333 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

As ME2 proved, when there is a formula to get the best ending, people will create 100-page guides breaking down every single stat and variation, as that was exactly how it was handled in the past and will likely be handled again in the future. 

 

As long as an optimal choice exists, it is a bad choice. Choices in RPGs are supposed to be difficult to make, they make the player think and evaluate the values of the character they are roleplaying. Easy choices do not make players think like that, they do not demand thought and contemplation on behalf of the player. Easy choices do not promote or facilitate roleplaying a character. Hard choices do, and you will never have a hard choice when there is an optimal outcome. 

Funny, because I know people who deliberately get people killed off in ME2 strictly for storytelling purposes.

 

Is the Dark Ritual the "optimal choice" in DAO?  Many seem to think so, but I don't.  There are even people who do the Ultimate Sacrifice in DAO and actually call it their favorite ending.

 

So that leads to the question:  What is optimal?  Should we be denied choices for no other reason than because it might be "too popular"?

[Mcfly616]

 

As long as an optimal choice exists, it is a bad choice. Choices in RPGs are supposed to be difficult to make, they make the player think and evaluate the values of the character they are roleplaying. Easy choices do not make players think like that, they do not demand thought and contemplation on behalf of the player. Easy choices do not promote or facilitate roleplaying a character. Hard choices do, and you will never have a hard choice when there is an optimal outcome. 

This is how I've always felt.

 

 

Some people want nothing life-like about their games other than graphics. They'll say "I make enough hard choices and face enough negativity in real life, I play games to enjoy myself and escape."

 

Well I play games to escape too. But I like movies, games and books that imitate life. I like when those things can tug at my heartstrings. I get to see that these characters I care about don't always have an easy way out either. They have to face hardships as well. I enjoy escaping to a place where I can actually relate to the people I'm taking this adventure with.

 

 

You can't always talk your way out of a situation. There's not always a clear, right or easy path. You can't save everyone and you don't always control your own fate.

[prosthetic soul]

Mac Walters was so utterly wrong for comparing Mass Effect to Breaking Bad.  Shepard can not be, in any way, compared to the main character from that show.  It makes no sense, and to even try and put his hack writing skills on par with the writers from Breaking Bad is arrogance in its purest form.  This is a video game about making choices!  My Shepard wasn't destined to die from the very beginning!  What kind of horse **** is that?  It takes away all player agency!  Oh my god that entire paragraph makes me madder than a wet hen. 

[Dr. Rush]

Funny, because I know people who deliberately get people killed off in ME2 strictly for storytelling purposes.

 

Is the Dark Ritual the "optimal choice" in DAO?  Many seem to think so, but I don't.  There are even people who do the Ultimate Sacrifice in DAO and actually call it their favorite ending.

 

So that leads to the question:  What is optimal?  Should we be denied choices for no other reason than because it might be "too popular"?

 

People choosing to get squadmates killed deliberately is metagaming, not roleplaying. And like I said, people chose to find every single stat and variation when the process is formulaic. When a player has to make a choice between options and none of them are optimal, there is no guide, just the player having to make a choice based on their character's values.

 

Dark Ritual comes with a price, but I can see why people think its optimal because Bioware hasn't followed up on that. The cost of the DR is supposed to be something terrible that Morrigan is willing to do to save the Warden, but until we see the consequences of that, I'm sure people think it was just their "stay alive" button. So yeah, DR is probably not the best designed choice either from Bioware because it doesn't do enough to challenge the player to consider the ramifications of the ritual. 

 

As I said, no choice should ever be comfortable or easy. It has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with roleplaying. Easy choices do not promote or facilitate roleplaying because they do not require the player to explore or define the character they are roleplaying. 

[Vazgen]

Funny, because I know people who deliberately get people killed off in ME2 strictly for storytelling purposes.

 

Is the Dark Ritual the "optimal choice" in DAO?  Many seem to think so, but I don't.  There are even people who do the Ultimate Sacrifice in DAO and actually call it their favorite ending.

 

So that leads to the question:  What is optimal?  Should we be denied choices for no other reason than because it might be "too popular"?

The popularity of a certain option is not an issue here. It's the impact of a choice is drastically lower when there is an option to avoid making the choice altogether.

