269 réponses à ce sujet

[dreman9999]

LucasShark wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

LucasShark wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

LucasShark wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

.....:mellow:The opening mission of ME1 has you go to Eden prime which is being invaded by geth, a race of synthetic beings,  in which in the end of the mission your hit by a vision for a prothean becon of synthetics killing organics and now your saying at the end of ME3 is the first time the theme of organic vs synthetics come up?

And then we specifically learn that those synthetics do NOT want to fight us in ME2, and the Reapers are organic-synthetic hybrids.

1. What happensin ME2 is a counter point to the synthtic /organic issue. It to point that synthetics are not the issue allown.

2. Reapers ar still synthetic. They synthetics made of reformed and grined up organic parts and machinery. That still means your fighting synthetics.

1)
1a) WTF is "allown?"
1b) a direct counter-point, showing that our initial concept of what was happening (simplistic us versus them) was INCORRECT!

2) If reapers are synthetic, then why are they the ones using bio-based technology everywhere?  They are hybrids, Saren says as much in ME1, as does Edi in ME2.

1. I mean alone.
1b. Of cousre it's a couter point. We are given a Geth the wants to work with use stop the reaper and most of the ship is uneasy and/or agenst it.
ME2 show that alot othe rorganicsinthe galexy orinheritly biest ageinst synthetic life.

2.Bio based? Most there teck looks like metal. Added, if a person made a robot out of chichen bones...Is it suddenly not a synthetic?
It a synthetic made of organic parts.

Ugh, for the BILLIONTH time:
If they are composed of both living tissue and cybernetic components, and are still classified as life, then they are not simply "synthetic", they are "cyborgs" or a hybrid organism.

1. This is a game that classifies synthetics as a form of life.

2. A cyborg is differnt then a reaper. That a form of augmentation. That is not a reaper. A reaper has a being completly reformed to a new form. It maters not if it has organic tissue. In fact a reaper does not have living tussiue at all. Just organic base components.
A hybrid does not mean not a synthetic.

[dreman9999]

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

1. That point has a major impact to the ending result and has one of the themes of me in it...Advancement and issues of advancement.

2. It will ony diminise the choice you made before if it's easy to do and give more points then doing the choices on had. Added the player hasthe choice not to do the mp.

[dreman9999]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

You nailed that correctly. The EMS abstraction layer alienated all decisions from the past. It's a failed software engineering trick that disconnects the ending from the story. The game was about people, but their efforts got reduced to numbers.

Let me put my point in a nut shell...
In dragon age origins...My goal is to build an army. I'm given a choice to recuit the elves or werewolves...Ether side is willing to fight in my army but differnt things will happen on the short term based on my choice now but in the end in the long term they join my army.....Does it matter who I pick?

[Big I]

My problem with EMS is that's it's a huge example of gameplay/story divide. EMS numbers are arbitrary and don't reflect the story very well.


For instance, the salarians, quarians and geth all promise technical support for the Crucible if you meet their story objectives; in the case of the salarians Hackett even tells you the STG is willing to help you no matter what the dalatrass says. None of that is reflected in EMS; there's no "salarian scientists" or "geth engineers" crucible asset in the game.


Also, value is applied arbitrarily to characters. Why do Koris and Xen count as war assets, but not Ran or Gerel? Why does Wrex or Wreav count as an asset, but not the Primarch or Hackett? More importantly why don't the Normandy crew count as assets, presumably as a buff to the Normandy EMS score? Garrus and Tali if recruited are shown to be co-ordinating their people's war efforts, surely there's some military value to that?


EMS is a broken system, and they should have gone the ME2 route (i.e. pick a role for the people you've recruited in the final battle).

[dreman9999]

LookingGlass93 wrote...

My problem with EMS is that's it's a huge example of gameplay/story divide. EMS numbers are arbitrary and don't reflect the story very well.


For instance, the salarians, quarians and geth all promise technical support for the Crucible if you meet their story objectives; in the case of the salarians Hackett even tells you the STG is willing to help you no matter what the dalatrass says. None of that is reflected in EMS; there's no "salarian scientists" or "geth engineers" crucible asset in the game.


Also, value is applied arbitrarily to characters. Why do Koris and Xen count as war assets, but not Ran or Gerel? Why does Wrex or Wreav count as an asset, but not the Primarch or Hackett? More importantly why don't the Normandy crew count as assets, presumably as a buff to the Normandy EMS score? Garrus and Tali if recruited are shown to be co-ordinating their people's war efforts, surely there's some military value to that?


