841 réponses à ce sujet

[Natureguy85]

But he was evil too. I don't think i should go on about starting a war, killing democracy, halocaust, leaving a pile of dust as a country behind him. 

 

In gaming terms and with typical "moral" system if Hitler was a protaganist he'd end with being neutral because of doing good stuff before the war. 

 

I'm pretty confident that his evil acts would be worth far more "points".

 

http://tvtropes.org/...ralEventHorizon

 

Indoctrination was a cheap-cop-out that replaced actual drama and conflict. It made people pathetic victims when they could have been simply defiant or in disagreement with Shepard.

 

There are a lot of things in the Cerberus plot I take issue with or would have preferred otherwise,  but TIM's indoctrination weakened every single aspect of Cerberus.

 

I thought Indoctrination worked well as presented early in the series, particularly the first game. I didn't mind TIM being Indoctrinated, but I hated hat it was made obvious from the start.

 

What's even stupider about this whole plot is that TIM was right. We can control the reapers. We need a space magic device and a reaper super AI to be onside to do it, but mission 100% accomplished. 

 

If Bioware wanted a control ending, then having TIM as an antagonist doesn't make any sense. But, really, they way the handled Cerberus doesn't make sense generally. 

 

Yeah, the problem with Control is that it was never set up properly. It was only ever advocated by an enemy we knew to be Indoctrinated. We spent the game, especially our last scene with TIM arguing that it wasn't possible and was a bad idea. Then suddenly it's a perfectly viable option.

 

TIM as antagonist does make sense if they want Control. He has to make that argument to Shepard, who is all in for Destroy. Then they need to demonstrate the benefits of Control in the plot. The most obvious place would have been to keep Daro'Xen and her plan to Control the Geth central to the Quarian arc.

 

Honestly I think they were intending the Batarians to fill that role...

 

 

Considering the role they play, it would have made sense. The Batarian Hegemony as a Reaper Puppet state, invading Earth in retribution for Arrival even as they are themselves are being occupied and huskified. Rather than the galaxy stumbling to join against the Reapers, the initial political stumbling block is the Council not wanting to get involved in a Batarian-Human grudgematch that is, in a sense, Shepard's fault. All the while, the 'puppet' Batarian state, slavers and all, conspires to betray and enslave the Reapers in turn.

 

What's interesting is that Hackett and Shepard talk about this exact thing at the end of Arrival. But the original endings showed that the clearly forgot or ignored arrival.

 

That makes a great deal more sense to me. With Cerberus, I was always a fan of a midly branching plot where the ME3 human contact was either Ceberus or the Alliance. Ignoring how ME3 actually went down, if we avoided going to Earth and just had the same set pieces (the human embassy on the Citadel for the Alliance path, and TIM's holo chats for the Ceberus path) it would be a relatively low resource way of doing things. 

 

But then again, I was always onside with the idea behind Cerberus, apart from the weird racism and their generally hilarious mad-scientist level incompetence. 

 

I like the branching path idea but the "weird racism and generally hilarious mad scientist level incompetence" was all Cerberus ever was.

 

I always thought TIM was not indoctrinated until the very end, nontheless the one thing that really bothered about Cerberus in ME3 was TIM sudden ambition to control the reapers, not so much his desire to do so, but rather the feasbility of it; The Reapers are supposedly entirely out of our league and yet one puny human thinks he and his shadowy terrorist group have the capabilty to exert control of them. Needless to say I was quite suprised that control turned out to be viable option in the end.

 

I thought TIM's Indoctrination was obvious, especially considering we saw the face of that Cerberus soldier. However, you are correct that Control was never set up properly.

 

You are missing the point. There are no seperate animations for different assault rifles. Each rifle uses the exactly same animation as all the others. Always has. Fact.

Which means there is no point using an Avenger in place of whatever else your character actually has equipped. So they have to make 5 animations for each cutscene, not 3705. Even that could be reduced to 4, since every class has to equip at least 2 weapons, so you could skip sniper rifles. I'm not entirely sure but I think the SMG and pistol animations are very similiar, if not actually the same. They use the same spot on the armor, too. If they are the same, then you can reduce the animations to three. Hardly the gigantic amount of work you make it out to be. 

