676 réponses à ce sujet

[MysticSpace]

Galbrant wrote...

Avalen wrote...

According to this codex entry masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/The_Reapers#Reaper_Vulnerabilities the other species would have to outnumber the Reaper capital ships with dreadnoughts 4:1 to beat them. Yes, I know there are many, many variables I'm not considering like tactics and intelligence, but still, it has been hinted that there are hundreds or even thousands of Reaper capital ships while the Council races have 85 dreadnoughts by 2185 plus, say a couple dozen more from non-Council races. Nowhere near enough, even when they are at full strength.

That's only what we have now. How long does it take to build those ships?  With a united galaxy and with the Geth  they can build ships 24/7  with the help of the Rachni.... There are so many things that can eventually give us an edge to drive out the Reapers.

Months with help maybe weeks that's assuming there's any place same to build ships. The Reapers are all over the galaxy and they're blowing up any military base, silo, or whatever they come across.  So there are very few places where you can build anything the size of a cruiser let alone anything better.

[Spartas Husky]

didn't all reapers gather on earth?... didn't seem like a fleet larger than our own.

[Joccaren]

T-Bone665 wrote...

Yes, there is "Cinemtatic Magic" going on. I brought the Salarians to the battle but they are not shown because Bioware didn't want to design their ships. Reapers always fire red beams and our ships always fire blue projectiles. For the sake of the lore, cutscenes should not be taken too literally.

But they are not only for being cool, their purpose is also to convey story. If the message of a cutscene is clear, shouldn't that be what's taken from it? Discarding too much of what is seen just leaves a void that can be filled with anything.

Agreed. However the battle with Sword shows nothing of the Reapers being undefeatable. Hell, we lose 1 Cruiser to damage a Capital Ship. Damn good odds if you ask me. That is in the most successful fight. Sword is left open.
The point with cinematic magic is that things can't be taken too literally. For example, the Rannoch Reaper. Yes, the cinematic showed a lot of Quarian ships firing on it, and having to hit the "Eye" to kill it. This was to look cool, and for gameplay reasons. The Codex states that in space, 1 Cruiser with conventional weapons can take down 1 Destroyer. On planet, a ship is weaker thanks to using Mass Effect fields to lower its Mass. Hence, probably 1 Frigate could have killed the Rannoch Reaper, and not have had to hit the eye.
The same principle applies to the Thanix Missile fight on Earth where they target the "Eye". Its not required, but for gameplay purposes and looking cool it is added in.

The story was built around the Reapers being unstoppable by conventional force. I think what the cutscenes convey supports that. Imo, Bioware made the "mistake" of making the Reapers look weak because of the Turian victories over them, which seem to conflict with the greater picture.

That depends on which games you're talking about. ME1 + ME2, the Reapers are made out to be an enemy in the Shadows. Immensely powerful, but not undefeatable. By disabling the Citadel Relay and the Alpha Relay we manage to severely cripple them. Post that, our technological advances [Such as Thanix] allow us to stand Toe to Toe with the Reaper forces.
In ME3 the Reapers were changed to unstoppable death machines. The Turian victories are realistic and staying true to the theme carrying from ME1 and ME2. Hell, every race has their victories against the Reapers. I agree they made the Capital Ships too weak in 3, at least in Cutscenes: Sovereign had a laser per arm, not just 2 overall, but they were never unstoppable. Making them more powerful than they were in ME1 compared to us when we have their weapons, greater numbers and everything that they want [Citadel, our populations, the Relays].

And i actually like the deus ex machina - it being improved upon by countless previous cycles makes it a lot less bull****-y for me. At least if you ignore the Synthesis ending.
I know that I would not have liked a war winning ending, partly because it diminishes the whole reaper threat.
And because i don't consider the galaxy's military to be that strong. The Protheans were masters of war, and should have had more firepower. Granted, they fell into the citadel trap, but i still see ourselves as inferior to them.

My main dislike of the DEM is its utter asspull, and just like activating Godmode for the ME3 story. Using it, there is no challenge. There's no struggle. Its all just "Lets waste time until this things built, then we can press the button and all go home". 
The war against the Reapers is utterly pointless as no matter what, you win. Even in the worst case scenario, you win [Unless you pick Refuse]. Its as much a problem with War Assets as it is with the DEM, but it leads to an overall unsatisfying experience. The previous race's preperation in my mind was shutting off the Citadel Relay, fighting the Reapers and thinning their numbers to a point where we could win.

The Protheans likely would have won vs the Reapers had the Citadel trap not been activated. IMO ME3 made the Protheans OP in this fact, allowing them to just ignore the whole "NO communication, No transport thing", and just use attrition tactics rather than being completely cut off.
As for numbers, lest take the cutscene Reaper Fleet at Earth, an Estimated Prothean Fleet and the Sword Fleet.
Note also: Protheans do not have Thanix. We do.

