365 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

CronoDragoon wrote...
1. The original endings made the Catalyst more word-of-Godish. The entire tone of the conversation was one of the writers educating the players on the universe. This feeling is produced by Shepard's silence, a lack of backstory about the Catalyst, etc etc. With Leviathan and the redone EC dialogue with the Catalyst, I feel this presentation flaw has been mostly corrected, although it could be better served by presenting the options in a circle equidistant around the elevator, such that the only suggestion that Synthesis is the best ending comes from the Catalyst's mouth, and not some metatextual hint from BW.

I think I wasn't sensitive to that because I had always expected some kind of flawed AI logic to be at the heart of everything. Not that I expected the ending we got, but I did expect something along those general lines. So the Catalyst came across as just a crazy AI rather than someone with a handke on Truth.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

So the EC does what Bio always said it was going to do, right? They promised clarification, not change.

Yeah they clarified exactly the wrong things.  The very things that made the options so horrible to begin with.

Bravo, Bioware, bravo ::golf clap::

Edit:  And yet Shepard's 'survival" is as vague and speculation-ridden as ever.  Double bravo!

Modifié par iakus, 09 juillet 2013 - 04:22 .

[Iakus]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Fair enough. The EC didn't retcon what you saw as horrible about the choices. As it pertains to Destroy I agree with you.

Essentially, pre-EC release I had 3 hopes. Well, 2 hopes really as two points were connected:

1. Galactic dark age gone: Success! (two main points were relays not destroyed and Normandy not stranded on some jungle planet - though largely this second one is probably my fault for not knowing enough of the lore to know they weren't actually stranded).

2. Synthetics not destroyed: Failure. Not only is this not changed, they didn't even bother to change the dialogue lines to actually put some effort into it making sense.

I would take a dark age, a ten thousand year dark age, even, rather than a synthetic holocaust.  Anytime.  At least then everyone has a shot at survival. 

[CronoDragoon]

iakus wrote...
I would take a dark age, a ten thousand year dark age, even, rather than a synthetic holocaust.  Anytime.  At least then everyone has a shot at survival. 

Do they? Anything not a colony world doesn't have the resources to support its population. Billions will starve until the populations re-balance to non-relay levels.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 09 juillet 2013 - 04:26 .

[Iakus]

CronoDragoon wrote...

iakus wrote...
I would take a dark age, a ten thousand year dark age, even, rather than a synthetic holocaust.  Anytime.  At least then everyone has a shot at survival. 

Do they? Anything not a colony world doesn't have the resources to support its population. Billions will starve until the populations re-balance to non-relay levels.

Perhaps.  Depends on what's within ftl range.  I imagine there'd be population shifts.  And bad times for a lot of people.  But no races would go extinct.

Look at it this way:  I'm not asking for a Golden Ending.

[AlanC9]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Do they? Anything not a colony world doesn't have the resources to support its population. Billions will starve until the populations re-balance to non-relay levels.

I'm not convinced it would be quite that bad. I can't remember any populated cluster without at least one garden world. Omega might be in deep trouble since Omega has an awful lot of population relative to the local garden worlds, but most other settlements might  be OK if adequate shipping is available. Anyway, the non-garden settlements have fairly low populations.

And turians who aren't at their own colonies or maybe Sol .... aren't having a good day.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The reapers are dead.

Where was the rendezvous point? Ha! Arcturus? It wasn't stated of course. It was left ambiguous on purpose. Everything they tried to clear up they broke something else. Face the fact: this is the most broken ending I've seen. It makes no sense. Joker never went to the rendezvous point. He went to some ... planet so that Liara could have babies with Javik. ... or so he could have iChildren with EDI.... or just die.

The ending still leaves you with the same questions.

* how is anyone going to make it home?
* people think it they are going to fix the mass relays in a couple of months. I don't know. Did you see how bad that Charon relay was damaged? But I guess since you've never built one before the parts will magically fit together like those of the crucible. Not to mention getting all that eezo in the core and repairing the rings. And that welding job up there. Who is going to do that? Don't say that's why you keep the reapers around because you're metagaming if you do. And the Citadel? That wreck will be floating around for centuries, and may enter a decaying orbit. Space around Earth is a hazard zone.

