269 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Humanoid_Typhoon wrote...

Did you even read what he wrote? Evidently not, that's like doing a Mac Vs PC comparision and basing it of similiar hardware and not what you would actually expect to buy with the same amount of money.

Of course the results are scewed, the people running the tests made them so.

That's a really silly analogy.

Bio set up the universe so conventional victory is not possible. That's not being disputed. So people arguing that conventional victory is impossible are simply interpreting the ME universe the way it's supposed to be interpreted.

It'd be really weird if the interpretation the authors wanted didn't have an advantage.

Modifié par AlanC9, 14 octobre 2012 - 09:59 .

[arial]

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...

Using simple math it's possible to Roughly tell how many Capital ships there are. The Leviathans began the Cycle 1 billion years ago. At the end of Each cycle a Reaper capital ship is made. Each cycle lasts around fifty thousand years.

Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

[CptBomBom00]

Even if conventional victory was possible, galaxy would have looked like Fallout universe, after the war.

[wantedman dan]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

wantedman dan wrote...

“All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.”

― Joss Whedon

"therefor conventional victory is possible, because its MY pet kid not yours!!!!"


Lets all talk about how back to the future makes no sense because there is no way marty would keep running into his family and biff's ancestors in all 3 films.  Lets talk about how the ending of 28 days later shoulda been different because "they shoulda just shot all the zombies.  i mean its not that hard just look at left 4 dead and dead rising.  I dont see what the problem is.  heroes are always insanely powerful and invincible and able to do anything.  Good guys ALWAYS win, duh."

You said it, not me.

[AlanC9]

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...
Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

I gotta sign on with moater boat here. With 20,000 capital ships the Reapers would just occupy everything at once.

[MegaSovereign]

What wars in the Mass Effect universe have been won conventionally?

Turian Contact War? The Turians thought that was a skirmish...

Rachni Wars? Uplift a primitive species to fight for you.

Krogran Rebellions? Neuter the enemy.

[arial]

AlanC9 wrote...

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...
Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

I gotta sign on with moater boat here. With 20,000 capital ships the Reapers would just occupy everything at once.

Count how many races there are in the Universe (as, I am sure there are several unnamed races (as ME1 implies)), now count how many systems there are. many planets on those systems have been colonized, and several planets probably also have bases (such as those of various Merc groups) that the majority of Citadel space is unaware of.

It is quite possible there are over 20k planets that have some form of population.

Now Reapers Travel in groups (as seen when they notice you while scanning).

So, even if they had 20k Capital ships, it would not be enough to have a constant pressence in every habited system.

[arial]

MegaSovereign wrote...

What wars in the Mass Effect universe have been won conventionally?

Turian Contact War? The Turians thought that was a skirmish...

Rachni Wars? Uplift a primitive species to fight for you.

Krogran Rebellions? Neuter the enemy.

the Skyllian Blitz

[moater boat]

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...

Using simple math it's possible to Roughly tell how many Capital ships there are. The Leviathans began the Cycle 1 billion years ago. At the end of Each cycle a Reaper capital ship is made. Each cycle lasts around fifty thousand years.

Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

Either/Or. But if the best you can do is math up some hypothetical numbers I'm not interested, because in-story facts, like the prothean reaping taking 200 years, trump speculation, tweets, and whatever "evidence" people may bring to the table.

[moater boat]

arial wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...
Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

I gotta sign on with moater boat here. With 20,000 capital ships the Reapers would just occupy everything at once.

Count how many races there are in the Universe (as, I am sure there are several unnamed races (as ME1 implies)), now count how many systems there are. many planets on those systems have been colonized, and several planets probably also have bases (such as those of various Merc groups) that the majority of Citadel space is unaware of.

It is quite possible there are over 20k planets that have some form of population.

Now Reapers Travel in groups (as seen when they notice you while scanning).

So, even if they had 20k Capital ships, it would not be enough to have a constant pressence in every habited system.

You incorrectly assume that every astroid with a merc base warrents a capital ship. In many cases the less important planets can be ignored entirely, other planets, like the home planet of the Raloi, for example, could be handled by a single destroyer, which seem to outnumber capital ships several times over.

[arial]

moater boat wrote...

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...

Using simple math it's possible to Roughly tell how many Capital ships there are. The Leviathans began the Cycle 1 billion years ago. At the end of Each cycle a Reaper capital ship is made. Each cycle lasts around fifty thousand years.

Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

Either/Or. But if the best you can do is math up some hypothetical numbers I'm not interested, because in-story facts, like the prothean reaping taking 200 years, trump speculation, tweets, and whatever "evidence" people may bring to the table.

o0kay,



Gameplay wise: Reapers never travel alone (as you see when they notice you while planet scanning), yet before you hit earth, they have EVERY system completely controlled, and still have such a large pressence on earth. count every system ever mentioned in ANY ME Media, then count how many reapers are viewable in the cinimatic at the beginning of Priority earth, believe they have an army in the tens of thousnads isn`t hard when you think of it this way.

Lore wise: Like the Leviathans said, it all started roughly 1 billion years ago, and it is stated in previous ME games the Reapers hit ever 50k years. now even if every cycle lasted, lets be generous here, 300 years after the Reapers hit, the Reapers would still be well over 10k

[grey_wind]

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

[arial]

grey_wind wrote...

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

enlighten me, what hints would those be?

[Eterna]

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...

Using simple math it's possible to Roughly tell how many Capital ships there are. The Leviathans began the Cycle 1 billion years ago. At the end of Each cycle a Reaper capital ship is made. Each cycle lasts around fifty thousand years.

Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

Except Javik mentions how long it took his cycle to fall. I'm using the nmbers he and the Leviathan dlc provides. Not only that, but the Prothean cycle lasted far longer than other cycles supposedly, so there could even be more.

I'm using information in game  to give a rough estimation on Capital ship numbers, it's not perfect, but being that the harvest has been going on for 1 billion years their numbers are around that, you're denial is irrelevant. 

[grey_wind]

arial wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

enlighten me, what hints would those be?

The fact that they needed to divide and conquer coupled with Sovereign's desperation to activate the Citadel trap implies they don't have the strength to take on a united galaxy.

Biological weapons like the Seeker Swarms and the Plague on Omega are enough to make any enemy invincible, but unlike past cycles we've had the time and resources to produce counter-measures to them.

The implication that Reapers are only made from species with very rare amounts of genetic diversity/malleability hints that they're not very many in number. To back this up, EDI's cut dialogue in ME2 even suggested that the entire population of Earth could only make ONE new Reaper.

The fact that EDI actually had anti-Reaper algorithms and we were able to reverse-engineer Reaper tech like the Thanix Cannon implies they're not as advanced as they initially appear, and are probably technologically stagnant.


So it's not too hard to imagine why a lot of fans believed we actually had a fighting chance against the Reapers without a contrived superweapon.

Modifié par grey_wind, 14 octobre 2012 - 11:09 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

Conventional victory isnt possible because of established facts about the reapers from previous entries in the story. 

Nope, given the way things were set up, the Catalyst could easily have been a weapon designed to tip the balance of a conventional fight against the Reapers. Kind of the point of the Catalyst right?

it IS a weapon designed to end the war.    
its a big fat bomb

If by big fat bomb you mean massive ass-pull, you're absolutely right. In any case, the concept of a 'catalyst' nukes any argument one can make about a conventional win being less plausible than what we actually got.

The catalyst is a big fat bomb that nukes the reapers.  Do you know what an EMP is?

how is it an ass pull?  You say you want a weapon, but that you dont like the weapon you got???  Its a weapon that fries reaper brains (geth run on reaper code at this point in the story because of the events of rannoch, edi was built from soverign's remains, so they're also effected)

its no different, conceptually, than the beacon.  Some data left behind by a previous cycle that could help stop the reapers.  first we got a warning, now we got a weapon.  The crucible is a weapon.  You can detonate an emp pulse or use it like a virus.

The shape of the crucible before it connected to the citadel, when the fleets were protecting it, was the shape of an atomic bomb.  That was intentional on the artists' part.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

arial wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...
Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

I gotta sign on with moater boat here. With 20,000 capital ships the Reapers would just occupy everything at once.

Count how many races there are in the Universe (as, I am sure there are several unnamed races (as ME1 implies)), now count how many systems there are. many planets on those systems have been colonized, and several planets probably also have bases (such as those of various Merc groups) that the majority of Citadel space is unaware of.

It is quite possible there are over 20k planets that have some form of population.

Now Reapers Travel in groups (as seen when they notice you while scanning).

So, even if they had 20k Capital ships, it would not be enough to have a constant pressence in every habited system.

