138 réponses à ce sujet

[Bob from Accounting]

Simple. An immensely stupid graph by someone who either has no knowledge of all of incredibly basic principles of statistics or is willing to ignore them.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Simple. An immensely stupid graph by someone who either has no knowledge of all of incredibly basic principles of statistics or is willing to ignore them.

 

Explain how it's an immensely stupid graph by someone who has no knowledge of incredibly basic principles of statistics.

 

Explain your argument. Explain your 'statistics'. Otherwise you have no argument.

 

Point one for me: David's just here to scoff at people. 

[AlanC9]

Haven't seen that brain-dead graphic in months.

[kleindropper]

Simple. An immensely stupid graph by someone who either has no knowledge of all of incredibly basic principles of statistics or is willing to ignore them.

 

I find your explanation inadequate.  Please use fact based arguements.

[Bob from Accounting]

Missions are not alike.

 

Some missions are long. Some missions are short. Some missions have lots of dialogue and characters. Some missions have no dialogue and characters.

 

Do you understand that concept? Understand the idea that missions are not the same? I would think such a thing is overwhelmingly obvious, but apparently, it isn't. So do you grasp the idea that missions are different from one another?

 

Therefore, using simply the number of missions to determine a game's focus is stupid. A particularly game might have five fetch quests that take 30 seconds each and one tremendously long and deep story quest that takes several hours. Since it has five fetch quests and one story quest, does that it mean it focuses on fetch quests five times as much?

[wolfhowwl]

The graphic counts Grissom Academy and garbage like MSV Estevanico as the same thing and ignores any difference in amount or quality of content.

 

The author's reasoning for separating the multiplayer missions is also questionable. He objects to the perceived quality of the multiplayer missions in comparison to the ME2 N7 missions which I find odd given the very lackluster quality of many of the N7 missions in that game. Many of them were also brainless shoot 'em ups like the multiplayer missions in ME3 or felt like they were slapped together at the last second like the broken robot and solar radiation quests.

[kleindropper]

The graphic counts Grissom Academy and garbage like MSV Estevanico as the same thing and ignores any difference in amount or quality of content.

 

The author separating the multiplayer mission is also questionable. He objects to the perceived quality of the multiplayer missions in comparison to the ME2 N7 missions which I find odd given the very lackluster quality of many of the N7 missions in that game. Many of them were also brainless shoot 'em ups like the multiplayer missions in ME3 or felt like they were slapped together at the last second like the broken robot and solar radiation quests.

 

Grissom Academy is a good example of a decent side quest.  Getting back to the original thread, gee, its too bad we couldn't have Jack as a squadmate for that one.  I know it must have just been TOOO difficult to pull that off even for just one mission.   Now, I've done my own unofficial count and found 15 main quest missions for ME3.  You can probably break Priority:Earth into two to get 16 total.  And my count for quality side missions in ME3 is: 8 (breaking up the Tchanka bomb into two).  I am not counting DLC or MP missions in this.

 

So really, the graphic is too kind to ME3 by my calculation.  I will resume with counting up ME2 quests in the morning, but an initial count gives me 8 quality loyalty missions alone.

[AlanC9]

  Now, I've done my own unofficial count and found 15 main quest missions for ME3.  You can probably break Priority:Earth into two to get 16 total.  And my count for quality side missions in ME3 is: 8 (breaking up the Tchanka bomb into two).  I am not counting DLC or MP missions in this.

What's the argument here? Shorter missions are good? It can't be that ME3 has less content because that would be an obvious lie.

[Iamjdr]

I honestly like how they did most of the cameos for the ME2 cast, almost all of them are part of some of the best missions in the game. with some exceptions ofcourse. Now what I would have really like to have seen, would be the ability to use each of the characters for their specific mission. Kinda another loyalty mission type deal. So once you meet up with them again it gives you a chance to switch up your squad to have them with you for atleast that single mission. Kinda how they did it with garrus on menae.

[von uber]

You're sure getting quite a bit of mileage out of that Liara pic.

