1814 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

CrutchCricket wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...
How is this getting to all Reapers without using the relays they designed?

It wouldn't. I don't know about others but in my "weakening" scenarios, the solution isn't just one button flip for the entire galaxy. You'd need to redeploy in each system. This would make the endgame more drawn out but also would rely on war assets and strategy more. The way I see it you wouldn't be able to save everyone or destroy every last Reaper. It would leave more interesting options open for the future.

So, when they use QEM coms to coordinate about how localized groups are getting trapped, decide to get their fleets out of the danger areas, and start building Klendagon canons to snipe planets from dark space or begin launching sun-nova bombs with drone proxies to escalate the war via no attempt to harvest, how does your superweapon find and stop them?

And please don't tell me 'they're too concerned about biospheres to be that ruthless.' We know they aren't.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 19 décembre 2013 - 08:25 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Neizd wrote...

Yep, ME3 didn't learn it's lesson. There were hundreds of topics upon release of ME2 that people wanted space exploration... and in ME3 what do we get? Randomly overheard side-quests that are all about planet scanning for the ancient toilet paper of elcor so they can give us +20 war assets.

That is space exploration, though.

You might have meant planetary exploration, but Bioware was already moving from that in ME2, and that was hardly a topic with a consensus.

Suicide mission was something people really liked, the ability to customize the ultimate ending... and what do we get in ME3? Dull priority:earth mission + RGB choice, no harbringer boss fight because it would be "Too video-gamey" after all, it's not like they are creating a video game /sarcasm

Since that was a frequent criticism of the Human Reaper fight, this is a bit selective memory.

Besides, how can you not see more variability in the ME3 endings? Even if there weren't degrees of catastrophe, R/B/G is still 150% of R/B base destruction... unless you consider character deaths an ending variance, in which case ME3 has more still.

The same issue would be with Tali face...they KNEW people were waiting 5 years. While I agree their decision to make it a photo-realistic isn't THAT bad, the job made on it (especially the badly cut hand) is an abomination.

An opinion, but hey- no matter what they did they were going to be pissing in someone's cheerios.

The game was rushed, it's obvious at this point so if we are to hope that someone learned something from this "mess effect", then that it's Electronic Arts who learned NOT to rush video game developers like Bioware.

Where do you get the idea that EA rushed Bioware, rather than Bioware not being able to make their own plans?

[Dean_the_Young]

durasteel wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

What if a reviewer thought the ending was just not very important?

I do remember seeing one or more of those.

Kind of a remarkable point of view for the last game of an RPG trilogy though. Doing a good job of wrapping up the story is kind of a big deal.

I wonder. Plenty of people don't care much one way or the other about the parts that set up the ending.

[AlanC9]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
This confuses the function with the effectiveness. ME2 introduces Rannoch and Tuchanka, but it's hard to say it does either one well when you consider the format and the alternatives. Rannoch and Tuchanka arcs are, collectively, four side quests in a game with two dozen- they are not only not a major focus, but they are entirely voluntary in the plot flow. Unlike the critical path, such as the Suicide Mission or Virmire or the end of ME1, you can not only never do the missions, you don't even need to meet most of the characters involved. 

I just finished a ME3 game like that. Legion and Tali had both died on the SM before doing their LMs, so Shepard hardly met any quarians and only got the first couple of Legion convos. And while Mordin and Grunt both survived the SM, I decided to never go to Tuchanka at all, since I wanted Mordin to live through ME3 and destroying the genophage data is too derpy for me. So Shepard never met Wreav until the summit meeting.

In addition to the plot not being very well-developed, there was a bunch of extra dialogue work involved with introductions and whatnot. I thought that part of it went well, at least.

