841 réponses à ce sujet

[GaroTD]

Yea but I liked this space magic feel that this had. In ME2 they nerfed biotic so hard that it lost all the fun. Especially pull was hilariously useless. I'm ME3 they fixed it a little but still I prefered ME1 version of it.

[Odintius]

Biotics in cut scenes for protagonist it just painful to watch just shooting a pistol, looking at you Kai Long car chase and other instances....

[dgcatanisiri]

Yea but I liked this space magic feel that this had. In ME2 they nerfed biotic so hard that it lost all the fun. Especially pull was hilariously useless. I'm ME3 they fixed it a little but still I prefered ME1 version of it.

 

Personally, I still want them to bring back ME2 Shockwave, and its hilarious ragdoll physics. Husk bowling is an Olympic event in 2186, let us indulge in this national passtime!

[Han Shot First]

A little bit nitpicky perhaps, but if the next game has another military protagonist I also hope that more attention to detail is paid to the military aspects of the story.

 

No saluting with the wrong hand.

 

No characters making nonsensical leaps up the chain of command. Have rank progression be realistic and progress one step at a time, with an appropriate interval of time between each promotion. A quick google search of how long it takes to progress from the real world equivalents of the Mass Effect ranks, would provide a good template.

 

Have the named characters come from both officer and enlisted backgrounds. The Shepard trilogy had a tendency to make every important character an officer, which isn't a really an accurate reflection of the real world where NCOs and Staff NCOs form the backbone of any unit. The Shepard trilogy did have Ashley Williams, but Ashley being a Staff NCO was jettisoned in the third game when she made the nonsensical leap to Lt. Commander.

 

Officers should always be college educated. Don't have a backstory where they enlisted at 18 years old and rose through the ranks, without also mentioning a college education somewhere during that span or graduation from a military academy.

 

More attention to detail on anything discussing units. The Shepard trilogy had a tendency to overuse the word squad, often where not appropriate. If your backstory refers to a planet being invaded that backstory shouldn't talk about the character's squad invading that planet. That is far too small a unit to be involved independently in a major military operation. Instead you should be referring to that character's division, regiment, battalion, or company. Squads and platoons almost never are involved in operations that their larger parent units (i.e. company or battalion) aren't also involved in. The exceptions are when you might have a squad or a platoon detached from its parent unit and supporting another.

 

If your backstory involves an assault on an enemy held objective, the size of the defending force should also determine the size of the attacking force. A good rule of thumb is that an an attacker usually needs at least three times the manpower of a defender, to offset the natural advantages possessed by a defender. (though there are other factors that can also work as force multipliers) Torfan for example shouldn't refer to a squad assaulting the planet, not just because that is far too small a unit to be operating independent of a parent unit, but because that would mean that Torfan should be garrisoned by less than a squad's worth of Batarians.

 

Character's ranks should also determine what they should or shouldn't be in command of in their backstories. If Shepard is a Lieutenant when Torfan is attacked he/she should not be in overall command if that operation is involving a battalion, a regiment, or a division. He or she should be leading a platoon, but not be in overall command of the entire operation. Likewise a lieutenant would be too high of a rank to be leading a 'squad.' Squads are led by NCOs. 

[Quarian Master Race]

 

No saluting with the wrong hand.

Character's ranks should also determine what they should or shouldn't be in command of in their backstories. If Shepard is a Lieutenant when Torfan is attacked he/she should not be in overall command if that operation is involving a battalion, a regiment, or a division. He or she should be leading a platoon, but not be in overall command of the entire operation. Likewise a lieutenant would be too high of a rank to be leading a 'squad.' Squads are led by NCOs. 

 

Agreed with everything else, but are there many instances of Shepard doing this with Alliance personnel? Most of the left handed salutes I can remember are done by or toward quarians (Marines when initially boarding the Rayya, Shep toward quarians after exterminating the geth on Rannoch, Tali's farewell and Shepard's response), so I just assumed it was the norm for them.

In fact, only one I can remember OTOH done by another species is when you are picking up Kaidan after the coup, and he actually switches between left and right when the camera changes angles.  

Shepard wasn't in command at Torfan, Major Kyle was, however they throw typical military unit composition out of the airlock as is typical by refering to Shepard's unit as a "squad" (presumably the typical 10-13 men). In fairness, holding the rank of lieutenant might make sense by the rules of some modern Earth militaries if Shepard is SOF at the time of Torfan. Spetznaz GRU squad leaders are typically Lieutenant or higher, for an example (though they don't follow the typical squad-platoon-company-battalion arrangement as the regular army does).
 

