365 réponses à ce sujet

[Nashtalia]

i know i have no grounds for making an impact on this thread, but given i am going on my second play through of ME3 [mind you i have not given the first and second ME a go] on HARDCORE, but i have not seen the EC, will do so after i have done my HARDCORE play and MISSION ACCOMPLISHED it...and will no doubt go with the DESTROY choice, as i FEEL that is the choice. the other choices seem unfavourly for me. as i am "really into this" [MISSION] / [situation]

Modifié par Nashtalia, 20 juillet 2013 - 02:35 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Mcfly616 wrote...

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

csm4267 wrote...

An ending where you beat the Reapers with minimal casualties, and everyone goes home (mass relays kept intact) would be completely out of tone with the series. As well as beating the Reapers without using an I-Win button (conventional victory). This game has always been about choices and consequences. Make a choice to destroy the Reapers, there's going to be some serious consequences to go with that.

People who want watered down consequences or no consequences at all (MEHEM), go against everything this series was about. That mod disrespects the series themes more than the mysterious Starchild ever could.

Just like the suicide mission? And the Rachni Queen? The Geth-Quarian conflict?

because those even compare to the entire Reaper armada? Not even close.

Sorry, try again. He referred to the build up laid by previous games.

If you want to talk strictly in terms of the threat the Reapers pose, yeah, you're right. But neither ME1 or ME2 did a good job of building up this sense of making sacrifices, outside of Virmire. At least, none which a competent Shepard couldn't avoid.
 
Your buddy referenced choices and consequences, how destroy would be out of tone with the rest of the series. Well, tell me, how is it out of tone? You can get out of the suicide mission, no consequences. The Rachni Queen has a definitive right answer. And the same goes for the Geth/Quarians. Sadly, Mass Effect doesn't force players into difficult situations as often as it should.

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 20 juillet 2013 - 10:44 .

[Reorte]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...
 
Your buddy referenced choices and consequences, how destroy would be out of tone with the rest of the series. Well, tell me, how is it out of tone? You can get out of the suicide mission, no consequences. The Rachni Queen has a definitive right answer. And the same goes for the Geth/Quarians. Sadly, Mass Effect doesn't force players into difficult situations as often as it should.

Sadly some people seem to want to be forced into crap no-win situations for the sake of it. I stand by my opinion that if you've got to make a hard choice it should ideally be the result of you screwing up somewhere else. And that for it to be a hard choice it has to have a good and a bad result and not be something that you may as well just toss a coin to make since the consequences would be similar.

Destroy is entirely fitting with the tone of the game, which is mostly straightfoward old-fashioned hero. The only issue I have is that the losses across the galaxy aren't really seen much, which seems to lead to some people wanting unnecessary additional ones thrown in just to make the player feel bad. Whilst I've got large issues with a simple "press a button, Reapers defeated" "solution" throwing in contrived negatives to that doesn't improve it because it's the "win game in an instant" answer that's the real problem. At best the Crucible should've been chosing the means by which victory might be possible even though it'll still take time and casualities to achieve.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Reorte wrote...

Sadly some people seem to want to be forced into crap no-win situations for the sake of it. I stand by my opinion that if you've got to make a hard choice it should ideally be the result of you screwing up somewhere else. And that for it to be a hard choice it has to have a good and a bad result and not be something that you may as well just toss a coin to make since the consequences would be similar.

Thing is I really don't buy into this. It's not a hard choice if the game throws a dialogue option at me to talk down both the Quarians and the Geth. That's as easy as it gets in decision making. Now, choosing between two companions that you care about? Difficult as it gets. Granted, I hated both Ashley and Kaidan but I can easily see that being applied to characters I love. Choosing between Alistair and Morrigan, for example would be extremely difficult.

I've mentioned this but the only games I've played that do good vs. bad choices well have been those without pause sytems: Heavy Rain, Dark Souls, State of Decay, etc.

[o Ventus]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Thing is I really don't buy into this. It's not a hard choice if the game throws a dialogue option at me to talk down both the Quarians and the Geth. That's as easy as it gets in decision making. Now, choosing between two companions that you care about? Difficult as it gets. Granted, I hated both Ashley and Kaidan but I can easily see that being applied to characters I love. Choosing between Alistair and Morrigan, for example would be extremely difficult.