 

I think it's easier to overlook a suboptimal grip on a weapon than the completely wrong weapon anyway.

 

Not just assault rifles.

 

Patently false.  At best, it's a case of Schrodinger's Cat with Shepard and the ME 3 endings.  At worst, he's dead in every ending.  But don't you dare tell me that the ****** poor 3 second clip of my Shepard inhaling at the very end was him "living."

Really? If you saw the breath clip in a movie or a TV show, you'd know what it meant. Why are you adopting a different interpretive strategy for a video game? Particularly when that strategy leads you to a conclusion that you don't want and the authors didn't intend?

 

To me, this is the old "surviving vs living" play on words. Sure, Shepard might survive, but what then? Given how bleak everything looked after the original endings before the Extended Cut said "see everything's better" without good reason, there wasn't much to point to for Shepard going on to have a good life.

 

The idea of Shepard fighting batarians or any other non-Cerberus indoctrinated troops is just dumb.

 

What about fighting the Reapers? i didn't mind Cerberus being an antagonistic force, but the Reapers should have been the primary antagonists. I compare it to Dragon Age Origins. In Origins, Loghain was the primary antagonist even though the Darkspawn were the ultimate enemy and the Arch Demon was the Big Bad. This worked because the Darkspawn were far away but were coming. This is why the Geth could be the primary enemies of Mass Effect. Mass Effect 3 is like Denerim though. The Reapers have arrived and are everywhere. We should be fighting them more.

[KaiserShep]

There's no point in having two distinct versions of high EMS Destroy in this respect.

 

I beg to differ.

 

Can you elaborate? The point I'm making is that there's no good reason to have an ending where Shepard definitely dies and one where we get a last glimpse of Shepard drawing breath. I guess if you want to believe that the devs are simply trolling us, but I'm not really going to entertain that idea. That the scene just isn't very satisfying is a separate issue entirely. 

[prosthetic soul]

Can you elaborate? The point I'm making is that there's no good reason to have an ending where Shepard definitely dies and one where we get a last glimpse of Shepard drawing breath. I guess if you want to believe that the devs are simply trolling us, but I'm not really going to lend credibility to that idea. 

The refusal ending was Bioware trolling us.  Hell, the fact that they didn't elaborate on high EMS was them trolling us.  How on earth can you NOT believe Bioware wasn't trolling us?  I believe that idea has so much credibility that it is fact. 

[KaiserShep]

I don't see how BioWare is trolling us with refuse. Sure, refuse is stupid, but it's just the game allowing you to make Shepard stupid.

 

Did people expect Refuse to somehow unlock the coveted Real Ending where the reapers are just defeated, the space magic is circumvented and everyone gets the huge conventional victory they wished for? Perhaps people are just trolling themselves. 

[prosthetic soul]

I don't see how BioWare is trolling us with refuse. Sure, refuse is stupid, but it's just the game allowing you to make Shepard stupid.

It's Bioware telling us, the player, that if you don't like any of their predetermined A, B, C endings, you all get killed anyway. 

[KaiserShep]

Sure, but the entire game pressed into you that defeating the reapers without the Crucible just wasn't in the cards. You can't consider it trolling if they add an ending that shows you exactly what happens if you choose to disregard that idea. 

[prosthetic soul]

Sure, but the entire game pressed into you that defeating the reapers without the Crucible just wasn't in the cards. You can't consider it trolling if they add an ending that shows you exactly what happens if you choose to disregard that idea. 

Crucible =/= A, B, C endings. 

 

They could have allowed the player to use the Crucible without being railroaded into four different methods of suicide.

[Torgette]

No Tali singing, ever. 