[Dantriges]

Seems to be a quarian thing. The dude running around on the Normandy salutes with the right hand.

Turians seem to have their own version of military "salute" or greeting. At least all the turians on Omega did this raise the weapon in the air in a formal fashion. Considering that every turian was ito military service it could be that they fell back into military behaviour when Nyreen took over and they turned into a resistance force.

 

Krogans probably greet with headbutts. SIR...*donkl*  

 

Makes sense that not every miltary force has the same salute. Not everyone has a history of armored knights with visors.

 

Don´t know if there is much of a military going to Andromeda. You don´t need a big formal structure if you only have thousand soldiers for example.

[ffejita]

ME3 had terrible side-quest tracking. Don't do that again Bioware!

[AlanC9]

While I agree that the ME3 journal didn't do much, it didn't really matter. Anyone on the Citadel who wanted so ething you had found would show on your map, and that's all you actually need to know.

[Fantastic Fantasy]

I want cut-scenes to acknowledge my chosen class. It really annoyed me when I wanted my biotic Shepard to do a pull, or singularity, or anything biotic. It made my choice feel even less important to the narrative.

 

Also I would like to add to Kai Leng hate. I especially hate that he is the only character in the entire game with hair physics.

[Batarian Master Race]

Don't write a race in as nothing but stupid zealots who want to own every planet they come across and crush anyone in their way via brutal and extreme force.

 

In other words, rewrite the humans.

[Aezint]

Don't write a race in as nothing but stupid zealots who want to own every planet they come across and crush anyone in their way via brutal and extreme force.

 

In other words, rewrite the humans.

Pot, meet kettle.

[Batarian Master Race]

Pot, meet kettle.

[In Exile]

More attention to detail on anything discussing units. The Shepard trilogy had a tendency to overuse the word squad, often where not appropriate. If your backstory refers to a planet being invaded that backstory shouldn't talk about the character's squad invading that planet. That is far too small a unit to be involved independently in a major military operation. Instead you should be referring to that character's division, regiment, battalion, or company. Squads and platoons almost never are involved in operations that their larger parent units (i.e. company or battalion) aren't also involved in. The exceptions are when you might have a squad or a platoon detached from its parent unit and supporting another.

 

While I completely agree with you, I kind of wish they don't abandon the nonsensical "squad" as some kind of universal measure of size, because the idea of squads invading planets is hilarious. 

[ImaginaryMatter]

Well, there are two fronts here.

One is gameplay. I thought Thessia was a mission very small and simple given its importance and without much interesting gameplay. It felt a simple get from point A to point B killing everything in the way. This is not really a problem in itself, but for a mission that you yourself mention how it's a unique point in the series it is very lackluster.

The other one is narrative. I don't have a problem with them forcing a defeat on us, it was only to be expected when facing the Reapers, but the your defeat by Kai Leng could have been done better (that's is a problem both of narrative and gameplay). The problem comes from from the absolute lack of choice we have all across the mission and its aftermath. You're forced to take Liara for example, although not wanting her in the mission would be a completely reasonable response. After the defeat you cannot choose how your Shepard answers to it. I'm sure you'll agree different people take defeats in life differently, but you could not do that. Also, that conversation in which Treynor says she could trace Kai Leng was terrible. 

In short, the problem was that the game didn't allow us to choose how Shepard responded to the defeat. 

 

I think another major issue with Thessia is the lack of build up for the Catalyst. By the time you get to Thessia it has been a very long time since Shepard actually picked up the Crucible plans and the time between has been filled with gathering war assets, other major plot arcs, DLC, etc with the Crucible getting after thought references and vague, meaningless techno babble. When the Catalyst finally comes up again it is some object that connects somehow with the device that does something. There's not a lot of tension there. It even seems weird when Shepard talks up the device that just got brought up for the second time in the game -- I'm sure many players completely forgot about it. Even the idea that the Crucible is the only thing that can stop the Reapers starts to feel disingenuous after so many hours of ME3's rather empowering game play, even the Kai Leng fight encounter is empowering until the game yanks control aware from you.