* so it's going to take years, decades, centuries, but the main relays will get repaired. Meanwhile the Turians on earth die out. The Asari settle somewhere in Northern California/Oregon. The Krogan settle in Australia. Wrex opens a bed and breakfast in upstate NY and calls it "The Sleepy Thresher Maw." The Quarians in the area will die out maybe, or they'll try to make it back to Rannoch, or hell maybe they'll give the Turians a ride back to Turian space and the Turians will let them live on one of their worlds in exchange. That might work out for them. It'll take them a long time, but maybe they'll manage it in a century.

But now Earth has vorcha living here, and vorcha multiply. And multiply. And multiply. We need to invent a vorcha pesticide. Maybe the Salarians here can come up with something genetic to get rid of them.

And Shepard.... Shepard is still holding his/her breath somewhere. Is anyone looking for Shepard?

[Iakus]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

The reapers are dead.

Where was the rendezvous point? Ha! Arcturus? It wasn't stated of course. It was left ambiguous on purpose. Everything they tried to clear up they broke something else. Face the fact: this is the most broken ending I've seen. It makes no sense. Joker never went to the rendezvous point. He went to some ... planet so that Liara could have babies with Javik. ... or so he could have iChildren with EDI.... or just die.

The ending still leaves you with the same questions.

* how is anyone going to make it home?
* people think it they are going to fix the mass relays in a couple of months. I don't know. Did you see how bad that Charon relay was damaged? But I guess since you've never built one before the parts will magically fit together like those of the crucible. Not to mention getting all that eezo in the core and repairing the rings. And that welding job up there. Who is going to do that? Don't say that's why you keep the reapers around because you're metagaming if you do. And the Citadel? That wreck will be floating around for centuries, and may enter a decaying orbit. Space around Earth is a hazard zone.

* so it's going to take years, decades, centuries, but the main relays will get repaired. Meanwhile the Turians on earth die out. The Asari settle somewhere in Northern California/Oregon. The Krogan settle in Australia. Wrex opens a bed and breakfast in upstate NY and calls it "The Sleepy Thresher Maw." The Quarians in the area will die out maybe, or they'll try to make it back to Rannoch, or hell maybe they'll give the Turians a ride back to Turian space and the Turians will let them live on one of their worlds in exchange. That might work out for them. It'll take them a long time, but maybe they'll manage it in a century.

But now Earth has vorcha living here, and vorcha multiply. And multiply. And multiply. We need to invent a vorcha pesticide. Maybe the Salarians here can come up with something genetic to get rid of them.

And Shepard.... Shepard is still holding his/her breath somewhere. Is anyone looking for Shepard?

And this is why scrweing the geth and EDI over and leaving Shepard perpetually in a pile of rubble was severe overkill.  There's already  a price to be paid, at least in Destroy.

You wipe out the Reapers, you gotta break your toys to do it.  And now you're saddled with these other problems.  How will they be solved?  That's another tale.  One you can make up yourself.  Maybe it's bright and hopeful, a temporary setback.  Maybe it's a long-term problem, but one that can be fixed eventually.  Or maybe you screwed the galaxy to a dark age and Earth to a slow death rather than a quick one.

That's the speculation we should have been left with

[chemiclord]

Reorte wrote...

Shouldn't that be a roleplaying option instead of compulsory? Whilst a lot in a game has to be inevitable for practical reasons it should try to at least feel like it isn't, particularly for the big events. "Not getting what he deserves" can fit in well enough when it comes to things like constantly being snubbed by the Council (although that is taken too far) but dying to achieve victory just goes way off the scale into Space Jesus territory.

The only real problem I have with having the consequences and cost being an "option" rather than compulsory is that it creates an obvious "right" way, and a "wrong" way.  For as much as people loved the "option" of varying degrees of success or failure in the Suicide Mission of ME2, it clearly became obvious that if you didn't get everyone out alive, that you did something "wrong."