[Dean_the_Young]

AlanC9 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
This confuses the function with the effectiveness. ME2 introduces Rannoch and Tuchanka, but it's hard to say it does either one well when you consider the format and the alternatives. Rannoch and Tuchanka arcs are, collectively, four side quests in a game with two dozen- they are not only not a major focus, but they are entirely voluntary in the plot flow. Unlike the critical path, such as the Suicide Mission or Virmire or the end of ME1, you can not only never do the missions, you don't even need to meet most of the characters involved. 

I just finished a ME3 game like that. Legion and Tali had both died on the SM before doing their LMs, so Shepard hardly met any quarians and only got the first couple of Legion convos. And while Mordin and Grunt both survived the SM, I decided to never go to Tuchanka at all, since I wanted Mordin to live through ME3 and destroying the genophage data is too derpy for me. So Shepard never met Wreav until the summit meeting.

In addition to the plot not being very well-developed, there was a bunch of extra dialogue work involved with introductions and whatnot. I thought that part of it went well, at least.

It's even funner if you never recruit Tali, Legion, or Grunt, and never do Mordin's loyalty mission, in a world in which Wrex and Mordin are dead. Then every single arc character is introduced from the ground up in about five minutes, and it works almost as well.

Can you spare Mordin if you don't destroy the cure data? I wasn't sure he let you, though I suppose saving Eve is the real requirement.

[AlanC9]

Eve has to die; otherwise Mordin's convinced that she'll restrain Wreav and Shepard has to shoot him.

[TigusVidiks]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Neizd wrote...

Yep, ME3 didn't learn it's lesson. There were hundreds of topics upon release of ME2 that people wanted space exploration... and in ME3 what do we get? Randomly overheard side-quests that are all about planet scanning for the ancient toilet paper of elcor so they can give us +20 war assets.

That is space exploration, though.

You might have meant planetary exploration, but Bioware was already moving from that in ME2, and that was hardly a topic with a consensus.

Suicide mission was something people really liked, the ability to customize the ultimate ending... and what do we get in ME3? Dull priority:earth mission + RGB choice, no harbringer boss fight because it would be "Too video-gamey" after all, it's not like they are creating a video game /sarcasm

Since that was a frequent criticism of the Human Reaper fight, this is a bit selective memory.

 I liked the suicide mission of ME2, mainly for the choices you had to make that could by themselves turn things sour.   But i didn't particulary liked the boss battle. Not because it was a gamey boss battle, but because it was a giant robot in human form, and that is as gamey as it gets. Completely inconsisntent with Reaper lore in the whole trilogy (not just the first game). All reapers have the same aprox frame, insect based. Making it human looking, is at the very least a juvenile appeal. I think that's where most people who disliked it were coming from.

[KaiserShep]

AlanC9 wrote...

Eve has to die; otherwise Mordin's convinced that she'll restrain Wreav and Shepard has to shoot him.

Apparently, both Wrex and Eve determine whether or not he'll listen, as he will still refuse even if Eve dies but Wrex is still alive, which is kind of weird.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 19 décembre 2013 - 10:21 .

[Redbelle]

All I know is that..... As long as Wrex and and Eve live, I've always cured the Genophage.

If Wreav is the last one standing. It's sabotaged, Mordin lives, and Wreav is none the wiser. Mwahaha!

[CrutchCricket]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
After Arrival, I expected ME3 would end with Shepard and the Galactic Alliance retaking the Citadel, going across the Citadel relay to the Dark Citadel, and triggering the Dark Relay to go supernova ala Arrival, destroying all the nearly-helpless Reaper-cores and thus nullifying the Reaper shells back in the Galaxy.

Though I thought about what the Dark Relay must be like I never considered this particular variation. I would be very much ok with this.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
So, when they use QEM coms to coordinate about how localized groups are getting trapped, decide to get their fleets out of the danger areas, and start building Klendagon canons to snipe planets from dark space or begin launching sun-nova bombs with drone proxies to escalate the war via no attempt to harvest, how does your superweapon find and stop them?

And please don't tell me 'they're too concerned about biospheres to be that ruthless.' We know they aren't.

