247 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Lunch Box1912 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Lunch Box1912 wrote...
Yeah but alot of players got this on there first runthrough. Even if they missed alot.... I did and I missed quite a few things within the game.

With a good ME3 save you have to blow off a fair amount of stuff to score below 3100.

Yeah, exactly my point.

Thing is, if you don't have a bunch of slack in the EMS scale then most of the sidequests and scanning become mandatory. Unless they don't count for EMS at all, in which case they're just..... completely pointless? I guess that could have worked; it's no worse than ME1, or a TES game.

In retrospect, the EMS thresholds should have been a percentage of total possible points for that starting save (or lack of save) rather than a straight-up check.

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
But the way DA:O did that was by having the consequences of the DR be unknown. Is that applicable to the final part of a trilogy?

You never let Alistair or Logain slay the archdemon, have you?

Yep. I got Loghain killed once, and had Alistair do the DR once.

Then you know there are endings in which the Warden can live without doing the Dark Ritual.  Endings which are satisfying (I prefer the Redeemer ending myself) yet do not invalidate the Ultimate Scrifice ending.  Heck Loagain/Alistair get their own farewells before their deaths too.

And those endings have their own costs.

[Dean_the_Young]

AlanC9 wrote...

Lunch Box1912 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Lunch Box1912 wrote...
Yeah but alot of players got this on there first runthrough. Even if they missed alot.... I did and I missed quite a few things within the game.

With a good ME3 save you have to blow off a fair amount of stuff to score below 3100.

Yeah, exactly my point.

Thing is, if you don't have a bunch of slack in the EMS scale then most of the sidequests and scanning become mandatory. Unless they don't count for EMS at all, in which case they're just..... completely pointless? I guess that could have worked; it's no worse than ME1, or a TES game.

In retrospect, the EMS thresholds should have been a percentage of total possible points for that starting save (or lack of save) rather than a straight-up check.

That would be a tricky measure to set up, but that's actually a pretty good idea. Unlike in ME2's morality system, a percentage system based on available EMS does make a bit more sense. You'd want to avoid setting the bars too high, but...

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
But the way DA:O did that was by having the consequences of the DR be unknown. Is that applicable to the final part of a trilogy?

You never let Alistair or Logain slay the archdemon, have you?

Yep. I got Loghain killed once, and had Alistair do the DR once.

Then you know there are endings in which the Warden can live without doing the Dark Ritual.  Endings which are satisfying (I prefer the Redeemer ending myself) yet do not invalidate the Ultimate Scrifice ending.  Heck Loagain/Alistair get their own farewells before their deaths too.

And those endings have their own costs.

YES!!!!  Exactly!  Different costs!  CHOICES when it comees to what price to pay!!!  Not "Pick a color and DIE!!!"

Modifié par iakus, 25 septembre 2012 - 11:46 .

[Xilizhra]

Quething wrote...

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

I meant that, as in cases like DA:O, it is possible to create a reasonably satisfying "protagonist lives" ending and a reasonably satisfying "protagonist dies" ending without one compromising the legitimacy of the other. I'll concede your point about the dark ritual being merely foreboding as opposed to observably doom-wreaking, but making a demon god baby is still pretty dark stuff and in some cases you even need to send your love interest to sleep with Miss Rags for Blouses.

Actually, that's the point I was trying to make: this was the aspect which I considered unsatisfying about DA:O's ending. It's about as headcanon as hoping that Shepard survives the wreckage via Destroy. Even the ominous overtones are confined to Morrigan's brief dialogue and lost once those five minutes are done. I didn't feel guilty once the Dark Ritual was completed, partially because the presentation failed to capture the inherent danger of Blood Magic. You (or Alistair) hook up with Morrigan (potentially an LI) and...that's it. If they wanted to make the Dark Ritual more ominous and threatening, the actual ritual should have been more, well, ominous and threatening. Think Melisandre from a Storm of Swords.

The thing to remember about the Dark Ritual is that the game is written from the assumption that you're romancing either Morrigan or Alistair. Which, for much of your fanbase, pretty much makes the OGB window dressing. The sacrifice, the difficult choice, the loss, is in sending your lover to sleep with a woman he despises to save his life at the cost of a lie that will always lie between you, or in watching your lover walk out of your life forever with a child you'll never know. And if you're at all invested in the characters you've just spent forty to eighty hours with, that is cutting and personal and seriously bittersweet on a level that ME3's "oh yeah and EDI dies for no reason and stuff" can't even dream of.

