365 réponses à ce sujet

[ShepnTali]

ME2, with PS3ers in mind.

[chemiclord]

AlanC9 wrote...

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.

Well, I don't think a game can effectively HAVE both, honestly.

If it's simply a matter of having a high enough score to avoid the tough decision... is the decision really a tough one?  If you're faced with a tough decision no matter your score... what's the point of keeping a score?

I think ME2 perfectly highlights the problem of trying to do both.  Yes, if you don't do everything right... you have to make tough decisions... but how many players here actually wound up facing them?  I'd suspect a vast minority, because gamers go out of their way to avoid those choices if they can.

Add onto that the fact that actually avoiding those tough choices often was absurdly simple... that just made the disconnect even worse.

I think about the only way you could kinda sorta pull it off is if the "high score" necessary is so absurdly high that it makes the effort almost not worth it.  But even then, I think that would just invoke an equally violent pushback, merely redirected onto the requirement to avoid the choice rather than the choice itself.

Modifié par chemiclord, 09 juillet 2013 - 09:34 .

[Jorji Costava]

I can't speak for AlanC9, but perhaps his suggestion is not that one and the same decision can be both 'tough' and have a competence check that allows you to escape the bad consequences, but that you can have some of the key choices be competence checks, while others have no 'third way.' After all, it would probably be a bit much to have Sophie's choice after Sophie's choice over the course of one game or the whole series.

[chemiclord]

osbornep wrote...

I can't speak for AlanC9, but perhaps his suggestion is not that one and the same decision can be both 'tough' and have a competence check that allows you to escape the bad consequences, but that you can have some of the key choices be competence checks, while others have no 'third way.' After all, it would probably be a bit much to have Sophie's choice after Sophie's choice over the course of one game or the whole series.

The problem there is that you have THIS sort of pushback (of varying degrees of intensity) if you run a game like that.  If you give players a way out of ONE tough choice, they are going to expect (and demand) a way out of EVERY choice.  I'm not sure it's possible to juggle it in a way that WON'T result in at least one significant group of EXTREMELY pissed off fans.

I guess if you committed to one method for the vast majority of times and went with other once or twice per game... but I remember there was no small amount of people enraged that there wasn't a "Save 'em Both" option on Virmire, so I'm not even sure THAT would work terribly well.

Modifié par chemiclord, 09 juillet 2013 - 09:50 .

[Jorji Costava]

@chemiclord:

Probably true, but perhaps you're asking for too much. I'm not sure if any franchise ever has avoided making a decision which didn't ****** off a large group of fans. If we concede that we're getting into Argo territory ("There are only bad ideas"), then I think AlanC9's idea might be the "best bad idea we have."

[BaladasDemnevanni]

AlanC9 wrote...

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.

The problem is that the endings, particularly the originals, did a very bad job of giving this impression, especially since Shepard is a mute during most of the exchange, giving very little opposition.

The impression given is more of him educating Shepard. It's done in the style of Malak explaining the PC's identity in KotOR, Riordan explaining how a Warden is needed to kill the Archdemon, or even Vigil explaining how they circumvented the Reaper's Citadel. He's the narrative's Word of God.

If the goal of the Catalyst was to come off as foaming at the mouth crazy, at least from a tone perspective, Bioware could have done much better. Instead, the Catalyst is presented as a completely rational individual, while putting forth an insanely controversial philosophy.

[Epic777]

chemiclord wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

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.

Well, I don't think a game can effectively HAVE both, honestly.

If it's simply a matter of having a high enough score to avoid the tough decision... is the decision really a tough one?  If you're faced with a tough decision no matter your score... what's the point of keeping a score?

I think ME2 perfectly highlights the problem of trying to do both.  Yes, if you don't do everything right... you have to make tough decisions... but how many players here actually wound up facing them?  I'd suspect a vast minority, because gamers go out of their way to avoid those choices if they can.

Add onto that the fact that actually avoiding those tough choices often was absurdly simple... that just made the disconnect even worse.

I think about the only way you could kinda sorta pull it off is if the "high score" necessary is so absurdly high that it makes the effort almost not worth it.  But even then, I think that would just invoke an equally violent pushback, merely redirected onto the requirement to avoid the choice rather than the choice itself.

