if you stand a 100% chance of victory you do not give the enemy 3 decisions all of which stop or put off your attack.

I said it before if they wanted a you could never win ending Shep. Should have just bled out next to Anderson and then us saw the video with the little black box waiting for the next group in the cycle to find it.

[Huitzil]

Also there's more options between "a completely conventional military victory were we just have mroe guns than the Reapers and shoot them all to death". and "accepting the idiotic, self-contradictory, idiotic, tone-dissonant, and astonishingly idiotic situation and options presented to us by Spacebaby as the gospel truth".

Like maybe we, you know, so the thing sci-fi heroes do where they reject your damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't framing and take a third option.

Maybe we don't destroy the Reapers in one go, but we cripple and demoralize them, weakening them to the point where conventional military victory is possible, by executing the greatest Charm or Intimidate check of all time.

Modifié par Huitzil, 27 juin 2012 - 08:08 .

[Zix13]

RDSFirebane wrote...

I'm going to have to say yes it is possible if it wasn't why would the catalyst waste his time even talking to Shepard. I'm sorry but if you stand a 100% chance of victory you do not give the enemy 3 decisions all of which stop or put off your attack.

I said it before if they wanted a you could never win ending Shep. Should have just bled out next to Anderson and then us saw the video with the little black box waiting for the next group in the cycle to find it.

Another valid point.

[fainmaca]

The game makes it pretty clear that its not possible.

HOWEVER. The game SHOULD have been about making such a victory possible, with Shepard going around to forge alliances, discover new technologies and eventually tactics that could be used against the Reapers. This would have given more meaning to each individual part of the narrative. Rather than being a question of 'did you do enough to give yourself a chance at victory?', we got 'finish the Crucible=victory'. It would have at least given the silly EMS bar a little more meaning.

[Jagri]

Master Che wrote...

Jagri wrote...

Not impossible it is however improbable. That said why risk it when the enemy leader presents himself and offers the proverbial "easy button"?

Kids these days love easy buttons.

to get the "easy button" you have to amass war assets and get the whole damned galaxy on your side to build the crucible. 

Which surprisingly many people just needed a few words from Shepard to throw their support behind it. When everyones existence is at stake and someone says "Hay everyone do this to survive!" then I am pretty sure alot of people are going to do just that.

[Hicks233]

bloodstalker1973 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Maybe a more pertinent question is:

Is it acceptable that conventional victory is not obtainable?

It's one thing to want to be able to win conventionally. But is the disappointment with it not being possible fed more from the fact that someone wanted it to happen but didn't, or because it realistically doesn't make sense?


I was on the record a couple months ago stating that I agreed with the notion many posters had that refusing the reapers should have been a viable option, but I was also clear in stating that I'd have it result in failure because in my opinion it makes it a more interesting choice. So I'm just asking this to get a better understanding from those that are disappointed.

I wanted the reject ending, but it makes sense to me that the rejection resulted in losing. it was nice to see that we still p-layed a role in breaking the cycle for some future generation though.

But, I can't help but think if the simplest answer might have been just to destroy the Citadel. Talking to the Catalyst made it seem, to me at least, that the Catalyst was the entity that provided the Reapers with their motivation in the first place.  When you choose the Control ending, for example, Shepard essentially replaces the Catalyst and gives the Reapers a new purpose.

So I kind of wonder what would happen if you remove the Catalyst from the equation entirely. Not via a retcon, but by destroying the Citadel. The Catalyst states that the Citadel is its home, and the fact that the Catalyst predates the first Reaper indicates that at some level, regardless of having assumed/become the collective intellegence and experience of the Reapers, the Catalyst has to exist asd a seperate entity from the Reapers.

