To help balance the ability to transition from Shepard to squadmate, there could be a cooldown on switching (while having the AI preserve Shepard's body, if possible). It could also be an option for when Shepard dies - you can simply move onto commanding another squadmate as this death means nothing. After all, I'm sure there are people who would love to play as Garrus or Tali or Thane or Legion, even momentarily before releasing control. Perhaps if we can start a petition, then I will direct this personally and hope that they take notice.
I know you feel this, BioWare. As inventory and abilities have been simplified and streamlined (and we've been able to play as Joker in ME2), I don't see how this hurts you to include this feature in Mass Effect 3.
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EDITED POST: After reading a couple of suggestions from this thread and others, I'm sure there is a balance between adding a new 'feature' while not becoming like Dragon Age (although some people still insist that the story solely focus on Shepard). I'll list the suggestions in order of least likely to most likely to happen in Mass Effect 3, so take what is useful and destroy the rest.
1. Switch away from Shepard when he dies - If an enemy manages to neutralize Commander Shepard, you can switch to another squadmate upon death, one who gets a chance to medi-gel Shepard back while you continue attack. Yes, it seems like you've merely delayed the inevitable save reload, but at least it's not an automatic loss when you cannot resist staying out of cover a split-second too long.
2. Multi-squad missions - Suggested on a different thread, we need more missions that involve more than 3 people (Virmire, Collector Suicide Mission), but not necessarily assuming control or command of more than 3. We are not finished with the trilogy and we have at least 17 possible squadmates to see in ME3 without introducing new ones. Yet, there's no feeling of 'We fight as one' when most missions involve taking 3 people and leaving several behind on the Normandy. It would be even better if we could, in some form, control the leaders of side teams working in parallel with Shepard after Shepard completes his part. Even though this form is redundant, it certainly would extend the gameplay for multi-squad missions (and radio transmissions from the other team is NOT gameplay).
--On an added note, why couldn't we send Shepard to do some of the suicide mission tasks if enough of your allies have fallen? Shepard is capable of being a tech expert or biotic, is he/she not? For example, if you played an Infiltrator or Engineer Shepard, you could have been useful in running the vents yourself. If you played a Vanguard or Adept, you could have made the biotic shield. At the same time, you would control one of your other squadmates as they lead the primary team (of course, you can't just ignore the fallen when Shepard dies in the vents, so the choice of picking a good team leader matters even more!)
3. Short character-only side quests - Although this may be a problem since anyone can die in the final mission - and the dead are useless when it comes to extra quests, isn't it possible that BioWare can add side tasks or quests where we play as someone other than Joker? Even if it's just a Garrus calibration mission or simply running Garrus around the Citadel being discriminated against by C-Sec Security, at least we can have the experience of 'This is what you face everyday as a Turian' without drawing away from Shepard's story too much. After being able to play as Joker, I wouldn't be surprised if they took this route.
I hope BioWare at least considers one of these ideas, as they seem to drastically change gameplay elements with each Mass Effect while listening to the player's and critic's complaints. After all, no other series can quite embrace perfection like Mass Effect does...
Modifié par Ecael, 24 février 2010 - 04:00 .
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