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[Jorji Costava]

[TL;DR Warning] A recurring complaint about ME3 is that our choices in previous games didn't matter. If there's any grain of truth to this claim, I'd suggest it's because of the proliferation of often trivial choices in those previous games, making it virtually impossible to respect all of these choices in ME3. So I'm wondering if anyone here thinks that there are certain choices which we should never have been able to make, and if so, which ones they are. Here are some of my suggestions:

1. Selling Legion and/or Grunt to Cerberus. I've argued before that Grunt is a pretty expendable character, but leaving that aside, I'm not sure there was any reason to allow the PC to dismiss these characters without accessing any of their content. There was simply no way that selling these characters to Cerberus could have had any effect at all but to cut you out of story content for minimal gain, so why not just have TIM say, "I'm ordering you to activate them and see whatever intelligence they may have to offer" or some such? That way, you have fewer permutations to deal with in later installments, at the cost of removing a pretty uninteresting choice.

2. Recruiting Morinth: This just always seemed a little silly to me. I don't think it's a bad idea to have one squadmate who can't be cured of his or her evil by Shepard's magic psychoanalytic powers, but the implementation was poor IMO. The idea that you're killing one of your squadmates to recruit a known sociopathic murderer because you simply trust that she'll totally be able to impersonate Samara and fool everyone is pretty ridiculous. It's enough that any of your squadmates can die; it's probably too much to handle to have more than one possible death for many of them.

3. The Council in ME1: Here, what I'm saying is not that the choice shouldn't have been allowed, but that it shouldn't have had quite the short-term effect that it had. In other words, if you allowed the Council to die (which I do actually think is the best decision), this should not have resulted in an all-human council. If the representatives of every country in the UN security council except the US all died, how likely do you think it is that all the replacement representatives would end up being from the US? Not very likely IMO.

Further, given that the plot of the final game was always going to be "unite the galaxy," an all-human council would have made this task a bit easy; hence the retcon of ME3. Instead, perhaps allowing the Council to die could have resulted in humans just getting two council seats instead of one (both Anderson and Udina), giving them veto power without necessarily allowing them to do whatever the heck they want. That would have been a more manageable change to maintain through ME2 and ME3.

4. Most controversially, the Suicide Mission. This is well-trodden ground by this point, so I'll just limit myself to a few remarks here: The "disloyal=dead" mechanic was never at all convincing to me, and certainly didn't justify the number of permutations of outcomes that the suicide mission could have. Better to have disloyal squadmates ditch you (say, before the final mission), so that they'll still be alive in the next game. This could also set up interesting dramatic tension in ME3, with Shepard telling disloyal squadmates something like "Why weren't you there for me?!", and the squadmate saying "Because you were a jerk." Yes, that's horrible dialogue, but hey, this is a BSN thread, not a Hollywood spec script.

Any additional suggestions or disagreements with my suggestions are more than welcome. Alternatively, I'd be interested to hear suggestions for choices that weren't allowed but should have been.

[KaiserShep]

Recruiting Morinth is probably the dumbest one to me. I mean, why would I want a serial killer sex vampire on the ship? The fact that the squad does not really acknowledge this in a meaningful way is troubling.

"So, Shepard, I was thinking. Now that there's a mind-raping sex demon on the ship, I had better get the hell off of this crazy train."

[DeinonSlayer]

"Fewer choices."

Does not compute. "More choices" I can work with.

Biggest one first: we needed an option to chew out the Asari councilor after Thessia instead of apologizing via autodialogue.

There should have been more opportunities to challenge the Geth. For instance, we can call out Raan for violating a treaty that doesn't even apply to the Quarians (Farixen), but we can't question the wisdom (or philosophical reversal) of Legion wanting to use Reaper code.

We needed an option to not say "it's good to be home" upon returning to Earth, because for many Shepards it's out-of-character. Earth was never home, and was never going to be home. In fact, a lot of the terracentrism needed to be pared down.

I could go on, but... it's all been said before.

Modifié par DeinonSlayer, 31 juillet 2013 - 04:31 .

[David7204]

I understand the problems people have with the Reaper Code, but I don't really see how the geth could avoid just being hacked by the Reapers like they were before without it.

People do realize that's a big part of the reason it was done, right?

Modifié par David7204, 31 juillet 2013 - 04:33 .

[KaiserShep]

"I was born in Londo.." *renegade interrupt* "I was born on a spaceship."

[KaiserShep]

David7204 wrote...

I understand the problems people have with the Reaper Code, but I don't really see how the geth could avoid just being hacked by the Reapers like they were before without it.

People do realize that's a big part of the reason it was done, right?

Aside from that, the geth would slowly(or rapidly) become less effective as their numbers decrease. No matter what, the code is a tactical necessity for the geth to continue fighting.

[DeinonSlayer]

David7204 wrote...

I understand the problems people have with the Reaper Code, but I don't really see how the geth could avoid just being hacked by the Reapers without it.

They were never hacked, though. Not by the Quarians, not by the Reapers. They've only ever chosen to side with them.

Even with the Reaper code, though, they can still be subverted with a halfway-decent omnitool. I find that odd.