So, I wonder if you reject the Catalyst choices, then contact Hackett and get the fleet to focus its fire on the Citdael and destroy it, what would that do? If the Citadel is the home of the Catalyst, which is pretty much now shown to be an AI at its core level that is housed in the Citadel, then destroying the Citadel should effectively destroy the Catalyst. At that point, what happens to the Reapers? Without the Catalyst to provide the compulsion, does their purpose fade? In essence, do the reapers then regain free will, and in that case, perhaps the war ends with the Reapers simply choosing a different path for themselves that doesn't involve the present cycle system?

I guess i'm just wondering how much of the Reaper commitment to harvesting stems directly from the Catalyst influence. The first Reaper was made from an unwilling population after all, and it seems like each successive reaper is also the product of an unwilling race. If Reapers really are the collected intelligence and experience of their respective races, then without the Catalyst influence, I wonder if that unwillingness to be harvested in the first place would have motivated them to discontinue the cycle of harvests purely based on regret over the exticnction of their own races. Would they be free to direct themselves to their own purposes withour either the Catalyst of Shepard to give them a purpose?

Then again, they could just as easily decide to stick to their current purpose, or the Reapers could have had a split in opinion that caused conflict between themselves. I know it's all a moot point, but I would have really liked to see something like this addressed. Even now, I'd like to see what any writer that worked on the story thinks about it. They seemed to want to promote speculation, so I'd be interested to know what they think about this scenario, not from a flaming, condemning nature, but out of simple curiousity. As I said, the endings are the endings, and that's fine with me at this point. I just think it would be interesting to see how destroying the Citadel would have played out according to the view of the writers.

Yes, I know if you wait to long to make a choice, the Citadel gets destroyed and its game over. But I wonder if this was just a case of the writers focused in so much one the endings we have, that they might have just never thought of this. That's not a snarky comment btw, it's a pretty common thing for people to get so caught up in the complexities of their work that they might overlook a more simple solution. I've done it on more occasions than I like to admit myself. It's just human nature and all, and like I said, I'm mostly curious as to what people might think about this scenario more than anything else really.

I think I love you Or at least the idea!

As long as there were a range of outcomes where Shepard can survive and be extracted or not then this would have sidesteped all the guff with the Crucible and the Catalyst. Would shut down the Reapers or even more interestingly, give them free will. What would resentful and angry harvested species do now that they're not thralls to the Catalyst?

[Oransel]

Synthesis and Control are exactly as impossible as conventional victory.

[sth128]

Nothing is impossible, but not everything is possible.

[thefallen2far]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Is it acceptable that conventional victory is not obtainable?

It's one thing to want to be able to win conventionally. But is the disappointment with it not being possible fed more from the fact that someone wanted it to happen but didn't, or because it realistically doesn't make sense?

I was on the record a couple months ago stating that I agreed with the notion many posters had that refusing the reapers should have been a viable option, but I was also clear in stating that I'd have it result in failure because in my opinion it makes it a more interesting choice. So I'm just asking this to get a better understanding from those that are disappointed.

Most writers should be aware that you have to keep the ending in mind throughout the story or abandon your planned ending. If you really wanted this cruicible to be the be all end all of the game, You should have limited everything in the previous 2.9 games. In Mass Effect one, Don't have the ability to not kill Wrex.  Don't have the Paragon option to convince the corporate security officer from gunning an employee to stop him from telling you what the company was doing..... you have to kill him, or you don't get the information.  Little things like that were scattered throughout the game... [convincing Saren to kill himself, renegade quicktime actions etc] remove them.  Make it so it doesn't matter how Paragon or Renegade you are, you have to make a hard decision.

In Mass Effect 2.  Don't have the option to convince Garrus to not kill the traitor in his team or convince the Qwarians that Tali should be released without denouncing her father.  Jack has to kill her fellow student, Jacob has to kill his father, Zaeed has to kill the Blue Suns leader or you  you don't get their loyalty. etc.  On the suicide mission, you have to send characters to their deaths.  You were told throughout the game that not everyone is coming out alive, not everyone comes out alive. 