[In Exile]

I think another major issue with Thessia is the lack of build up for the Catalyst. By the time you get to Thessia it has been a very long time since Shepard actually picked up the Crucible plans and the time between has been filled with gathering war assets, other major plot arcs, DLC, etc with the Crucible getting after thought references and vague, meaningless techno babble. When the Catalyst finally comes up again it is some object that connects somehow with the device that does something. There's not a lot of tension there. It even seems weird when Shepard talks up the device that just got brought up for the second time in the game -- I'm sure many players completely forgot about it. Even the idea that the Crucible is the only thing that can stop the Reapers starts to feel disingenuous after so many hours of ME3's rather empowering game play, even the Kai Leng fight encounter is empowering until the game yanks control aware from you.

 

ME3's problem in general is that Shepard is an uber-badass who just slaughters his/her way through legions of enemies, and who - apart from some sacrifices and drama - totally wins overhwelming victories. Rannoch, for example, is a huge win either way (esp. with the peace path). Same with Tuchanka. And when the game kicks off with "Reaper Killing MacGuffin Off Button" as the main plot, all the stuff about overwhelming odds is hard to take seriously. 

[ImaginaryMatter]

ME3's problem in general is that Shepard is an uber-badass who just slaughters his/her way through legions of enemies, and who - apart from some sacrifices and drama - totally wins overhwelming victories. Rannoch, for example, is a huge win either way (esp. with the peace path). Same with Tuchanka. And when the game kicks off with "Reaper Killing MacGuffin Off Button" as the main plot, all the stuff about overwhelming odds is hard to take seriously. 

 

Multiplayer doesn't help either. You can only kill so many hundred or so Reapers before they start to lose their edge.

[KaiserShep]

Multiplayer doesn't help either. You can only kill so many hundred or so Reapers before they start to lose their edge.

Multiplayer doesn't have to be that way. You can just gold solo the reapers with a low level soldier with an Avenger and when they take you out, just don't return. There. The character is now dead.

[BohemiaDrinker]

All I got on this one is:

 

Pausing during cutscenes.

 

Plz, Biower!

[Hiemoth]

ME3's problem in general is that Shepard is an uber-badass who just slaughters his/her way through legions of enemies, and who - apart from some sacrifices and drama - totally wins overhwelming victories. Rannoch, for example, is a huge win either way (esp. with the peace path). Same with Tuchanka. And when the game kicks off with "Reaper Killing MacGuffin Off Button" as the main plot, all the stuff about overwhelming odds is hard to take seriously. 

 

Every single major victory in ME3 requires someone sacrifing themselves for the greater good, yet somehow this gets just shrugged away even if it is a central point of the argument. Almost nothing is achieved in ME3 by Shepard killing everything, almost everything is achieved by someone putting an ideal above themselves. Even in those 'Overwhelming victories' Shepard is shown scraping by and forced to resort to outside aid, which again doesn't fit your argument.

 

As for Rannoch, it is a huge win if either the Geth or Quarians are wiped out if Shepard fails at peace? That is an overwhelming victory? Tuchanka involves Shepard possibly losing the Salarian alliance and in almost every case involves Mordin dying. The associated missions sees the Primarch's son hurling himself to death in order to stop a huge bomb from being detonated. Again, how is this an overwhelming victory?

 

And the game series has basically made it clear that conventional victory against the Reapers is impossible, so what exactly is then the brilliant solution to threat they should have gone with?

[Hiemoth]

I think another major issue with Thessia is the lack of build up for the Catalyst. By the time you get to Thessia it has been a very long time since Shepard actually picked up the Crucible plans and the time between has been filled with gathering war assets, other major plot arcs, DLC, etc with the Crucible getting after thought references and vague, meaningless techno babble. When the Catalyst finally comes up again it is some object that connects somehow with the device that does something. There's not a lot of tension there. It even seems weird when Shepard talks up the device that just got brought up for the second time in the game -- I'm sure many players completely forgot about it. Even the idea that the Crucible is the only thing that can stop the Reapers starts to feel disingenuous after so many hours of ME3's rather empowering game play, even the Kai Leng fight encounter is empowering until the game yanks control aware from you.

 

I actually agree that most of your points are fair, even if I somewhat disagree, but ME3 kept telling you from the get-go that conventional victory against the Reapers is impossible. It literally tells you this. Every time you get an update about the war condition, you are being told that the Reapers are basically wiping everything out. If people insisted ignoring that when playing the game, I don't think at that point it is a fault from Bioware.

[In Exile]

Every single major victory in ME3 requires someone sacrifing themselves for the greater good, yet somehow this gets just shrugged away even if it is a central point of the argument. Almost nothing is achieved in ME3 by Shepard killing everything, almost everything is achieved by someone putting an ideal above themselves. Even in those 'Overwhelming victories' Shepard is shown scraping by and forced to resort to outside aid, which again doesn't fit your argument.