Most RPGs for all the talk do not do moral choices/consequences/tough descions well. I can sympathize with the problem of having moral choices, but with a competence checks.

Unless your moral choice has a consequence it becomes flat. A problem that can be observed in the ME3 ending. If you betrayed Wrex or had Wreav in charge, what is the consequence? Nothing. 

[chemiclord]

I think the best idea is to decide right from the start what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and damn the rest.

If you're going to make a game "for the fans" in which it is "their story too" (which Bioware claimed frequently... even if it was transparently PR BS), then you better damn well know what your fans want and give it to them.

If you want to have an artistic vision, make it damn clear right from the start that this is the way you're going to do things and don't deviate from it.

[Jorji Costava]

chemiclord wrote...

I think the best idea is to decide right from the start what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and damn the rest.

If you're going to make a game "for the fans" in which it is "their story too" (which Bioware claimed frequently... even if it was transparently PR BS), then you better damn well know what your fans want and give it to them.

If you want to have an artistic vision, make it damn clear right from the start that this is the way you're going to do things and don't deviate from it.

Pretty much agree with this. I think Bioware put themselves in a tough spot by establishing a history of making concessions to fan demand with this series. People didn't like the Mako so it disappeared in ME2; they didn't like Harbinger so he hardly did anything in ME3; memes from the message boards (i.e. "Prothy the Prothean") showed up in the game, etc.

[KaiserShep]

So wait the fans were responsible for that damn Hammerhead? I should've known.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

AlanC9 wrote...

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.

What is the current reality for synthesis?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

chemiclord wrote...

I think the best idea is to decide right from the start what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and damn the rest.

If you're going to make a game "for the fans" in which it is "their story too" (which Bioware claimed frequently... even if it was transparently PR BS), then you better damn well know what your fans want and give it to them.

If you want to have an artistic vision, make it damn clear right from the start that this is the way you're going to do things and don't deviate from it.

Well I do not disagree with you. This I think is where we all had the disconnect. Shepard's legacy was to be ours. Casey Hudson so much as said so over and over again from 2007. Then it got taken away in the last 10 minutes. You just do not do that.

If you're going to write a story that is your own artistic vision you stay with it and damn the torpedoes, but this has to be done from the beginning. No bait and switch. I love seeing someone's artistic vision and seeing it well done without compromise. I'm an artist myself and when I've got a finished work I have done my own "artistic integrity" thing when it was disliked. Any post completion changes are my own.

[chemiclord]

KaiserShep wrote...

So wait the fans were responsible for that damn Hammerhead? I should've known.

It's, of course, not quite THAT simple.

But yes, a part of the problem was that fans (even in ME1) treated EVERY minor nusiance and issue as OMG GAMEBREAKING FLAW!!!  IT RUINS EVERYTHING!!!!  OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!

There was absolutely NO severity filter in this fanbase (although in the spirit of fairness, the vast majority of fanbases suffer from this complex), and Bioware had no idea how to make that judgement themselves.  So their answer was to cut their losses and... well... cut.  It didn't help that their attempts to "tweak" elements fans raged against were often received WORSE than what it attempted to replace (see also... Hammerhead... Planet Scanning... Hack and Decryption mini-games).

That is the major stumbling point to the "give the fans what they want" approach, because often fans don't even know what they want; and if they do, it's in direct conflict with something a different group of fans want, but all you'll hear is the rage from whichever side you slighted.

Modifié par chemiclord, 10 juillet 2013 - 12:09 .

[Reorte]

chemiclord wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

So wait the fans were responsible for that damn Hammerhead? I should've known.

It's, of course, not quite THAT simple.

But yes, a part of the problem was that fans (even in ME1) treated EVERY minor nusiance and issue as OMG GAMEBREAKING FLAW!!!  IT RUINS EVERYTHING!!!!  OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!