Yep. I'll see if I can take another one where liara looks narked but I can't think I have many more scenes left in this play through.

I'm taking the bioware approach and recycling assets.

[dgcatanisiri]

Since we're assuming a blank check for resource allocation and no time limit of a deadline... First of all, Miranda is a full squadmate. It makes no sense for her not to join Shepard in the game as it is. She's a leading authority on Cerberus, she's worked with Shepard before, and if anyone could locate her sister, it'd be the Shadow Broker on Shepard's ship. So she's a permanent squadmate with a recruitment mission and, probably moving things with her father and sister to a separate mission where she's required to be on the team.

 

Next step is that all of the other ME2 squadmates are actual guest party members in their appearances in 3 for a mission or two, and, with the romances not permanently on Normandy, they can be contacted after main plot missions after their time in the party, allowing all romances to have a post-Thessia comfort scene, given that Shepard is plot-mandatedly broken up after its fall.

 

With the three ME2 romances not on Normandy, none of them have plot-mandated deaths or will leave Shepard unprompted. Jacob would be tied into Miranda's storyline (I'll get to that in a minute) and would express no interest whatsoever in Brynn if he'd been romanced. Thane's death would not be mandatory, only happening under a certain set of circumstances unlikely to happen if he was romanced. James would also be available as a bi romance option. All romances would have equal attention and screentime, with at least two post lock-in conversations that are romance exclusive, and, in addition to the non-permanent LI's joining up with the Normandy when Shepard starts the endgame and being a squadmate option from there to the end, they'd all have a highly detailed romance sequence - Liara gets a lovingly detailed nude model while every other character gets no further than their underwear. The game's rated M, let all the women go topless, and at least let the guys take off their underwear like they did in 1, even if the camera blocks out of sight the front of their crotches because they don't want to render an on-screen penis. Garrus and Thane would at least get shirtless, and Tali would get an in-game face render that isn't just a human with a little modification.

 

Each of the permanent squadmates would have unique character arc, something that gives them their own stamp on the game (with further expansion of what's there for James, EDI, and Javik):