 

It's absolutely an overwhelming victory. A few people die in return for an incredible and massive boost in your military force, a decisive blow struck against a seemingly unstoppable enemy, and killing what - generally speaking - looks to be an unstoppable engine of death. There's this ridiculous fantasy that somehow a victory isn't overwhelming enough unless no one dies, but that's not how it works. This is Helm's Deep from LOTR all over again. As well as Minas Tirith. 

 

Your counter-argument here is predicated on a definitional shell-game. What happens is that Shepard + 2 other people and 2-4 bystanders recruits a massive military force that amounts to a turning point in the reaper invasion (i.e., substantial reinforcements), a huge PR and moral blow to the enemy, all for the cost of the lives of a few characters, but only at the absolute culmination of their narrative and thematic arc (so the death itself feels satisfying in that way). 

 

Mordin's the best example of this. His sacrifice is very poignant and apropos thematically. 

 

As for Rannoch, it is a huge win if either the Geth or Quarians are wiped out if Shepard fails at peace? That is an overwhelming victory? Tuchanka involves Shepard possibly losing the Salarian alliance and in almost every case involves Mordin dying. The associated missions sees the Primarch's son hurling himself to death in order to stop a huge bomb from being detonated. Again, how is this an overwhelming victory?

 

Absolutely. Again, the definitional shell-game about overwhelming victory requiring 0 deaths is ridiculous. Not even every PG-game or saturday morning cartoon plays it that way, and these are considered the hight of sacharrine productions for children (e.g. Optimus Prime dying in the movie). 

 

After Rannoch, it's a huge win to obtain a massive conventional spacefleet, and deal the reapers a massive blow (because they're denied their geth reinforcements, and lose one reaper in the process). 

 

Mordin dies in the most poignant and satisfying way thematically. 

 

And the game series has basically made it clear that conventional victory against the Reapers is impossible, so what exactly is then the brilliant solution to threat they should have gone with?

 

You're not really arguing with me here; you've confused me with the "conventional victory should be possible" types. Remember, this is what I said: 

 

And when the game kicks off with "Reaper Killing MacGuffin Off Button" as the main plot, all the stuff about overwhelming odds is hard to take seriously. 

 

The solution - given the genre and the build up  - is that we'll just use the Crucible to kill the Load Bearing Reaper and save the galaxy, just like we do in all other games of this type (see e.g. DA:O, which isn't about a conventional victory at all but just invovles the Warden going from overwhelming victory to overwhelming victory). 

[Hiemoth]

It's absolutely an overwhelming victory. A few people die in return for an incredible and massive boost in your military force, a decisive blow struck against a seemingly unstoppable enemy, and killing what - generally speaking - looks to be an unstoppable engine of death. There's this ridiculous fantasy that somehow a victory isn't overwhelming enough unless no one dies, but that's not how it works. This is Helm's Deep from LOTR all over again. As well as Minas Tirith. 

 

Your counter-argument here is predicated on a definitional shell-game. What happens is that Shepard + 2 other people and 2-4 bystanders recruits a massive military force that amounts to a turning point in the reaper invasion (i.e., substantial reinforcements), a huge PR and moral blow to the enemy, all for the cost of the lives of a few characters, but only at the absolute culmination of their narrative and thematic arc (so the death itself feels satisfying in that way). 

 

Mordin's the best example of this. His sacrifice is very poignant and apropos thematically. 

 

 

But here's my issue your argument: Your definition of overwhelming victory seems to make the whole term meaningless. Are the victories? Sure, expect those that aren't, but those are also bad because of reasons. Sure, most of the Citadel forces are wiped out by the Cerberus attack and it leaves the station vulnerable to attacks, Thessia falls and the Asari forces collapse, everyone at Haven are slaughtered before Shepard gets there.

 

My argument isn't shellgames, the argument is that each of those victories means losing something. For the Tuchanka victory, it either means losing Salarian support or dooming a species to be wiped out. And my mind kind of struggles with the argument that wiping out a species in the Geth/Quarian conflict is still an overwhelming victory because hey, you got the other side, is again just weird and basically devalues the  Even the fact that you basically dismiss a loss of a friend or a loyal squad mate as just to be seen something as a shell game basically only works if you play as the general. Which you don't. And even in those cases where you get those forces, they either get involved in military action which involves massive losses only to buy time and the game constantly tells you of those losses and sacrifices.