Reapers: 300 Capital Ships. Unknown Destroyers or fighters [Estimate 900 Destroyers, 900 Fighters]
Protheans: 5 Dreadnoughts, 200 Cruisers, 400 Frigates, 400 Fighters [Estimate for Strong Fleet Composition]/

Who's going to win?
This is all the Protheans are ever to have likely been able to face the Reapers with: 1 Fleet at a time. Each fleet would have starving people in it, having been cut off from food. They would have no fuel, having been cut off from transport to depots. They would literally just be floating in space able to put up a very slight fight against the Reapers. The Reapers can just cherry pick who they want, when they want, where they want. No united Prothean attack fleet. No strong resistance. Just small pockets fighting against impossible odds. Imagine China invaded your neighbourhood, and all that you could fight them with was the people who lived within 3 miles of you as they'd cut off transport to everywhere else. My guess is you'd lose.

Our cycle: Every Ship in the Galaxy [Well over 100,000 ships. Potentially over 150 Dreadnoughts]. All armed with Thanix, approximate ratios are 16 Fighters to destroy 1 Sovereign class Reaper. So, we'd need 4800 Fighters alone to take on the Sovereigns, if we had no Frigates, Cruisers or Dreadnoughts. Considering Fighters are the weakest of the ships, and likely the most numerous, 4800 isn't that high a number out of over 100,000 ships. Either we have enough fighters to take on those 300 Reapers and a Crapton of Frigates and Cruisers that would destroy anything the Reapers can throw against us, or we have even more fighters, and still win this battle with absolute ease.

In this scenario, China invades your neighbourhood, but the entire US military is able to back you up and fight back. You actually stand a chance now.

Of course, this is cutscene numbers vs Estimated Numbers. Really though, we have no clue how many ships are on each side. It is entirely possible that we could beat the Reapers, albeit with extremely heavy losses. It would require ME3 to have been written that way though, instead of attempting to force a Deus Ex Machina.

[Joccaren]

MysticSpace wrote...
So there are very few places where you can build anything the size of a cruiser let alone anything better.

Cruicible.
Need I say more?

Also, the Turains were able to hold the Reapers off from destroying their fuel Depots. We can protect important places if we need to, we just can't defend them all.

[Joccaren]

Spartas Husky wrote...

didn't all reapers gather on earth?... didn't seem like a fleet larger than our own.

No, not all gathered on Earth. It was just the largest concentration of them in the Galaxy.
Their numbers in the cutscene are also not accurate. Each Reaper needs to be drawn/Rendered, and that takes valuable time and money. Rendering 2000 Reapers is not economical, so a simple 300 is done instead. Numbers on each side during the Sword Fight are unknown.

[Paradox6006]

The Mad Hanar wrote...

So you're going to just conveniently ignore all that?

That's what he does best. ignore your points and make his own

[Oransel]

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/12920208/1#12978336 That's why

[Joccaren]

Paradox6006 wrote...

The Mad Hanar wrote...

So you're going to just conveniently ignore all that?

That's what he does best. ignore your points and make his own

To be fair, The Angry One was correct. All of those points are misinformation: Either a misunderstanding on Hanar's part, or outright lies to promote the Reapers. Not everyone has time to post a full response to all points, and I can't blame people for not bothering when you bring in "Facts" you pulled out your ass as argument.

[Seboist]

Coventional victory is possible because the Reapers are complete morons. Look at how they refuse to destroy the Normandy in the intro and in the beam scenes or how they only send one of their ships to deal with coalitions on Tuchanka and Rannoch.

[nos_astra]

If it's possible to take on a Reaper on foot, if it's possible a goddam Thresher Maw can tackle and kill one, it should be possible to win this war because Reapers are morons.

Modifié par klarabella, 09 juillet 2012 - 09:10 .

[T-Bone665]

True, most if not all Hanar has said was either wrong or just an assumption. Many of the points made for conventional victory being possible fall in the same categories.

In the end, all argumentation stands against a "word of god". The reapers are said to be unbeatable in direct confrontation, so imo we have to accept that they are unless there is undisputable evidence otherwise. And this evidence does not exist because the facts that would be important for this are never stated, like the number of Sovereign-class Reapers.

Also, because i just re-read the codex, here's anothr bone thrown into the fight:
The state of the Alliance fleets. The Alliance has been in three engagements with the Reapers:
At the Charon Relay, at Arcturus and at Earth. Most of those should have been rather short.