They dont need a constant presense, they just need to herd us, like sheep.  They destroy worlds, supply lines, cut off relays, we get cornered and obliterated one system at a time.  They spent 500 years fighting the protheans and they still won without a single loss.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

moater boat wrote...

arial wrote...

moater boat wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...

Using simple math it's possible to Roughly tell how many Capital ships there are. The Leviathans began the Cycle 1 billion years ago. At the end of Each cycle a Reaper capital ship is made. Each cycle lasts around fifty thousand years.

Therefore if my math is correct there are 20000 Reaper Capital ships. This is not including Destroyers. You cannot win against those numbers especially when their technology surpasses yours.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to assume that this calculation is correct. You are making far too many assumptions with far too little data. What we DO know is that it took a couple centuries for the Reapers to beat the Protheans. And that was when they had control of the citadel. With that in mind there is no logical reason to assume that the Reaper fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of capital ships.

gameplaywise, or lore wise? I can think of reasons for both

Either/Or. But if the best you can do is math up some hypothetical numbers I'm not interested, because in-story facts, like the prothean reaping taking 200 years, trump speculation, tweets, and whatever "evidence" people may bring to the table.

You're forgetting the most important thing:

The reapers fought for 500 years, they didn't lose a single ship.  the protheans lost EVERYTHING.

This isn't numbers, this is obvious ****.  They attained a flawless victory.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

grey_wind wrote...

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

its not that its fitting, its that its satisfying from a gameplay standpoint

A movie wouldn't end by showing everything all at the end, because that would be really stupid and clumsy.

In videogames and tv shows it happens because its satisfying to call back to older events.  Its not more fitting, its just cooler and makes you feel like the ending is more "epicker".  The mission needed more complexity to allow for more of these scenes versus time spent in regular gameplay.  People just wanted an even more elaborate version of the ending of ME2, instead we got something that harkins more back to ME1. 

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

grey_wind wrote...

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

the only way you were able to stop reapers in previous games was shorting out their shields with crazy plots.  frying Soverign's mindling with Saren in ME1, and destroying the reaper core from inside of it in ME2.  (Reaper IFF mission)  The reapers were never physically fallable in previous games.  It required tricks.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

grey_wind wrote...

arial wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

enlighten me, what hints would those be?

The fact that they needed to divide and conquer coupled with Sovereign's desperation to activate the Citadel trap implies they don't have the strength to take on a united galaxy.

Biological weapons like the Seeker Swarms and the Plague on Omega are enough to make any enemy invincible, but unlike past cycles we've had the time and resources to produce counter-measures to them.

The implication that Reapers are only made from species with very rare amounts of genetic diversity/malleability hints that they're not very many in number. To back this up, EDI's cut dialogue in ME2 even suggested that the entire population of Earth could only make ONE new Reaper.

The fact that EDI actually had anti-Reaper algorithms and we were able to reverse-engineer Reaper tech like the Thanix Cannon implies they're not as advanced as they initially appear, and are probably technologically stagnant.


So it's not too hard to imagine why a lot of fans believed we actually had a fighting chance against the Reapers without a contrived superweapon.

No it implies that Soverign didnt consider the species of the galaxy a threat.  He went through with his plan and didnt think you could stop him because you are insignificant.  It was time to begin the next harvest.  Soverign was following its programming.

[grey_wind]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

arial wrote...

grey_wind wrote...

The main arguement for people who want a conventional victory is that it would have been the most fitting way to end the Reaper conflict on a narrative and thematic level.
Unfortunately, BioWare went out of their way in ME3 to overpower the Reapers so a conventional victory wasn't possible despite the fact that numerous hints from the previous games suggested the Reapers were not nearly as unstoppable a force as they are presented as in ME3.

enlighten me, what hints would those be?

The fact that they needed to divide and conquer coupled with Sovereign's desperation to activate the Citadel trap implies they don't have the strength to take on a united galaxy.

Biological weapons like the Seeker Swarms and the Plague on Omega are enough to make any enemy invincible, but unlike past cycles we've had the time and resources to produce counter-measures to them.

The implication that Reapers are only made from species with very rare amounts of genetic diversity/malleability hints that they're not very many in number. To back this up, EDI's cut dialogue in ME2 even suggested that the entire population of Earth could only make ONE new Reaper.

The fact that EDI actually had anti-Reaper algorithms and we were able to reverse-engineer Reaper tech like the Thanix Cannon implies they're not as advanced as they initially appear, and are probably technologically stagnant.


So it's not too hard to imagine why a lot of fans believed we actually had a fighting chance against the Reapers without a contrived superweapon.