If you don't really care much about Morrigan, have no particular concern about the future of Ferelden, always found Alistair kind of a putz, and waltzed off into the sunset with Zevran, then yeah, it's going to seem a little easy. But in that case why shouldn't it? You're roleplaying a jerk. It's perfectly appropriate for a jerk to get a happy ending, because the happiness isn't in an objectively better scenario, it's in the fact that he's a jerk and therefore the negative effects don't matter to him because they all apply to other people.

Wait. What? I wasn't emotionally affected by the DR much, but I was not roleplaying a jerk. My LI was Leliana, I wasn't all that worried about Ferelden being endangered because I trusted Morrigan, and it was Loghain she slept with. You make rather too many assumptions there, I feel.

[Reorte]

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

And those endings have their own costs.

YES!!!!  Exactly!  Different costs!  CHOICES when it comees to what price to pay!!!  Not "Pick a color and DIE!!!"

Should costs be inevitable no matter what? IMO that's making things crapper than necessary just to account for metagaming, something that I'm never keen on. Look at everything that hasn't gone perfectly in real life. There's always something you could've done better in the past and if you had your time again you would, and got your perfect life. Is it right that a game has to stamp that out simply because it is possible to go back and change things? The first playthrough is far and away the important one for me, and if something goes wrong, if someone dies, I want it to be because I screwed up somewhere along the line and not because it's been railroaded in because "there have to be costs."

Costs should hit you as a consequence of your actions. Play a RTS game. Every time you lose a unit you could've done something else (or got luckier) and saved it. Now it might be very hard to win the mission without losing a lot but it's not completely impossible. Exactly the same is true for real life. In an idea world an RPG should aim for that.

[Iakus]

Reorte wrote...

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

And those endings have their own costs.

YES!!!!  Exactly!  Different costs!  CHOICES when it comes to what price to pay!!!  Not "Pick a color and DIE!!!"

Should costs be inevitable no matter what? IMO that's making things crapper than necessary just to account for metagaming, something that I'm never keen on. Look at everything that hasn't gone perfectly in real life. There's always something you could've done better in the past and if you had your time again you would, and got your perfect life. Is it right that a game has to stamp that out simply because it is possible to go back and change things? The first playthrough is far and away the important one for me, and if something goes wrong, if someone dies, I want it to be because I screwed up somewhere along the line and not because it's been railroaded in because "there have to be costs."

Costs should hit you as a consequence of your actions. Play a RTS game. Every time you lose a unit you could've done something else (or got luckier) and saved it. Now it might be very hard to win the mission without losing a lot but it's not completely impossible. Exactly the same is true for real life. In an idea world an RPG should aim for that.

I don't particularly disagree with the sentiment.  I strongly believe that forced sacrifice isn't.  

However, in situations when a cost is required be it through error, through railroadin, or "because reason"  there should be a choice of who and what pays the price.

In DAO, an Warden had to die to slay the archdemon, or risk Morrigan's Dark Ritual.  These are all choices of sacrifices:  your own Warden, Alistair or Logain, or a "dark promise" for the future of Thedas.  

ME3 has all the choices being effectively "Ultimate Sacrifice":  Red Death, Blue Death, Green Death or "stand there like an idiot" death.

I honestly don't know if Bioware doesn't understand why so many see this as a problem or simply don't care. 

[Necrotron]

ShepnTali wrote...

The final choice isn't hard. You pick the one you want.

Yep!  How hard is it for people to understand?  No matter what, the Reapers force Shepard to pick a choice the Reapers designed.

It's a no win scenario.  A tragedy.  There is no happy ending.  Pick your favorite tragic fate of bowing to the Reapers' goals and quit whinning!  If you want to 'win' or feel happy when you finish, go play another video game.    *eyeroll*

Modifié par Bathaius, 26 septembre 2012 - 01:08 .

[Atherus]

The thing that bugged me the most, was that I just could Choose the Ending right at the end. In other Games - Shadow Hearts Games are a very good example here - I must did specific things inside the game, to get the good ending, and if I haven´t done them till a certain point, I´m screwed and got the standard bad ending. And in every SH the normal ending was a bad ending.

ME 3 with his EMS never gave me that feeling of need for searching inside the game for certain things to get the good ending, because you just looked to fill your Bar and get everything you can.
There was no sidequest to unlock options for a better ending. There was no "choice " like in DA:O to save yourself.

Or like in Shin Megami Tensei : Digital Devil Saga where you must choose every correct choice in certain discussion over TWO Games to save one of your comrades. And if you just fail at one, especially if its one from the first Game, then you must play both Parts again to save him. And that´s more than 80 Hours on EACH Game you have to replay. Not that you couldn´t end the game, but it just felt wrong.