Mass Effect 3.  You have to choose the Salarians or try to trick the Kroguns, you can't pick the Kroguns, but the Salarians also sends a few fleets. You have to choose Qwarians or the Geth.  No peace is possible.  You have to force every decision throughout the entire story to be hard choices.  Cause if the in end, you introduce contrivances and those same "hard choices" They'll be seen as forced.  Now removing all those instances where you're not forced into anything will decrease your fanbase, but less people will be angry with the ending.

Look at George R. R Martin.  Beloved characters are killed off left and right, but that was how it was since the first book.  

Modifié par thefallen2far, 27 juin 2012 - 08:24 .

[Aquilas]

Shepard and company can beat the Reapers conventionally without using the Crucible if BioWare wants to stretch ME lore rather than break it.  

In my earlier post I noted there are billions of Reapers, and I defined conventional victory as space fleets duking it out with them.  I'll expand that to battling Reaper ground forces.  But there are other means available, and the Codex discusses them.

Ever read War of the Worlds? The Martians are defeated by microbes--the invaders fall ill and die. And of course cyber warfare--you know, infecting computational machines with digital viruses--is extremely effective even now, much less in the 2180s. We know the Reapers are some kind of synthetic-organic slurry-hybrid concoction, so however improbable scientists could develop a combo microbe-techno virus and a way to infect the Reapers.

A stretch? Sure. But much more plausible than a beam of Space Magic the Crucible can stream via the relays throughout the entire galaxy--even into those systems without relays--and fuse organic DNA and synthetic code at the nuclear level to create a new life form. I'll say that again: to create a new life form. And oh by the way, that includes systems with either no organics or no synthetics when the beam blasts.

Wow...I look at what I just typed about Synthesis and I'm even more disappointed in the Hudson-Walters team and more deeply saddened by the ME franchise's almost utter destruction. And I didn't think I could be any sadder.

Modifié par Aquilas, 27 juin 2012 - 08:26 .

[Huitzil]

Oransel wrote...

Synthesis and Control are exactly as impossible as conventional victory.

No, because conventional victory is a theoreically possible thing that can fit in a functional human being's conceptual framework without throwing up his hands and shouting "SPACE MAGIC, LOTS OF SPECULATION FOR EVERYONE!"

[Femlob]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Maybe a more pertinent question is:

Is it acceptable that conventional victory is not obtainable?

It's one thing to want to be able to win conventionally. But is the disappointment with it not being possible fed more from the fact that someone wanted it to happen but didn't, or because it realistically doesn't make sense?


I was on the record a couple months ago stating that I agreed with the notion many posters had that refusing the reapers should have been a viable option, but I was also clear in stating that I'd have it result in failure because in my opinion it makes it a more interesting choice. So I'm just asking this to get a better understanding from those that are disappointed.

Being obliterated by a superior enemy makes a whole lot more sense than any of the bullsh*t sprouted by Starbrat, I'll say that much. Death seems preferable to having to suffer through the idiocy that Casey and Mac pass off as art.

Modifié par Femlob, 27 juin 2012 - 08:15 .

[RDSFirebane]

vivaladricas wrote...

RDSFirebane wrote...

I'm going to have to say yes it is possible if it wasn't why would the catalyst waste his time even talking to Shepard. I'm sorry but if you stand a 100% chance of victory you do not give the enemy 3 decisions all of which stop or put off your attack.

I said it before if they wanted a you could never win ending Shep. Should have just bled out next to Anderson and then us saw the video with the little black box waiting for the next group in the cycle to find it.

If he doesnt talk to Shep whats Shep going to do?  Just stand there dumbfounded and look around and bleed out or wait to be picked up.  Yeah its always a great idea to say let the other team win this one guys.  We are in the era of sports where its all about hand shakes and hugs now instead of blood and brutatility.  

Wish some of you played in my basketball games, be right for the taking at any time.  