[Chardonney]

Not sure if mentioned but... Well, I just talked to Matriarch Aethyta at the Citadel - again - and I hate how that dialogue with her shows how BW presumes Liara as the natural romance option for either Shepard. I hate that kind of forced dialogue that goes against your own game choices and I hope not to see anything like that in the ME:A. 

[steamcamel]

- Unskippable, excruciatingly long intro movie (at least let us skip it on subsequent playthroughs).

- No option to skip tutorial mission on subsequent playthroughs.

- Wrong weapons equipped during cutscenes.
 

- Stupid, clichéed human enemy faction that appears more in the game than the overall enemy.

[Vilio1]

Not sure if mentioned but... Well, I just talked to Matriarch Aethyta at the Citadel - again - and I hate how that dialogue with her shows how BW presumes Liara as the natural romance option for either Shepard. I hate that kind of forced dialogue that goes against your own game choices and I hope not to see anything like that in the ME:A.

Bioware doesn't presume anything, it's just another glitch in the game. There's a non-boyfriend version of the line that fires for some Shepards.

[Natureguy85]

I don't see how BioWare is trolling us with refuse. Sure, refuse is stupid, but it's just the game allowing you to make Shepard stupid.

 

Did people expect Refuse to somehow unlock the coveted Real Ending where the reapers are just defeated, the space magic is circumvented and everyone gets the huge conventional victory they wished for? Perhaps people are just trolling themselves. 

 

Sure, but the entire game pressed into you that defeating the reapers without the Crucible just wasn't in the cards. You can't consider it trolling if they add an ending that shows you exactly what happens if you choose to disregard that idea. 

 

I didn't expect Refuse to do that, but it should have. The reason "refuse" was a troll is because it should have been the way to win. You're right that we were told that we couldn't win without the Crucible, but that is a very different thing from being told that we can't win unless we select one of three options given by the antagonist. The entire series has been Shepard doing what he was told can't be done or "finding the third option". Despite doing it for the entire series, suddenly it was first impossible and then ultimately the way to lose. Had this been a tragedy, where the protagonist's inability or refusal to change had been a theme, that could work. But Mass Effect 3 was not that kind of story. Shepard's lack of character growth was annoying, but wasn't a theme or plot point.

 

 

 

Not sure if mentioned but... Well, I just talked to Matriarch Aethyta at the Citadel - again - and I hate how that dialogue with her shows how BW presumes Liara as the natural romance option for either Shepard. I hate that kind of forced dialogue that goes against your own game choices and I hope not to see anything like that in the ME:A. 

 

Liara certainly got more attention but it makes a certain kind of sense given that she is the only LI that has been with Shepard for a long time and is guaranteed to be alive.

[Chardonney]

Bioware doesn't presume anything, it's just another glitch in the game. There's a non-boyfriend version of the line that fires for some Shepards.

 

I see. Well, hopefully there will be no such stupid glitches in ME:A.

[giveamanafish...]

the 

And the geopolitics, since a great deal of the political technocrats saw the fascists as their buffer with the communists, which motivated a conciliatory attitude. That's ignoring those who were just outright fascists themselves. The political will wasn't there for a war, even if Neville's role had been first played by someone like Churcill. You'd be more likely to get the government thrown out on a no-confidence vote. 

 

The peace was, if anything, the most ruthlessly pragmatic thing done at the time. 

If by the communists, you mean Soviet Russia, it's hard to see how anyone perceived that country as a threat at the time. The USSR was hardly a military threat to even Norway until about the middle of WWII, although by the end it emerged as a super-power. Sounds revisionist. There may have been serious concerns about the ideological impact of communism but at the time Russia was on the verge of being a failed state,with massive famines and the like.The idea that Chamberlain represented the general reluctance among world leaders to enter another major war, given the recent experience with WWI seems more accurate.

 

A better and sensible consequence system. Sometimes good intentions should lead to terrible things while bad choices can save lives etc.

 

Ehh i hate to give and hear about these examples over over again but here we go:

 

Neville Chamberlain was against any conflict between any nations, supporter of peace in heart. He tried really hard to avoid any aggression between Germany and other countries.