• Liara faces the realities of running the Shadow Broker network - information and knowledge is power, and power corrupts. Will she stay politically neutral or will she attempt to use these resources to mold the galaxy into how she thinks it should be? (There would also be an option to send her off to Hackett and the Crucible after EDI joins the team, no longer being required on Eden Prime. If she remains, she will be required on Thessia.)
• Garrus has family to worry about (we actually get to meet his sister at least, maybe his father too), and more attention is paid to his position in the turian chain of command these days, how he's now not just a soldier but a leader. Preferably, there'd be some follow up with matter of Sidonis from 2, a question regarding redemption, perhaps? Dunno, haven't given this as much thought as I'd like.
• As a squadmate, Miranda's story would focus less on her sister and more on her rethinking Cerberus. She believed in the Cerberus that she saw, the one looking out for human interests in the same fashion of the salarian STG or asari commandos or even Council Spectres. So she's considering attempting to carve out a version of her own, one that isn't a terrorist organization. Jacob is acting as her second-in-command, trying to persuade some still in Cerberus to join them.
• Tali's pretty much an afterthought at this point anyway, there should be some more focus on the fact that she has a homeworld now, an actual planet that she and her people can return to. We get one conversation about it in-game. We need more - what are the things she's looking forward to seeing, to building, to having, how much thought has she given this? And more attention needs to be paid to how she feels she's just 'the admiral's daughter' sitting on the Admiralty Board, how she still feels in his shadow.
• Ashley would get the heavy focus on family, with her concerns about their safety. We should meet and talk with Sarah (and Sarah absolutely NEEDS to look like she's related to Ashley - she looks more related to Doctor Michel than Ash), maybe one of her other sisters has had a sudden sense of patriotism with the war and is trying to join and Ashley wants to talk her out of it. Put that cut scene of her asking about what Shepard saw when they died back in. Overall, incorporate Ashley more into the Normandy crew, with her moving around the Normandy and having more reactions to the events happening - as it is, she FEELS like she's separated from the rest of them, never leaving the Lounge and having just a handful of 'how's it going' lines.
• Kaidan would be thinking about after the war - he's a bit of a long-term thinker, so he'd be wondering about the future as much as focusing on the present. He'd be curious about what will happen about this spirit of cooperation when there isn't the looming threat. Also he'd be a way to revisit stuff with human biotics - he's a first gen human biotic, after all, and now all of a sudden he has the ability to Reave. Show him wondering if there's more he can do and accomplish with his biotics.
• Both Ashley and Kaidan will also have more concerns about EDI and her body (that body nearly killed them, their PTSD should not be made the butt of jokes from Joker and Traynor just because they have the hots for her), and they'll have conversations about the one left on Virmire, preferably ending with an option to make a toast to them like in 2 when drinking with Chakwas (at the very least, move the second dream to after they return to the ship, and have Shepard speak with the VS about the other, since it makes sense for Shepard to be thinking about them after holding a gun on the one they sacrificed the other to save). Preferably, there'd also be a mission focusing on them as a Spectre - it's pretty much an afterthought in the game as it is, and they're now nominally Shepard's equal. Show why they deserve the Spectre wings.
• James, in addition to his new romance status, would also get a mission to revisit Fehl Prime, lay some of those ghosts to rest in person.
• EDI's quest to further understand humanity is more prominent - a lot of the time in the game as-is, I feel like that takes a backseat to her being together with Joker. So instead of her relationship taking the forefront, it's her personal development that gets top priority, as it should be.
• Javik still needs a mission where he's required like the others. To kill two birds with one stone, let's go to Ilos with him and have him start the process of grieving his people, being capable of accepting that they're gone and he carries the last memories of the protheans, while also having the enemy (preferably the Collectors, but making them an enemy faction expands beyond the scope of this topic, so we'll stick to the Reapers) destroying the Conduit, tie up that thread.

Overall, I want each crew member to have a major contribution to the personal side of the universe. Can't anthropomorphize galaxy, but can think of favorite people. And when any of these characters aren't on the Normandy because they've been killed or aren't on the ship, I want it to feel like they're missing. If a core theme of the game is about loss and those who can't be saved, what better way to show that than by making it so that those who weren't saved are very much missing? I'm finishing up a run of 3 where Garrus died on the Suicide Mission, and not ONCE have I felt that he's missing from the crew. We get along perfectly well without him and he's not mentioned or brought up at all, except for an indirect mention on Menae. It should feel like the characters are at least aware of his absence and miss him, and the same goes for any other crew member.

[wright1978]

Let's presume time and resources are not a factor.? Unlimited resources! Yes!

I’d opt for a starting point where rather than being called in by Alliance it is by the Council.  We learn that they lied and have been secretly preparing for this day and that Arrival was a council sanctioned project. Shephard is tasked by the council as a SPECTRE(re-instated if previously revoked) to co-ordinate the fight against the approaching reapers. Advanced reaper forces and indoctrinated troops will attack various races with varying degrees of intensity at various points in the game with larger sovereign style reapers being reserved for once opposition has been softened up.

 

Anderson: Anderson would either be the Earth Councillor or back on earth with the Alliance.

 

EDI stays as Ship without body.

 

Javik: I’d opt for more of Cryo Prothean soldiers to have survived. They become faction to be used to fight reapers but he can be convinced it is more important to be on Normandy.

 

Kaidan/Ashley

Advanced Reaper forces will hit earth early so the player will have option to visit and participate in that front. They will meet Ashley/Kaidan there, with the level of Cerberus hostility dependent on ME2 events(how pro-Cerberus/pro-alliance choices made). They can be left fighting there or convinced to they are needed aboard Normandy. James is reduced to NPC in this segment.