No it implies that Soverign didnt consider the species of the galaxy a threat.  He went through with his plan and didnt think you could stop him because you are insignificant.  It was time to begin the next harvest.  Soverign was following its programming.

Yes, because of the way the Reapers are presented in ME3, all the points I made are thrown out the airlock as simply things Reapers did for convenience or for the lulz.

I'm arguing that each of those points could have justified a conventional victory if BioWare had decided to go in that direction. Instead, BioWare chose to ignore all of them in favour of an asspull of a weapon that gave us ridiculous amounts of  at the end.

Modifié par grey_wind, 15 octobre 2012 - 01:29 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

have you ever seen a scifi movie?

because it seems like you haven't.


The way the reapers were presented in me3 was consistent to how they were presented in the previous games. They were unstoppable. The only reason we beat soverign was on accident. The dead reaper in me2 was dead and normandy still couldn't do anything about its shield to get us out.

What are you saying about the reapers exactly? We never conventionally defeated one in the history of the series.


what is conventional victory to you? Everyone shooting them until they explode? Did you want the end of the game to be a starfox level where the normandy shoots harbinger's 4 weak point eyes to kill him?


the reapers took advantage of the cluelessness of all previous species, but also they were unstoppable. there are TWO things that lead to their victory, the element of surprise, and them being unstoppable giga-ships. that second point is the most important part. the surprise was just for the sake of "efficiency".


you're taking ALOT of logical leaps with things the game "implies".  <_<

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 15 octobre 2012 - 01:46 .

[grey_wind]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

have you ever seen a scifi movie?

because it seems like you haven't.


The way the reapers were presented in me3 was consistent to how they were presented in the previous games. They were unstoppable. The only reason we beat soverign was on accident. The dead reaper in me2 was dead and normandy still couldn't do anything about its shield to get us out.

What are you saying about the reapers exactly? We never conventionally defeated one in the history of the series.


what is conventional victory to you? Everyone shooting them until they explode? Did you want the end of the game to be a starfox level where the normandy shoots harbinger's 4 weak point eyes to kill him?


the reapers took advantage of the cluelessness of all previous species, but also they were unstoppable. there are TWO things that lead to their victory, the element of surprise, and them being unstoppable giga-ships. that second point is the most important part. the surprise was just for the sake of "efficiency".


you're taking ALOT of logical leaps with things the game "implies".  <_<

You're not listening to me. I said there were a lot of plot points that IMPLIED the Reapers weren't as unstoppable as they claimed to be. IF BioWare had decided to go the route of a conventional victory, they could have explored any of the points I made to justify it. It was sh!tty writing that ME3 had to rely on a Deus ex Machina (the Crucible) to resolve the central conflict when BioWare had more options lying on its table.
And by conventional, all I mean is that we defeat the Reapers without relying on a gian "I WIN" button, that we beat them on our own terms without divine intervention at the most convenient possible moment.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

I'm not ignoring your points, they're just so rhetorical and obviously not well thought out that I dont even need to respond.  It goes without saying that its just wishful thinking and I dont need to waste my time picking each one of them apart because I've already done so time and time again on this forum.  You bring nothing new to this conversation that I haven't already seen a hundred times before on this message board.

Yeah bioware could have done anything, but that doesnt mean that those other situations were better.  it would have been ****ty writing to go with a conventional victory as well.  

Honestly the only 2 endings that make sense are:
* They wipe us out, bittersweet ending
* We reason with harbinger


The crucible is dumb but a conventional victory would have been dumber. The reapers were a mystery. Solving a mystery with "shoot it" is the laziest way you can write something out. At least the crucible implies some creativity. Its not as good as it could have been, but what people are suggesting is actually WORSE.

the idea of beating something concepted as "a greater being" is a very difficult problem to solve, because by all accounts it should be unbeatable. A mouse can't defeat a couger, its simply better than the mouse in any way. The only way to resolve a situation like that is through UNCONVENTIONAL MEANS. such as: the mouse eludes the couger or the couger gets distracted.


Uniting the galaxy and then that being the extent of "the plan" is something that is reserved for the LAZIEST of ****ty Hollywood movies.

A macguffin is at least SOMETHING, instead of NOTHING. (A macguffin on its own isnt a bad plot point, infact some of the best films of all time rely on a macguffin to save the day, because you fight a greater power with another greater power)

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 15 octobre 2012 - 02:23 .