(I know, I know, gameplay versus story)

Modifié par DeinonSlayer, 31 juillet 2013 - 04:35 .

[grey_wind]

I agree with all of your points, though I'd just like to say that rather than "disloyal = ditch before mission", the absence of loyalty could perhaps be expressed in some other way during the mission. For example, a disloyal biotic specialist is not able to hold the bubble as long as a loyal one, forcing you to fight through the Collectors and husks faster, or a disloyal tech specialist takes longer to open doors and thus forces you to survive against more waves of Collectors.

I'd also axe the decision on who to make Councillor. It never really made sense that Shep could appoint someone to begin with.

Lastly, I'd also make some of the Loyalty missions mandatory, like Mordin's and Legion's, considering the repercussions of the choices you can make at the end of them and how neatly they tie into the overall plot arc.

And yes, the first two games needed fewer choices. Or at least fewer galaxy-spanning choices. There was no way BioWare could have addressed all of them in a satisfacotry manner with the resources at the average game company's disposal.

Modifié par grey_wind, 31 juillet 2013 - 04:38 .

[Steelcan]

I think the peace option should have been removed for Rannoch.

[TsaiMeLemoni]

KaiserShep wrote...

Recruiting Morinth is probably the dumbest one to me. I mean, why would I want a serial killer sex vampire on the ship? The fact that the squad does not really acknowledge this in a meaningful way is troubling.

"So, Shepard, I was thinking. Now that there's a mind-raping sex demon on the ship, I had better get the hell off of this crazy train."

I think the reason the crew doesn't acknowledge it is because she imitates Samara when on board/on mission, so only Shep knows it's Morinth.

[DeinonSlayer]

TsaiMeLemoni wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

Recruiting Morinth is probably the dumbest one to me. I mean, why would I want a serial killer sex vampire on the ship? The fact that the squad does not really acknowledge this in a meaningful way is troubling.

"So, Shepard, I was thinking. Now that there's a mind-raping sex demon on the ship, I had better get the hell off of this crazy train."

I think the reason the crew doesn't acknowledge it is because she imitates Samara when on board/on mission, so only Shep knows it's Morinth.

Kasumi knows. She fervently warns you not to sleep with Morinth if I recall.

[TsaiMeLemoni]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

TsaiMeLemoni wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

Recruiting Morinth is probably the dumbest one to me. I mean, why would I want a serial killer sex vampire on the ship? The fact that the squad does not really acknowledge this in a meaningful way is troubling.

"So, Shepard, I was thinking. Now that there's a mind-raping sex demon on the ship, I had better get the hell off of this crazy train."

I think the reason the crew doesn't acknowledge it is because she imitates Samara when on board/on mission, so only Shep knows it's Morinth.

Kasumi knows. She fervently warns you not to sleep with Morinth if I recall.

Then she may be the only one. All I know is that Shep and Morinth have a conversation about her purposely imitating her mother so that the crews suspicion aren't raised.

Unless I am completely imagining a portion of the game that didn't happen....

Modifié par TsaiMeLemoni, 31 juillet 2013 - 04:42 .

[grey_wind]

StreetMagic wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

I think the peace option should have been removed for Rannoch.

Yeah. Reminds me of the same kind of copout as the Circle Tower in DAO.

This is actaully one of the few "take a third option" moments in the trilogy I like. The peace on Rannoch is very important on a thematic level given ME's ideals that we can strive to work together and give the future a chance. Plus this is one of those options that takes actual work to achieve, and not won simply by having a buttload of Paragon/Renegade points.

Modifié par grey_wind, 31 juillet 2013 - 04:48 .

[DeinonSlayer]

grey_wind wrote...

StreetMagic wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

I think the peace option should have been removed for Rannoch.

Yeah. Reminds me of the same kind of copout as the Circle Tower in DAO.

This is actaully one of the few "take a third option" moments in the trilogy I like. The peace on Rannoch is very important on a thematic level given ME's ideals that we can strive to work together and give the future a chance. Plus this is one of those options that takes actual work to achieve, and not won simply by having a buttload of Paragon/Renegade points.

*disdainfully* Reaper code...

[Sten disapproves -10]

[Steelcan]

I think the narrative purpose it serves is to foreshadow the possibility or synthesis. Organics and synthetics working together in harmony.

For BioWare's ME3 that works fine I suppose. But I prefer my ME3 to focus on organics overcoming their limitations and succeeding despite their disadvantages.

[Jorji Costava]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

Biggest one first: we needed an option to chew out the Asari councilor after Thessia instead of apologizing via autodialogue.

There should have been more opportunities to challenge the Geth. For instance, we can call out Raan for violating a treaty that doesn't even apply to the Quarians (Farixen), but we can't question the wisdom (or philosophical reversal) of Legion wanting to use Reaper code.

We needed an option to not say "it's good to be home" upon returning to Earth, because for many Shepards it's out-of-character. Earth was never home, and was never going to be home. In fact, a lot of the terracentrism needed to be pared down.

Mostly agree with these. As far as the Geth goes, one of the major weaknesses of this whole arc is that whereas we get a variety of Quarian characters to deal with, Legion/the Geth VI is the one and only one voice of all Geth. Thus, you can challenge Xen without thereby challenging all Quarians, but you can't do this with Legion because he's forced to act as the stand-in for his entire race.