Miranda

We learn Cerberus is in the middle of a civil war. Miranda has rallied a dissident faction who believe TIM has lost it after finding about him trying to implant Cerberus troops. She and the rebels have joined with General Petrovsky at Omega where TIM is attacking. Aria will also ask for our help in retaking Omega. her that a peaceful resolution with Petrovsky can be worked out, lying to her and doublecrossing her later or agree to let her get her revenge. TIM’s troops are defeated and retreat to lick wounds(we meet again at Sanctuary when we uncover the scale of their control efforts). Our choices decide whether a peaceful resolution with Petrovsky can be worked out, doublecrossing Aria or agree to let her get her revenge. If Miranda survives she can join or stays with dissident Cerberus.

 

Liara: As Shadowbroker she has uncovered information about a secret Prothean artefact on Thessia. Thessia has been attacked and she asks for Shephard’s help. We discover beacon and learn of Crucible design.

 

Thane- Rather than the move to hospitalise him I’d have him using his final months of health in protection of Kahje. During the course of the game the player could visit Kahje to aid them in their fight against the reapers. At the end of the mission Thane could be left to lead the continued defence of the planet or convinced that he could be of more use on board Normandy. In either event Thane’s fate and that of Kahje would depend on player choices over the course of ME3. If he survives he spends his final months with son and/or LI.

 

Jacob- Rather than scientist mission, I’d have had Jacob banding together a group of former Corsairs and performing hit and run attacks on Reaper forces. They run into trouble and Shephard can go to their aid. Afterwards Jacob can return to activities with remaining Corsairs or be convinced to re-join Normandy.

 

Grunt: Reaper genetically altered Rachni(collecteresque creatures) are being sent against Tuchanka. Grunt is there leading the fight. Grunt can be left on frontlines or join Normandy.

 

Mordin: I’d keep the Salarian STG segments but with reapers attacking rather than Cerberus. Eve is evacuated. Genophage arc I’d keep largely intact but Mordin would be advocate curing only Urdnot and Allies if alive and Maelon’s work had been saved.

 

 

Samara- I’d keep Samara’s mission to monastery but allow recruitment option at end.

 

Garrus- I’d keep the recruitment phase from ME3 pretty much as is but offer option to leave him leading Turian fight.

 

 

Jack: Once more Grissom Academy mission is extremely good. She can either lead her students or join fight on Normandy.

 

 

Tali & Legion- I’d largely leave Rannoch as is, though I’d have Legion survive and lead Geth if they survive. Either side or their combined forces will be available to be sent to various fronts decided by player.

 

Zaeed: He’ll ask for help for him and the new gang he has formed fighting reapers.

 

Kasumi: Similar to ME3 but larger mission. She has discovered indoctrinated agent and we take down and then she can either join us or goes off to thieve, resources get added periodically if this is chosen.

[Daemul]

OK, go ahead and explain away this.  I wasn't asking for "limitless" resources, just the same as prior games:

 

Mass Effect 2 17 Plot Quests? What?

 

Mass Effect 1 did not have 15 Plot Quest, that's for damn sure.

[Sir DeLoria]

There you go.

If you let her step into one of the holograms in the Citadel Vault, you can see her in-game face very well. Seriously, her ME3 face is only missing the jaw and hair, I can't believe they didn't go all the way to finish it.

[Iakus]

Mass Effect 2 17 Plot Quests? What?

 

Mass Effect 1 did not have 15 Plot Quest, that's for damn sure.

 

Consider every single recruitment mission as a Plot Quest, and I can believe it.

 

And ME1's plot quests are broken up into several legs.  Depending on how the graph arranges them, I could believe this too.

[NeroonWilliams]

@wright1978: Thanks for the well thought out actual response to the OP.  I like most of the ideas you presented with the exception of Thane.  I personally like the way Thane is handled in ME3 with the exception of the manner in which Kai Lame kills him with Shepard et al just standing there.

 

To the community at large:

 

This new forum doesn't do some things as well as the old one did, but one of the things it does BETTER is that you can make some members that are well known trolls just disappear.  Go to your profile and under "Edit my Profile" > 'Ignore' Preferences, type the screen name of the member that seems to get under your skin into the box, and select how many ways you want to NOT have contact with them.  Now they won't show up in the forum to ruin your day.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Interesting to see how some of the same ideas on how to do things differently show up.

