238 réponses à ce sujet

[Prince Enigmatic]

 

 

If destroy is chosen, do the same as above except the edibot is destroyed

 

If destroy is chosen, do the same as above except EDI dies. 

 

  (I'm a sucker for AI evolving to have human feelings, Cortana, Legion, EDI)

 

As I've said before, I have no problem with squadmates dying, but it shouldn't be limited to them, especially if they are the only ones who are the granted the courtesy of an intentional "moving" death scene.

 

I'd like the idea of seeing some colonists we sent earlier in the game to colonize and begin studying a planet (hypothetically speaking here, since we don't know this can happen) possibly end up all dying as a result of some choice we had no idea would correspond with that consequence, or something like that. And instead of the quick brushover Shepard got when he destroyed the relay causing the deaths of several hundred thousand Batarians, I'd like there to be more time actually spent dealing with the actual ramifications of one person being responsible for that amount of loss in life.

 

Just me thinking out on that, so hey ho.

[SNascimento]

Assuming ME:A will have an antagonist, I believe the best way for it to achieve greatness is a close interaction with your squadmates. And by that I mean the villain being able to kill them dead! 

[themikefest]

If destroy is chosen, do the same as above except EDI dies.

For me, it will always be destroyed since I always choose destroy
 

  (I'm a sucker for AI evolving to have human feelings, Cortana, Legion, EDI)

I'm not. Also don't know what a Cortana is. So that doesn't mean anything to me

[Prince Enigmatic]

Assuming ME:A will have an antagonist, I believe the best way for it to achieve greatness is a close interaction with your squadmates. And by that I mean the villain being able to kill them dead! 

 

As long as its done in a more original way, and isn't too conventional or formulaic that it just whiffs of cheap writing and an easy way of attempting to get you to hate the villain just because he killed your pal.

 

If its done well, sure why not? I just hate it when these tropes prop up, especially fridging, and they just show how lazy the writing is. 

[Prince Enigmatic]

 

I'm not. Also don't know what a Cortana is. So that doesn't mean anything to me

 

Siri perhaps?

[themikefest]

Siri perhaps?

Is that the voice heard on the ipad/iphone/whatever? What about it?

[Prince Enigmatic]

Is that the voice heard on the ipad/iphone/whatever? What about it?

 

I was only joking around since Cortana is an AI character in the Halo series by Microsoft, who also used it for Microsoft phones in the same capacity as Siri for Apple. 

 

And that I like AI characters. 

[Gothfather]

What if there was a limited number of Loyalty Missions?

 

No because again you are creating mechanics that allows the player to choose who lives and dies in an unconnected way. And this allows players to keep people they like safe. Combat isn't something that you can control, it is why we have the axiom, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." The player shouldn't be able to minimize the loss of combat to those people they don't like simply because the player can't control combat so why should they be able to control the consequences? There is a place for choice in knowingly sending people to die to obtain an objective. This is something people in command have to do. virmire was a decent example of this except players felt that if they were good enough, smart enough or just so damn awesome enough they should have been able to save both.

 

A mature RPG should not hide from the realities of armed conflict, we should be confronted with the harsh realities. Combat isn't something that is filled with glory and the cost of solving solutions with combat is blood and that shouldn't be minimized by allowing the player to control the consequences. There is a place for combat in games that glosses over the consequences of combat but a mature rpg isn't one of them. A RPG is all about exploring different roles and situations and is all about the consequences of our actions.

[SNascimento]

As long as its done in a more original way, and isn't too conventional or formulaic that it just whiffs of cheap writing and an easy way of attempting to get you to hate the villain just because he killed your pal.

 

If its done well, sure why not? I just hate it when these tropes prop up, especially fridging, and they just show how lazy the writing is. 

Well, what isn't a trope these days?

[Prince Enigmatic]

Well, what isn't a trope these days?

 

Not a lot, which is why in order to not just rehash what has been exactly as before, try and do something new and if possible original with it. It is nearly impossible to avoid tropes, and its becoming increasingly difficult for something to appear that everyone fully agrees on as fully original and no derivative of anything. 

[shodiswe]

I hope they make it good whatever they do.

[Dean_the_Young]

Not a lot, which is why in order to not just rehash what has been exactly as before, try and do something new and if possible original with it. It is nearly impossible to avoid tropes, and its becoming increasingly difficult for something to appear that everyone fully agrees on as fully original and no derivative of anything. 

 

You're young, aren't you?