EMS is a broken system, and they should have gone the ME2 route (i.e. pick a role for the people you've recruited in the final battle).

Your first pointis based on labling no in the ems in general. The fact you get the ems convers the fact thatyou don'tget a spasific lable for that ems.
With the salarian it's an issue of getting it now then later or even a morsecurds why of getting their ems if thane and 
Kirrahe  are dead...Or you playing the ps3 version.

and you second point I said before is an arguement of value. It nothing more then arguing why one gun is better then another. The issue on had is balance and making the end result work so th eplayer is not underfunded or overfunded.

This does not make the system broken.
 Remeber it's a gameplay michanic. It can only be broken if th eplayerhas an easier was to get ems then the normal means.

Modifié par dreman9999, 21 septembre 2012 - 08:02 .

[LucasShark]

dreman9999 wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

You nailed that correctly. The EMS abstraction layer alienated all decisions from the past. It's a failed software engineering trick that disconnects the ending from the story. The game was about people, but their efforts got reduced to numbers.

Let me put my point in a nut shell...
In dragon age origins...My goal is to build an army. I'm given a choice to recuit the elves or werewolves...Ether side is willing to fight in my army but differnt things will happen on the short term based on my choice now but in the end in the long term they join my army.....Does it matter who I pick?

FOR THE LAST BLOODY TIME: YES, yes, a thousand times YES it should matter who you choose to join you, otherwise the choice is sodding meaningless!

[Vigilant111]

dreman9999 wrote...

1. That point has a major impact to the ending result and has one of the themes of me in it...Advancement and issues of advancement.

2. It will only diminish the choices you made if it's easy to do and gives more points than doing the choices on hand. Also the player has the choice not to do the mp.

1. If you think that genophage has helped (or inspired) you to decide which ending to choose, that is your prerogative, but this point is moot, because genophage has no direct causal relationship towards the ending except around 800 -1000 EMS, therefore, it is only a subplot that has miminal impact on the ending

2. When you do something stupid in game, you should not be able to do things that are not story-related to make up for your mistakes. Not to mention pre-EC, where gamers find it extremely difficult to unlock the infamous breath scene without playing MP

Modifié par Vigilant111, 21 septembre 2012 - 08:25 .

[Kataphrut94]

I remember them discussing this matter in the Game Arena podcast when they did a spoiler episode about Mass Effect 3. Basically, one of them was arguing that he didn't like the War Asset system because he felt the "gamey" interface and the progress bar detracted from the roleplaying. The others counterargued that it depends on your level of immersion - if you're immersed in the game and making proper roleplaying decision, then you won't even notice that bar or it's mechanics.

I'm in that boat: to me, the war assets are just a nice series of fun codex entries, and the point system is synonomous with Xbox Achievments - not important or necessary, but still satisfying as a token reward. Plus, there is the idea that you're working towards something - it judges how well you do at your central goal of uniting forces and gathering assets to fight the Reapers and the number does still tie into the final endings and what you can unlock. Even with no Extended Cut and no multiplayer, you can still unlock every ending, you just miss out on the easter egg at the end of Destroy.

[AngryFrozenWater]

dreman9999 wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

You nailed that correctly. The EMS abstraction layer alienated all decisions from the past. It's a failed software engineering trick that disconnects the ending from the story. The game was about people, but their efforts got reduced to numbers.

Let me put my point in a nut shell...
In dragon age origins...My goal is to build an army. I'm given a choice to recuit the elves or werewolves...Ether side is willing to fight in my army but differnt things will happen on the short term based on my choice now but in the end in the long term they join my army.....Does it matter who I pick?

Of course it is. The game is all about the story, Shepard, Shepard's crew and allies and the decisions made. It's much like Vigilant111 paints. That renders every other aspect of the game useless when all that is replaced by numbers. That you can live with those abstract numbers is not my problem.

[Someone With Mass]

The one mistake is making the side-quests mandatory to get a good ending. Because then they're not really side-missions, since side-mission are more than often optional in order to give your character experience boosts or new items he/she can use to achieve the main goal more easily. It should not be a critical part of the story.

They should really have done it like ME2's suicide mission, because that thing was good, while Priority: Earth was just the same damn thing we've done throughout the whole game. Take something and hold it until someone gives us the OK to move on. That's it.

