10273 réponses à ce sujet

[Sidney]

bjdbwea wrote...
Guess what. All that "Moon Patrol stuff" is 100% optional. You find the side quests that are part of any good RPG unrealistic, just ignore them. Your loss, but at least you played the game 100% realistically. Except for all the other unrealistic stuff that you happen to like and therefore don't complain about of course.

Yes but in that case the game is what, 10 hours long. That's a lot of lost content. ME2's plot structure allows me to enjoy all that extra-content pretty much guilt free in terms of playing my character.

There' just not a lot of ways to argue that in terms of serving the master of a game structure ME2's plot doesn't force as much suspension of disbelief as ME1.

[Sidney]

worm_burner wrote...

Actually ME2 pretty much does make you do them but I don't want to argue about that.  They are more interesting now, but i don't like how they are more or less considered part of the main story.  I think it is needed that we get to know the squad better and have background on them, but not at the cost of the main missions.  The loyalty missions in my opinion were actually more engaging than the actual plot quests.  Shouldn't the main quests be a more dominant factor than the loyalty missions?

The loyalty mission are the main plot or at least coequal to the collector plot lines. They aren't "side quests" like the mines missions or something.

[uberdowzen]

worm_burner wrote...

Actually ME2 pretty much does make you do them but I don't want to argue about that.  They are more interesting now, but i don't like how they are more or less considered part of the main story.  I think it is needed that we get to know the squad better and have background on them, but not at the cost of the main missions.  The loyalty missions in my opinion were actually more engaging than the actual plot quests.  Shouldn't the main quests be a more dominant factor than the loyalty missions?

But that is the plot. The story of the game is about Shepherd building his sucide squad. Just because it's not a generic sci-fi story that's about killing the generic villain doesn't mean it's bad.

[Ecael]

uberdowzen wrote...

Ecael wrote...

I'll make signatures of my own then...

For those who are tired of people bashing BioWare and think both games are equally great:

(Add brackets to the ends)

img]http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8614/caela1a.jpg[/img
img]http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2764/caela1b.jpg[/img

For those who either like all the romances or think they're all equally shallow:

(Add brackets to the ends)

img]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3899/caela2a.jpg[/img
img]http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/9921/caela2b.jpg[/img

I'll make one for 'splosions if you admit that both ME1 and ME2 have more 'splosions and shooting than lines of dialogue.

Oh man, you're the best thing that ever happened to this thread. I'd put your awesome sig in mine except I think I'd have to ditch mine to fit it in.

Here's one for those who don't want the DERP picture in it:

(Add brackets to the ends)

img]http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/5319/caela3a.jpg[/img
img]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/828/caela3b.jpg[/img

Modifié par Ecael, 25 mai 2010 - 02:50 .

[Iakus]

uberdowzen wrote...

worm_burner wrote...

Actually ME2 pretty much does make you do them but I don't want to argue about that.  They are more interesting now, but i don't like how they are more or less considered part of the main story.  I think it is needed that we get to know the squad better and have background on them, but not at the cost of the main missions.  The loyalty missions in my opinion were actually more engaging than the actual plot quests.  Shouldn't the main quests be a more dominant factor than the loyalty missions?

But that is the plot. The story of the game is about Shepherd building his sucide squad. Just because it's not a generic sci-fi story that's about killing the generic villain doesn't mean it's bad.

Building the squad for what exactly?  What was Shepard planning on doing with this squad before the Collector attack kickstarted things?  TIM sends Shepard on a bunch of "fetch" quests to pick up specialists (without knowing what exactly is needed, where they were going, what they're planning on doing once they get wherever they're going) to go on a suicide mission through the MacGuffin 4 relay.  I mean Omega 4 relay.

And no, it's bad (or at least mediocre) because it's an action game without a villain at all.  There's a threat Shepard circles about, but never directly faces.  A mystery Shepard never investigates, just gets info dumps from EDI. 

Recruitment and loyalty missions are fine, but only for the first act.  After that you need to show the audience why they're here.  Why are these specialists needed?  What do we know about the mission?  The enemy?  How will these personalities mesh?  How about some practice runs to see how well these strangers will work together?  ME 2 spends so much time having Shepard get to know the individual squad members, it neglects telling us about the whole purpose for this mission.