Imagine if we could get an option to save both Kaidan and Ashley on Virmire. Surely, some players would still kill one or the other but it will not be the same as being forced into choosing. 

Personally, I find peace option in geth/quarian conflict wrong. I choose one or the other depending on a playthrough. And I'm forced to alter variables required for peace to avoid getting that option, because I get different feelings from choosing only quarians (geth) if an option to get both is present and if it's not.

[Mcfly616]

Mac Walters was so utterly wrong for comparing Mass Effect to Breaking Bad.  Shepard can not be, in any way, compared to the main character from that show.  

 He wasn't saying they were similar people. He was comparing the fact that Shepard was viewed by those at Bioware as a character who was most likely going to die at the end of his/her journey. 

[Iakus]

People choosing to get squadmates killed deliberate is metagaming, not roleplaying. And like I said, people chose to find every single stat and variation when the process is formulaic. When a player has to make a choice between two options and neither is optimal, there is no guide, just the player having to make a choice for their character.

 

Dark Ritual comes with a price, but I can see why people think its optimal because Bioware hasn't followed up on that. The cost of the DR is supposed to be something terrible that Morrigan is willing to do to save the Warden, but until we see the consequences of that, I'm sure people think it was just their "stay alive" button. That doesn't mean that consequences aren't still coming and when people find out what they are, they won't go back and remake that DR choice differently.

 

As I said, no choice should ever be comfortable or easy. It has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with roleplaying. Easy choices do not promote or facilitate roleplaying because they do not require the player to explore or define the character they are roleplaying. 

By this definition, "roleplaying" is only possible with the first playthru.  Everything after that is metagaming and thus a waste.

 

People do like finding every stat and variation.  It's the very essence of replayability.  Make other choices and find different outcomes.  And yes,people are going to like some outcomes more than others.

 

And yes, the Dark Ritual is widely seen as the Get out of Jail Free card. And Ultimate Sacrifice is seen by many as an idiotic option, at least in part because of the Dark Ritual.  But you know what, neither view is universal.  But by your logic, the DR should have been removed or had a whole heaping pile of bad stuff added because it makes the choice "too easy"

 

Roleplaying is not about "hard choices" it's about storytelling.  

[Mcfly616]

Here I was thinking roleplaying was about being able to play a role and immerse yourself in it.

[MrFob]

This is how I've always felt.

 

 

Some people want nothing life-like about their games other than graphics. They'll say "I make enough hard choices and face enough negativity in real life, I play games to enjoy myself and escape."

 

Well I play games to escape too. But I like movies, games and books that imitate life. I like when those things can tug at my heartstrings. I get to see that these characters I care about don't always have an easy way out either. They have to face hardships as well. I enjoy escaping to a place where I can actually relate to the people I'm taking this adventure with.

 

 

You can't always talk your way out of a situation. There's not always a clear, right or easy path. You can't save everyone and you don't always control your own fate.

That's all fair enough and I would not in any way be opposed to a game that has choices like this. The problem I see when people ask for this kind of "bad choices paradigm" in the ME3 ending is that the ME trilogy was not set up for it.

In three games, you condition the player to expect a variety in the outcomes of their choices, ranging from an optimal to a sub-optimal outcome (there are not really many dialogue choices where you can actually outright fail through dialogue in the trilogy, you will always gain by getting to the choice as such).

It is not surprising that people expected the same level of variety from the endings. There are so many options to shape the story that the tone of it, the theme, the overarching narrative trend, maybe even the genre can be different for two different playthroughs.

A renegade player may experience more of a "we sacrifice for the greater good" kind of theme, while a paragon player may have the impression that they just went through a classic epic tale. A non-persuasion no-sidequests player may even see the entire thing as a tragidy with all the losses. Add to that all the variation in between those extremes on the spectrum and the individual impressions and interpretations of different players and you end up with a huge variety. And that was exactly what BioWare - according to their own statements - always wanted to achieve, well, congratulations, they did - until the ending.

 

I believe, the ending would have been better of, if it catered to these different player experiences and provded this sort of variety. You may disagree, based on the argument you presented (and which makes sense on it's own) but I think that it had no business being the final choice of choices in this trilogy, based on all that we have had before.