[LucasShark]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I remember them discussing this matter in the Game Arena podcast when they did a spoiler episode about Mass Effect 3. Basically, one of them was arguing that he didn't like the War Asset system because he felt the "gamey" interface and the progress bar detracted from the roleplaying. The others counterargued that it depends on your level of immersion - if you're immersed in the game and making proper roleplaying decision, then you won't even notice that bar or it's mechanics.

I'm in that boat: to me, the war assets are just a nice series of fun codex entries, and the point system is synonomous with Xbox Achievments - not important or necessary, but still satisfying as a token reward. Plus, there is the idea that you're working towards something - it judges how well you do at your central goal of uniting forces and gathering assets to fight the Reapers and the number does still tie into the final endings and what you can unlock. Even with no Extended Cut and no multiplayer, you can still unlock every ending, you just miss out on the easter egg at the end of Destroy.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but you are ignoring the problem of making all choices universally interchangable.

[dreman9999]

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

1. That point has a major impact to the ending result and has one of the themes of me in it...Advancement and issues of advancement.

2. It will only diminish the choices you made if it's easy to do and gives more points than doing the choices on hand. Also the player has the choice not to do the mp.

1. If you think that genophage has helped (or inspired) you to decide which ending to choose, that is your prerogative, but this point is moot, because genophage has no direct causal relationship towards the ending except around 800 -1000 EMS, therefore, it is only a subplot that has miminal impact on the ending

2. When you do something stupid in game, you should not be able to do things that are not story-related to make up for your mistakes. Not to mention pre-EC, where gamers find it extremely difficult to unlock the infamous breath scene without playing MP

1. it stillhepls. That is my point.

2. That's not how a game based on choice should word. It would turn it into a game based on caluclation. If the dev made many path to take and only one path is the correct path, the player will alway go for the correct path. What ever the effort the dev does for other path would be point less.
If you want to get my point...Watch this.
http://penny-arcade....ce-and-conflict 

[dreman9999]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

You nailed that correctly. The EMS abstraction layer alienated all decisions from the past. It's a failed software engineering trick that disconnects the ending from the story. The game was about people, but their efforts got reduced to numbers.

Let me put my point in a nut shell...
In dragon age origins...My goal is to build an army. I'm given a choice to recuit the elves or werewolves...Ether side is willing to fight in my army but differnt things will happen on the short term based on my choice now but in the end in the long term they join my army.....Does it matter who I pick?

Of course it is. The game is all about the story, Shepard, Shepard's crew and allies and the decisions made. It's much like Vigilant111 paints. That renders every other aspect of the game useless when all that is replaced by numbers. That you can live with those abstract numbers is not my problem.

This is th ething your not getting. This is a game the devs want the player to play more then once with differnt views, morities and perspectives.

If the player is give 2 choices in the game and finds out that choice is the wrong choice, the player when he repays it will no choose that choice. It will narrow trhe player perspective. The entire idea is to branch it out.
Even Witcher 2 does this. That game also does not have any choice that lead to a bad result of the story.

That the point of the quetion I stated. BW wants you to see both what happen if you pick th eelves or the wolves in my perspectives.

[dreman9999]

Someone With Mass wrote...

The one mistake is making the side-quests mandatory to get a good ending. Because then they're not really side-missions, since side-mission are more than often optional in order to give your character experience boosts or new items he/she can use to achieve the main goal more easily. It should not be a critical part of the story.

They should really have done it like ME2's suicide mission, because that thing was good, while Priority: Earth was just the same damn thing we've done throughout the whole game. Take something and hold it until someone gives us the OK to move on. That's it.

As I said befor that's an issue with prority earth not ems.

[dreman9999]

LucasShark wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

So destroying genophage in ME2 has no effect on the plot of ME3 what so ever? Nor who servives the suicide mission?

My point, that pic been dead since ec came out.

Those are minor plots, remember, the theme of ME3 is "organics vs synthetics" as it is introduced at the last ten minutes of the game.

Playing MP also deminishes the effect of past choices, because you can now make up for the detrimental effects of your choices by doing non-story related stuff

You nailed that correctly. The EMS abstraction layer alienated all decisions from the past. It's a failed software engineering trick that disconnects the ending from the story. The game was about people, but their efforts got reduced to numbers.