There was absolutely NO severity filter in this fanbase (although in the spirit of fairness, the vast majority of fanbases suffer from this complex), and Bioware had no idea how to make that judgement themselves.  So their answer was to cut their losses and... well... cut.  It didn't help that their attempts to "tweak" elements fans raged against were often received WORSE than what it attempted to replace (see also... Hammerhead... Planet Scanning... Hack and Decryption mini-games).

That is the major stumbling point to the "give the fans what they want" approach, because often fans don't even know what they want; and if they do, it's in direct conflict with something a different group of fans want, but all you'll hear is the rage from whichever side you slighted.

That's just what happens when you simply look at the things that are making people angry without actually thinking about why they're making people angry.

[Iakus]

chemiclord wrote...

It's, of course, not quite THAT simple.

But yes, a part of the problem was that fans (even in ME1) treated EVERY minor nusiance and issue as OMG GAMEBREAKING FLAW!!!  IT RUINS EVERYTHING!!!!  OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!

There was absolutely NO severity filter in this fanbase (although in the spirit of fairness, the vast majority of fanbases suffer from this complex), and Bioware had no idea how to make that judgement themselves.  So their answer was to cut their losses and... well... cut.  It didn't help that their attempts to "tweak" elements fans raged against were often received WORSE than what it attempted to replace (see also... Hammerhead... Planet Scanning... Hack and Decryption mini-games).

That is the major stumbling point to the "give the fans what they want" approach, because often fans don't even know what they want; and if they do, it's in direct conflict with something a different group of fans want, but all you'll hear is the rage from whichever side you slighted.

And this is where asking questions come in.  Don't just sit there and listen to the rage, Ask questions.  Post surveys.  Find out why people are raging.  People don't  like the Mako?  Fine, why?  Minigames are annoying?  Is it all minigames, this one in particular, or what?  Harder choices?  Give examples of games that have choices you like to make.  If the developers aren't psychic, they should improvise.

How many people here would happily fill out a survey or questionaire or simply post feedback (polite feedback, even!) if they seriously believed the information would be taken seriously.  Something more than simply stickying a thread and walking away.

Even so, I hve to wonder what sort of dart-throwing guesswork went into the endings we got.  The sheer lack of creativity, thematic variety, or even connection to the previous games.  It doesn't assume any kind of Shepard import but a poor-to-mediocre death-seeker.  Someone who's so soaked in blood they have nothing left to live for.  ANd have made so many mistakes there's no way out but through a horrific Hail Mary gambit.

[Iakus]

Reorte wrote...

That's just what happens when you simply look at the things that are making people angry without actually thinking about why they're making people angry.

Very succinct, and very true. 

[Reorte]

chemiclord wrote...

I guess if you committed to one method for the vast majority of times and went with other once or twice per game... but I remember there was no small amount of people enraged that there wasn't a "Save 'em Both" option on Virmire, so I'm not even sure THAT would work terribly well.

And why shouldn't there be? If the timing had been a little different there wouldn't have been a problem with saving both on Virmire.

Any time something goes wrong there's a point somewhere where things could've been done differently and it wouldn't have gone wrong. So conceptually a perfect result should always be possible, even if it's incredibly near to 0% probability of being achievable. If people are going to spoil that by metagaming and reloading old saves so be it.

The problem is, of course, that getting that amount of variability in is impossible in practice (and even if it was technically possible it would make coming up with a good story even harder) so a certain degree of railroading is necessary. The best you can do is avoid it feeling like it was too railroaded; IMO Virmire wasn't bad on that front, enough to get away with the "some is needed if we're going to be able to write this thing" explanation.

Modifié par Reorte, 10 juillet 2013 - 12:30 .

[chemiclord]

Reorte wrote...

That's just what happens when you simply look at the things that are making people angry without actually thinking about why they're making people angry.

Ask six people why they are "angry" about something, and you'll get nine different answers... oh, and if you don't satisfy all nine (and four other things they didn't mention), they'll just get angrier.

Even with this "terrible" ending, there's barely anything resembling a loose consensus of what went wrong beyond the fact that it went wrong, and that's for something nigh universally despised.

It's harder to tweak something and have it be received as satisfactory than you might think.  Usually when a person hates something, "tweaking" it isn't going to change their mind.