 

And what PR and moral victory? Did you feel that there was a Reaper press secretary somewhere cursing Shepard. The Reapers don't care, they just destroy.

 

 

Absolutely. Again, the definitional shell-game about overwhelming victory requiring 0 deaths is ridiculous. Not even every PG-game or saturday morning cartoon plays it that way, and these are considered the hight of sacharrine productions for children (e.g. Optimus Prime dying in the movie). 

 

After Rannoch, it's a huge win to obtain a massive conventional spacefleet, and deal the reapers a massive blow (because they're denied their geth reinforcements, and lose one reaper in the process). 

 

Mordin dies in the most poignant and satisfying way thematically. 

 

It's absolutely an overwhelming victory. A few people die in return for an incredible and massive boost in your military force, a decisive blow struck against a seemingly unstoppable enemy, and killing what - generally speaking - looks to be an unstoppable engine of death. There's this ridiculous fantasy that somehow a victory isn't overwhelming 

 

Again, what massive blow. The Reapers simply don't care even if they lose the Geth. And a few people die in the case you basically wipe out majority of the Quarian race? Or the whole Geth race? Literal genocide is considered just a few people in this case?

 

The problem continues your term overwhelming how it basically loses value. I have no problems this was a victory, but it is a victory achieved through loss of a friend. It is a victory gained by the death of thousands of Quarians caught in the crossfire. It is a victory with countless destruction of Geth code. To determine it just needs to be a victory to be an overwhelming isn't a fault of the game, it is for you to determine such a loose requirement for it to be overwhelming.

 

 

 

You're not really arguing with me here; you've confused me with the "conventional victory should be possible" types. Remember, this is what I said: 

 

And when the game kicks off with "Reaper Killing MacGuffin Off Button" as the main plot, all the stuff about overwhelming odds is hard to take seriously. 

 

The solution - given the genre and the build up  - is that we'll just use the Crucible to kill the Load Bearing Reaper and save the galaxy, just like we do in all other games of this type (see e.g. DA:O, which isn't about a conventional victory at all but just invovles the Warden going from overwhelming victory to overwhelming victory). 

 

But you completely ignored my question. The Reapers, since ME1, have been portrayed an unstoppable force. That is simply fact.

 

What I am not arguing that it is a McGuffin, it is and it was clearly meant as such. Being a desperate measure at desperate times. My question was what would have been your solution then to deal with Reaper thread with this in mind?

 

Besides, DAO comparison fails because it never really pushes in the same way, it doesn't constantly tell of you of the losses or make you walk among those fleeing from the destruction, or face the doomsday to come. It doesn't tell you that each of your achievement is ultimately playing time in order to try a desperate gamble to prevent the destruction of everything. It doesn't see the PCs friends and collagues sacrifice themselves for a scrap of achievement. When you walk among the Turian base, you are constantly seeing their forces being destroyed. You see the fall of Thessia, which is a not overwhelming victory and is apparantely bad because of that.

 

They both have victories and, since your definition of overwhelming only needs something to be gained at the end, I guess they could be called overwhelming.

 

By the way, I feel it is important that I am not telling that you should like ME3, you don't and I have no desire to dictate what someone should like. My issue is more that is for me it feels like you felt the game was something and you ignore or handwave everything in the game that doesn't fit that. They keep telling you about the losses? Doesn't really matter, didn't see it. You just heard the frantic cries of the Asari as Thessia falls. Wow, this game just got dark despite literally severally similar scenes over the game leading to that. However, I realize you probably feel the same way about my viewpoint, which is probably why we will never agree on this. Yet for the same reason we react when we see the other one making argument we feel are not fundamentally true for the game.

[Karlone123]

memorable secondary characters dying offscreen shittily in an email 

#kal'reegar #neverforget

 

Could be worse, you could have gotten death by twitter the Emily Wong way.

[BaconClubhouse]

How about implementing entertaining side quests this time? ME3 was the worst offender with its fetch quests (scan a planet, get invisible war assets) How exciting!

[AlanC9]

How about implementing entertaining side quests this time? ME3 was the worst offender with its fetch quests (scan a planet, get invisible war assets) How exciting!

Exactly what are you asking for here? Remove all of the scanning and you'd maybe have freed up enough dev time to do one more N7 mission... assuming that you could get a map for free from the MP team, that is.

Would ME3 have actually been better with one more N7 mission and no galaxy map and Citadel interactions? Or are you asking for the existing ME3 plus a bunch of additional dev time spent on sidequests?