I've mentioned this but the only games I've played that do good vs. bad choices well have been those without pause sytems: Heavy Rain, Dark Souls, State of Decay, etc.

No.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

o Ventus wrote...

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Thing is I really don't buy into this. It's not a hard choice if the game throws a dialogue option at me to talk down both the Quarians and the Geth. That's as easy as it gets in decision making. Now, choosing between two companions that you care about? Difficult as it gets. Granted, I hated both Ashley and Kaidan but I can easily see that being applied to characters I love. Choosing between Alistair and Morrigan, for example would be extremely difficult.

I've mentioned this but the only games I've played that do good vs. bad choices well have been those without pause sytems: Heavy Rain, Dark Souls, State of Decay, etc.

No.

Thank you for your contribution. I will remember your post for ages to come.

[o Ventus]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Thank you for your contribution. I will remember your post for ages to come.

Alright, considering that State of Decay doesn't do choices well at all.

[Mcfly616]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

csm4267 wrote...

An ending where you beat the Reapers with minimal casualties, and everyone goes home (mass relays kept intact) would be completely out of tone with the series. As well as beating the Reapers without using an I-Win button (conventional victory). This game has always been about choices and consequences. Make a choice to destroy the Reapers, there's going to be some serious consequences to go with that.

People who want watered down consequences or no consequences at all (MEHEM), go against everything this series was about. That mod disrespects the series themes more than the mysterious Starchild ever could.

Just like the suicide mission? And the Rachni Queen? The Geth-Quarian conflict?

because those even compare to the entire Reaper armada? Not even close.

Sorry, try again. He referred to the build up laid by previous games.

and? The first two games make it quite clear that theres an armada of skyscraper-sized sentient ships that eradicate all life in the galaxy every 50,000 years, for countless cycles, and have never failed.

They were "built up" just fine. You can try again.

Modifié par Mcfly616, 20 juillet 2013 - 01:22 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

o Ventus wrote...

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Thank you for your contribution. I will remember your post for ages to come.

Alright, considering that State of Decay doesn't do choices well at all.

Depends on what you mean by choices. What State of Decay, Dark Souls, and Heavy Rain all have in common is: you can't simply redo however many times it takes to get a scenario right.

With Dark Souls for example, there are plenty of items in game which can benefit your character, but in many cases they're held by difficult npcs to defeat or npcs who have some use in the narrative. If you don't get the item on your first run, it becomes extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to correct for this. Pause/reload systems tend to prevent this. There's much less of an adrenaline rush/push to succeed since you can always just retry at your leisure.

State of Decay and Heavy Rain are much like Dark Souls in this regard.

[Iakus]

Mcfly616 wrote...
 and? The first two games make it quite clear that theres an armada of skyscraper-sized sentient ships that eradicate all life in the galaxy every 50,000 years, for countless cycles, and have never failed. 

They were "built up" just fine. You can try again.

And I get told I see thing in an overly pessimisic fashion.  

Modifié par iakus, 20 juillet 2013 - 01:25 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Mcfly616 wrote...

and? The first two games make it quite clear that theres an armada of skyscraper-sized sentient ships that eradicate all life in the galaxy every 50,000 years, for countless cycles, and have never failed.

They were "built up" just fine. You can try again.

Not relevant. As I said, his point was with regard to choices and consequences. Mass Effect series failed in this regard. There are plenty of examples where Mass Effect does not require the player to make a sacrifice to achieve the best case scenario.

If your point is "well, the Reapers are extremely deadly/effective so it makes sense for there to be major casualties", well I would agree with you. But there have already been major casualties from a writing standpoint: major worlds destroyed, deaths of Thane/Anderson/Legion/Mordin or Wrex.

The Destroy consequences have nothing to do with how deadly the Reapers are, they're inserted arbitrarily: kill EDI, kill the Geth, and (in most cases) kill Shepard. That's no more realistic/believable than a Crucible which targets only the Reapers specifically. The sacrifices you're referring to doesn't come from the deadliness of the Reapers, it comes from Bioware arbitrarily writing sacrifices into the design of the Crucible. And they didn't even bother to hit the right emotional tones since we don't even get to watch EDI or the Geth be destroyed.

