178 réponses à ce sujet

[smudboy]

I'm a bit confused.  I know BioWare wanted to make a story that involved Shepard going on a suicide mission to save the galaxy.  I know they wanted to have a marketing blitz showing off these cool characters doing their cool thing.  This is understood.  I'm sure the developers and designers had all kinds of fun, cool meetings designing and fleshing out these characters doing and saying their cool things.

But the issue is still the number of these playable characters.  Do we really need them all?  How relevant are they to the mission (that is, getting to the Collector Base and blowing them up)?  Let's take a look at ones from most useful to useless.

Please note: this has nothing to do with how much I like/dislike one character over another.  They're all great.  This is to measure their usefulness to the story and mission: to save the galaxy.

1) Story: How relevant the character is to the story.
2) Ship upgrade: Whether or not they upgrade the ship to survive a ship battle (that said, some ship upgrades aren't battle related...)
3) The Loyalty ability that directly helps you the player (aside from them being able to shoot a gun, or their other standard abilities.)
4) Suicide mission: the whole dang point.
n) Observations I made.

Each area can get a max of (+1).

Tali: The token Quarian engineer.  The most fleshed out character.  A fan favorite from ME1.  She best personified ME1: she was it's rising action and guide.  Her mystery, background, culture, attitude, everything is interesting and given the most attention.  Her loyalty mission is the most compeling, emotionally engaging and personal: we are introduced to an entire culture, its politics, customs, poetry, etc.  We can love an alien woman who's more human than the rest of the crew, without even seeing her face.
The point:  1) Story: Continuity with ME1.  The first post-Lazarus ME1 character we encounter, developing the geth plot, Quarian culture, and keeping the action and tension strong. (+1)
2) Ship upgrade: Better shields. (+1)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Enery Drain.  One of many shield skills (+0.5)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be a tech specialist for survival ending. Corollary: Legion (+1)
5) RPG cliche: #149 Gender Equality, Part 2 (Tifa Rule): We save her ass 3 times.  I think she says thank you the most out of everyone.
Total: 3.5

Garrus: The Infiltrator tactical genius.  A fan favorite from ME1.  Token Turian gone bad ass.  Loyalty mission provides backstory on other ME1 characters.  We can love an alien man with a literal chip on his shoulder.  Someone buy this guy some new armor and wash his face in medi-gel, please.
The point: 1) Story: Continuity with ME1.  Regardless of how you talked to him in ME1, his story is unchanged in ME2, so points off for that. (+0.75)
2) Ship upgrade: Better weapons. (+1)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Armor Piercing rounds.  Somewhat useful. (0.5)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be a leader for survival ending.  Corollary: Miranda, Jacob (+1)
Total: 3.25

Jacob: the ex-Alliance turned Cerberus soldier.  Token pro-Cerberus, black-Shepard.  We can relate to him best.  We can love a biotic-military man who's Shepard, minus the whole save the world bit.
The point: 1) Story: Continuity with ME Galaxy.  Male Miranda. (+0.5)
2) Ship upgrade: Better armor. (+1)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Barrier.  One of many shield skills. (+0.5)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be a leader for survival ending.  Corollary: Garrus, Miranda (+1)
Total: 3

Miranda: The genetically and biotically augmented super-woman.  The token pro-Cerberus, female interest.  Without her, Shepard wouldn't be here.  We can love a super-human woman with daddy/superiority issues.
The point: 1) Story: Continuity with ME Galaxy.  The direct Cerberus liason.  Your "Project Manager." (+1)
2) Ship upgrade: Scanner. (+0.5)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Slam. (+0.5)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be a leader for survival ending.  Corollary: Garrus, Jacob (+1)
Total: 3

Legion: The geth.  As cool as most Spock/Data-esque characters are.
The point: 1) Story: turns out not all geth are the evil Borg we thought they were.  Also, insight into Reapers. (+0.75)
2) Ship upgrade: none. (0)  None?  It's the freaking geth and no ship upgrades?
3) Loyalty unlockable: Geth Shield Boost.  One of many shield skills.  Improved Geth Shield Boost seems to be the best out of them all (+0.75)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be a tech specialist for survival ending. Corollary: Tali (+1)
5) Reality: We thought Legion would've been some kind of malfunctioned sniper who's obsessed with killing Shepard/becoming him.  Turns out we have no clue why he put on his armor. (0)
Total: 2.5