Prospective mercenary "What's the job?"
Commander Shepard" We're going to stop the Collectors from abducting colonies"
Merc: "Great!  How we gonna do that?"
Shep: "Uh...find their base, and, I dunno, stop them."
Merc:  "Who are the Collectors anyway?"
Shep: "Umm...kinda...buglike...things"
Merc "What kind of defenses we gonna be up against?"
Shep: "Not sure.  One ship took the old Normandy apart easy enough.  And I guess there'll be stuff in the base too..."
Merc: "You at least know where their base is?'
Shep: "Somewhere on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, we think.  You know, the one nobody ever comes back from."
Merc: "So what do you need?  Biotics?  Sneaky types?  Big bad melee fighters?  Ship gunner?"
Shep: "Maybe,  I dunno.  Look, The Illusive Man recommended you, and I had to kill like fifty Blue Suns mercenaries to get to you.  You want in or not?"
Merc: "You know, this plan's stating to look kinda half-baked, I think I'll wait for Mass Effect 3.  Now excuse me, I'm going to go visit my sick mother"
Shep "You need some help with that?""

What  ends up being the "generic villain"?  Mercs.  The Terminus Systems are much emptier now that Shepard's cleared them out..  In fact, Shepard is their "salvation through destruction", not Harbringer.

[uberdowzen]

iakus wrote...

Building the squad for what exactly?  What was Shepard planning on doing with this squad before the Collector attack kickstarted things?  TIM sends Shepard on a bunch of "fetch" quests to pick up specialists (without knowing what exactly is needed, where they were going, what they're planning on doing once they get wherever they're going) to go on a suicide mission through the MacGuffin 4 relay.  I mean Omega 4 relay.

And no, it's bad (or at least mediocre) because it's an action game without a villain at all.  There's a threat Shepard circles about, but never directly faces.  A mystery Shepard never investigates, just gets info dumps from EDI. 

Recruitment and loyalty missions are fine, but only for the first act.  After that you need to show the audience why they're here.  Why are these specialists needed?  What do we know about the mission?  The enemy?  How will these personalities mesh?  How about some practice runs to see how well these strangers will work together?  ME 2 spends so much time having Shepard get to know the individual squad members, it neglects telling us about the whole purpose for this mission.

Prospective mercenary "What's the job?"
Commander Shepard" We're going to stop the Collectors from abducting colonies"
Merc: "Great!  How we gonna do that?"
Shep: "Uh...find their base, and, I dunno, stop them."
Merc:  "Who are the Collectors anyway?"
Shep: "Umm...kinda...buglike...things"
Merc "What kind of defenses we gonna be up against?"
Shep: "Not sure.  One ship took the old Normandy apart easy enough.  And I guess there'll be stuff in the base too..."
Merc: "You at least know where their base is?'
Shep: "Somewhere on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, we think.  You know, the one nobody ever comes back from."
Merc: "So what do you need?  Biotics?  Sneaky types?  Big bad melee fighters?  Ship gunner?"
Shep: "Maybe,  I dunno.  Look, The Illusive Man recommended you, and I had to kill like fifty Blue Suns mercenaries to get to you.  You want in or not?"
Merc: "You know, this plan's stating to look kinda half-baked, I think I'll wait for Mass Effect 3.  Now excuse me, I'm going to go visit my sick mother"
Shep "You need some help with that?""

What  ends up being the "generic villain"?  Mercs.  The Terminus Systems are much emptier now that Shepard's cleared them out..  In fact, Shepard is their "salvation through destruction", not Harbringer.

For starters, you went through the whole of Mass Effect not knowing what you were actually trying to achieve. Quite a large portion of the game is spent chasing leads which don't turn up anything. You know that the collector base is on the other end of the Omega 4 relay (because that's always where the Collectors come from). When you're building the team, you don't know exactly what you'll face but a) you'll still need a team to investigate the collectors (I guess you should just do what you did in ME1 and hope some squadmates turn up while you're investigating) and surely not knowing what you're going to face would encourage you to build a more diverse team.