 

Not trying to paternalize too much, but... I remember reading (and maybe even writing) the same thing about 15-20 years ago. It's right up there with... was it Plato who complained about how unmodest girls were getting these days?

[Wulfram]

Stories about war should allow major characters to die.

If there was a problem with ME3 it was that it tended to make the deaths some sort of grand and rather contrived sacrifice, rather than just letting people get shot or blown up or whatever.

[Prince Enigmatic]

You're young, aren't you?

 

Not trying to paternalize too much, but... I remember reading (and maybe even writing) the same thing about 15-20 years ago. It's right up there with... was it Plato who complained about how unmodest girls were getting these days?

 

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, sorry, confused? 

 

And I'm twenty, though I'm not sure how this matters or somehow influences what I was saying in that post? Surely if I was older it wouldn't effect it in any way?

[In Exile]

Stories about war should allow major characters to die.

If there was a problem with ME3 it was that it tended to make the deaths some sort of grand and rather contrived sacrifice, rather than just letting people get shot or blown up or whatever.

Except for the troll end, where the player gets a taste of the senseless death in a conflict. But that doesn't work in games. Because it forces players to confront the insanity at the core of an RPG: the repeated superhuman feats that the PCs regularly achieve. 

[Fredward]

Could always stick to killing off well-liked NPCs. Tho I kiiinda feel like the DA team might be better at making likeable NPCs.

 

Although. I don't really mind companions dying. If it's a relatively easily avoidable choice it doesn't have much punch but if you take, say Mordin. He died in all of my games. It was necessary. And it was poignant. So if they do add a choice element it should be WEIGHTY. I also liked that they didn't flinch from killing the guy with a terminal illness (I have a lot of different issues with how Thane's situation was handled but that was not one of them) but they gave fair warning with him.

 

So basically; yeah kill everyone.

[LinksOcarina]

I'm all for it, to be honest.

 

I liked how squadmates were used and how plots can be modular throughout the whole trilogy, without fully sacrificing the narrative. The only time the seams really showed were with the Rachni Queen in the end. Other than that, everything else was fine by me regarding Wrex, Legion, Tali, Ashley/Kaiden, and so forth. 

[In Exile]

I'm all for it, to be honest.

 

I liked how squadmates were used and how plots can be modular throughout the whole trilogy, without fully sacrificing the narrative. The only time the seams really showed were with the Rachni Queen in the end. Other than that, everything else was fine by me regarding Wrex, Legion, Tali, Ashley/Kaiden, and so forth. 

 

I thought the modular plot was silly. Bioware and the audience just never connected when it came to reactivity. Bioware always understood that to mean "seeing the consequence of your actions", whereas the audience always took it to mean "seeing different consequences for my choices" and that led to a lot of disappointment. You see it with DA2 as well. DA2 is basically the only Bioware game that you can play through enough of a time span to actually see the consequence of your actions. But Bioware - approach this is a design issue - funnels all your choices to be "RP" choices, i.e., cosmetic and character-defining choices. Players want choices like TW2's Act II - not character defining per se (though there is obviously an element of that one) but rather plot changing. Like that old SNES/PSX Tactics Ogre game. 

[LinksOcarina]

I thought the modular plot was silly. Bioware and the audience just never connected when it came to reactivity. Bioware always understood that to mean "seeing the consequence of your actions", whereas the audience always took it to mean "seeing different consequences for my choices" and that led to a lot of disappointment. You see it with DA2 as well. DA2 is basically the only Bioware game that you can play through enough of a time span to actually see the consequence of your actions. But Bioware - approach this is a design issue - funnels all your choices to be "RP" choices, i.e., cosmetic and character-defining choices. Players want choices like TW2's Act II - not character defining per se (though there is obviously an element of that one) but rather plot changing. Like that old SNES/PSX Tactics Ogre game. 

 

Two problems with that.

 

First, the choices in The Witcher 2 are the same as BioWare's because it doesn't really change the plot per-se, it changes the narrative around it. The plot is ultimately always the same in the end. You are right about the Ogre Battle games, but those were self-contained Which leads me to point two,  Andromeda is not going to be self-contained in any form, and we kind of know that going in. 

 

Perhaps the problem with that disconnect is that people expect too much from choices and consequences? Should every single thing you do have a massive impact? Realistically, no, so cosmetic changes are fine in the end, that's part of roleplaying. Hell, a good GM would be able to take the actions and choices and modify what is going on in their own stories to continue the plot; the only change is the narrative around it.

