58 réponses à ce sujet

[spinachdiaper]

Please no advocating a plot on rails approach, that's way to JRPGish for me.

[ArcadiaGrey]

Mass Effect had that I believe.

 

For example, you could skip rescuing Liara and complete Noveria, Feros, and even Virmire before recruiting her. When you recruit her, you basically tell her the entire plot up until Ilos and she becomes royally pissed off because you spoiled the big galaxy shattering mystery. 

 

It was great, but then again so was BioWare back then.

 

But sadly that was the only example of it in ME1 (that I'm aware of).  If you mix up the other 3 planets it's not recognised by the game, so if you do Noveria before Feros everything you learnt from Benezia is forgotten and not mentioned at all as the devs assumed you'd do Feros first.

Plus she just stays in stasis the whole time, her situation doesn't get worse in any way.  The conversation with her is really funny tho. 

 

I like how ME3 did it. Except some side missions like Grissom or Cerberus Abductions, the missions can be done even at a later point in any sequence, or completed before Priority: Tuchanka if desired. Delaying some missions resulted in different dialogue from your squad mates, for example if you do Ex-Cerberus Scientists after wrapping up Rannoch, Garrus will refer to its outcome when having the little pissing contest with James instead of mentioning curing the genophage.

Loved the Turian Platoon/Cerberus Bomb missions. If you wait too long in-between a nice thing happens Didn't do it myself yet, but it's nice to see a consequence if you ignore the bomb for too long. I also liked you can delay either the 2 Tuchanka side missions or the Krogan Scouts mission so you can bring even Tali to these missions, and next time swap them around and do the other early on.

 

I wasn't aware the smaller missions were so flexible in the dialogue, that's cool.  I assumed I had to do the Tuchanka missions before the genophage.  I'm sure gonna switch that around now.  Just wish I'd realised on my Tali romance playthrough. 

 

Yeahhhh I just deliberately ignored the bomb, I'm super important space Jesus after all and I have stuff to do soooooo...BOOM.  Lots of dead Krogans.  Oh dear. 

[SolNebula]

I love choices and I liked how ME1 did that though I agree the dialogues need better changes to reflect our past actions/missions in the plot.

I loved how in ME1 you could set your own priorities whether recruiting a full squad first or starting investigating immediately. I hope this structure returns and we get to choose where to begin and our choices producing slight alteration to future missions like extra dialogues or more/less enemies.

 

Choices are always better. ME3 despite the great moments it had, felt too strict and limiting of gamer choice. This also result in Tali being available late in the game which is bad regardless of the character being involved.

 

BW should imagine its main missions as self-sufficient modules attached together by the plot which justify and provides reasons for doing these missions/visiting these planets. Each module completed should provide a piece of the puzzle in understanding and solving the main conflict. Ideally in the last mission or chapter of the game all these pieces get together and the player has finally achieved the complete vision of the plot.

 

However what I think ME1 handled poorly were the secondary quests which felt totally detached from the game. Ideally each quest should have a loose connection with the main theme of the game. I think that each main mission (divided in self-sufficient modules) should take place in different planets.

 

This main planetary mission is divided in many smaller quests that should prepare for the final main mission in THAT planet. In the same planet while doing these missions/exploring you get to know other people offering you subquest that are loosely connected with the main quest of the planet and doing them should have some sort of impact in the final outcome of your adventure in THAT planet. Once you complete the main mission and its relevant subquests you are free to move to a different planet and tackle a new situation.

 

ME3 did quite good in doing these secondary missions connected to Rannoch and Tuchanka wars...what was poorly done was that we did not get to choose freely where to start.

 

I missed the structure of old KOTOR games.

[Helios969]

ME3 was by far the superior approach.  Freedom and flexibility sound all well and good, but it does so at the cost of story coherency and player agency.  Now if Bioware wants to go the extra writing mile and really reflect your previous actions regardless of which chunk and order your progress with that be great...but thus far they've shown either their unwilling or incapable of doing so.

[themikefest]

I like doing the missions in whatever order in ME1. The best is doing Therum last to listen to the asari whine like a little baby and then tell her you want to throw her in the volcano.

ME2 wasn't bad.