[Iakus]

The popularity of a certain option is not an issue here. It's the impact of a choice is drastically lower when there is an option to avoid making the choice altogether.

Imagine if we could get an option to save both Kaidan and Ashley on Virmire. Surely, some players would still kill one or the other but it will not be the same as being forced into choosing. 

Personally, I find peace option in geth/quarian conflict wrong. I choose one or the other depending on a playthrough. And I'm forced to alter variables required for peace to avoid getting that option, because I get different feelings from choosing only quarians (geth) if an option to get both is present and if it's not.

 

And the choice of saving both Ashley and Kaidan having an impact would depend on how that was carried through later. What kind of divergence would it lead to later?

 

The peace option on Rannoch was actually well-done, because it depended on several choices that were made, and not all of them in ME3.   

[Iakus]

Here I was thinking roleplaying was about being able to play a role and immerse yourself in it.

People can immerse themselves in anything.  Even shooters.

 

But yes, it is about "playing a role'  And not getting jerked out of it by a ghost-child telling you how it's gonna be.

[Iakus]

 

 

I believe, the ending would have been better of, if it catered to these different player experiences and provded this sort of variety. You may disagree, based on the argument you presented (and which makes sense on it's own) but I think that it had no business being the final choice of choices in this trilogy, based on all that we have had before.

It's like I've said before, the endings feel like they were catered strictly to those who did not import a game:  A generally FailShep in ME1 and a MediocreShep in ME2, who got half the crew killed. and did no loyalty missions at all.  That's just asking for tragedy.

[Vazgen]

That's all fair enough and I would not in any way be opposed to a game that has choices like this. The problem I see when people ask for this kind of "bad choices paradigm" in the ME3 ending is that the ME trilogy was not set up for it.

In three games, you condition the player to expect a variety in the outcomes of their choices, ranging from an optimal to a sub-optimal outcome (there are not really many dialogue choices where you can actually outright fail through dialogue in the trilogy, you will always gain by getting to the choice as such).

It is not surprising that people expected the same level of variety from the endings. There are so many options to shape the story that the tone of it, the theme, the overarching narrative trend, maybe even the genre can be different for two different playthroughs.

A renegade player may experience more of a "we sacrifice for the greater good" kind of theme, while a paragon player may have the impression that they just went through a classic epic tale. A non-persuasion no-sidequests player may even see the entire thing as a tragidy with all the losses. Add to that all the variation in between those extremes on the spectrum and the individual impressions and interpretations of different players and you end up with a huge variety. And that was exactly what BioWare - according to their own statements - always wanted to achieve, well, congratulations, they did - until the ending.

 

I believe, the ending would have been better of, if it catered to these different player experiences and provded this sort of variety. You may disagree, based on the argument you presented (and which makes sense on it's own) but I think that it had no business being the final choice of choices in this trilogy, based on all that we have had before.

An excellent point. I'd like to ask, what do you think, does the sacrifice theme of the endings fit ME3 alone? If one was to play ME3 without ever playing ME1 and ME2, would he have easier time accepting that sacrifice is necessary? I ask because when I played the game for the first time, I was prepared to make sacrifice. Mordin and Legion took care of that. I did not think of all the times when Shepard managed to save everyone and walk away with a smile, no conflict throughout the trilogy compared to Reaper invasion.

 

And the choice of saving both Ashley and Kaidan having an impact would depend on how that was carried through later. What kind of divergence would it lead to later?

 

The peace option on Rannoch was actually well-done, because it depended on several choices that were made, and not all of them in ME3.   

I was talking of an immediate impact, the feelings you get when presented with a choice. Consequences can be manipulated to provide more or less same experience, I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the moment when you stand on the way to the tower with those two options on the dialogue wheel.

 

 

It's like I've said before, the endings feel like they were catered strictly to those who did not import a game:  A generally FailShep in ME1 and a MediocreShep in ME2, who got half the crew killed. and did no loyalty missions at all.  That's just asking for tragedy.

It's like you got the same impression, that the ending was more connected to ME3 alone rather than the whole trilogy. It did not feel natural to you, but it did to me. Everything we did before pales in comparison to Reaper invasion.