 

It's basically BioWare telling their players what they have been saying all along; here is the plot, you have some freedom with it but we control that part in the end. If people don't like that or expect every single choice they make to be a defining moment in history of some kind...I can see why they would be upset, but thats the way it always really was...

[RoboticWater]

Two problems with that.
 
First, the choices in The Witcher 2 are the same as BioWare's because it doesn't really change the plot per-se, it changes the narrative around it. The plot is ultimately always the same in the end.

But it did change the plot. You can go to one of two places and get a different set of quests in each area. Sure, the game ends the same, but the important thing (the thing that people notice) is that there are two substantial and mutually exclusive paths.
 

You are right about the Ogre Battle games, but those were self-contained Which leads me to point two,  Andromeda is not going to be self-contained in any form, and we kind of know that going in. 
 
Perhaps the problem with that disconnect is that people expect too much from choices and consequences? Should every single thing you do have a massive impact? Realistically, no, so cosmetic changes are fine in the end, that's part of roleplaying. Hell, a good GM would be able to take the actions and choices and modify what is going on in their own stories to continue the plot; the only change is the narrative around it.
 
It's basically BioWare telling their players what they have been saying all along; here is the plot, you have some freedom with it but we control that part in the end. If people don't like that or expect every single choice they make to be a defining moment in history of some kind...I can see why they would be upset, but thats the way it always really was...

Many players aren't that rational, though. Nor are they well informed enough about game development. They can look at Witcher 2 and say "that's the new standard!" without really realizing the cost of making that 2nd act happen.

 

I was never very salty about ME3's ending ignoring our decisions because I knew that tons of different end states is a difficult task (and I thought there were more pressing issues with it, of course), but that's probably not what you're going to hear from most detractors. Tell people their choices matter (and throw the word "reactive" around enough) and a good portion of them will probably expect more than cosmetic consequences.

[LinksOcarina]

But it did change the plot. You can go to one of two places and get a different set of quests in each area. Sure, the game ends the same, but the important thing (the thing that people notice) is that there are two substantial and mutually exclusive paths.
 

Many players aren't that rational, though. Nor are they well informed enough about game development. They can look at Witcher 2 and say "that's the new standard!" without really realizing the cost of making that 2nd act happen.

 

I was never very salty about ME3's ending ignoring our decisions because I knew that tons of different end states is a difficult task (and I thought there were more pressing issues with it, of course), but that's probably not what you're going to hear from most detractors. Tell people their choices matter (and throw the word "reactive" around enough) and a good portion of them will probably expect more than cosmetic consequences.

 

But that's not a plot change, that's a narrative change. Remember, there is a difference between narrative and plot here. 

 

It just happens to be a bit more complex than what Mass Effect did, I agree on that point at least, but it was a narrative change, like a GM offering a modular choice but putting you into the same position in the finale of the session. Mechanically, it's the same thing we saw with squadmates in Mass Effect or hell, Dragon Age Inquisition and which side you recruit in the early going, since it ultimately doesn't change the plot. 

[Wulfram]

Except for the troll end, where the player gets a taste of the senseless death in a conflict. But that doesn't work in games. Because it forces players to confront the insanity at the core of an RPG: the repeated superhuman feats that the PCs regularly achieve.

Shepard's death in Control and particularly Synthesis is still grand and rather contrived sacrifice, I think. Destroy not so much, but of course its the one Shepard can survive.

[correctamundo]

But that's not a plot change, that's a narrative change. Remember, there is a difference between narrative and plot here. 

 

It just happens to be a bit more complex than what Mass Effect did, I agree on that point at least, but it was a narrative change, like a GM offering a modular choice but putting you into the same position in the finale of the session. Mechanically, it's the same thing we saw with squadmates in Mass Effect or hell, Dragon Age Inquisition and which side you recruit in the early going, since it ultimately doesn't change the plot. 

 

And see how much flak BW got from that narrative choice in DAI. If BW did something like TW2 they would unleash Armageddon here. I think.

[In Exile]

Shepard's death in Control and particularly Synthesis is still grand and rather contrived sacrifice, I think. Destroy not so much, but of course its the one Shepard can survive.

I don't mean that ending. I mean getting nuked by Harbinger with no time to react or fight back.

[ArabianIGoggles]

I'm all for this.  I only wish I had the option to kill off the less interesting people sooner.  Jacob always goes into that death vent in my games.