Also remember that presumably the surviving members of your squad (maybe losing a few) will still be your team in ME3. ME2 is the middle part of an ongoing trilogy and ME3 is the part where all your descions are going to come back to you. Mark my words.

Also, very few people complain about DAO's plot, yet for most of it you don't even know how to kill the Arch Demon.

[Dudeman315]

But in both ME1 and DAO you know your goals--find out more about the prothean vision, find the conduit and confront Saren--, DAO--use treaties for support, stop the blight-- Clear goals that make sense not recruit people to "boldly go where no man has gone before" and stop a mysterious threat that no one really knows anything about nor what to expect on the other side an armada, a base, planet, multiples of any of that, a series of relays to dark space? Just because there are plot twist changes the goal doesn't eliminate that you reasonable could plan for these events.



Characters in the first join to investigate an have the thrill of being spectre-lite, to fight(I know not really a great reason), save face for the alliance, are fascinated by your connection to their area of study, or simply because you are a safe place to hide and you are trying to take down the same person that almost had them killed, not die(suicide mission) on a mission that about half of them have no personal investment in or anything to gain from it other than some human (who saved people in government controlled space and is working for a human supremacist group) said the fate of the galaxy depended on it.

[Wintermist]

iakus wrote...

Building the squad for what exactly?  What was Shepard planning on doing with this squad before the Collector attack kickstarted things?  TIM sends Shepard on a bunch of "fetch" quests to pick up specialists (without knowing what exactly is needed, where they were going, what they're planning on doing once they get wherever they're going) to go on a suicide mission through the MacGuffin 4 relay.  I mean Omega 4 relay.

And no, it's bad (or at least mediocre) because it's an action game without a villain at all.  There's a threat Shepard circles about, but never directly faces.  A mystery Shepard never investigates, just gets info dumps from EDI. 

Recruitment and loyalty missions are fine, but only for the first act.  After that you need to show the audience why they're here.  Why are these specialists needed?  What do we know about the mission?  The enemy?  How will these personalities mesh?  How about some practice runs to see how well these strangers will work together?  ME 2 spends so much time having Shepard get to know the individual squad members, it neglects telling us about the whole purpose for this mission.

Prospective mercenary "What's the job?"
Commander Shepard" We're going to stop the Collectors from abducting colonies"
Merc: "Great!  How we gonna do that?"
Shep: "Uh...find their base, and, I dunno, stop them."
Merc:  "Who are the Collectors anyway?"
Shep: "Umm...kinda...buglike...things"
Merc "What kind of defenses we gonna be up against?"
Shep: "Not sure.  One ship took the old Normandy apart easy enough.  And I guess there'll be stuff in the base too..."
Merc: "You at least know where their base is?'
Shep: "Somewhere on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, we think.  You know, the one nobody ever comes back from."
Merc: "So what do you need?  Biotics?  Sneaky types?  Big bad melee fighters?  Ship gunner?"
Shep: "Maybe,  I dunno.  Look, The Illusive Man recommended you, and I had to kill like fifty Blue Suns mercenaries to get to you.  You want in or not?"
Merc: "You know, this plan's stating to look kinda half-baked, I think I'll wait for Mass Effect 3.  Now excuse me, I'm going to go visit my sick mother"
Shep "You need some help with that?""

What  ends up being the "generic villain"?  Mercs.  The Terminus Systems are much emptier now that Shepard's cleared them out..  In fact, Shepard is their "salvation through destruction", not Harbringer.

You said it so well I'm just going to quote you on it. This is exactly how I feel.

[Iakus]

uberdowzen wrote...

For starters, you went through the whole of Mass Effect not knowing what you were actually trying to achieve. Quite a large portion of the game is spent chasing leads which don't turn up anything. You know that the collector base is on the other end of the Omega 4 relay (because that's always where the Collectors come from). When you're building the team, you don't know exactly what you'll face but a) you'll still need a team to investigate the collectors (I guess you should just do what you did in ME1 and hope some squadmates turn up while you're investigating) and surely not knowing what you're going to face would encourage you to build a more diverse team.