[Dr. Rush]

Being immersed is not the same thing as roleplaying. I think a lot of people think that roleplaying just means playing a game in the RPG genre and enjoying it. Being entertained by a RPG is not the same thing as roleplaying. Roleplaying is having to create and define a character, their identity, their personality, their values, their origins, etc. I think a lot of people play RPGs like Assassin's Creed with choices, without ever really using their imaginations or actually playing a role. And easy choices only promote this kind of unimaginative play of RPGs. 

 

As I've said repeatedly in this thread, easy choices do not promote or facilitate this roleplaying, hard choices do. A player will never have to think about their character's values if they just skate through every choice without any sacrifice or undesirable consequences. Challenging players with difficult choices is how designers give roleplayers the opportunity to define and explore their characters in meaningful ways. 

 

 

Edit - Lastly, since someone accused me of defending the endings, let me be clear, I am not defending the endings. I am criticizing the entire ME trilogy of having a flawed morality system and many poorly designed choices.

[MrFob]

 

An excellent point. I'd like to ask, what do you think, does the sacrifice theme of the endings fit ME3 alone? If one was to play ME3 without ever playing ME1 and ME2, would he have easier time accepting that sacrifice is necessary? I ask because when I played the game for the first time, I was prepared to make sacrifice. Mordin and Legion took care of that. I did not think of all the times when Shepard managed to save everyone and walk away with a smile, no conflict throughout the trilogy compared to Reaper invasion.

I honestly don't know. I never played ME3 outside of a trilogy run. I always wanted to but never got around to it (always too many tempting trilogy runs to do). Your post kind of spurs me on to do it now because I can very well see that on it's own, ME3 is a very different experience and the sacrifice theme may very well fit. When I did it, I'll let you know.

 

All that said, I think I'd still have a hard time accepting star kid at this point (what has been judged cannot be unjudged ... at least not easily ) and I have objections against it that go beyond just incoherence in theme.

 

But just to offer another point on the bleak choices, I think Deus Ex (especially Human Revolution) pulled it off very well. In that game, I went down the panchaea tube just knowing this was not going to end without some grief and somberness. Of course, this game had it way easier because it offers exactly no choice prior to the ending. Also, the three button implementation was not exactly thrilling but the choice itself worked very well there. So it can be done, just the final choice in the ME trilogy was not the place to do it.

[TotalWurzel]

As someone who came to the series late and deliberately avoided reading/watching anything about the series (took the advice of some friends who said "forget the ****storm online you'll enjoy the games") I never got peeved at the fact that in almost every ending Shep dies, in fact if in every possible ending Shep died I'd have been fine with that, it was the nature of the ending that got to me: even more so given the amount of implausible story telling that went on in ME3 (ok ME2 was full of so many plot wholes the Chinese army could march through without anyone noticing but it was the "difficult second album" syndrome); I mean as one example in six months between ME2 and ME3 Cerberus went from having blown all its money on resurrecting Shep and building SR2 to having a vast fleet of ships and a galaxy wide presence let alone in the 30 months before ME1 ended and ME3 started no one in the galaxy, and I mean no one, bothered to try and deal with Cerberus.

 

But, the problem for me came from the forced choices - I've been there before with Wing Commander III and Deus Ex (if you played either you will know what I mean when it came to the sequels).  If you are going to promote the conclusion to a story based on the fact that everything you did leading up to the ending mattered, only to be presented with a deus ex machina final scene it would leave you with a sense of being shafted by the writers.  Yeah they tried to cover their arses with the EC and Leviathan DLC but imo they just made things worse, simply because it was a cover-your-arse scenario.

 

At the end of the day to answer the the OP's question, the ending we got was based on four things 1) ME3 was rushed and the dev team wasn't given the time to develop a proper narrative ending, 2) it seems that they didn't have the first clue how to implement their original vision about how player decisions would impact on the ending in any substantive way, 3) those who had the power within EA and Bioware did not put their foot down and say no to what was served up, and 4) whoever had the final say over the narrative messed up so badly they should join Freiberger, Braga and Berman in sci-fi hell.