Their motivation isn't pure destruction, so I'm not sure this would happen. Facing defeat and/or extinction they might go scorched earth though that seems to me a particularly human dick move. I think it's more likely the remnants retreat and if there are enough of them a new stage of war begins (in the next game).

[Dean_the_Young]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
After Arrival, I expected ME3 would end with Shepard and the Galactic Alliance retaking the Citadel, going across the Citadel relay to the Dark Citadel, and triggering the Dark Relay to go supernova ala Arrival, destroying all the nearly-helpless Reaper-cores and thus nullifying the Reaper shells back in the Galaxy.

Though I thought about what the Dark Relay must be like I never considered this particular variation. I would be very much ok with this.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
So, when they use QEM coms to coordinate about how localized groups are getting trapped, decide to get their fleets out of the danger areas, and start building Klendagon canons to snipe planets from dark space or begin launching sun-nova bombs with drone proxies to escalate the war via no attempt to harvest, how does your superweapon find and stop them?

And please don't tell me 'they're too concerned about biospheres to be that ruthless.' We know they aren't.

Their motivation isn't pure destruction, so I'm not sure this would happen. Facing defeat and/or extinction they might go scorched earth though that seems to me a particularly human dick move. I think it's more likely the remnants retreat and if there are enough of them a new stage of war begins (in the next game).

They wouldn't escalate because their motivation is pure destruction- they would escalate because not escalating would see conventional defeat, and thus the end of the cycle and the loss of their goals. They've already demonstrated in their history that they're genocidal and plenty willing to destroy biospheres- they have no demonstrated or claimed priority to preserve the planets that threaten their goals.

I mean, when it gets down to it I've yet to see anyone provide a reason the Reapers couldn't resort to FTL bombs. Unlike us, who they effectively tricked/hard-wired safeguards into our FTL technology
(as stupid a handwave as that is), they have no such restriction if
they don't want it. Even if we can create a localized weapon to force
them to retreat, they can just pepper the planets with kamikaze craft to
destroy the population/industrial bases.

Instead of 'why would they escalate', 'why wouldn't they?' That's the problem Conventional Victory scenarios fall into- either it rests on the Reapers being super-dumb when faced with defeat, or that somehow the grand political alliance of organic civilizations is willing to be far more ruthless in conducting the war than the Reapers. It's so bent on 'we will take victory from the Reapers by our own two hands' that it misses that the Reapers kind of have to surrender all common sense or base competence when faced with a challenge.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 19 décembre 2013 - 05:34 .

[Dean_the_Young]

StreetMagic wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

It's even funner if you never recruit Tali, Legion, or Grunt, and never do Mordin's loyalty mission, in a world in which Wrex and Mordin are dead. Then every single arc character is introduced from the ground up in about five minutes, and it works almost as well.

Funny, but also sad. Those characters are too great for such a fate. But that's how it goes with Mass Effect. Almost everyone is expendable and can be reduced to nothing, as far as plot importance goes.

That can rest entirely with ME2, since any plot that makes a character killable must be able to progress without the character going forward. That means either the character takes no role of importance (Grunt), or has  convenient stand-in on stand-by regardless (Mordin).


But, honestly, it's not so bad- in some ways it's even better than the full import because old characters aren't crowding out new ones. Padok (Mordin's replacement) is a fine character in his own right. Wreave is a startling wake-up as to the other side of the Krogan, and a reminder that just because Wrex is in charge doesn't mean he always will be. The entire Admiralty Board is fleshed out in views and competence without Tali being the designated sympathetic focus (imagine going through the Dreadnaught with Xen, who is right by your side when Garrell begins firing with a fellow Admiral on board), and the Geth VI is an important step back from the white-wash that Legion largely was.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

ME2 went out of its way to ignore any conventional victory buildup, making a sudden-win condition pretty much a necessity to beat the Reapers in one game.

Or, we could have gotten nothing, and the Reapers would come in and wipe the floor with us unconditionally!