We know from Legion's loyalty mission that there can be fissures within the consensus; this should have been exploited more. Perhaps we could learn that some runtimes are pretty much out for Quarian blood, while others are more amenable to peace and reconciliation. Still others might want to continue their total isolation. A lot of the more sentimental and manipulative of the arc could have been avoided if the Geth consensus mission had been about these different perspectives. It would also have a heck of a lot more historical resonance as well.

grey_wind wrote...

I agree with all of your points, though I'd just like to say that rather than "disloyal = ditch before mission", the absence of loyalty could perhaps be expressed in some other way during the mission. For example, a disloyal biotic specialist is not able to hold the bubble as long as a loyal one, forcing you to fight through the Collectors and husks faster, or a disloyal tech specialist takes longer to open doors and thus forces you to survive against more waves of Collectors.

I'd also axe the decision on who to make Councillor. It never really made sense that Shep could appoint someone to begin with.

Lastly, I'd also make some of the Loyalty missions mandatory, like Mordin's and Legion's, considering the repercussions of the choices you can make at the end of them and how neatly they tie into the overall plot arc.

And yes, the first two games needed fewer choices. Or at least fewer galaxy-spanning choices. There was no way BioWare could have addressed all of them in a satisfacotry manner with the resources at the average game company's disposal.

Agree with everything except the first point. The causality of the loyalty mission as it stands is held together by a kind of limp Freudianism; if your squadmates don't have all their childhood traumas settled, then they won't be able to function as effectively because they don't have their #@!$ together. That was pretty thin, and also undermined my sense that these were professionals that we're dealing with. I think it would make more sense if the primary way in which loyalty or disloyalty is manifested were in the squadmate's conduct toward the PC, hence my "disloyal squadmates should ditch you" suggestion.

[David7204]

Competence is not a cop-out.

[DeinonSlayer]

osbornep wrote...

DeinonSlayer wrote...

Biggest one first: we needed an option to chew out the Asari councilor after Thessia instead of apologizing via autodialogue.

There should have been more opportunities to challenge the Geth. For instance, we can call out Raan for violating a treaty that doesn't even apply to the Quarians (Farixen), but we can't question the wisdom (or philosophical reversal) of Legion wanting to use Reaper code.

We needed an option to not say "it's good to be home" upon returning to Earth, because for many Shepards it's out-of-character. Earth was never home, and was never going to be home. In fact, a lot of the terracentrism needed to be pared down.

Mostly agree with these. As far as the Geth goes, one of the major weaknesses of this whole arc is that whereas we get a variety of Quarian characters to deal with, Legion/the Geth VI is the one and only one voice of all Geth. Thus, you can challenge Xen without thereby challenging all Quarians, but you can't do this with Legion because he's forced to act as the stand-in for his entire race.

We know from Legion's loyalty mission that there can be fissures within the consensus; this should have been exploited more. Perhaps we could learn that some runtimes are pretty much out for Quarian blood, while others are more amenable to peace and reconciliation. Still others might want to continue their total isolation. A lot of the more sentimental and manipulative of the arc could have been avoided if the Geth consensus mission had been about these different perspectives. It would also have a heck of a lot more historical resonance as well.

I've got something for you to read.

[chemiclord]

I agree that quarian/geth peace should not have been on the table, at least as it was presented in ME3.

The scenario painted in ME3 was 12:01 on the doomsday clock. There was NO WAY Shepard should have been able to turn that battle to a peaceful solution. The entire quarian fleet was committed to destroying the geth, and the geth were committed to uploading the Reaper Code that would allow them to fight back.

Had the scenario been different (say Gerrel launching what amounts to a coup and using forces loyal to him to attack the geth, as an example), then I could have bought a peaceful solution... but as is? No way.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

1> I think there should have been a lot of things done differently. ME2 was a Charlie Foxtrot. The Suicide Mission should have been scrubbed and replaced with a generic ending. It introduced too many variables for ME3. Plus with it scrubbed they could use it for ME3 instead of Starboy and the color you use to adjust your monitor.

2> The thing about the Thessia mission is more about how did Cerberus find out about it and get there before you did? I find that very odd. Actually I don't because nothing was really said about the Coup -- it had to be an inside job. The colossal failure of C-sec points to this. Every human in C-sec should have been under suspicion. Meta-gaming lore shows TIM had agents embedded in C-sec.

3> The "Human Led" Council turned out to be BS. More like Earth gets a seat on the council instead and should have behaved like galactic citizens instead of trying to ram its own agenda through. One catches more flies with honey.

4> Selling Legion? That's no different than getting him killed. You get Geth VI instead of Legion and no peace option. Things get fun. Grunt is expendable. Aralahk Company mission with the Rachni? Quite honestly, if you save the Rachni queen, Grunt should have died. If you killed the queen, Grunt and the Krogan live. That should have been the choice.

[Steelcan]

David7204 wrote...

Competence is not a cop-out.

.  No amount of competence justifies ending a 300 year old conflict by shouting.