It's more in the style of "Oh yeah, we're killing off some of your friends just because, now FEEL BAD".

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 20 juillet 2013 - 01:28 .

[o Ventus]

Double Post

Modifié par o Ventus, 20 juillet 2013 - 02:10 .

[o Ventus]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Depends on what you mean by choices. What State of Decay, Dark Souls, and Heavy Rain all have in common is: you can't simply redo however many times it takes to get a scenario right.

With Dark Souls for example, there are plenty of items in game which can benefit your character, but in many cases they're held by difficult npcs to defeat or npcs who have some use in the narrative. If you don't get the item on your first run, it becomes extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to correct for this. Pause/reload systems tend to prevent this. There's much less of an adrenaline rush/push to succeed since you can always just retry at your leisure.

State of Decay and Heavy Rain are much like Dark Souls in this regard.

I've never played Dark Souls or Heavy Rain, but the "choices" in State of Decay are largely nullified by the pants-on-head retarded survivor AI.

Say for example you decide to call for a supply run from your base to a minimart. The survivor making the run is equipped with an M4 and 120 rounds of ammunition.

They try to punch the zombies to death, get themselves killed, and the rest of the group begins to hate you because it counts as the player letting that survivor die.

Modifié par o Ventus, 20 juillet 2013 - 02:10 .

[AlanC9]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...
If you want to talk strictly in terms of the threat the Reapers pose, yeah, you're right. But neither ME1 or ME2 did a good job of building up this sense of making sacrifices, outside of Virmire. At least, none which a competent Shepard couldn't avoid.
 
Your buddy referenced choices and consequences, how destroy would be out of tone with the rest of the series. Well, tell me, how is it out of tone? You can get out of the suicide mission, no consequences. The Rachni Queen has a definitive right answer. And the same goes for the Geth/Quarians. Sadly, Mass Effect doesn't force players into difficult situations as often as it should.

I think the italed is the key point. My guess is that Bio didn't realize that instead of making a series about Shepard making hard choices, they were actually making a series about Shepard getting out of making the hard choices. And this effect gets worse the more a player replays, until he comes out the far side and starts metagaming some mistakes so he gets different outcomes.

In that sense Bio really did turn against their hardcore fans, or at least the faction that plays the games this way.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

I think the italed is the key point. My guess is that Bio didn't realize that instead of making a series about Shepard making hard choices, they were actually making a series about Shepard getting out of making the hard choices. And this effect gets worse the more a player replays, until he comes out the far side and starts metagaming some mistakes so he gets different outcomes.

In that sense Bio really did turn against their hardcore fans, or at least the faction that plays the games this way.

I'm not even sure how  much of that is deliberate, as Shepard's entire backstory is about escaping from impossible scenerios.  Even before Shepard's first appearance in ME1, he/she has survived at least one, possibly two such incidents.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

I think the italed is the key point. My guess is that Bio didn't realize that instead of making a series about Shepard making hard choices, they were actually making a series about Shepard getting out of making the hard choices. And this effect gets worse the more a player replays, until he comes out the far side and starts metagaming some mistakes so he gets different outcomes.

In that sense Bio really did turn against their hardcore fans, or at least the faction that plays the games this way.

I'm not even sure how  much of that is deliberate, as Shepard's entire backstory is about escaping from impossible scenerios.  Even before Shepard's first appearance in ME1, he/she has survived at least one, possibly two such incidents.

ME's problem is that some of the advertising as well as the very concept of Paragon/Renegade make the idea of perfect scenarios problematic. Perfect example: ME1's intro trailer with the tag line: "Many choices, none of them easy". Clearly, there are easy choices to make based on what is experienced in game.

[AlanC9]

Maybe not for Ruthless Spacers, but in general, yeah. I'm not sure if this is an incoherence in ME, or an incoherence in Bioware itself.

[dreamgazer]

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

I think the italed is the key point. My guess is that Bio didn't realize that instead of making a series about Shepard making hard choices, they were actually making a series about Shepard getting out of making the hard choices. And this effect gets worse the more a player replays, until he comes out the far side and starts metagaming some mistakes so he gets different outcomes.