Samara: 1000 year old gorgeous-tragic super-Paragon token Asari romance-tease.  On Wandering Terminator-crack.  That description should get a point.  The Goddess (Hero's Journey) that promises herself to you in some mystical honor-bond.
The point: 1) Story: 5000 sutras and they mostly end in something dying. (0)
2) Ship upgrade: more fuel (+0.25)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Reave.  Useful (+1)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be the bubble-girl for survival ending.  Corollary: Jack, Morinth (+1)
5) Reality: We thought we'd get a software-re-write tabula rassa cybernetic-asari to play with, her being a mirror to all of our actions.  A second Shepard/Shepard's biotic command-servant on a leash would've been quite amazing, though no one's really complaining because she can't own buttons.
6) RPG cliche: #140 Law of NPC Relativity (Magus Rule): Why does a 1000 year old unarmed killing machine bother with squad based combat, guns or...walking?
Total: 2.25

Morinth: Samara's sexual predator brain-vampire daughter.  The Temptress (Hero's Journey.)
The point: 1) Story: The target of Samara's life.  The point of your sex life: death (0)
2) Ship upgrade: more fuel (+0.25)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Dominate.  Useful (+1)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be the bubble-girl for survival ending.  Corollary: Jack, Samara (+1)
5) Reality: There's absolutely no story based reason to kill Samara, but you get the choice anyway.  For completionists who like sexual predators.  Unless you danced like an idiot, then to hell with the code.
Total: 2.25

Jack: Anti-Cerberus.  Biotic science experiment on a little girl gone awry.  We can love a pissed off bald body tattooed hardened **** with beautiful eyes, lips and voice, who just wants a hug: or to kill you?  (I never quite understood Jack.)
The point: 1) Story: No matter how pro-Cerberus railroaded the game is, Cerberus is still messed up. (+0.25 -- yes, this gets points)
2) Ship upgrade: none (0)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Warp Ammo.  Squad Warp Ammo is useful, and perhaps the best ammo type (+0.75)
4) Suicide mission: needed to be the bubble-girl for survival ending.  Corollary: Samara, Morinth (+1)
5) Reality: Website said she was a psychopath: no sir.  She just had a really bad childhood.  I would've loved to see an actual psychopath, and have TIM explain why we needed such a person.  Also for all the development the designers put into her intricate full body tattoos, we can barely see them.  The artist just started drawing her from every angle, and never stopped.  Could we have gotten at least a story on one tattoo?
6) RPG cliche: #140 Law of NPC Relativity (Magus Rule): Why does an unarmed super biotic that took out a maximum security prison bother with squad based combat?
Total: 2

Mordin: Token Solarian.  Genius scientist.  Heck, only scientist.  Comic relief.  The Supernatural Aid (Hero's Journey)
1) Story: The only plot-necessary character the game gives you.  Should have a higher score, but each section only gets a max of 1.  Provides defense against Collectors.  Allows for all upgrades to occur. (+1)
2) Ship upgrade: none (0)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Neural shock. (+0.5)
4) Suicide mission: useless (0)
5) Reality: Honestly, I thought he'd be a mad scientist doing rather unethical things for the end goal, fit right in with Cerberus.  Only ethically gray area was the genophage, which in his character video said he "destroyed" a race, which is clearly false as he strongly describes.  Reminds me of Earthworm Jim.
Total: 1.5

Grunt: Token Krogan, who's "genetically pure".  (That description should get negative points.) 
The point: 1) Story.  Was supposed to be a Krogan scientist.  We get his experiment.  Well, it's the only character dossier with a twist, and he is arguably the best soldier (+0.25)
2) Ship upgrade: none (0)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Fortification.  One of many shield skills (+0.5)
4) Suicide mission: useless (0)
5) Reality: Probably just used to show the Krogan homeworld and its culture.
Total: 0.75