1st fleet: Half destroyed (conflicts Fall of Earth, where it says completely destroyed)
2nd fleet: Completely destroyed
3rd fleet: Unclear, saw heavy battle at Charon Relay before retreat
4th fleet: Completely destroyed
5th fleet: Unclear, saw "bloody and desperate battle" at Arcturus
6th fleet: Undamaged

We are not going to win a war with those odds.

Modifié par T-Bone665, 09 juillet 2012 - 12:54 .

[malakim2099]

T-Bone665 wrote...

True, most if not all Hanar has said was either wrong or just an assumption. Many of the points made for conventional victory being possible fall in the same categories.

In the end, all argumentation stands against a "word of god". The reapers are said to be unbeatable in direct confrontation, so imo we have to accept that they are unless there is undisputable evidence otherwise. And this evidence does not exist because the facts that would be important for this are never stated, like the number of Sovereign-class Reapers.

Also, because i just re-read the codex, here's anothr bone thrown into the fight:
The state of the Alliance fleets. The Alliance has been in three engagements with the Reapers:
At the Charon Relay, at Arcturus and at Earth. Most of those should have been rather short.

1st fleet: Half destroyed (conflicts Fall of Earth, where it says completely destroyed)
2nd fleet: Completely destroyed
3rd fleet: Unclear, saw heavy battle at Charon Relay before retreat
4th fleet: Completely destroyed
5th fleet: Unclear, saw "bloody and desperate battle" at Arcturus
6th fleet: Undamaged

We are not going to win a war with those odds.

Yeah, too bad we don't have the majority of the game dedicated to running around to find more allies or something.

[RDSFirebane]

malakim2099 wrote...


Yeah, too bad we don't have the majority of the game dedicated to running around to find more allies or something.

To bad we also dont have a race that can work 24/7 or the supplys to rebuild/repair ships and no safe place to do so.... oh wait we have all of that.

[Spartas Husky]

Joccaren wrote...

Spartas Husky wrote...

didn't all reapers gather on earth?... didn't seem like a fleet larger than our own.

No, not all gathered on Earth. It was just the largest concentration of them in the Galaxy.
Their numbers in the cutscene are also not accurate. Each Reaper needs to be drawn/Rendered, and that takes valuable time and money. Rendering 2000 Reapers is not economical, so a simple 300 is done instead. Numbers on each side during the Sword Fight are unknown.

They didn't all gather on earth. Can you give me a quote, scene or something?



but on the offchance they simply just consolidated most forces on earth... still lends even more credence to the idea of conventional victory.

Given that we dont see, Rachni, Geth (even if they say they are there), Batarian, Terminus fleets present.

Modifié par Spartas Husky, 09 juillet 2012 - 10:21 .

[daigakuinsei]

I thought Arrival suggested that the Reapers would come to Earth and that we'd have to destroy the Sol relay to "win." I never got the impression that we could win conventionally, and I don't think the developers ever intended to convey that message. The people pushing conventional win are somewhat misguided.

[atis]

I dont know if any one els thought of this but did no one remember we killed a reaper single handed with one shot from the kain heavy weapon why dosent the gallaxy get a few of those holdem side ways and go all gangsta on harbin I mean the catalist's ass?

Modifié par atis, 10 juillet 2012 - 03:58 .

[Silhouett3]

daigakuinsei wrote...

The people pushing conventional win are somewhat misguided.

More than misguided: If you can just shoot all Reapers down with conventional means using the present technology you already have, they would cease to be Reapers, the cycles cease to be "harvesting", Lovecraftian villains would become space gangsters and Mass Effect would lost its most distinctional themes and messages.

[Gweedotk]

I believe Bioware should release cutscenes or "news footage" to go along wsith news reports. That being, when it describes how the Turians are about to loose their homeworld, we actually get to see a cutscene depicting the fighting and get a real sense of just what the hell is going on out there. A cutscene for the destruction of Grissom Academy and capture of Elysium, the fall of Terra Nova and Eden Prime, the fighting on Tuchanka, etc. We are all spoiled by the victories Shepard encounters, I think we need to actually see what the fighting looks like out there for us to really get a sense of how bleak the situation really is.

The reason people think conventional victory is possible is because all we experience is victory while playing as Shepard or the Spec Ops on MP. After playing MP, I too was beginning to become quite suspicious by the constant victories. But I am also beginning to believe that those people shooting at the Reaper Destroyer on Earth were in fact those MP Spec Ops, and it can be assumed they are all or nearly all completely wiped out... by one Reaper. And those troops we all kill in MP can be replaced in days... by our own civilians. But I had to figure that out on my own, and it isn't exactly solid evidence but a reasonably strong suspicion.