First, for the whle of ME 1 you know Saren is looking for "The Conduit"  You don't know what it is, but you gather clues to what it is through your investigations (The Cipher from Shiala and the thorian, the genetic memories of the rachni, Liara's Prothean expertise, and the beacon on Virmire)  The entire game is about learning what Saren's plan is, and bt by bit you put it together.  In ME2 you're trusting TIM (of all people!) to put it together for you and point you in the right direction.  And infodumps from EDI

Actually, I'd have just settled for investgating things at all.  Squadmates appearing would have been icing on the cake.  Squaddies with a vested interest in the outcome!  Concept!  And regarding a diverse team:  I was looking at these characters kind of as Chekhov's Squadmates. If a drell superassassin apears on the roster, you will at some point need a drell superassassin.  If a tank-bred krogen ends up on board...you get the idea.

uberdowzen wrote...

Also remember that presumably the surviving members of your squad (maybe losing a few) will still be your team in ME3. ME2 is the middle part of an ongoing trilogy and ME3 is the part where all your descions are going to come back to you. Mark my words.

Yeah, I admit, that almost complete cast turnover in Star Wars threw me too.  Oh, wait

Seriously though, I kinda hoped we'd see some decisions come back in ME 2. ME 2 is, after all, a sequel to ME 1. As it is, it looks like we aren't getting ME1-ME2-ME3, but ME1a-ME1b-ME2

uberdowzen wrote...

Also, very few people complain about DAO's plot, yet for most of it you don't even know how to kill the Arch Demon.

I think that's becasuse the assumption was the archdemon was like any other darkspawn, just more...draconic. Get an army, chop it up.   The fact that there's more to it was a Big Reveal.

[uberdowzen]

Dudeman315 wrote...

But in both ME1 and DAO you know your goals--find out more about the prothean vision, find the conduit and confront Saren--, DAO--use treaties for support, stop the blight-- Clear goals that make sense not recruit people to "boldly go where no man has gone before" and stop a mysterious threat that no one really knows anything about nor what to expect on the other side an armada, a base, planet, multiples of any of that, a series of relays to dark space? Just because there are plot twist changes the goal doesn't eliminate that you reasonable could plan for these events.

Characters in the first join to investigate an have the thrill of being spectre-lite, to fight(I know not really a great reason), save face for the alliance, are fascinated by your connection to their area of study, or simply because you are a safe place to hide and you are trying to take down the same person that almost had them killed, not die(suicide mission) on a mission that about half of them have no personal investment in or anything to gain from it other than some human (who saved people in government controlled space and is working for a human supremacist group) said the fate of the galaxy depended on it.

In DAO, at one point Sten confronts you and asks what your plan is. Even in game your character doesn't know what his/her plan is. And (I don't really want to do this because I love DAO) why are gathering the treaties? You don't even know how you're going to defeat the Darkspawn, why do you need an army?

In ME1, you don't even know what the conduit is. You're not even totally sure the Reapers exist. And why do you need anyone to come with you? You've always got your crew.

And remember that most of the crew of the Normandy think that going to Ilos is probably a suicide mission, they just don't make as big a deal out of it.

[RiotDragon]

iakus wrote...

uberdowzen wrote...

worm_burner wrote...

Actually ME2 pretty much does make you do them but I don't want to argue about that.  They are more interesting now, but i don't like how they are more or less considered part of the main story.  I think it is needed that we get to know the squad better and have background on them, but not at the cost of the main missions.  The loyalty missions in my opinion were actually more engaging than the actual plot quests.  Shouldn't the main quests be a more dominant factor than the loyalty missions?

But that is the plot. The story of the game is about Shepherd building his sucide squad. Just because it's not a generic sci-fi story that's about killing the generic villain doesn't mean it's bad.

Building the squad for what exactly?  What was Shepard planning on doing with this squad before the Collector attack kickstarted things?  TIM sends Shepard on a bunch of "fetch" quests to pick up specialists (without knowing what exactly is needed, where they were going, what they're planning on doing once they get wherever they're going) to go on a suicide mission through the MacGuffin 4 relay.  I mean Omega 4 relay.