ME 3 was just Gather all you can and pick the Ending you like. In Games these days there are no real penalties for choosing the wrong answer. You don´t really have to think about it anymore, because the stakes today are not that high anymore. You didn´t like the ending you choose? Load and pick another one. You don´t even need to replay, just the last mission and then you can choose again.

Bioware Games I liked for the way their Stories could end if you wanted them to end a certain way. Not for the hardship you had to reach those ends. For that I liked more games like the two examples above.

I for myself choose the good, the light ending in every game I play if I have the choice, because I can´t play evil characters, that´s my personality.

So the only Ending that was for me in ME 3 till the EC was destroy because I wasn´t sure, if Spacekid said the truce about the Geth and EDI. And after EC it was denial, because now I knew.

And in every Playthrough I played till now, I still can just pick the denial ending, because I can´t choose evil endings.

And yes, in comparism to denial, all the others are evil endings in there own twisted way. Denial is dump, but the others are evil.

So Bioware let me look dump at the 3rd part of their trilogy by punishing me for being a too good person, and that´s something I won´t forget for the future.

Modifié par Atherus, 26 septembre 2012 - 01:08 .

[Necrotron]

Also, I don't think it's the best case sceanrio people revile, it's the idea that the ending can or should be changed.

I think if we were talking about this before the game was written, it would be an entirely different discussion entirely.

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...

YES!!!!  Exactly!  Different costs!  CHOICES when it comees to what price to pay!!!  Not "Pick a color and DIE!!!"

Pick Red and Shep lives.  What on Earth are you talking about?

[grey_wind]

FemaleMageFan wrote...

Too cheesy. I like my endings somewhat apocalyptic. If it is a rainbow ending it has to be done pretty well infact i am replaying KOTOR to achieve something similar. I actually went into me3 thinking my character was going to die and that did happen

Synthesis would like a word with you....

[grey_wind]

FemaleMageFan wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

FemaleMageFan wrote...

Too cheesy. I like my endings somewhat apocalyptic. If it is a rainbow ending it has to be done pretty well infact i am replaying KOTOR to achieve something similar. I actually went into me3 thinking my character was going to die and that did happen

Synthesis would like a word with you....

That is why i didn't choose it

So then why can`t a best-case scenario exist
You simply have to make a playthrough where you don`t get it, just like you ignore synthesis

[grey_wind]

FemaleMageFan wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

FemaleMageFan wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

FemaleMageFan wrote...

Too cheesy. I like my endings somewhat apocalyptic. If it is a rainbow ending it has to be done pretty well infact i am replaying KOTOR to achieve something similar. I actually went into me3 thinking my character was going to die and that did happen

Synthesis would like a word with you....

That is why i didn't choose it

So then why can`t a best-case scenario exist
You simply have to make a playthrough where you don`t get it, just like you ignore synthesis

If you read my comments there is no where i said it should not exist. I hate synthesis but im not saying it should not exist. An rainbow ending can exist but i would probably hate it but im not saying it shouldn't exist. More choice for other people i already know my choice

Ah, ok. My mistake then. I apologize. I thought you were arguing in favour of there being no best case scenario.
Sorry.

[Atherus]

Another problem is, that a lot people had expected a "best case ending" in ME 3 because ... you know ... it´s a Bioware game god dammit!

All Games, at least all Games I played - and I played since Baldur´s Gate 1 - had a GOOD ending in it, and I mean Good like in "Hero". So of course people expected at least the possibility of one in ME 3 as well.
And to be honest ME 1 as well as ME 2 gave you the impression, there WOULD be one.

I mean, I don´t have anything against nihilistic games, if the game is promoted like one ... you know, like call of Cthulhu where you KNOW that there is no good ending.

Or like in Shadow Hearts, as I mentioned. The whole game is dark, the main character is dark, the whole story plays in a dark world and for that, the standard ending is a bad one.

BUT, if you worked really hard and figured out what´s to do, you could get the "real", the good ending.

Well in all Bioware games (except for BG 2, because this game was huge!) you mustn´t ever do all things right and most thing were just cosmetic to give you the illusion of choice most of the time.
But at least in these other games the Illusion WORKED, because you had different endings.
And with different endings I don´t mean 4 ways to die, but different tones for how your story ended.

In KOTOR 1 you could choose to end your story as the Hero, or the Sith Lord and with or without Bastila at your side.

In DA:O you could choose if you sacrifice yourself or one of your comrades at the end (or in the middle, like in the quest about the Ashes of Andraste) or if you let the DR happen.
In the end the ending is the same, just with a few tweaks, but the illusion let it seems, that your choices mattered.

