Fast Jimmy wrote...
Dean_the_Young wrote...
I'm not sure ignorance of what's a core quest or not can really be a basis to claim plot non-linearity, but it can certainly be a great means of providing the illusion thereof. There's definitely something to be said for having side quests indestinguishable from primary quests in quality.
I remember someone who bemoaned the lack of any good sidequests in ME3 because it was just story quests or planet scanning. When someone pointed out Grissom academy, the AY monastary, and how the Rannoch planetary missions weren't all required, they were embarassed to admit that they had forgotten about them because they were so good they seemed like story quests.
One could argue that if Priority Earth did a much better job at reflecting the player's choices in terms of the resources and forces gathered, you could argue these side quests would have been truly playing into the major plot. Ater all, the main plot was recruiting and all of those side quests did just that.
I think this is an entirely fair argument, and a fair criticism. I can see why they wouldn't/didn't (time and resource constraints: it's not like developers make games backwards and start from the end, and it shows), but I think it would have been a feasible way to do it.
Suggests I've seen and made in the past include letting cameos turn the entire level into a veritable walk-by that you wouldn't even have to fight yourself if you had enough support. Things like-
-Rachni swarmers clearing out the first LZ, dying in the process but reducing the number of enemies up the steps.
-A Geth Prime dropping at the start of the street, serving as an overpowered turret against an initial mass of Ravagers. It struggles under combined fire, but opens up room for Shepard.
-In the same area, a Quarian engineer who does negligable damage but restores Shepard's shields and provides ammo and grenades. Naturally it can also buff the Prime as well, making the shooting lane easier.
-In the garage where you fight two brutes, Krogan or Salarians are laying a trap.
And so on. Former companions could also have their own scenes of badass support.
-Jack and/or her student biotics (if put on the front lines) throwing shockwaves and biotic artillery during the rooftop onslaught while waiting for the shuttle, tossing aside unshielded husks and cannibals.
-In the alley where a Brute bursts through a wall, having Grunt burst through the
other wall to tackle and take it out.
-Ex-squadies providing sniper support during that turret section, in a case of 'the Reapers are trying to overrun the FOB' emergency.
And, in a DAO and DA2-inspired final battle for those waves of enemies at the Thannix missiles, all the companions/significant NPCs could provide fire support from the barricades and sides, sort of like how they did in Citadel DLC. In short, the final level could range from exceptionally difficult to extremely easy depending on your number of cameos.
Of course, this is easy to write and harder to implement. The cost for so many potential cameos could be prohibitive, and certainly taking away from other things. Implementation could be tricky, especially in justifying why these cameos don't carry forward on your path but stay in their assigned spots. There might even be technical difficulties with cameo contributions in battle that we can't appreciate: given the limited gunship role in Thessia and how it wasn't until Citadel DLC that we got a sequence in which companions could be on the field and do significant damage, there might be difficulties in implementing meaningful fire support as oppossed to scripting.
And, of course, the possibility for bugs. Something with that many variables to reflect in so short a space would be a recepie for glitches or save read errors. Quality control would be a total ****.
Since there was a very set, linear display of the ending conflict, though, these can truly be deemed side quests, as none of them brought anything substantive to the table other than a slight change to the EMS score and a possible video-chat cameo at the Priority Earth base if the side quest involved a former squadmate.
Pretty much. And to be fair (or more brutal), even cameos wouldn't make something not a sidequest- cameos are nice, but hardly impacting the plot. But it would still be great reflection, which is its own value in RPGs.
One thing I will congratulate ME3 for is with tying its major sub-arcs into the main plot. While Rannoch is still isolated like old creamy middle arcs, and could honestly be called a side quest, both the Genophage and Cerberus arcs are tied into the central narrative. Tuchanka is a bit awkward, but the genophage arc as a whole is effectively the requirements of forging the galactic coalition, Shepard's Act 1 plot. Cerberus also ties in its repeated interferences and ambitions for the Crucible and resolving the Reaper threat: of those, only the Citadel Coup really stands out as a 'why are we doing this?' level since its purpose and goals are never explained or reflected upon.
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