 

ME3 I like. My favorite is completing the turian bomb mission just before Chronos to hear what Hackett has to say. Not bad

 

So yeah. Being able to do missions in whatever order would be nice.

[Chardonney]

No, I wouldn't. The ability to do missions in a random order keeps the game more interesting and gives you variety in different playthroughs. ME3 was partly boring because in each playthough you had to do everything pretty much in the same order over and over again and - like in the Grissom Academy or Tuchanka - if you didn't, the mission was gone and couldn't be completed anymore, leaving you with a bad outcome. I simply hated that. I want to decide what I want to do and in what order. I don't want the game to dictate how I should play. 

[Il Divo]

^But Mass Effect rarely does this. Barring some dialogue from Thessia, there's pretty much never a point where mission order has any consequential relevance. The order could have been Therum-->Noveria-->Feros-->Virmire and everything would play out pretty much the exact same way. 

[Chealec]

Depends on the plot and how progression is triggered.

 

If the pacing of the story depends on completing certain things in a certain order then a linear mission unlock makes sense. However, if the story continues apace, irrespective as to what you do, e.g. plot moves forward after completing 3 of 10 missions, again at 5 of 10 and so on, then yeah, non-linear progression.

 

The problem with the first one is that it can almost become an interactive movie.

 

The problem with the second is that it restricts the depth of the story as it happens in each mission.

 

 

I'd have to go with the first option with an ME game; I remember way, way, way back to Tomb Raider on the original Playstation. I loved the first game and the way it unfolded as you went from place to place - it was linear. TR2 wasn't; you could do the mission regions in any order and as such the story felt disjointed and the missions themselves less important.

[Il Divo]

 

I'd have to go with the first option with an ME game; I remember way, way, way back to Tomb Raider on the original Playstation. I loved the first game and the way it unfolded as you went from place to place - it was linear. TR2 wasn't; you could do the mission regions in any order and as such the story felt disjointed and the missions themselves less important.

 

Agreed. Even looking at my favorite Bioware game of all time (KotOR), from a narrative stand-point, the Star Map search was a low point; the individual planets themselves were great in terms of environments, gameplay, etc, but it was essentially a 20+ hour pause button on the main narrative. 

[Chardonney]

^But Mass Effect rarely does this. Barring some dialogue from Thessia, there's pretty much never a point where mission order has any consequential relevance. The order could have been Therum-->Noveria-->Feros-->Virmire and everything would play out pretty much the exact same way. 

 

Tuchanka bomb goes off if you don't do it in time. Jack becomes a phamtom if you don't do Grissom Academy in time. Benning mission will not be available if not done in time. Et cetera, et cetera...

[Totally Not a Poodle]

So long as the overall story works for me, I don't really care whether or not I can choose what order I do the game.

Edit:

Woops. Had this pointing to a wrong post.

[themikefest]

Tuchanka bomb goes off if you don't do it before Citadel coop. Jack becomes a phamtom if you don't do Grissom Academy in time. Benning mission will not be available if not done in time. Et cetera, et cetera...

Incorrect.

 

Of those three, Grissom has to be completed before Citadel coup. I've complete the turian bomb mission just before starting Chronos and Benning before I went to Chronos

[fraggle]

Tuchanka bomb goes off if you don't do it before Citadel coop.

 

That's not true. You can leave both Turian Platoon and Bomb for after the Coup and do Krogan Scouts instead. Only when you start the Platoon mission the bomb will go off if you don't do it after a couple of other missions, but that counts for both pre- and post-Coup.

 

AFAIR Grissom and Benning are the only missions that need to be completed before the Coup.

Edit: Benning not necessarily, but if you want to collect the dog tag and give it back to the Ambassador, then yes, it has to be pre-Coup.

[Chardonney]

Incorrect.

 

Of those three, Grissom has to be complete before Citadel coup. I've complete the turian bomb mission just before starting Chronos and Benning before I went to Chronos

 

Yeah, I fix the message because I remembered wrong but the time limits/order are still there. And there's many little things that aren't available after Priority: Tuchanka.

[Il Divo]

Tuchanka bomb goes off if you don't do it in time. Jack becomes a phamtom if you don't do Grissom Academy in time. Benning mission will not be available if not done in time. Et cetera, et cetera...

