16 réponses à ce sujet

[GarethLorn]

It's all there in the title.

Prior to actually playing the game, I had expected the suicide mission to be long and epic, possibly spanning several planets and definitely multiple in-game missions. I had expected loyalty to be a huge factor. As an example:

You are in a party with loyal Grunt and loyal Jacob. You are pinned down. Meanwhile, loyal Tali and loyal Garrus are planting charges to blow up some Collector shield or whatever and weaken the facility so Joker can attack. You need Thane to come and rescue you, so you don't die in the explosion. However, Thane is disloyal, and sees the opposition crawling around you. He is not willing to risk his life to save you. Shepard dies in the explosion, Collectors are beaten.

Another example:

For the entire game, Jacob and Miranda have slowly been splitting apart as Jacob more and more starts to dislike Cerberus, and Jacon becomes even more loyal to them. While Shepard and some others are off doing something, Miranda and Jacob have been left alone on the Normandy. Miranda is not loyal to you, and thus not willing to put the mission above her feelings and personal sense of duty. Miranda goes to "apologise" to Jacob. When he turns his back to her, she shoots him as a liability.

As for loyalty itself, I had expected something more akin to the KotOR II Influence System. I was very surprised when I saw that loyalty was handled on a mission-to-mission basis. I had thought it would be more dialog-centric, and depend on your actions everywhere. An example is Tali. Now, at the beginning of the game, let's say you send Veetor to Cerberus. Later on in the game, you get Reegor killed. Now, when Tali joins your party and you go to talk to her, she questions you about your decision on Veetor. Unless you have a high enough Charm/Intimidate to convince her you did what was necessary and it's all okay, you use some loyalty. Then, she mentions Reegor. You insult him and dishonor his sacrifice. More loyalty lost. Later, during the actual loyalty mission, you disgrace her father. More loyalty lost. Finally, during some random sidequest on the Citadel, you punch someone in the face. Zaeed is all, "Lolz Shep, reminds me of the time I was..." and Tali is all, "Shepard, how could you?!". You gain loyalty from Zaeed and lose it from Tali.

Anyone remember Onderon, in KotOR II? There was a lady who needed a passport to get off of the world, but couldn't offer anything in return. If you helped her instead of the rich guy who was willing to pay you, Kreia saw you as weak and you lost Influence with her, but Bao-Dur approved of your good deed and you gained Influence with him. Something like that. I was expecting ME2 to basically handle like a polished, Mass Effect version of KotOR 2, but with influence actually being important the overall gameplay instead of just dialog options.

Anyway, sorry for the blocks of text. I just wanted to open up a discussion on the matter, since it was one of the things in ME2 that I really felt could have been handled better. I

[ShoepZA]

I agree for the most part. It doesn't make sense that a character's death occur depending on whether or not they are loyal. It would have made sense that their deaths occurred as a result of them not being loyal to you, i.e. disobeying an order or not agreeing with a decision and thereby walking into a potentially dangerous situation

[Beechwell]

I didn't even know there was a suicide mission until I played it.

For the most part I really liked it. A complex mission with several vital decisions regarding skills and loyalty of squad members. My only complaints are that loyalts only affects ability to survive and not their willingness to follow Shepard's command.

For examply it would have been nice for jack to balk at being in a team led by Miranda, or Miranda turning against you if you decide to destroy the base (and Jacob if you decide to keep it).



Also I'm glad that loyalty isn't as connected to role play decisions as in KOTOR 2. I always had to sacrifice character play in conversations if I wanted to influence people. On the other hand I think it is generally too easy to succeed in gaining their loyalty. I think it was handled goof in Tali's case for example; but can you even fail Garrus' mission?

[InvaderErl]

The loyalty element comes off sometimes as more a matter of whether or not they're focused on the battle rather than being distracted by concerns and other personal issues.

[Darnalak]

Eh, the Loyalty mechanic was a good way of acknowledging your efforts. if you need more of a reason, look at it this way. If a Person is loyal to you, it means that they feel, in thier gutz that even if they disagree with your decision, that you're doing it because it's the best for all, and they take that to heart. In the end, this is a game, they have to have SOME game mechanic to control how the flow plays out, and I think they put this fully in your hands with the loyalty mechanic.

[Archdemon Cthulhu]

I liked how the suicide mission was handled personally, I didn't expect it to be more than than the final battle in ME1.



I agree that I expected a KoToR II/ Dragon Age style of loyalty originally though. I don't mind the version they put in, because they made it work well, but I was originally expecting it to depend on dialog choices and such as well.