Thane: Super assassin.  Token Drell.  We can love a VCR guy who rationally accepts it's okay to kill people because of his body not being his mind.  Apparently a snappy dresser with a hole in the back of his shirt.  Has a few philosophical and spiritual things to say, and fills us in about the fate of his species and it's culture.  He's got a year to live: so bring on the suicide mission!  He'll be really useful...
1) Story: ...or not. (0)
2) Ship upgrade: x2 probes (+0.25).  (How is being able to store more probes...?  What, smaller probes?  Did he just get specs on adding another compartment to the Normandy?  Clean out the shuttle bay?  Isn't playing pin the probe on the planet 30 times bad enough?)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Shredder Ammo. Not too useful (+0.25)
4) Suicide mission: useless (0)
5) Reality: Super fast, super memory, super experience, super assassin, right?  Why do we have an assassin?  Who are we trying to assassinate?  I can see the infiltration angle: if that was a requirement in the suicide mission.
6) RPG cliche: #140 Law of NPC Relativity (Magus Rule): This should be relabled the Thane Rule.  BioWare has to stop those Sacred Ashes-type trailers.
Total: 0.5

Zaeed: DLC Bounty hunter.  I'm waxing goddamned nostalgic over here. 
1) Story: Paid by TIM.  His selections continue to be circumspect.  You'd think he'd just ask Shepard what he needed or something. (0)
2) Ship upgrade: none (0)
3) Loyalty unlockable: Inferno Grenade.  Not too useful (+0.25)
4) Suicide mission: useless (0) (And here I thought'd he'd be a perfect leader)
Total: 0.25

So all we really need are 4: Tali/Legion, Miranda/Jacob/Garrus, Samara-Morinth/Jack, and Mordin.  And that still sounds like too many.  Truly: some new characters can be combined.  Decreasing the number of characters allows the writers and developers to flesh relevant characters out more.  Sure, the scope of ME2 can be labeled as epic; it doesn't mean we need to be towing people around that don't actually do anything.  Sure, I like Thane: he's just in the wrong story.  (Either that, or the final strategy by Shepard ended up being more military troop-deployment, instead of special-ops.  If Thane actually killed someone relevant, or killed anyone, or did something as Thane and not as Garrus, because that's what his character is, then sure.  But don't pull Chekhov's gun on entire characters and not use them.)

My solution: write the ending first.

Modifié par smudboy, 11 février 2010 - 03:44 .

[SomethinNothing]

Diversity is good. I much prefer Thane over Garrus, though I do like Garrus too. I see them as very different characters though despite the pointless similarities you suggested.

Modifié par SomethinNothing, 02 février 2010 - 08:03 .

[ashmiranda3waymm]

Personally I found the characters to be quite enjoyable to the fullest. Giving both Samara and Thane 0 for their stories is quite a sham in my opinion. Did you even speak with them?

[SomethinNothing]

ashmiranda3waymm wrote...

Personally I found the characters to be quite enjoyable to the fullest. Giving both Samara and Thane 0 for their stories is quite a sham in my opinion. Did you even speak with them?

This as well.

[Direwolf029]

ashmiranda3waymm wrote...

Personally I found the characters to be quite enjoyable to the fullest. Giving both Samara and Thane 0 for their stories is quite a sham in my opinion. Did you even speak with them?

I loved the Thane quest. Made me feel like a cop.

[ComTrav]

I don't think he's rating Samara or Thane 0 for their stories, but 0 as their relevance to the MAIN story.



I feel like Samara should get a little bonus, though...it doesn't feel like Mass Effect without an asari around.

[SlySpy00]

Yes, to complete the suicide mission itself, you need those people to do those tasks. So why not just have them recruitable? Simple; that would be too convenient and unrealistic. You are acquiring these people because of their reputation and skills. It's not like you can forsee the future and go, "Well, Thane really won't be that important for the mission, so I'm just going to skip him. Being an oracle kicks ass." You're taking all these people with you because you need as much help as you can get for the suicide mission. Coveniently having just enough people on your side doing all the vital tasks for the mission is not realistic at all, unless you were an oracle.

[NeonMeat]

The large number of squad mates was my main issue with ME2 (along with the main quest but thats for another thread...). Having so many characters with only a short time to flesh them out was a bad design decision i think. I would have preferred that they halved the number of squad mates to 6, which would have meant you could have one character of each class to choose from, and doubled the length and detail of their personal missions.