In that sense Bio really did turn against their hardcore fans, or at least the faction that plays the games this way.

I'm not even sure how  much of that is deliberate, as Shepard's entire backstory is about escaping from impossible scenerios.  Even before Shepard's first appearance in ME1, he/she has survived at least one, possibly two such incidents.

Hard scenarios =/= Impossible scenarios.  There is a threshold. 

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...
Choosing between Alistair and Morrigan, for example would be extremely difficult.

Now son, why would you ever choose Alistair? Especially when he decides to take his ball and go home anyway just because you won't kill the Hero of River Dane?

Hey, everyone has a favorite character.

[Iakus]

dreamgazer wrote...
Hard scenarios =/= Impossible scenarios.  There is a threshold. 

Akuze, the Skyllian Blitz, and Torfan are all made out to be incidents of Shepard prevailing against nigh-impossible odds

Mindoir, and possibly Earthborn as well.

[Erez Kristal]

csm4267 wrote...

I personally hold the "self esteem movement of the 1980s" accountable for that. Basically taught kids that everyone is a winner and losing is the worst thing in the world.

Besides, who's to say a game can't have a realistic ending where you're pitted up against a hyper advanced machine race that's millions of years more advanced than you and the odds of survival are slim to none.

An ending where you beat the Reapers with minimal casualties, and everyone goes home (mass relays kept intact) would be completely out of tone with the series. As well as beating the Reapers without using an I-Win button (conventional victory). This game has always been about choices and consequences. Make a choice to destroy the Reapers, there's going to be some serious consequences to go with that.

People who want watered down consequences or no consequences at all (MEHEM), go against everything this series was about. That mod disrespects the series themes more than the mysterious Starchild ever could.

Having a bitter sweet ending is beside the point, you have clearly missed the point of this thread.
The problem of the ending of mass effect 3 wasnt that shepard died. it was everything which led to them, 
Shepard character was repeatdly hijacked throughout the game and forced to do stupid decisions, the feeling was as if the game cheated against the players. There is no way for being cheated in a game to feel good.
Just like in sports, one can lose due to competing against a superior force or one can lose due to someone else cheating.
Which loss do you think is worse?

[Erez Kristal]

Mcfly616 wrote...

iakus wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

erezike wrote...

you cant do a bittersweet ending if the writers hijack the protagonist on key moment and nerf him for it.

I must've missed that part...

You see, it starts with a magic space elevator and a ghost child saying 'wake up"...

the intelligence? Don't see how it hijacked Shepard or nerfed him....

Im talking about the shepard starting on earth scenario and cutscene incompetence. you can also add the catalyst conversation to that pile if you like.

[Iakus]

erezike wrote....

Having a bitter sweet ending is beside the point, you have clearly missed the point of this thread.
The problem of the ending of mass effect 3 wasnt that shepard died. it was everything which led to them, 
Shepard character was repeatdly hijacked throughout the game and forced to do stupid decisions, the feeling was as if the game cheated against the players. There is no way for being cheated in a game to feel good.
Just like in sports, one can lose due to competing against a superior force or one can lose due to someone else cheating.
Which loss do you think is worse?

I'd argue that it is part of the problem.  It is, in a sense, hijacking the character to force death upon the protagonist.  It's just the final, most egeregious example of it.  the last "Screw you!" to the player in a long line of it.

[CronoDragoon]

iakus wrote...
Akuze, the Skyllian Blitz, and Torfan are all made out to be incidents of Shepard prevailing against nigh-impossible odds

Mindoir, and possibly Earthborn as well.

But the Suicide Mission isn't a story about Shepard prevailing at the expense of the rest of his squad, like the thresher maw backstory. Had loyalty only determined the success of that particular task with the character dying no matter what, then perhaps it would have been in line with ME1's backstories, and possibly ME3 as well.

As it is, post-ME2 the series seems to be trending towards no downsides. Heck, even up to Rannoch you could sort of make that argument.

In any case, even if Rannoch doesn't fulfill the "hard choices" promise, it fulfills the "choices matter" promise - interpreted here as previous decisions influencing future situations - which personally is what I thought the point of the series was, having never seen that ME1 promo, and having played other games where you can't will your way out of virtually every situation.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 21 juillet 2013 - 12:21 .