I would have been open to more varying degrees of "cost" depending on how your playthrough advanced, but I do not like the idea of a "golden ending" to ME3, and do not support it.  To those that do, I say... cry some more.  Your bitter tears sustain me.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Not to mention the Reapers made an ecological disaster of biblical proportion on every world they landed. Garden worlds are not that plentiful, people. They "harvest advanced organic life" and then they strip the worlds of all their resources. Starboy and the reapers are a nightmare. They all need to die. This is one "genocide" that is justified.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

And what is a "Golden Ending"?

[Steelcan]

Id kill the geth 1000 times over to keep the relays intact. The genocidal robots deserve no mercy, they arent keen on it themselves.

[Enhanced]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

* how is anyone going to make it home?
* people think it they are going to fix the mass relays in a couple of months. I don't know. Did you see how bad that Charon relay was damaged? But I guess since you've never built one before the parts will magically fit together like those of the crucible. Not to mention getting all that eezo in the core and repairing the rings. And that welding job up there. Who is going to do that? Don't say that's why you keep the reapers around because you're metagaming if you do. And the Citadel? That wreck will be floating around for centuries, and may enter a decaying orbit. Space around Earth is a hazard zone.

* so it's going to take years, decades, centuries, but the main relays will get repaired. Meanwhile the Turians on earth die out. The Asari settle somewhere in Northern California/Oregon. The Krogan settle in Australia. Wrex opens a bed and breakfast in upstate NY and calls it "The Sleepy Thresher Maw." The Quarians in the area will die out maybe, or they'll try to make it back to Rannoch, or hell maybe they'll give the Turians a ride back to Turian space and the Turians will let them live on one of their worlds in exchange. That might work out for them. It'll take them a long time, but maybe they'll manage it in a century.

But now Earth has vorcha living here, and vorcha multiply. And multiply. And multiply. We need to invent a vorcha pesticide. Maybe the Salarians here can come up with something genetic to get rid of them.

And Shepard.... Shepard is still holding his/her breath somewhere. Is anyone looking for Shepard?

lol. That's why Control and Synthesis are better. Those potential problems are either non-existent, or easily solved.

Modifié par Enhanced, 09 juillet 2013 - 08:22 .

[Iakus]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

And what is a "Golden Ending"?

Golden Ending

Or, I suppose in this case, an ending where the writers don't umm, "urinate" all over your hopes. :innocent:

Modifié par iakus, 09 juillet 2013 - 08:23 .

[Iakus]

Steelcan wrote...

Id kill the geth 1000 times over to keep the relays intact. The genocidal robots deserve no mercy, they arent keen on it themselves.

Isn't it wonderful to have options and multiple outcomes?

Oh, wait.  

[CronoDragoon]

There are options and multiple outcomes. Just not ones to suit your (or my) personal preference.

[Iakus]

CronoDragoon wrote...

There are options and multiple outcomes. Just not ones to suit your (or my) personal preference.

And many, many others as well.

In short, they grossly misread their audience.  And can not or will not admit it.

[Dean_the_Young]

Or maybe their audience misread them.

[CronoDragoon]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Or maybe their audience misread them.

Eh, dunno about that. I know you are a critic of the Suicide Mission, Dean, for how easy it is to make it through without any loss. I don't think it was far-fetched to think ME3's ending would be similar.

[chemiclord]

I do think Alan9C makes a good point that Bioware seemed to think the Mass Effect series was about "tough choices"... when the player base as a rule went to great lengths to find the "out" to all those choices.

There was a clear disconnect between the developer and the audience here.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

chemiclord wrote...

Reorte wrote...

Shouldn't that be a roleplaying option instead of compulsory? Whilst a lot in a game has to be inevitable for practical reasons it should try to at least feel like it isn't, particularly for the big events. "Not getting what he deserves" can fit in well enough when it comes to things like constantly being snubbed by the Council (although that is taken too far) but dying to achieve victory just goes way off the scale into Space Jesus territory.