 

Apologies for the rant from a relative newbie, but spleens must be...

 

Happy gaming

 

Edited cos I can't count and using a b followed by ) isn't seen as a normal way of listing these days

[Iakus]

 

 

I was talking of an immediate impact, the feelings you get when presented with a choice. Consequences can be manipulated to provide more or less same experience, I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the moment when you stand on the way to the tower with those two options on the dialogue wheel.

 

Very well, then.  How would Ashley and Kaidan be rescued?  Would it somehow endanger the bomb?  Would it mean sacrificing the STG team?  Another companion?  A Blue/Red dialogue choice?  A timed mission?  A failable one?  Would it depend on having done another mission earlier in the game?  Or would this simply be run to one, then the other?  

 

Because with that last one, of course it's likely most people would save both barring storytelling reasons, yeah.  But the context is still important.  People may still choose not to save one if it made sense from a storytelling perspective.  Just as people choose to let people die in the Suicide Mission.  Or make the Ultimate Sacrifice in DAO.

 

 

It's like you got the same impression, that the ending was more connected to ME3 alone rather than the whole trilogy. It did not feel natural to you, but it did to me. Everything we did before pales in comparison to Reaper invasion.

 

Yes.  That's exactly how it felt.  Like the rug was yanked out from under me.

 

My Shepard had been trying to prepare for the Reapers ever since he knew about them.  Yet no matter how much of a difference he made, it didn't make any difference.

[Iakus]

Being immersed is not the same thing as roleplaying. I think a lot of people think that roleplaying just means playing a game in the RPG genre and enjoying it. Being entertained by a RPG is not the same thing as roleplaying. Roleplaying is having to create and define a character, their identity, their personality, their values, their origins, etc. I think a lot of people play RPGs like Assassin's Creed with choices, without ever really using their imaginations or actually playing a role. And easy choices only promote this kind of unimaginative play of RPGs. 

 

As I've said repeatedly in this thread, easy choices do not promote or facilitate this roleplaying, hard choices do. A player will never have to think about their character's values if they just skate through every choice without any sacrifice or undesirable consequences. Challenging players with difficult choices is how designers give roleplayers the opportunity to define and explore their characters in meaningful ways. 

 

 

Edit - Lastly, since someone accused me of defending the endings, let me be clear, I am not defending the endings. I am criticizing the entire ME trilogy of having a flawed morality system and many poorly designed choices.

Choices of any kind facilitate roleplaying.  It's how you define your character.  From dialogue to siding with a faction, to shooting someone or not.  Hard choices are how firmly your character stands by them.

 

Nevertheless there is a difference between tugging on emotions and jerking the player around.  Bioware really needs to work on that one.

[The Mad King]

How this ending could have worked better:

 

[Iakus]

Heck I'd get it just to have Ash in a real uniform

[goishen]

 

You can't always talk your way out of a situation. There's not always a clear, right or easy path. You can't save everyone and you don't always control your own fate.

 

 

Right here is why I think that so many people have a problem with the ending of ME3.

[Ithurael]

Right here is why I think that so many people have a problem with the ending of ME3.

 

People still think others had an issue with the ending because it was 'too sad'

 

[nickkcin11]

It's always slightly infuriating when people cite "realism" as a their trump card for the quality of a game - a science fiction game with blue alien vixens, Biotics, resurrection and mind control no less. Sorry, but saying that in the real world "you can't always x" is absurd when referencing a fictitious universe that routinely breaks the laws of physics. I'm baffled that qualifies as a convincing argument by anyone's standards. It's the logical equivalent of saying that someone is wrong because they're short.

 

Mass Effect, being a space opera, has always had an optimistic tone despite the periodic tragedy and set back. Subverting the genre in the final 15 minutes of the game for some edgy, nihilistic "the hero doesn't always win" flourish is horrible storytelling. It works if that's the thematic point of the story ( a la No Country for Old Men). In this series, bucking thematic and tonal consistency just it felt like some terrible, trolling joke gone too far.

[Mcfly616]

....and yet, the hero did win.

[nickkcin11]

What a perverted usage of "win". You and I must have a canyon-wide divide between our definition of the word.