[Wynterdust]

A lot of replies on this topic have voiced things that I would have liked to see as well. Seeing each squadmate past or present get a specific mission or two would have been ideal as well as obviously more dialogue expanding on each of their respective arcs (more is usually better afterall).

Miranda as a squadmate always seemed like an obvious thing going into ME3. I was hugely surprised she didn't make it considering the focus she got in the second game and how much potential she had to impact the third with the Cerberus arc.

Other things I would remedy would be the obvious Tali face model and placing Al-Jilani on the Normandy instead of Allers. There's some potential there for some amusing ship banter.

There isn't a lot I can think of that others haven't already said. There is another thought in my head though it's not directly related to characters but it would have an impact on them. I would have started ME3 where you have to choose between the Alliance and Cerberus. This would then lead to different squadmates depending on your choice. Garrus, Tali, Liara, EDI and Javik could remain regardless of choice whereas choosing the Alliance would grant you Ashley/Kaidan and James and choosing Cerberus could grant you Kai Leng and another new character. This would give us the chance to speak with Leng and give him more character development. Who knows, maybe he would have been seen as a better character this way.

Lastly I'd alter the last mission where it's split into more sections. (It's the last mission, it should be huge afterall). War assets would be planned out so you could choose where to send each one. (e.g. You go down the middle with Hammer squad with your selected squadmates and you could choose Legion to bring some geth troops to back you up while having Garrus lead another group of squadmates with the support of quarian troops led by Gerrel.) Depending on how each character developed over the course of the game would then have an impact on the results of the mission and the ending.

[Bob from Accounting]

Miranda as a squadmate always seemed like an obvious thing going into ME3. I was hugely surprised she didn't make it considering the focus she got in the second game and how much potential she had to impact the third with the Cerberus arc.

 

What potential is that?
 

[kleindropper]

Mass Effect 2 17 Plot Quests? What?

 

Mass Effect 1 did not have 15 Plot Quest, that's for damn sure.

 

Yup.  17.

 

1. Save Joker (intro)

2. Awakening (tutorial)

3. Freedom's Progress

4. Recruit Mordin

5. Recruit Garrus

6. Recruit Jack

7. Recruit Grunt

8. Horizon

9. Recruit Thane

10. Recruit Samara

11. Recruit Tali

12. Collector Ship

13. Reaper IFF

14. Normandy Attack / Oculus

15. Infiltrate Collector base

16. Biotic walk - Collector base

17. Final battle

[von uber]

Me2 feels like a longer game with more content than me3 for some reason.

[NeroonWilliams]

Me2 feels like a longer game with more content than me3 for some reason.

That would be because of all those mini-missions that can be discovered on planets that don't need to be explored in the course of the main game.  As it is, I really wish the level didn't cap at 30 in ME2 because unless you rush through and skip some of the story (don't recruit some squadmates or skip some loyalty missions) Shepard will max out on levels before the SM and not even touch the extraneous parts of the galaxy.

[Daemul]

Me2 feels like a longer game with more content than me3 for some reason.

It depends. Without DLC Mass Effect 2 is longer, with DLC Mass Effect 3 is longer. The ME3 story DLC, except From Ashes, are the longest DLC in the trilogy. Omega, Citadel and Leviathan each take me atleast 4 hours to complete 

[MassivelyEffective0730]

What potential is that?
 

 

Is there any response that won't result in 'nonsense', 'that's stupid', or 'how childishly ignorant of you'?

[von uber]

It depends. Without DLC Mass Effect 2 is longer, with DLC Mass Effect 3 is longer. The ME3 story DLC, except From Ashes, are the longest DLC in the trilogy. Omega, Citadel and Leviathan each take me atleast 4 hours to complete

Yes I know what you mean. It's the perception I have though which is strange.