Let me put my point in a nut shell...
In dragon age origins...My goal is to build an army. I'm given a choice to recuit the elves or werewolves...Ether side is willing to fight in my army but differnt things will happen on the short term based on my choice now but in the end in the long term they join my army.....Does it matter who I pick?

FOR THE LAST BLOODY TIME: YES, yes, a thousand times YES it should matter who you choose to join you, otherwise the choice is sodding meaningless!

That does not make the choice meaning less. If it was made so that one choice resulted in a good end and one choice resulted in a bad end, it would turn the choice your making to a calulation....That is not how choice should work.
http://penny-arcade....ce-and-conflict 

[grey_wind]

I think I'm going to suffer an aneurysm if I continue reading this thread......

[ElitePinecone]

LucasShark wrote...
snip

This is a brilliant post OP, summarised a lot of my misgivings with the system. 

[Dubozz]

Xellith wrote...

EMS is only a good way as long as you arnt going to simpify it... which they did...

[Netsfn1427]

EMS isn't a perfect system, but it gets slagged on too much around here. All it's doing is showing you the nuts and bolts of a point system. It's also a point system which exists throughout the games. The Geth/Quarian choice is a scaled down version of EMS as is who survives the final "hold the line" segment of the Suicide Mission. They just don't show you the score in those segments, though you can find breakdowns online. You can argue they should have hidden it, but I imagine a ton of people would have been frustrated they had no idea how close they were to the optimal ending.

EMS is meant to both give your choices meaning and de-emphasize them. It seems like it's purpose was to split the baby; let you play your game different each time while still be able to achieve the optimal ending, whatever you chose it to be. I can't remember a Bioware games that locks you out of an ending choice based on a decision you made in the first half of the game, so they were trying to prevent that type of situation while taking into account that certain actions you took in prior games could doom your ideal scenario in ME3.

For the ending score, the choices are interchangeable. For the storyline purpose and tone, it isn't. You can make up losing the Krogan if Wrex finds out about your betrayal, but the storyline impact for the character is different. You can get the best ending without both the Geth and Quarians, but it doesn't take away the impact of those scenes.

You can argue it reduces everything to numbers, but that's supposed to represent the calculus of war. When taken as a whole, you can decide how much you want to sacrifice in the game (or how much work you want to do) to get to the EMS necessary to get the job done. It is a choice. The system was trying to prevent you from being locked out of any ending based on a choice or two.

As I mentioned before, choices resulting in similar game play no matter your decision is standard fare for a Bioware game. It's the story's tone and situation that can change. I liken it to interior decorating. The house isn't changing, just how the furniture is arranged. To criticize ME3 for it while not criticizing any other Bioware RPG seems a touch hypocritical. The only thing ME3 did different was show you where you stood rather than computing it off screen.

Modifié par Netsfn1427, 21 septembre 2012 - 04:24 .

[dreman9999]

ElitePinecone wrote...

LucasShark wrote...
snip

This is a brilliant post OP, summarised a lot of my misgivings with the system. 

None of what the op stated is a problem directed to ems outside of why one thing is valuedover another. And that is n differnt from arguing why one weapon cost more then another.

[dreman9999]

Netsfn1427 wrote...

EMS isn't a perfect system, but it gets slagged on too much around here. All it's doing is showing you the nuts and bolts of a point system. It's also a point system which exists throughout the games. The Geth/Quarian choice is a scaled down version of EMS as is who survives the final "hold the line" segment of the Suicide Mission. They just don't show you the score in those segments, though you can find breakdowns online. You can argue they should have hidden it, but I imagine a ton of people would have been frustrated they had no idea how close they were to the optimal ending.

EMS is meant to both give your choices meaning and de-emphasize them. It seems like it's purpose was to split the baby; let you play your game different each time while still be able to achieve the optimal ending, whatever you chose it to be. I can't remember a Bioware games that locks you out of an ending choice based on a decision you made in the first half of the game, so they were trying to prevent that type of situation while taking into account that certain actions you took in prior games could doom your ideal scenario in ME3.

For the ending score, the choices are interchangeable. For the storyline purpose and tone, it isn't. You can make up losing the Krogan if Wrex finds out about your betrayal, but the storyline impact for the character is different. You can get the best ending without both the Geth and Quarians, but it doesn't take away the impact of those scenes.

