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[Vazgen]

"We start killing our friends, and war turns into murder"

"But it doesn't always give us the easy way out, does it?"

[Obadiah]

...
It's a game.  It's supposed to be fun.

It's supposed to be entertaining. You were entertained, and you were provoked into thinking. If you didn't want that, then you weren't paying attention.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

All the chocies impose themselves on others.
 
Blue may put the Reapers under new management, but the entire galaxy comes under the management of the Reapers.  No one is free to find their own paths.

 

lol no. EC's Control epilogue shows characters largely doing what they would choose to do in the Reaper-free Destroy ending.

 

 

Synthesis may not reduce the organics of the galaxy to smoothies, but it does alter everyone at the genetic level to achieve some arbitrary definition of "perfection" which is a fallacious conclusion by default. You have told the entire galaxy that they are unworthy of existing as they are, and need to be "changed"

He says before invoking a strawman fallacy in the next sentence of his post. 

[AlanC9]

And dying by my hand rather than the Reapers somehow makes it okay?  How is that "fun"?

Fun's subjective. I don't have any more problem with emotional pain being inflicted on my PC than I do with physical pain being inflicted on him. YMMV.

[dreamgazer]

Sooooo ... how is the Sophie's Choice situation on Virmire "fun"?  (Yeah, this is an underhanded pitch to both Kaidan and Ashley haters). 

 

Or choosing whether to commit genocide or loose a dangerous insect race on the galaxy? 

 

Or being forced to sacrifice many thousands of people while taking down one Reaper, no matter your choices in the game?

[Iakus]

"But it doesn't always give us the easy way out, does it?"

 

There wasn't even a hard way out:  DO something awful to the galaxy or ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES!

 

It's supposed to be entertaining. You were entertained, and you were provoked into thinking. If you didn't want that, then you weren't paying attention.

 

Paying attention to what?  The earlier games?  

 

lol no. EC's Control epilogue shows characters largely doing what they would choose to do in the Reaper-free Destroy ending.

 

...under the watchful eyes of the Reapers.  Wonder what the cuttlefish will do if anyone does something they see as a "threat to the many"?

 

 

He says before invoking a strawman fallacy in the next sentence of his post. 

How is what I have said in any way inaccurate?

 

 

Fun's subjective. I don't have any more problem with emotional pain being inflicted on my PC than I do with physical pain being inflicted on him. YMMV.

If I wanted to play Spec-Ops: The Line, that's what I'd play.

[Iakus]

Sooooo ... how is the Sophie's Choice situation on Virmire "fun"?  (Yeah, this is an underhanded pitch to both Kaidan and Ashley haters). 

 

Or choosing whether to commit genocide or loose a dangerous insect race on the galaxy? 

 

Or being forced to sacrifice many thousands of people while taking down one Reaper, no matter your choices in the game?

 

1) It isn't.  Always got a pang leaving someone behind,  Kinda wish Bioware had left in being able to rescue both.  Yeah I'm one of the very few who liked both Kaidan and Ashley.

 

2) I choose not to kill them.  Never had a problem with it.  Though honestly, not being able to contact the Council was rather silly.  Heck Garrus even suggests it!

 

3) "Sacrifice" there is a grayer area.  You're not sending them in defenseless.  It's not like you're about to shoot them unawares with a red wave of space magic that'll fry their brains.  You're sending ships in to shoot other ships.

 

Think Firefly:

 

Simon: I'm trying to put this as delicately as I can.  How do I know you won't kill me in my sleep?
Mal: You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once:  If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me, and you'll be armed.

[KaiserShep]

1) It isn't.  Always got a pang leaving someone behind,  Kinda wish Bioware had left in being able to rescue both.  Yeah I'm one of the very few who liked both Kaidan and Ashley.

 

It would've been pretty crappy to leave in the ability to get both, because it makes the other options turn into a dumb failure. As one who likes both Kaidan and Ashley a great deal, I very much prefer being forced to choose than to have a choice that exists merely to dump one on a mission when Shepard could just as easily succeed in getting both.

[Iakus]

It would've been pretty crappy to leave in the ability to get both, because it makes the other options turn into a dumb failure. As one who likes both Kaidan and Ashley a great deal, I very much prefer being forced to choose than to have a choice that exists merely to dump one on a mission when Shepard could just as easily succeed in getting both.

Given how much perverse delight so many get in leaving one on Virmire, and gunning down the other in ME3, I'm thinking plenty of people would choose to "fail" anyway.

[themikefest]

1) It isn't.  Always got a pang leaving someone behind,  Kinda wish Bioware had left in being able to rescue both.  Yeah I'm one of the very few who liked both Kaidan and Ashley.

 

I like both. But between the two, I choose Ashley the majority of the time in my playthroughs

[KaiserShep]

Given how much perverse delight so many get in leaving one on Virmire, and gunning down the other in ME3, I'm thinking plenty of people would choose to "fail" anyway.