ME 3 at least had some of these illusions right until Harby hit you. After that the Illusions are gone and you can forget all what was before, because it really just doesn´t matter and SHOW you, that it doesn´t matter.

And ME 3 doesn´t has any good ending just like Bathaius said and he is right, if you and me want one, we have to play another Game.
And for the record, I don´t have a problem with that IF .... it wasn´t the ending of a trilogy of a series of games from BIOWARE who had a god damn good ending POSSIBILITY in EVERY other of their games.

If Bioware wanted to make a deep nihilistic game with a symbolistic and etherical ending that´s fine. But then they had better done it with a knew IP or at least had made it more clear right in the first game, that in the end we can´t win this war.

Because people like me, who just by default felt dump at the end of ME 3 for being good people and expected things they had in every of their games since the beginning, could have wasted there money (in my case 80 bucks for the CE .... ) otherwise.

Modifié par Atherus, 26 septembre 2012 - 02:07 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Nightwriter wrote...

I'm going to agree in full with this. The sacrifices in DA:O depended largely upon your emotional investments in the characters and depending upon them, the DR could be quite a wrench.

I'd say that's pretty far from the case, for me. Alistair and Morrigan remain my favorite Bioware companions. Hell, the DA:O cast in general is fantastic. Trade guarantee of death for watching my LI engage in a one-shot romance? Pretty straightforward.

And to that I'll add that your problem, Baladas, seems more like an execution flaw rather than an actual design flaw. The sacrifice was adequate, you just do not believe it was presented as gruesomely as it could've been.

It's not simply an issue an execution. The point of the Dark Ritual seems to have been to set up an ambiguous scenario where the player has to take a chance on Morrigan. As such, if there is no cost associated with the choice, which may be the case since we don't even know if the OGB is evil, that kinda laughs at the whole "All endings are equal" argument. Hence, making it ambiguous doesn't really serve any purpose. Maybe ambiguity about how bad things will get (don't want to give away everything), but DA:O and Witch Hunt still try to introduce the "OGB may be innocent" angle.  

This is where foreshadowing becomes important- the "Dark Ritual" is not portrayed as dark at all- it's your typical awkward Bioware sex scene. If the point was to make the player wonder "what the hell did I just do", it failed completely. Again, faustian deal doesn't feel so faustian.  Remember, there's still no guarantee that the Dark Ritual is going to result in negative consequences. Hell, looking at the import issue period, it's not clear if the Dark Ritual will live up to its hype at all, which is greater even than the Rachni.

Or alternatively, get Riordan involved. He's an actual Senior Grey Warden- let him find out about Morrigan's Dark Ritual and serve as an antithesis to her values. She says "Dark Ritual solves everything", well have Riordan place things in greater perspective. In a sense, as a Grey Warden, you just failed in your sworn duty. The game should have done more to reflect this.

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 26 septembre 2012 - 02:20 .

[AlanC9]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

It's not simply an issue an execution. The point of the Dark Ritual seems to have been to set up an ambiguous scenario where the player has to take a chance on Morrigan. As such, if there is no cost associated with the choice, which may be the case since we don't even know if the OGB is evil, that kinda laughs at the whole "All endings are equal" argument. Hence, making it ambiguous doesn't really serve any purpose. Maybe ambiguity about how bad things will get (don't want to give away everything), but DA:O and Witch Hunt still try to introduce the "OGB may be innocent" angle.  

Well, while the consequences still really are unknown, ambiguous can work. It's not sustainable long-term, but I thought it worked OK within the game itself. 

Hell, it 's even OK to let the PC get away with stuff. Some of the time. 

But yeah, the DR cutscene really wasn't Dark, and should have been.

Modifié par AlanC9, 26 septembre 2012 - 02:46 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, while the consequences still really are unknown, ambiguous can work. It's not sustainable long-term, but I thought it worked OK within the game itself. 

Hell, it 's even OK to let the PC get away with stuff. Some of the time. 

But yeah, the DR cutscene really wasn't Dark, and should have been.

Yeah, that might have been hasty on my part.

As you say, I don't expect every choice in the game to be this clear illustration of checks and balances, but as far as final choices go, the Dark Ritual is very far from ideal.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

YES!!!!  Exactly!  Different costs!  CHOICES when it comees to what price to pay!!!  Not "Pick a color and DIE!!!"

Pick Red and Shep lives.  What on Earth are you talking about?

Pick Red and Shep isnt outright killed you mean?

remember all those horrible implications made about the Normandy crew after the planet crash?  Bioware fell all over themselves correcting that, but left Shepard trapped and badly injured on an unexplored part of the Citadel.

Implications (still) unpleasant...