I'm not saying that all the characters and personal quests in ME2 are bad, some of them are certainly enjoyable, but the depth is not there. Everything feels so separated and boxed off from the other elements, both in terms of the missions and how they link together, and in the inter-personal relations with the characters themselves.



I strongly hope that BioWare regain a sense of focus for ME3 so we can get a main mission of decent length and detail, and some deep character development and storytelling. If we are met with a similar number of characters all fighting over limited game time i think we could end up with another game that fails to capture a really epic and cohesive feel.

[RiouHotaru]

I feel the number of characters was fine. The point of TIM wanting you to recruit all these folks was so you had a diverse roster of skills and abilities. Otherwise the entire suicide mission would've ended with a total party kill.



Also, a number of your scores feel incredibly arbitrary or silly. It seems as though you never really took the time to talk to your squadmates and learn their stories much, OP.

[LucidStrike]

I don't care why they introduced Jack. I'm just glad they did.

Modifié par LucidStrike, 02 février 2010 - 09:08 .

[AiusLocutius]

I suppose Zaeed was a marketting strategy to ensure original game sellings in middle east due to demand on pirate versions around...

[LucidStrike]

AiusLocutius wrote...

I suppose Zaeed was a marketting strategy to ensure original game sellings in middle east due to demand on pirate versions around...

...The Middle East...? O_o

[Shady314]

To be fair Mordin supplies you with nearly every upgrade to the Team's equipment you can get. From a realistic standpoint he's essential unless you want to go in with less than state of the art weaponry and protection.

Modifié par Shady314, 02 février 2010 - 09:11 .

[KalosCast]

If we get all the characters we need to get choices, we complain that they're superfluous and contribute nothing to the game as a whole.

If we get only the characters we need to pull off the story, we complain that we've been railroaded and that our squad members are contrived conveniences.

And then it doesn't even matter in the end because everybody who isn't a fanboy that bought it at launch is gonna torrent it anyway.

Welcome to game design.

Modifié par KalosCast, 02 février 2010 - 09:13 .

[David Hingtgen]

Legion should get +2 for story. What he reveals about the geth regarding ME 1 etc is pretty much equal to everything ME 2 has in the main plot. His info is up there with Tali's dialogues in ME 1 for "really enriches the background story".

[ShadowWolf_Kell]

RiouHotaru wrote...

I feel the number of characters was fine. The point of TIM wanting you to recruit all these folks was so you had a diverse roster of skills and abilities. Otherwise the entire suicide mission would've ended with a total party kill.

Also, a number of your scores feel incredibly arbitrary or silly. It seems as though you never really took the time to talk to your squadmates and learn their stories much, OP.

That's how I read into it too.  Obviously there's really no objectivity to it and just pet peeving.  So the whole wall of text gets a 0.25 imo.


In many ways, ME2 reminds me of how the Matrix was when it first came out, and the massive uproar about the movie.  Like Matrix, there are many layers to the story, the characters and to what's going on.  It just goes over some people's heads, so rather than try to understand the story, personalities and whatnot, they revert to seeing it purely as an action entertainment device.  It wasn't until the third movie that people slapped their foreheads and whent "OH I GET IT!"

Yeah, you get the idea. 

Modifié par ShadowWolf_Kell, 02 février 2010 - 09:22 .

[Felix Golden]

One reason to have them on the suicide mission: They hold the line! and when you split up for distraction you should have a good number of folk to go one way and the others to go another way.

[Radahldo]

I didnt find this amusing in the least

[4thofeleven]

I kind of felt that there were a few too many characters - I mean, they were all interesting in their own ways, but some seemed a little superfluous to the story.



Thane in particular I thought ended up a little oddly handled - he's on the box art, he gets a really memorable intro, he's romanceable... and his skills are utterly useless to the mission. Grunt and Zaeed shouldn't be put in charge of things, but it makes sense Shepard would recruit some extra muscle, but Thane's skills are so specific I assumed he'd play a major role in the end-game.

[AtreiyaN7]

*points OP at the actual movie The Dirty Dozen*

[paysage]

While I really liked each character and his/her/its backstory and missions when looked at individually, I feel there's some validity in what the OP is saying. I'm not saying this as a major criticism--more of a vague observation.