[The Twilight God]

AlanC9 wrote...

The Twilight God wrote...

But it doesn't take a long time if you believe the slide show actually comes to pass. No, they magically fix the relays in like a day. The same relays that they have no idea how to make or how they work. Apparently with the help of a powerful wizard..

Leaving the obvious hyperbole of "like a day" aside, what are you talking about? We see Samara and various krogan getting home, but they live long enough to do that even if the relays are never repaired.

No, actually they don't live THAT long. Samara may have another 300 years, but that would not be enough to see her with her daughter, who is on a backwater with a population of 1. Nobody is going to waste resources and centuuries of travel to recover one ardat yakshi. And Grunt is clearly still an adolescent of a race that supposedly matures faster than most. No large amount of time transpires. It's bad writing, A careless display of ambivalence to the franchise which could have been easily corrected by living the relays intact. They could have fixed this easily in the EC, but apparently they are incompetent imbeciles.

Modifié par The Twilight God, 10 juillet 2013 - 01:13 .

[The Twilight God]

AlanC9 wrote...

Note that as phrased above it sounds like you've got the Catalyst's explanation of Synthesis backwards. The mental changes are on the synthetic side, not the organic side. But that's probably just rhetoric.

Then how does it solve anything if organics are still the same as they were before?

It doesn't. Synthesis solves absolutely nothing if you believe the Kid. Mac and Casey simply cut and paste a Deus Ex ending without adapting it to the ME universe. It is a lazy, unimaginative, untalented rip-off job by a man who has no business being lead writer of anything.

You mean why did they resist it docking, right? EMS scores are conclusive about that.

They resist regardless of EMS. You're resistance to their resistance is what supposedly makes the difference. The more ships you have the less capable the Reapers are to get to the Crucible. And off course, they do destroy it if you second guess a ending choice in the decision chamber. They fact they we can stop them at all in a traditional firefight is contradicted by Sovereign stem rolling through ships in ME1, but again.. bad writing.

I see you couldn't resist IT, which is the only way to make A workable. That leaves us with B, tried-and-failed, or a fairly obvious C, ruled-out-on-theoretical-grounds-and never-attempted. (H.Y.R., care to offer up a D or E?)

IT is a theory proposing that everything post Conduit run is a dream. I have never supported IT, I have argued against it and nothing I have posted here is IT. Indoctrination is a part of the ME universe. Deal with. Just because the concept is mentioned at all does not make it IT.

Shepard has the same resources and capabilities as the Kid if we accept the Kid's offer at face value. Shepard should therefore rule it out on theorhetical grounds too. Your "C" is more of a "B" as it falls into the same category of failed before takeoff.

And is Grunt all that young in the slides? I'm weak on krogan signs of aging.

The Qurian  issue is one of many. You can make up whatever scenario you want regarding that timeline. I'll grant you that.

For Grunt, it's the hump and the plates. He is still very much an adolescent. Samara has about 300 more years. Her daughter is on some backwater with a population of 1. Yeah, I'm sure they'll waste centuries of time and resources to reconnect that system to reunite a single "night demon" with her mother. :/

[The Twilight God]

CronoDragoon wrote...

iakus wrote...

These may not be "the Catalyst's choices" but they are still Bioware's choices. And what EC does NOT do is alter those choices, the context for them, or their outcome. Therefore: bad choices are still bad.

Fixing the spelling and penmanship to a poorly written essay is still a poorly written essay.

But the EC does alter the outcome. The relay retcon is an obvious example. Another is the degree to which technology in general is irrevocably destroyed. The galactic dark age interpretation is dead.

Relay retcon was to remove the galactic apocalypse angle, which was introduced by Arrival DLC. The issue of no relays and what they means (pseudo -"Dark Age") still persists with Destroy ending. The fact that this was ignored is what makes it bad writing.

[Massa FX]

My FemShep IS the FemRambo of Space. Yeh. I like that.

Incidently, I like space magic when I'm too immersed to notice and having too good of a time to care.

Modifié par Massa FX, 10 juillet 2013 - 01:18 .

[Iakus]

chemiclord wrote...

Reorte wrote...