It has potential as a tragic horror story... though the thought of it evokes more laughter out of me than poignant feelings.

[CrutchCricket]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
They wouldn't escalate because their motivation is pure destruction- they would escalate because not escalating would see conventional defeat, and thus the end of the cycle and the loss of their goals.

Bombing us to **** would also see the end of the cycle and the loss of their goals. They'd "win" in the sense that the opposition would be destroyed, but the harvest (the main reason for all of this) would be lost, in addition to their numbers being severely depleted by our initial attack. It'd be quite the pyrrhic victory for someone who's not used to losing and again, a much more human course of action than I'd be willing to credit them with.

I mean, when it gets down to it I've yet to see anyone provide a reason the Reapers couldn't resort to FTL bombs. Unlike us, who they effectively tricked/hard-wired safeguards into our FTL technology (as stupid a handwave as that is), they have no such restriction if they don't want it. Even if we can create a localized weapon to force them to retreat, they can just pepper the planets with kamikaze craft to destroy the population/industrial bases.

Yes but again the point is not destruction.  It's one thing to wipe out fleets and armies, it's another thing entirely to wipe out populations and planets.

Instead of 'why would they escalate', 'why wouldn't they?' That's the problem Conventional Victory scenarios fall into- either it rests on the Reapers being super-dumb when faced with defeat, or that somehow the grand political alliance of organic civilizations is willing to be far more ruthless in conducting the war than the Reapers. It's so bent on 'we will take victory from the Reapers by our own two hands' that it misses that the Reapers kind of have to surrender all common sense or base competence when faced with a challenge.

It's not a matter of intelligence. At the end of the day the Reapers want to capture not kill. And capture is always more limiting, even if you're ridiculously advanced.

[AlanC9]

CrutchCricket wrote...
It's not a matter of intelligence. At the end of the day the Reapers want to capture not kill. And capture is always more limiting, even if you're ridiculously advanced.

You're missing the point. Sure, the Reapers prefer to capture rather than to kill. But if the choice is to kill or to lose, kill is obviously preferable. Just write off this cycle as a botched job, blow it up, and do better next time. This is one of between 741 (low estimate) and 20,000 (high estimate) cycles so far. Not worth getting upset about blowing it this time around.

Modifié par AlanC9, 19 décembre 2013 - 07:23 .

[jamesp81]

One thing that occurs to me is that the weapons used by the allied forces are hilariously underpowered.

The main gun of an Alliance dreadnought launches a projectile that has the kinetic energy equal to a 38kt nuke. Sounds impressive at first until you realize we have weaponry right now that is considerably more powerful.

In the game, the Turians learned that the combined fire of four dreadnoughts was enough to destroy a Reaper. So basically, low triple digit kiloton weaponry will take one down. Rather than shooting inert projectiles, they needed to be stuffing one megaton nuclear warheads in the projectiles the guns fired. Even *one* of those would be sufficient to cripple or destroy a Reaper from what we know of the game's physics. You could even use Mass Effect Space Magic to ensure the warhead wasn't subjected to any ridiculous acceleration forces that might damage it during firing.

That's one of those things that's just so off about the endings. Not only were the endings not satisfying, a conventional warfare type victory would actually be doable with a little bit of innovation. Certainly if the displaced Alliance fleet could build an uber space magic weapon, they should be able to make some special ammunition for their ship's main guns.

[AlanC9]

Could a larger nuke traveling at relativistic velocity actually be detonated next to the target, though? The timing would need to be fairly precise. I presume that's the handwave Bio uses so people aren't just tossing nukes around all the time.

And as usual, this is another anti-Reaper strategy that would work just as well for the Reapers. Unless it works so well that dreadnoughts aren't a viable weapon system anymore, in which case ME3's fantsasy physics will be written in a way so the plan can't work at all, which is why ME3's fantasy physics would certainly rule it out.

Modifié par AlanC9, 19 décembre 2013 - 07:48 .