I think we would all get to enjoy some more good cutscenes and everybody would actually SEE what the Reapers are doing. That is the only thing that I think would help people understand just what the Reapers are doing. And we'd all benefit from the extra content.

Modifié par Gweedotk, 10 juillet 2012 - 04:20 .

[PoisonMushroom]

I wish everyone would stop assuming that the only alternative Bioware could have written to the crucible was conventional warfare.

And even if it boiled down to warfare, it certainly wouldn't have to be conventional.

[3DandBeyond]

Alleyd's points are exactly right. There have been many cases throughout history where the undermanned overwhelmed David beat the bloated Goliath. It is the very reason the US exists today. It is the very reason many other countries do also.

The only reason that conventional warfare (that actually could be waged using unconventional means) wouldn't work in ME, is because the writers decided it wouldn't. That's it.

There's no reason Shepard's team should have won in ME2, no reason that many sure suicidal missions should have been won, but the reason they were is because the writers allowed for it.

The Titanic couldn't sink. The Roman Empire would always exist. Name your absolutism. Why is it that so many things in real life are not absolute? Because people have a capacity to do what "machines" cannot compensate for. The Titanic could sink because the ship (the machine) design could not compensate for humans doing something against its design. Had humans not done what they did, the ship might not have sank.

The Roman Empire (machine) failed because of rot from within and conflict from the outside.

The US Civil War was won by the North because Lincoln found a General (Grant) who was willing to sustain heavy losses, even suicidal ones, any cost to win. Something that had been the strength of the South (numbers and those willing to die in droves) became a strength of the North.

What they all have in common is no writer dictated to them that they couldn't win. In fact, it was because so many generals before Grant wouldn't actually fight because they thought they might lose, that Lincoln kept replacing them. If Lincoln had written ME and Grant replaced Hackett, they'd be shoving people out the airlocks of ships, toward reapers with Cains. Geth would be attempting to shut down their shields with EDI's help, and other Geth would be trying to board reapers to destroy them from the inside. Someone would be trying to work out a way to provide stealth tech to all ships and even to land based vehicles and people so that someone maybe could climb up on reapers and plant charges when they open up. Someone else might have been working on dissecting the Indoctrination signal reapers give off and seeing if it could be jammed or used as a weapon against them-a way through their shields.

But, the writers used Hackett and others to just keep telling people what they can't do. He's no Grant.  He's not even a great military mind if all they keep doing is shooting missiles if they aren't working.  If they are working then keep using them.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 10 juillet 2012 - 05:43 .

[3DandBeyond]

PoisonMushroom wrote...

I wish everyone would stop assuming that the only alternative Bioware could have written to the crucible was conventional warfare.

And even if it boiled down to warfare, it certainly wouldn't have to be conventional.

The problem is lack of imagination.  There are many unconventional means within conventional warfare.  Too many people just think you keep shooting missiles and stuff.  That isn't going to work of course.  But what's rather silly is that in London a Hades cannon is taken down by a Cain and so no one even tries a Cain against other reapers?  I find it hard to believe that the cannon was unshielded when even Marauders have shields of some sort.  So, if a Cain might work, why not try one when a reaper opens up?  Or other things.

[3DandBeyond]

Silhouett3 wrote...

daigakuinsei wrote...

The people pushing conventional win are somewhat misguided.

More than misguided: If you can just shoot all Reapers down with conventional means using the present technology you already have, they would cease to be Reapers, the cycles cease to be "harvesting", Lovecraftian villains would become space gangsters and Mass Effect would lost its most distinctional themes and messages.

But the funny thing is sometimes conventional weapons do work against them.  And there are other means of doing things other than just running up to a reaper and shooting a pistol at it.  There are things within conventional means that are unconventionally used.  Why not try and EMP missile?  And that missile battery on Earth took down a reaper near the conduit.  What made that special?

[jstme]

I just want to point out (again) that ME3 story is work of fiction. Writers found it possible to write synthesis in. Writing in conventional vicoty needed one thing - will to do so.
Thus Reapers could not be won over conventionally only for that one reason - lack of the will to write it this way.
Reasons behind lack of that will are unclear to me - but i am 100% sure that it is not due to feeling that it will be against ME narrative and setting of the universe in previous games. Proof - look at synthesis which is 100% against ME narrative and does not fit in setting of previous games and yet there it is.

[richard_rider]

Too video gamey, perhaps. I don't know but I always thought it would come down to taking down the reapers the hard way, not just shooting a pipe, or a swan dive...call it what you will, but to me it cheapens the struggle.

They could've written a conventional victory, if they really wanted to; a conventional victory by unconventional weapons/tactics/etc. but instead they went off the deep end...