That's just what happens when you simply look at the things that are making people angry without actually thinking about why they're making people angry.

Ask six people why they are "angry" about something, and you'll get nine different answers... oh, and if you don't satisfy all nine (and four other things they didn't mention), they'll just get angrier.

Even with this "terrible" ending, there's barely anything resembling a loose consensus of what went wrong beyond the fact that it went wrong, and that's for something nigh universally despised.

It's harder to tweak something and have it be received as satisfactory than you might think.  Usually when a person hates something, "tweaking" it isn't going to change their mind.

I'd be willing to bet that if they showed Shepard being rescued in Destroy, half the complaints would have stopped.

Make it possible for Shepard to survive all thre endings, three quarters of the complaining would have ended.  And heck, Destroy might not have even been so far ahead in the choices in the polls.

The simple truth of the matter is:  people like happy endings.  They may act all jaded and cynical, but deep down in our lizard brains, we like it when things go right.  It's the proper state of things.  That's why generally happy endings are so common.  Bad guys get their comuppance, good guys ride off into the sunset.  There may be some breakage, but as long as it's manageable, the audience won't mind.

Sad endings can be done well, of course.  But it's harder.  Much harder.  You have to know your audience well. You have to balance what is lost with what is gained, and there's not a whole lot of room for error.  Poeple may point to Shakespeare to say "see, sad endings are so artistic"  I say "No, that's a sad ending written by someone who knew what he was doing."

This writing team:  No Shakespeare.  

[chemiclord]

iakus wrote...

I'd be willing to bet that if they showed Shepard being rescued in Destroy, half the complaints would have stopped.

Make it possible for Shepard to survive all thre endings, three quarters of the complaining would have ended.  And heck, Destroy might not have even been so far ahead in the choices in the polls.

I'm not entirely convinced this is true, at least to the degree you paint it out as.  You'd still have a ton of griping about "Starbrat" and the lack of a "final boss" for example (things that are out there but are currently being drowned out by general dissatisfaction of the ending as a whole).  ME2 had a large chunk of ill feelings at the time when it ended, and that could end on a resoundingly triumphant note.

The simple truth of the matter is:  people like happy endings.  They may act all jaded and cynical, but deep down in our lizard brains, we like it when things go right.  It's the proper state of things.  That's why generally happy endings are so common.  Bad guys get their comuppance, good guys ride off into the sunset.  There may be some breakage, but as long as it's manageable, the audience won't mind.

Sad endings can be done well, of course.  But it's harder.  Much harder.  You have to know your audience well. You have to balance what is lost with what is gained, and there's not a whole lot of room for error.  Poeple may point to Shakespeare to say "see, sad endings are so artistic"  I say "No, that's a sad ending written by someone who knew what he was doing."

This writing team:  No Shakespeare.  

I think you'd be amazed that we agree on this almost word for word.  But at the same time, much of why Shakespeare IS remembered to the degree of acclaim he has is BECAUSE he didn't just give the "generally happy endings" and the "proper writing formula" of his time.  As much as the formula works to keep grumbling to a dull roar, it also lends your work to being pretty quickly forgotten and pushed aside for the next work that follows the formula.

I certainly don't think this writing team was anywhere near the level of skill they needed to pull off something unconventional (and honestly have NEVER particularly thought of the Bioware writers as somehow exceptional even among their video game peers)... I'm not going to completely wish them ruin and spite and venomous anger a year and a half later because they (perhaps foolishly) tried to touch the sky and failed.  I'll always credit the attempt to challenge customary writing, even if it fails (and God Almighty did this fail hard).

Modifié par chemiclord, 10 juillet 2013 - 01:49 .

[AlanC9]

chemiclord wrote..

Well, I don't think a game can effectively HAVE both, honestly.

If it's simply a matter of having a high enough score to avoid the tough decision... is the decision really a tough one?  If you're faced with a tough decision no matter your score... what's the point of keeping a score?

I was talking about different decisions within the same game. For instance, in ME3 you can escape making a tough decision at Rannoch with good gameplay (and a good save) , but this method diesn't apply to the endgame. I agree that both methods won't work for the same decision.