 

I had considered that people take delight in killing this character or that, or this faction or that, but I'm not concerned about what they like or why they make certain decisions in the game. What I do concern myself with, however, is the dramatic effect of this point in the plot. If I can save both, why should I care about the other choices? What is the buildup leading to this moment? Why am I being presented with this choice in the first place? With the Rannoch arc, there's a succession of choices that lead up to whether or not we have that third option, but the Virmire decision is out of the blue. And even then, there's still a reason to choose one over the other, like rejecting Legion's whole idea about reaper code, for instance. Am I supposed to just have Shepard say "Welp, no time to get both, s'long Kaidan!"? That would be crap.

 

It's the difficulty of these decisions that give them any real meaning to me. Sure, I can choose to take the less optimal path, but it's not as interesting or entertaining, because I already know that I can easily avoid it.

[Jorji Costava]

This is something I've suggested before, but for some reason I get the suspicion that people don't memorize everything I post (also, I'm only capable of one or two original thoughts per week, and I've already exhausted my quota), so I'll say it again anyways: A third option for a Virmire-like choice would be to have an option that saves all your squadmates, but make it the case that allowing one or more to die actually confers significant benefits.

 

For instance, you could have a mission set up where if you send out some squadmates as part of a distraction team, they'll certainly die, but this makes other important objectives much easier to accomplish. That helps balance the options, and also gives you an interesting dynamic whereby you are forced to choose between expediency and conscience/loyalty, which seems like exactly the sort of dynamic the devs were trying to get at with the whole P/R system in the first place.

 

By no means am I suggesting that every decision should be set up this way; ideally, you'd have a mix, with some decisions that do have a 'third way out' (provided you'd made adequate preparations leading up to that decision), some true Sophie's Choice-type dilemmas, and some decisions more similar to the one I described above. That seems like a nice way to keep players on their toes, and encourage them to make decisions based on what their character would do rather than the basis of meta-level considerations like, "The red/blue option always works out." Honestly, I'm not even really a deep immersion roleplayer in the first place, but it's still annoying when you can exploit your knowledge of game conventions to achieve an optimal outcome every time.

[ImaginaryMatter]

This is something I've suggested before, but for some reason I get the suspicion that people don't memorize everything I post (also, I'm only capable of one or two original thoughts per week, and I've already exhausted my quota), so I'll say it again anyways: A third option for a Virmire-like choice would be to have an option that saves all your squadmates, but make it the case that allowing one or more to die actually confers significant benefits.

 

For instance, you could have a mission set up where if you send out some squadmates as part of a distraction team, they'll certainly die, but this makes other important objectives much easier to accomplish. That helps balance the options, and also gives you an interesting dynamic whereby you are forced to choose between expediency and conscience/loyalty, which seems like exactly the sort of dynamic the devs were trying to get at with the whole P/R system in the first place.

 

By no means am I suggesting that every decision should be set up this way; ideally, you'd have a mix, with some decisions that do have a 'third way out' (provided you'd made adequate preparations leading up to that decision), some true Sophie's Choice-type dilemmas, and some decisions more similar to the one I described above. That seems like a nice way to keep players on their toes, and encourage them to make decisions based on what their character would do rather than the basis of meta-level considerations like, "The red/blue option always works out." Honestly, I'm not even really a deep immersion roleplayer in the first place, but it's still annoying when you can exploit your knowledge of game conventions to achieve an optimal outcome every time.

 

I think if I was the designer for the VS choice, I would have opted not to make it such a blatant binary choice. Either Ashely or Kaidan would still die but the person left behind would be the indirect result of Shepard's previous actions, like who was assigned to the bomb, assisting the Salarians, along with a few other smaller choices. There would be some formula to decide the outcome of events, with all permutations leading to someone being left behind.

[Vazgen]

There wasn't even a hard way out: DO something awful to the galaxy or ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES!

The first part of your statement is exactly what "a hard way out" is about. "Do something awful to the galaxy" but save trillions of lives. "Ruthless calculus of war"

[DrBlingzle]

1) It isn't. Always got a pang leaving someone behind, Kinda wish Bioware had left in being able to rescue both. Yeah I'm one of the very few who liked both Kaidan and Ashley.

so basically you don't like being forced to make hard choices in games? (Sorry if I'm getting that wrong) If that's the case, that's fine but you're Kind of playing the wrong game series. one of the main pillars of mass effect is making hard choices (which I love personally).

[n7stormreaver]

so basically you don't like being forced to make hard choices in games? (Sorry if I'm getting that wrong) If that's the case, that's fine but you're Kind of playing the wrong game series. one of the main pillars of mass effect is making hard choices (which I love personally).

 

All the way up to Rannoch. What a wasted opportunity to make something that really matters. Instead, they throw in boring "peace" solution. Jeez. 

 

Even thought i reach the "peace" goal every time (is there even any goal?) i still pick either Geth or Quarian. Tough choices in ME1 were an important point for me to love the series and this peace just seems wrong. 

[Vazgen]

All the way up to Rannoch. What a wasted opportunity to make something that really matters. Instead, they throw in boring "peace" solution. Jeez. 