 

But with all his good intentions all he could do was to watch while Germans mobilize their army, Czechoslovakia got annexed, union of Austria and Germany. In the end "a war" which would end 55 millions of lives.

 

He could simply ignore Hitler's demands and get ready for war. At least Germany would lose their "momentum" while dealing with Czechoslovakia and Austria, and would lose these country's industries. Even at 1936 when Nahtzees had no real force Hitler could be get rid of.(A few German generals talked about how they were weak at 1936 and thought Germany's re-occupying Rhineland with military force was a suicidal move etc. IIRC Ludwig Beck or Franz Halder)

 

But i said it, he was a good guy. Only naive but that lead world a big catastrophy.

 

In gaming terms and typical moral system he'd be a saint. But in truth he was a saint that was even mocked by his own nation by being that much naive.

 

Hitler was a decorated WW I veteran. He had a lover and many admirers. He solved unemployment in Germany. He had a dog, loved children(Probably only "arian" ones but still). Probably loved and cared about his loyal staff and generals at least while things were going well. At the start he was "smart" enough to concentrate on Panzy divisions and blitzkrieg doctirine that Guderian "perfected", so i can't say he's dumb or conservative at least in military terms. He also designed one of the most iconic cars of the world, we can say he's an "artist"(Vokswagen)

 

But he was evil too. I don't think i should go on about starting a war, killing democracy, halocaust, leaving a pile of dust as a country behind him. 

 

In gaming terms and with typical "moral" system if Hitler was a protaganist he'd end with being neutral because of doing good stuff before the war. 

 

But there is something developers and players miss "The Banality of Evil". Being evil isn't firing laser from your eyes or eating babies alive. It is just typical, like trying to make more profit by selling illegal stuff or typical excuse of "following orders". I'll post a few notes in the end if you want to see what i mean in detail because it's getting long and long

 

So in short i'm tired of listening to "developer tales" about "good vs bad", where choices are crystal clear and there is no "backfired" or "correct at that time but proven wrong" kinda choices with meaningful consequences.

 

PS: For further reading on "banality of evil" :

 

https://en.wikipedia...anality_of_evil

https://en.wikipedia...ison_experiment

https://en.wikipedia...gram_experiment

I'm actually starting to think that Hannah Arendt's book about Eichmann and her description of the banality of evil is a good way to understand the ending in ME3. The most notable thing being the bland way the Catalyst kid talks about the Reapers and their solution to the inevitable conflict between artificial life-forms and their creators. It's framed as a solution to a problem not a genocide, which to ordinary beings is what the Reaper actions amount to. There's also a hint in the Leviathan DLC that this solution came about because of the limited context from which it emerged: the Leviathan race's position in the galaxy was based on it's dominance and ability to maintain thralldom over lesser races, any tech that could come out of this social context might have tended to embody this type of relationship (sorry for the broad abstractions, I have to go).

[Sylvius the Mad]

If you're a writer and you have to confirm after you've written a book, made a movie, developed a video game, that a certain character lives, dies, does this, does that, or clarify anything, you have probably failed in your duty.

They didn't have to. And, frankly, they shouldn't have. Amhiguous endings are good endings.

[Natureguy85]

They didn't have to. And, frankly, they shouldn't have. Amhiguous endings are good endings.

 

That's hardly true i all situations. Sometimes they work and sometimes they serve no purpose.

[DaemionMoadrin]

<connecting...disengaging lurk mode>

 

I'll be back for real in about a few days or so.  

 

On topic, here is my list:

 

1) If you introduce characters from the EU, give them some real story.  One of the first things I hated about Kai Leng was that, as a player that never read the EU, he came right the hell outta nowhere.  I'd never heard of this clown and suddenly everyone from Anderson to Miranda is all but crapping their pants over this guy.  I was very confused the first time I played.

 

2) Auto-dialogue, although I think they did better with DA:I than they did in ME3.  Hopefully they keep that up.