I can't say exactly who I'd have cut (again, having been introduced to all of them, I now really like all of them), but I feel it would have been even closer to perfect (trust me, it was already damn close:)) with fewer characters, the difference being made up by another or deeper main story mission(s) or by more interactions between the reduced squad. I feel a smaller cast would have also made it easier for them to create a truly satisfying carry-over system in the trilogy by reducing the number of permutations of who's alive or who did what.

Modifié par paysage, 02 février 2010 - 09:47 .

[smudboy]

SlySpy00 wrote...

Yes, to complete the suicide mission
itself, you need those people to do those tasks. So why not just have
them recruitable? Simple; that would be too convenient and unrealistic.
You are acquiring these people because of their reputation and skills.
It's not like you can forsee the future and go, "Well, Thane really
won't be that important for the mission, so I'm just going to skip him.
Being an oracle kicks ass." You're taking all these people with you
because you need as much help as you can get for the suicide mission.
Coveniently having just enough people on your side doing all the vital
tasks for the mission is not realistic at all, unless you were an
oracle.

I think it's safe to guess, Shepard being the military genius-artist he is, that you're going to need a tech specialist (alien technology), a scientist (perform upgrades on the ship, defend against their weapons), and an experienced spec-ops/infiltrator (which is why I thought Zaaed would be perfect.)  I thought a demolitions expert would've been ideal, too.  Thane sounds perfect, but his FMV powers get reduced via RPG cliché #140.  Biotic bubble-girl was indeed a duct-tape solution, which I should've been something Mordin could have thought of/developed eventually before the suicide mission.  Nonetheless, bubble-girl is plot vital.

RiouHotaru wrote...

I feel the number of characters was
fine. The point of TIM wanting you to recruit all these folks was so
you had a diverse roster of skills and abilities. Otherwise the entire
suicide mission would've ended with a total party kill.

Also, a
number of your scores feel incredibly arbitrary or silly. It seems as
though you never really took the time to talk to your squadmates and
learn their stories much, OP.

What diverse roster of skills and abilities exactly?  For example, if Harbinger was the Hive Mind behind the Collector base, it'd be logical to take an assassin to take him out.  But this never happened.  The characters stories, as interesting as they are, have nothing to do with the main plot, including Tali and Garrus.  Aside from Shepard and Cerberus, there was no character who's entire motivation or backstory was to fight the Collectors.

Shady314 wrote...

To be fair Mordin supplies you with
nearly every upgrade to the Team's equipment you can get. From a
realistic standpoint he's essential unless you want to go in with less
than state of the art weaponry and protection.

Mordin is singularly the most important character:

smudboy wrote...
So all we really need are 4: Tali/Legion, Miranda/Jacob/Garrus, Samara-Morinth/Jack, and Mordin. 

  Mordin is to ME2 (seeker swarm protection) what Tali is to ME1 (Saran evidence).  Without them, no plot progression.

KalosCast wrote...

If we get all the characters we need
to get choices, we complain that they're superfluous and contribute
nothing to the game as a whole.

If we get only the characters we
need to pull off the story, we complain that we've been railroaded and
that our squad members are contrived conveniences.

If we get only the characters we need, we get a much richer, logical, deeper story, filled with meaningful characters in it: You want to know more about Mordin, you want to help him out in his loyalty mission; he's essential: You need him.  Anything that doesn't move the plot, or advance your winning chances, is useless (that said, nearly everyone, save their upgrades, is useless to the plot, save Mordin.)

David Hingtgen wrote...

Legion should get +2 for story.
What he reveals about the geth regarding ME 1 etc is pretty much equal
to everything ME 2 has in the main plot. His info is up there with
Tali's dialogues in ME 1 for "really enriches the background story".

The scoring only goes up to +1.  Legion would've gotten a +1, if this was ME1.  The geth are not the main enemy force in ME2.  This is why Mordin got +1.

Modifié par smudboy, 02 février 2010 - 03:34 .

[MrVincent]

What are all these numberz on my interwebs?

[marshalleck]

Easy. They want maybe 6-8 characters in ME3.



Give the players 10 in ME2, with the assumption that some will probably die on the suicide mission.



Then bring back the ME1 romances in ME3 and you've hit your target number of companions, give or take a few depending on game imports.

[marshalleck]

wtf double posting

Modifié par marshalleck, 02 février 2010 - 03:29 .