[Iakus]

jamesp81 wrote...

One thing that occurs to me is that the weapons used by the allied forces are hilariously underpowered.

The main gun of an Alliance dreadnought launches a projectile that has the kinetic energy equal to a 38kt nuke. Sounds impressive at first until you realize we have weaponry right now that is considerably more powerful.

In the game, the Turians learned that the combined fire of four dreadnoughts was enough to destroy a Reaper. So basically, low triple digit kiloton weaponry will take one down. Rather than shooting inert projectiles, they needed to be stuffing one megaton nuclear warheads in the projectiles the guns fired. Even *one* of those would be sufficient to cripple or destroy a Reaper from what we know of the game's physics. You could even use Mass Effect Space Magic to ensure the warhead wasn't subjected to any ridiculous acceleration forces that might damage it during firing.

That's one of those things that's just so off about the endings. Not only were the endings not satisfying, a conventional warfare type victory would actually be doable with a little bit of innovation. Certainly if the displaced Alliance fleet could build an uber space magic weapon, they should be able to make some special ammunition for their ship's main guns.

They needed to dust off Project Excalibur.  Couple hundred years advancement should make that viable as an anti-Reaper weapon.

Fire a few bom

[fr33stylez]

AlanC9 wrote...

Could a larger nuke traveling at relativistic velocity actually be detonated next to the target, though? The timing would need to be fairly precise. I presume that's the handwave Bio uses so people aren't just tossing nukes around all the time.

And as usual, this is another anti-Reaper strategy that would work just as well for the Reapers. Unless it works so well that dreadnoughts aren't a viable weapon system anymore, in which case ME3's fantsasy physics will be written in a way so the plan can't work at all, which is why ME3's fantasy physics would certainly rule it out.

Question related to this: 
IIRC, the Protheans were 'genetically incompatible' or whatever with the harvest process. So who did they harvest in the last cycle? No one?
What did the Reapers do? Just wipe out every species and go back into Dark Space?

[KaiserShep]

I'm still not sure how EDI came to that conclusion.

[Excella Gionne]

Welcome to almost 2 years later! I think Mass Effect 3 as a whole was great. It made a great impression on me the first time. It doesn't move as swift as the E3 Demos but it has a lot of content despite how linear it is.

[CronoDragoon]

fr33stylez wrote...

Question related to this: 
IIRC, the Protheans were 'genetically incompatible' or whatever with the harvest process. So who did they harvest in the last cycle? No one?
What did the Reapers do? Just wipe out every species and go back into Dark Space?

The Protheans weren't made into a Sovereign-class Reaper, but in every cycle all the other races not chosen for the big Reaper are made into smaller Reaper ships, so that's still possible. The only deviation we know of concerned the Protheans....and they weren't wiped out either as we know.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 19 décembre 2013 - 08:39 .

[JamesFaith]

fr33stylez wrote...

Question related to this: 
IIRC, the Protheans were 'genetically incompatible' or whatever with the harvest process. So who did they harvest in the last cycle? No one?
What did the Reapers do? Just wipe out every species and go back into Dark Space?

Other species used as Destroyers, Protheans altered to compromise solution - Collectors. 

[teh DRUMPf!!]

CronoDragoon wrote...

fr33stylez wrote...

Question related to this: 
IIRC, the Protheans were 'genetically incompatible' or whatever with the harvest process. So who did they harvest in the last cycle? No one?
What did the Reapers do? Just wipe out every species and go back into Dark Space?

The Protheans weren't made into a Sovereign-class Reaper, but in every cycle all the other races not chosen for the big Reaper are made into smaller Reaper ships, so that's still possible. The only deviation we know of concerned the Protheans....and they weren't wiped out either as we know.

Or, knowing what we know now, EDI's uneducated guess was simply incorrect.

I'd make a strong wager that the Protheans did become a Reaper capital ship.

Humanity being special to the Reapers was a holdover from the Dark Energy plot.