The only real problem I have with having the consequences and cost being an "option" rather than compulsory is that it creates an obvious "right" way, and a "wrong" way.  For as much as people loved the "option" of varying degrees of success or failure in the Suicide Mission of ME2, it clearly became obvious that if you didn't get everyone out alive, that you did something "wrong."

I would have been open to more varying degrees of "cost" depending on how your playthrough advanced, but I do not like the idea of a "golden ending" to ME3, and do not support it.  To those that do, I say... cry some more.  Your bitter tears sustain me.

Well, Tropes has ME3's Synthesis as the "Golden Ending". It is the hardest to get and requires a perfect play and still requires some multiplayer or all DLC packs. Minimum 4000 EMS. So I'm guessing the synthies bitter tears are sustaining you?

[Jorji Costava]

There's a general problem about how to discourage save-scumming lurking here. For instance, try to imagine what it would take to make a satisfyingly cathartic yet 'tragic' video game outcome. If a downbeat outcome isn't a result of your choices but is something you're railroaded into, it may feel 'unearned' for lack of a better term. You can imagine a lot of players reacting "What's the point of playing if no matter what I do, that happens?"

On the other hand, if it's a result of player choice, that opens up the possibility that the 'bad' outcome can be avoided if different choices are made. That encourages players to just re-load every time they get that outcome and make the opposite choice.

So in short, it's hard (not impossible) to do 'tough choices' well in video games, because either there's an 'out,' or there isn't. If there's an out, eventually everyone will find it just by reloading enough times. If not, then player frustration may ensue.

[AlanC9]

chemiclord wrote...

The only real problem I have with having the consequences and cost being an "option" rather than compulsory is that it creates an obvious "right" way, and a "wrong" way.  For as much as people loved the "option" of varying degrees of success or failure in the Suicide Mission of ME2, it clearly became obvious that if you didn't get everyone out alive, that you did something "wrong."

Well, there's nothing especially wrong with this sort of option in an RPG -- not a moral choice, but a competence check. I like a game to have both.

Modifié par AlanC9, 09 juillet 2013 - 09:22 .

[AlanC9]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Well, Tropes has ME3's Synthesis as the "Golden Ending". It is the hardest to get and requires a perfect play and still requires some multiplayer or all DLC packs. Minimum 4000 EMS. So I'm guessing the synthies bitter tears are sustaining you?

Re: itals: You know better than that. So do the Tropers. If it ever said 4000 EMS the page has been edited to reflect current reality.

[Dean_the_Young]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Or maybe their audience misread them.

Eh,
dunno about that. I know you are a critic of the Suicide Mission, Dean,
for how easy it is to make it through without any loss. I don't think
it was far-fetched to think ME3's ending would be similar.

chemiclord wrote...

I do think Alan9C makes a good point that Bioware seemed to think the Mass Effect series was about "tough choices"... when the player base as a rule went to great lengths to find the "out" to all those choices.

There was a clear disconnect between the developer and the audience here.

I think both of these illustrate something I've posed in the past:

What game set the standard for the ME series and Tough Choices: ME2, or ME1?

ME1 kicked the outcomes of delimmas down the road, but it didn't allow for having the best of both options. The Rachni is freed or killed, not kept in prison for the Council's perview. The Council is dead or alive, and Humanity seizes power or not. Then there's the Virmire, which thankfully never took advantage of the third way dialogue they took. ME1's choices weren't the best presented, or thought out well, but they were pretty binary.

ME2 is where tough choices generally got a lot less tough thanks to the plethora of persuasion checks and interrupts and other outs. There are some (Mordin and Legion's loyalty come to mind), but ME2 is where getting out of the consequences of a hard choice became a major reoccuring factor: persuasion outs for loyalty, or the Suicide Mission as a whole. ME1 kicked the ball of consequences down the road, but ME2 frequently removed the prospect of consequences at all... at least until the final DLCs. And Arrival.


So, in the end, which was the tone that should have been expected: ME1's, or ME2's?