[keginkc]

I didn't have an issue with it. The loyalty missions were essentially you, Shepard, giving each member of your squad a final request before you led them into the final battle. I do think it would have made a bit more sense for their survival (when grouped with you) to be tied to something like damage protection upgrades (so survive the falling debris...) rather than loyalty, but, again, I didn't really have any issue with it. Going through their missions with them, talking to them before and after, made me care more about whether they lived or died in the end, which was what I think the real point was.  In some ways, the way it was handled in this game reflected the urgency of the mission.  Instead of spending hours talking in a camp in DOA to learn their history, you learned through some of the dialogue, but also learned a great deal during the missions themselves.  But, although you did learn a lot about them, it did sort of keep more to the whole idea that you're on a time-sensitive mission that would likely end in everybody's death.

Modifié par keginkc, 09 février 2010 - 08:54 .

[Ninja Ataris]

I honestly think it worked better than I had expected.



If someone dies it's all because the player effed up. It isn't an arbitrary choice a la ME1 and as such a vast improvement imo.



And the fact that someone can die due to lacking loyalty is all about morale, when someone's inspired they'll fight harder. It's at the very least a good abstraction. Keep in mind upgrades affect the results as well though.

[Skilled Seeker]

I enjoyed how it played out though I did expect it to be a little longer since you were gearing up the entire game for this one mission.

[Nastrod]

ShoepZA wrote...

I agree for the most part. It doesn't make sense that a character's death occur depending on whether or not they are loyal. It would have made sense that their deaths occurred as a result of them not being loyal to you, i.e. disobeying an order or not agreeing with a decision and thereby walking into a potentially dangerous situation

There is a HUGE difference between a general that is very well studied at westpoint and a Sgt. that has the pure respect of his men. That Sgt. that the  men may trust so much they would follow threw the gates of hell singing a cadence but the more studied General may be one the soldiers know he is not good leader at all under combat. Saying or acting like a leader does not make you a leader. Hell even Miranda said something close about Shep. She was made to be the best but she could never lead like he could


There is a HUGE difference between a ranking officer and a true trusted leader even if he is lower ranked.

When the bullets fly is when real leaders shine. Rules mean crap in real a bloody war but the warriors will follow a leader they trust...one they are loyal to

[Obadiah]

I thought there weren't enough options in the suicide mission. I would have liked to have tried other tactics/plans besides the one you are rail-roaded down, each taking into account your team's loyalty to varying degrees. Guess that is a bit much to design, though (although, even Virmire had two ways you could get into the base).

[Nozybidaj]

I was quite disappointed in both of those actually. They are completely binary, there is no variation at all. The DA:O loyalty system while very simplistic was much better. I was expecting to see something similar but improved from that. What we got was a light switch, either loyal or not, that's all. Shepard's actions throughout the game had zero effect on it. The one and only thing that mattered was if you did the loyalty mission or not. If you did, loyal. If you didn't, not loyal. End of story.



Same thing with the suicide mission. You either pick the right person or you didn't. It was far too easy to get everyone out alive. It actually takes more planning and direct action by the player to get people killed in the suicide mission than it does to get them through alive.



I suppose they choose these overly simplified mechanics based on their target audience, but for myself it was not engaging at all and really detracts from re-playability.

[JrayM16]

Agreed, more options. Also, it wasnt nearly as hard as they said to bring everyone back. First playthrough, no spoilers, I only lost Zaeed and my entire crew survived.

[ShoepZA]

Nastrod-



That's a perspective i hadn't considered - Thank you

[ranzarok]

I enjoyed it and the loyalty mechanic was a good way to keep the game going in a forward direction. Towards the beginning of the game, you get a message from the consort basically telling you that's what you need to do in order to succeed (I guess you only get that if you completed the consort mission in ME1?).

[keginkc]

I think it was less about target audience and more about trying to fit so much into the game. Maybe they could have opted for more endgame options had there been half as many companions. Limited resources to start out with, spread among so many.

[We Tigers]

I was a little surprised at how easy it was to get everyone loyal and keep them that way.  Like the OP, I was expecting a slightly more variable loyalty system.  I didn't expect I'd be able to persuade out of things like the Tali/Legion confrontation, or Zaeed's mission if you let Vido get away.   Really, if you max your negotiation bonus and gradually fill up one of the two meters, it's hard not to get everyone loyal unless you're actively RPing not to.  I also thought there would be a larger number of situations where you could gain or lose loyalty, but keeping the single-point-of-failure plus the two on-ship confrontations meant you could focus on the characters instead of constantly trying to make sure everyone was happy.  Ultimately, once I figured that out, I was pretty happy with it because it let me enjoy the game.

The suicide mission itself was really fun, and I thought it had a good number of decision points.  I got everyone out alive, which surprised me again, but Bioware did a good job of keeping things really tense throughout.  The best was the fakeout with the leader of the distraction team--Jacob got shot in the gut, but still made it.  Looking around, I see that only a couple of characters survive that scene if you choose them.