 

Even thought i reach the "peace" goal every time (is there even any goal?) i still pick either Geth or Quarian. Tough choices in ME1 were an important point for me to love the series and this peace just seems wrong. 

Personally, I think of that peace as a temporary alliance. I fear it won't last with people like Xen and Gerrel still around. And who's going to explain to Jona that his father's murderers are now allies? 

[n7stormreaver]

Personally, I think of that peace as a temporary alliance. I fear it won't last with people like Xen and Gerrel still around. And who's going to explain to Jona that his father's murderers are now allies? 

 

B-but they're just kind misunderstood robots, they meant no harm (except for slaughtering billions and allying with Reapers). Wait, you don't want them to kill an entire species? Oh god, you're such a Renegade.  

 

What a load of bullshit.

 

I guess ME3 writer is a fan of robots, right? It certainly seems so. 

[DrBlingzle]

All the way up to Rannoch. What a wasted opportunity to make something that really matters. Instead, they throw in boring "peace" solution. Jeez. 

 

Even thought i reach the "peace" goal every time (is there even any goal?) i still pick either Geth or Quarian. Tough choices in ME1 were an important point for me to love the series and this peace just seems wrong. 

Personally I'd like it if there was an "easier" option provided you make very smart choices earlier in the game and it is very hard to get (harder than what it was like to get peace in the actual game). For instance if you make all the right choices you might get the option to get a few quarian captains to stand down. So if you side with the geth they don't fire on the quarians who don't fire on them resulting in only a couple of thousand quarians surviving in the galaxy. If you side with the quarians then the captains who don't fire manage to let a few geth ships escape, meaning only a couple of thousand geth survive. I'd like this because it would reward making intelligent choices before while still not having a "cop out" choice at the end. 

[n7stormreaver]

Personally I'd like it if there was an "easier" option provided you make very smart choices earlier in the game and it is very hard to get (harder than what it was like to get peace in the actual game). For instance if you make all the right choices you might get the option to get a few quarian captains to stand down. So if you side with the geth they don't fire on the quarians who don't fire on them resulting in only a couple of thousand quarians surviving in the galaxy. If you side with the quarians then the captains who don't fire manage to let a few geth ships escape, meaning only a couple of thousand geth survive. I'd like this because it would reward making intelligent choices before while still not having a "cop out" choice at the end. 

 

That is actually a very good idea, but story-wise it would be a disaster (not like ME3 isn't already a story disaster) 

[KaiserShep]

Personally, I think of that peace as a temporary alliance. I fear it won't last with people like Xen and Gerrel still around. And who's going to explain to Jona that his father's murderers are now allies? 

 

I don't suppose there's much use speculating, because neither faction ever gets a chance to coexist without the reapers' presence and/or being mellowed out by synthesis. In any case, peace is something I consider to always be temporary, so the idea of any alliance being temporary is not something I consider to be really meaningful. That it happens at all is all that really matters. Would Xen and Gerrel really try to take action against the geth? Maybe? But it's no less likely that they'd simply take what they can get, and eventually this peace outlasts the both of them. After all, the quarians are in a very terrible position tactically. They are too few and too vulnerable, and it's very likely that most would prefer the prospect of being able to liberate themselves from their envirosuits rather than waste time, life and limb in another conflict so soon. If the quarians really are too stupid to live, then so be it. If Jona can't accept the peace accord, he's free to cry about it and protest, but we don't really know much about his character or how old he is.

[Farangbaa]

It would've been pretty crappy to leave in the ability to get both, because it makes the other options turn into a dumb failure. As one who likes both Kaidan and Ashley a great deal, I very much prefer being forced to choose than to have a choice that exists merely to dump one on a mission when Shepard could just as easily succeed in getting both.

 

It would make it exactly as meaningless as the 'suicide' mission. You know, that 'near impossible' 'suicide' mission in which you can play your cards so that everyone will survive.

 

'suicide'. 

[Display Name Owner]

All the way up to Rannoch. What a wasted opportunity to make something that really matters. Instead, they throw in boring "peace" solution. Jeez. 

 

Even thought i reach the "peace" goal every time (is there even any goal?) i still pick either Geth or Quarian. Tough choices in ME1 were an important point for me to love the series and this peace just seems wrong. 

 

Same, I wouldn't pick the peace option if I ever got it, although I never do get it because similarly I refuse to charm/intimidate the Admirals in Tali's trial, or Legion and Tali during their argument later on. Both times just feel like such a huge cop out.

[Iakus]

so basically you don't like being forced to make hard choices in games? (Sorry if I'm getting that wrong) If that's the case, that's fine but you're Kind of playing the wrong game series. one of the main pillars of mass effect is making hard choices (which I love personally).

 

Hard choices are fine, but "screwed no matter what you do" isn't, imo a hard choice.  That's something that can be solved with a coin flip.

[n7stormreaver]

Hard choices are fine, but "screwed no matter what you do" isn't, imo a hard choice.  That's something that can be solved with a coin flip.

Well it's different kinds of screwed. That's what the choice is about.