You can argue it reduces everything to numbers, but that's supposed to represent the calculus of war. When taken as a whole, you can decide how much you want to sacrifice in the game (or how much work you want to do) to get to the EMS necessary to get the job done. It is a choice. The system was trying to prevent you from being locked out of any ending based on a choice or two.

As I mentioned before, choices resulting in similar game play no matter your decision is standard fare for a Bioware game. It's the story's tone and situation that can change. I liken it to interior decorating. The house isn't changing, just how the furniture is arranged. To criticize ME3 for it while not criticizing any other Bioware RPG seems a touch hypocritical. The only thing ME3 did different was show you where you stood rather than computing it off screen.

Thank you...I been tryin gto tell this person the same thing for many pages.

[plfranke]

It did not necessarily have to be based off of numbers as cold and dry as EMS. For instance, how your ground troops did would be dependant on how much Krogan support you got, but would be totally independent from whatever happens with the quarians and the geth. However, the Crucible design might suffer from not having salarian scientists helping with the project.

It's so ridiculous that you could play the game making the tactically worst decisions, not scan for anything, do no sidequests, and as long as you played enough multiplayer you can get the same ending choices and even slides as someone who did all side quests, scanning and put time and effort into every decision.

[Netsfn1427]

plfranke wrote...

It did not necessarily have to be based off of numbers as cold and dry as EMS. For instance, how your ground troops did would be dependant on how much Krogan support you got, but would be totally independent from whatever happens with the quarians and the geth. However, the Crucible design might suffer from not having salarian scientists helping with the project.

It's so ridiculous that you could play the game making the tactically worst decisions, not scan for anything, do no sidequests, and as long as you played enough multiplayer you can get the same ending choices and even slides as someone who did all side quests, scanning and put time and effort into every decision.

I tend to agree with your last point. Tying the MP to the single player so heavily was a poor decision. I know they were trying to diversify the ways you can get the ending, while getting people to try multiplayer, but I wish they capped it's influence on the single player campaign. Besides, I doubt most people playing MP are doing it for the War Assets at this point.

Ideally, I'd have preferred that if you managed to do the optimal things for max allegiances in game, you could get the best endings. Then you could use the sidequests to make up for what you lost by not getting the optimal outcomes, all the way up to having to do most of the sidequests if you had totally bungled the different storyline missions. 

[dreman9999]

plfranke wrote...

It did not necessarily have to be based off of numbers as cold and dry as EMS. For instance, how your ground troops did would be dependant on how much Krogan support you got, but would be totally independent from whatever happens with the quarians and the geth. However, the Crucible design might suffer from not having salarian scientists helping with the project.

It's so ridiculous that you could play the game making the tactically worst decisions, not scan for anything, do no sidequests, and as long as you played enough multiplayer you can get the same ending choices and even slides as someone who did all side quests, scanning and put time and effort into every decision.

Hears the problem with your arguement. Doing that takes much longer and harder then the search and rescue missing. It would ony brake the system is it was easier to get ems if you played the mpo...It's not.

Added it not like you have alternate means to build the crucible outside of the salarians.

Think of it more like a game economy for a video game. The only time it braken is if you have more money then you need or too little to keepup. This goes the same with stats and gear.
The entire issue is balance.
Mp does not off balance ems because it not easier for the player to get ems in the mp. It easier to get it based on choices.

[Vigilant111]

dreman9999 wrote...

1. it still helps. That is my point.

2. That's not how a game based on choice should work. It would turn it into a game based on caluclation. If the devs made many paths to take and only one path is the correct path, the player will alway go for the correct path. Whatever the effort the dev does for other path would be point less.
If you want to get my point...Watch this.
http://penny-arcade....ce-and-conflict 

1. No, just because u saw an ostensible connection between the Genophage and the ending does not make the connection a causal factor, curing the Genophage or not curing it has very little impact on the ending or the theme of "organics vs synthetics"

2. You sound like ME3 have provided you with many paths, but essentially they all lead to the same conclusion: organics must be stopped from being wiped out by synthetics, not just the reapers

MP does not count as a "seperate" path because it is not story related, we are not talking about paragon/renegade or correct/incorrect here, we are talking about thematic choices that are relevant to the story

No, EMS is the purest form of calculation expressed in actual numbers, its like collecting stamps to send the Crucible to Earth, it does not tell anything about what kind of person Shepard is, and it does not reflect the theme of the game well. Getting a high number through ANY means IS the correct path, but not everything can be expressed as EMS