 

3) Plot consistency.  I want it to where there won't be any sudden plot changes due to a writer leaving.  I want the plot to remain consistent despite any team changes.  No more dropped plots because a writer left.  If it's been hinted all over the previous game (dark energy,) then follow through with it.  If the team feels that they can't without a certain writer, then they shouldn't introduce those elements.  If it hinges on one person staying or leaving, then please don't pursue it.  It made some parts of ME2 completely nonsensical in ME3.   

 

4) For lady Sheps: Arms that don't look ultra skinny, and overall better animations for everyone.  Seriously, enough with the hip sway on the female characters and the hunched gorilla movements for the male characters.  In DA:I, I kept yelling at the screen for my Inquisitor to stand up straight in cut scenes.  Since the female characters use the male animations for the cut scenes, I keep seeing the hunched back look.  Which I hate for both genders.  I felt that ME1 was a lot better in this regard.

 

4) A gay LI right from the start.  To be honest, that is something that I can see them doing.  It's been years since ME3, and I like to think they've learned their lesson.

 

5) Spacebar does almost everything on PC.  This can get not only annoying, but possibly fatal.  Accidentally tapping space once to much and jumping while an Atlas is gunning for you is not good.  I'd like the cover and jumping buttons kept separate.

 

6) I know I keep coming back to him, but Kai Leng was the biggest Villain Sue I've ever seen in my life.  I've been playing RPG games, both video and tabletop, since 1987 and I've rarely seen a villain that bad.  I've almost never seen a villain have such blatant plot armor in my life.  I don't mind losing in my games.  Virmire was a great example.  Another good example (old school) is FFVI, where you will be defeated and the world will be in a horrible shape until you defeat the main villain for good.   

 

More than the endings, this was the part of ME3 that had me yelling the loudest in the most NSFW ways.  I've taken out gunships and Reapers on foot, and yet this guy has impenetrable barriers.  Not to mention the Idiot Ball Shepard kept picking up every time he was around.  Shoot the son of a goat already!  

 

This was kinda very insulting after the scripted boss battle:

Spoiler

 

7) Unnecessary Butt-Cam.  The Kaidan scene (where a romanced Shep is checking out dat butt,) made sense, since it was from Shepard's PoV.  Having the butt-shot while talking to Miranda about her sister was just silly.  That screenshot from ME3 reminds me why I found and installed a black version of her outfit for ME3.  The butt was one thing, but it didn't help that the pattern of the cat-suit was so hideous to me.

 

8) Look, I'm sure Ms. Chobot is a nice gal.  However, please no more hiring non voice actors to give them a place in the game.  Especially after killing off her replacement via a real world Tweet.  I was not happy when I asked the forums what happened to Emily.  I don't care how nice they are, if they cannot professionally voice act, don't have them in the game.  Also, please stop trying to make the characters look exactly like the actors.  Some turn out okay, like TIM, Miranda and Sheploo, but I've seen more Allers and Tallis in BioWare games.  Characters I felt where verging on the Uncanny Valley and not in flattering ways (note: While I didn't like the character Tallis, at least Felicia Day did an excellent job voicing her.)

 

There might be more, but I can't think of anything else at the moment.  When I go back to playing ME3, which I had been playing before I had a series of computer issues, I'm sure more will come to mind.  I'll be around more next week, once I'm done with my PSP game.

 

<engaging lurk mode...disconnected>

 

One of the best posts in this thread. I agree 100%.

 

@Natureguy85: You quoted me in your huge post but didn't respond to the quote. Did you want to say anything? ^^

[BabyPuncher]

More than the endings, this was the part of ME3 that had me yelling the loudest in the most NSFW ways.  I've taken out gunships and Reapers on foot, and yet this guy has impenetrable barriers.  Not to mention the Idiot Ball Shepard kept picking up every time he was around.  Shoot the son of a goat already!

 

This sounds like a neurotic fixation that your player character be literally undefeatable by any single human being. You become this enraged at the idea of Shepard not being able to best any human in existence at any and every fight?