I'm sorry I've played basketball, baseball, and currently do boxing and samri sword in college. so I'm really not sure what your getting at.

and yes Shep. had no promises that the catalyst was going to do anything he took that risk that like running for the ball when you dont know where its going and just hopeing it's in your direction.

[Oransel]

Huitzil wrote...

Oransel wrote...

Synthesis and Control are exactly as impossible as conventional victory.

No, because conventional victory is a theoreically possible thing that can fit in a functional human being's conceptual framework without throwing up his hands and shouting "SPACE MAGIC, LOTS OF SPECULATION FOR EVERYONE!"

Yeah, you're right.

[SnakeSNMF]

Honestly, yes, even though I admittingly can't tell whether or not you're trolling.

[Anglamite]

Master Che wrote...

TheLostGenius wrote...

Admiral Hackett states in game that it is IMPOSSIBLE. Sorry guyz.

He ain't God.  But I happen to agree with his estimation.  Look what it took to bring down Sovereign. 

Sovereign went "limp" when Shepard and crew killed "Saren." He was easily destroyable at the point. I always felt, though unconventional, that was where combat against Reapers was going. Destroy a "directly controlled" enemy. Even while the Collector base was being destroyed, Harbinger had to have the Collector "general" scurry to release Harbinger. Methinks if the general died while still under control, Harby would have gone dark too.

Though all the "directly controlled" collector drones kind of puts a damper on that theory.

[Quintega]

I would like to point out that I did the math based on each killed reaper through all three games and the estimated amount of them that exist. This is why a good deal of people aren't happy. For if you go based on the amount of ships it was required to take out sovereign and go by the notion that 100,000 to 900,000 reapers exist conventional victory is actually possible provided everyone works together and apply all their efforts to working together. The price would be almost 8/9th of the galaxy dead. I would like to point out just saying its impossible when you previously stated reason why it never happened before was Surprise. Or are we also forgetting other points in history that where supposedly impossible. Such as the battle of Thermopylae, D-Day, Joan of Arc's taking back france from Britain, and Spartacus. However the advantage the people in ME have is more advanced tech and Geth Shock troopers.

We have already established several ways to kill reapers that did not revolve around the DUES EX MACHINA concept. Thresher MAws, a team of Expendable Shock troop commando's most likely Geth and similar AI Constructs to destroy the core, Launching a Meteor at one, fleets, LAser guided weapons, and Ground based weapons such as in ME 2.

The problem is you guys decided to remove the ability to kill them conventionally. The crucible needs to be removed from the game and the entire star child removed.

However if you use all the methods I listed its extremely plausible. No body like a Dues Ex machina in a scifi. Strange enough Gandalf coming out and killing the reapers makes more sense then the backwards logic of the Crucible.

[Thaa_solon]

Oransel wrote...

Synthesis and Control are exactly as impossible as conventional victory.

Everything is possible if you reject LOGIC and choose ART

[Goodwood]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Maybe a more pertinent question is:

Is it acceptable that conventional victory is not obtainable?

It's one thing to want to be able to win conventionally. But is the disappointment with it not being possible fed more from the fact that someone wanted it to happen but didn't, or because it realistically doesn't make sense?


I was on the record a couple months ago stating that I agreed with the notion many posters had that refusing the reapers should have been a viable option, but I was also clear in stating that I'd have it result in failure because in my opinion it makes it a more interesting choice. So I'm just asking this to get a better understanding from those that are disappointed.

As someone who dabbles in military strategy and tactics (most commonly viewed through the lens of historical research), I could list a thousand and one reasons why a so-called "conventional" war against the Reapers could be winnable without the Crucible. It wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be quick, but such a thing is very possible. The Reapers have already demonstrated both understanding and blithe ignorance to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and I have no qualms in saying that Tzu, at least, would have known that victory was within the realm of the possible.

[Oransel]

SnakeSNMF wrote...

Honestly, yes, even though I admittingly can't tell whether or not you're trolling.

Not trolling this time. This is really interesting topic.