what should have happened was the choices in 2 should have been weighted more. there are a few things that should have been actual choices in 2 that they kind of gave in on and let the player just jesus through it. I also feel like quarian/geth peace was another "this was way easier than i thought it'd be, guys"
The big things in ME2 that stand out to me are:
The Crew's Survival
Loyalty Missions
Character Conflicts
Ship Upgrades
These four elements should have been revisited to force the player into making hard decisions. the upgrades you get from the investigate prompt should have been in the mission. the 3 big ones that allow characters to survive the suicide mission or not should have had some exchange within the mission that comprimises character loyalty.
example: Admiral Xen stops you on your way off of the na'rya and asks you for the geth research, which would damn tali's father in the trial, but in exchange she offers you the sheilds upgrade research data. this would be the only way to get the normandy sheilding which would prevent you losing someone in the debris feild in the suicide mission, but you'd end up losing tali's loyalty in the process. Being able to argue away tali's guilt in the trial was kind of lame too, and meant that nobody would get her exiled or lose her loyalty. it should have been more about that decision.
Garrus's cannons upgrade should have been something harkin bargins with you on, if you accept it and harkin gets away then garrus won't trust you but if you turn down his offer you can track down sidonis and get garrus's loyalty. Not that he is no longer loyal to you, but it could end with garrus being frustrated that sidonis got away, leaving him unfocused for the final mission. "We need to have every advantage we can get, garrus, even if it means letting slime like Sidonis walk free." (Loyalty should have been changed to "Focus" for this reason)
The armor upgrades could have been something jacob's father bargains with you on in exchange for a weapon. "Our research, we were supposed to take it back to the alliance before our ship went down. its yours in exchange for a decent weapon to defend myself with if you forget everything you saw here and leave" Jacob loses respect for you in exchange for getting armor to protect the normandy when you pass through the relay.
The lesser research should have just been found in missions, like grunt's shotgun or legion's sniper rifle or jack's biotics boost, those ones dont need to have loyalty conflicts associated with them like the other 3. The major research for the ship having loyalty conflicts associated would have given the game a unique sense of choice and personal investment for that final mission where everyone ends up with different people dead and the "everyone survives" outcome would be much harder to achieve.
The Jack/Miranda and Tali/Legion conflicts shouldn't have allowed you to please both parties. it should have been a choice, with no ability to patch it up afterwards. The Grunt/Mordin conflict should have made it in too. The conflicts should trigger upon completion of either mission, reguardless of if you
The crew survival should have gone like this: When you get the reaper iff mission shepard can say "I'll think about it" to which TIM and edi/miranda/jacob respond "The reaper is orbiting a dwarf star and is estimated to fall into it within the next day or so, this is our one chance" forcing you to take the mission then and there. then when the crew is taken you end up having only completed a few loyalty missions before having to decide between "Doing more loyalty missions or trying to save the crew"
This would have wound up with the ability to do every mission in the game, but lose the crew, not have any upgrades, and have lost 2 or more characters' loyalty. Acquiring all 3 upgrades but losing garrus, tali, and jacob's loyalty would have left you with few options for a good fire team leader (miranda if you side with her against jack) and less options for a good tech expert (if you dont side with legion when he and tali have their conflict)
Securing loyalty could have been a little more complex in each mission too. some of the easy outs felt like it negated the novelty of the decision. Zaeed's mission should have lost loyatly if you take the paragon route, reguardless of your dialogue choice. It should have been fruitless to try to "trap" the admirals into pardoning tali without using the evidence (it should have just extended the dialogue, with quarian political stability being at risk, rather than a get out of jail free card) Samara should have lost her loyalty if you're Renegade when she says "Your wicked actions would compel me to hunt you down after completing my service to you" You should still get alternate costumes and powers just for COMPLETING the mission, even if you didnt secure their loyalty. Also, Morinth should have had a negative affinity towards the biotic shield, while still displaying "Loyal" in the squad screen (Maybe giving her a hold the line score of zero no matter what) the idea of paragon backfiring with zaeed and renegade backfiring with samara, i think, is really cool, since they both represent the far swings of renegade and paragon, respectively. (its practically in the game already)
having this much variability, while being forced to make REAL decisions in ME2 and making a full survival suicide mission difficult to pull off would have left things in a VERY interesting spot going into 3, bioware would have probably handled the me2 characters in 3 differently because thered be a much more unique spread to the survival rates for suicide mission.
to reitterate:
- Character/Ship upgrades should have been linked to the loyalty mission, with the 3 big upgrades requiring you to sacrifice the jacob/tali/garrus's loyalty to get the armor/shield/cannon upgrade.
- The reaper iff mission should have triggered IMMEDIATELY after the derilect collector ship mission on the grounds of "If we let it sit there it'll fall into the brown dwarf". This would force you to make a hard decision between saving the crew and doing the rest of the loyalty missions.
- You shouldn't have been able to secure loyalty from BOTH characters in conflicts, even after the fact. They're basically pointless as they are. Also Grunt/Mordin's conflict should have been in the game. This would leave all players lacking in at least 3 loyalties, forcing them to plan arround that for the finale to save these characters
- Zaeed and Tali's missions should have not given you pursuation/intimidate cheats to bypass the actual choice.
- Samara should lose loyalty to a renegade shepard over time, reflected by what she says at the end of her dialogue tree as the game is now.
- Morinth should have a 0 HTL score and unable to sustain the biotic bubble.
This would have lead to starting the suicide mission with 3 unloyal characters, plus potentially 3 more unloyal, and then either 3 more unloyal characters or 3 dead characters. This would be in exchange for the crew. if you go after the crew early you have far less chances to secure loyalty reguardless.
COOL PART HERE
So an average playthrough could see this: (This is making some assumptions about squad makeup as well)
miranda unloyal, legion unloyal, grunt unloyal. zaeed unloyal, samara unloyal. jacob loyal. garrus loyal. tali loyal. mordin loyal, jack loyal, thane loyal, kasumi loyal.
jack dead, kasumi dead, thane dead during approach.
tali in the vents. kelly and the crew dies. losing a squadmate to the swarms with samara on bubble (lets say zaeed and grunt squad, loses grunt). garrus on fire team. sending jacob to escort chakwas and the colonists. taking miranda and garrus to the final boss. Miranda dies to the boss, garrus survives. legion, zaeed, samara, tali, and mordin left to hold the line wiht a score of 7 for 5 squadmates. this would result in losing 2 squadmates (I believe unloyals first, so it'd be samara and legion die) This shepard would come out of the suicide mission with only garrus, jacob, zaeed, tali, mordin, and chakwas surviving, with grunt unloyal. That sounds like a pretty serious suicide mission to me, and a steep cost for loyalty.
I'm probably going to go over this later and see what combination would allow for a full 12 to survive (would it be possible under these conditions to get all 12 AND the whole crew?)
Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 13 mars 2013 - 12:20 .
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