 

To be absolutely clear, I was referring to Mass Effect 1. 

[Chardonney]

To be absolutely clear, I was referring to Mass Effect 1. 

 

Ah, sorry about that. My bad.

[Midnight Bliss]

ME3 was by far the superior approach.  Freedom and flexibility sound all well and good, but it does so at the cost of story coherency and player agency.  Now if Bioware wants to go the extra writing mile and really reflect your previous actions regardless of which chunk and order your progress with that be great...but thus far they've shown either their unwilling or incapable of doing so.

ME3 format was the bomb.com I'd love if they brought that back.

 

 

Anything but DAI format though...That was just terrible.

[Dashen Thomas]

Nothing from ME3. Thank you.

[Il Divo]

Ah, sorry about that. My bad.

No worries!

[slimgrin]

ME3 was by far the superior approach.  Freedom and flexibility sound all well and good, but it does so at the cost of story coherency and player agency.  Now if Bioware wants to go the extra writing mile and really reflect your previous actions regardless of which chunk and order your progress with that be great...but thus far they've shown either their unwilling or incapable of doing so.

 

Except it can be done, has been done, and RPGs are all about player agency. Putting me on the rails, that's predictable. Besides, Bioware already did it in DA:O, and it worked fine. ME3 was far and away the least popular of the series. I'd rather they step away from the design approach of that game. 

[mopotter]

I don't want to do all of them in a specific order.  

 

It gets a bit boring if I play more than a few times, which I'm hoping I'll want to do. I enjoyed ME1 a lot for this reason.     Don't mind a couple of them being set  up this way, but for the most part I want to go the path that my character feels is important.  

 

Now that I think about it, that's one of the things I liked about ME2 also.  Most of the things I had to do could be done in any order and that did make it more enjoyable for me.

[RoboticWater]

Except it can be done, has been done, and RPGs are all about player agency. Putting me on the rails, that's predictable.

If I wanted to get technical (and I do), if RPGs are all about player agency, restricting that agency would actually be surprising, not predictable. But more importantly I'd like to dispute two points here.

For one, ME3 is not "on rails," the games gives you ample opportunity to do side missions and mess around outside of the main missions. I also hate to see this phrase wantonly flung around as if their infinitely complex RPG was quickly turning into a cheap arcade game. No Mass Effect game has been "on rails" at any level: we have always been given choices regarding side missions, attack vectors, class builds, etc.. The term "on rails" is reductive, hyperbolic, and stifles any level-headed conversation about the merits and detriments of linear design.

Second, while RPG may have been able to allow players agency in choosing mission order, that doesn't mean that those RPG implemented this feature effectively or that any other RPG, especially such a specific case like Mass Effect, do so as successfully. I'm repeating myself and others in this thread when I say that linear structure can greatly aid story and pacing.

Besides, Bioware already did it in DA:O, and it worked fine.

But did they do it well in DA:O? I'd argue that they didn't. The separate narrative arcs rarely interacted with each other in a meaningful capacity, so we're left with a story whose pacing is periodically reset to zero. Hell, when we needed to exorcise the demon from Connor, the game gave us (IIRC) unlimited time to recruit the Mages and come back, killing the plot urgency and soiling the verisimilitude.

 

Other than the slight rolplaying and replayability benefit, I just don't see how DA:O's structure made it a better game.

ME3 was far and away the least popular of the series. I'd rather they step away from the design approach of that game.

I think the correct phrasing would be: "ME3 was my least favorite in the series," and it would be foolish to ignore any Mass Effect game in it's entirety. Each has its own good ideas that should be considered regardless of the whole.

[wright1978]

Outside this forum most people generally agree ME3 was the best of the trilogy.

 

That doesn't correlate with my experience inside or outside of these forums.

[Midnight Bliss]

Nothing from ME3. Thank you.

 

ME3 was far and away the least popular of the series.

Outside this forum most people generally agree ME3 was the best of the trilogy.

[Wulfram]

I don't care all that much. If varying the order actually changed things, then it would be cool.

Though its nice to be able to prioritise picking up a companion I like, rather than having them basically only show up for the finale.