[DaemionMoadrin]

This sounds like a neurotic fixation that your player character be literally undefeatable by any human being.

 

Nope, we had this discussion already. The "boss" fight on Thessia was utter bullshit. Story didn't mesh, gameplay didn't mesh and the character had no reason to be so dismissive of Shepard either.

 

This was lazy/rushed development on top of bad decisions.

 

There are dozens of alternatives if you want Shepard to lose there without punishing the players or taking control from them. There are also options for handling the aftermath, because my Shepard wasn't depressed or sad, he was furious... but the game decided otherwise.

[prosthetic soul]

They didn't have to. And, frankly, they shouldn't have. Amhiguous endings are good endings.

Ambiguous endings are terrible.  And are more often than not, total cop outs.  And are a sign of bad writing. 

[BabyPuncher]

There are dozens of alternatives if you want Shepard to lose there without punishing the players or taking control from them.

 

Alternatives that don't involve Leng bringing in dozens of troops, gunships, or other support? And don't involve any sort of 'stun' or 'knockout' gimmicks or traps or anything like that?

 

In other words, alternatives that have Leng beating Shepard in a fair fight, alone, because he's better and that's all there is to it?

[In Exile]

This sounds like a neurotic fixation that your player character be literally undefeatable by any single human being. You become this enraged at the idea of Shepard not being able to best any human in existence at any and every fight?

That's on the game. Shepard is portrayed as so absurdly skilled that there isn't another living being out there capable of defeating him or her. You kill, among other things, building sized monsters on foot on a regular basis. You've taken down a number of non-human elite operatives, who are considered the ultimate peak of their species military programs, in one case defeating an enhaced version of that operative. 

 

There's just no way Kai Leng could justifiably beat Shepard sort of some reaper superpower. Which is how they should have rolled with it, if they wanted Kai Leng to win. You can't simulatenously portray a character punching out Chtulu and losing to a single mook. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ambiguous endings are terrible. And are more often than not, total cop outs. And are a sign of bad writing.

If you were just trying to tell a static story, maybe, but these are roleplaying games. The stories they tell don't have any necessary characteristics because the player is the one who's ultimately assembling the narrative.

I like ambiguous endings because they're less like endings, and I don't think that roleplaying games really need endings at all. The fun in a roleplaying game is in playing it, rather than stopping playing it.

[DaemionMoadrin]

Alternatives that don't involve Leng bringing in dozens of troops, gunships, or other support? And don't involve any sort of 'stun' or 'knockout' gimmicks or traps or anything like that?

 

In other words, alternatives that have Leng beating Shepard in a fair fight, alone, because he's better and that's all there is to it?

 

Do we really have to repeat this here? Fine.

 

If you want to have a player lose for story purposes, then you have to actually make the opponent so strong they can not be defeated or avoid the fight altogether and defeat the player in a cutscene or you have to add a factor that can not be fought, like the knockout pulse from Object Rho in the Arrival DLC.

 

Kai Leng wasn't strong at all. It took me ~3sec to force him back into turtle mode each time he attacked, without that invincible shield I would have smeared his ashes all over the temple. The gun ship? That's even more BS. Shepard destroyed lots of them already and now can't do anything about it? That's just bad story telling.

 

It could have been resolved in so many ways. Take a hostage to force Shep to give up the VI. Plant explosives all over the temple and threaten to blow everything up. Make the fight an actual challenge. Allow Shepard to win against Kai Leng but a Phantom steals the VI anyway and Kai Leng gets away.

 

In my playthroughs, my entire team doesn't even take damage, Kai Leng gets kicked around without a chance to counter and the gun ship is merely annoying, but can't be destroyed. Then, with no reason whatsoever, Shepard loses the fight they had been dominating the entire time. And gets insulted during the cutscene. Am I supposed to feel like I failed? Cause I sure didn't. I felt cheated.

 

Some other people have the same opinion: http://www.escapistm...i-Leng-Spoilers

[Valkyrja]

In an ideal world Kai Leng's role would have been taken by a reaper enhanced Miranda.