And no, it's bad (or at least mediocre) because it's an action game without a villain at all.  There's a threat Shepard circles about, but never directly faces.  A mystery Shepard never investigates, just gets info dumps from EDI. 

Recruitment and loyalty missions are fine, but only for the first act.  After that you need to show the audience why they're here.  Why are these specialists needed?  What do we know about the mission?  The enemy?  How will these personalities mesh?  How about some practice runs to see how well these strangers will work together?  ME 2 spends so much time having Shepard get to know the individual squad members, it neglects telling us about the whole purpose for this mission.

Prospective mercenary "What's the job?"
Commander Shepard" We're going to stop the Collectors from abducting colonies"
Merc: "Great!  How we gonna do that?"
Shep: "Uh...find their base, and, I dunno, stop them."
Merc:  "Who are the Collectors anyway?"
Shep: "Umm...kinda...buglike...things"
Merc "What kind of defenses we gonna be up against?"
Shep: "Not sure.  One ship took the old Normandy apart easy enough.  And I guess there'll be stuff in the base too..."
Merc: "You at least know where their base is?'
Shep: "Somewhere on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, we think.  You know, the one nobody ever comes back from."
Merc: "So what do you need?  Biotics?  Sneaky types?  Big bad melee fighters?  Ship gunner?"
Shep: "Maybe,  I dunno.  Look, The Illusive Man recommended you, and I had to kill like fifty Blue Suns mercenaries to get to you.  You want in or not?"
Merc: "You know, this plan's stating to look kinda half-baked, I think I'll wait for Mass Effect 3.  Now excuse me, I'm going to go visit my sick mother"
Shep "You need some help with that?""

What  ends up being the "generic villain"?  Mercs.  The Terminus Systems are much emptier now that Shepard's cleared them out..  In fact, Shepard is their "salvation through destruction", not Harbringer.

Prospective mercenary "What's the job?"
Commander Shepard" We're going to stop the Collectors."
Merc: "Great!  How we gonna do that?"
Shep: "Find clues that lead to the location of their base and attack."
Merc:  "Who are the Collectors anyway?"
Shep: "An unknown race of aliens that have abducted hundreds of thousands of colonists."
Merc "What kind of defenses we gonna be up against?"
Shep: "More advanced than ours, however the most advanced isn't always the winner. Look at Sovereign."
Merc: "You at least know where their base is?'
Shep: "Through the Omega 4 Relay. Nobody has come back from there yet, but there's always a first."
Merc: "So what do you need?  Biotics?  Sneaky types?  Big bad melee fighters?  Ship gunner?"
Shep: "Someone willing to risk their life for the safety of all life in the galaxy. What you are best at doesn't matter."

More likely what Shepface would say. You decide the ending.

[UltraBoy360]

I know a lot of people here have talked about feeling that the structure of ME2 is more linear than ME1. I see the argument, but for me that really added to the immersion.

Sure, the opportunity to get all the dossiers after Freedom's Progress would have been good. Taking Tali to Korlus etc. But I have no problem with 'enforced' missions at certain times. Horizon and the Collector Ship are time sensitive, it would have been ridiculous to have those events sitting in your journal to address at your convenience. Really, I'm going to be taking out Blue Sun groups and checking out the Normandy crash site while Horizon is being invaded by Collectors?

It was one of my problems with ME1 that you were in a race against time to save galactic civilization and you were spending all that time deactivating rouge AIs on the moon and tracking down 20 year old nuke sites for the Alliance.

I much preferred the N7 mission structure in ME2, because it made sense to be doing those missions as a way to prep your team before the all-important and less time sensitive Suicide Mission.

It annoyed me in ME1 that Virmire could be sitting in your journal for so long. I would have much preferred that mission (which seemed to me like the perfect penultimate act) to only activate when everything else (virtually) had been done.

I loved how, when Horizon was done, the galaxy opened up and you could explore and really get a sense for all the cultures. The final dossiers, the N7 missions and the loyalty missions were so diverse... I really felt I was living in the ME galaxy, not just trying to save it. That totally worked for me.

As for ME1's constant shopping, crate searching and armour swapping (in mid battle) - totally immersion breaking IMO.

I hope Bioware find a way to have an 'ultimate stakes' ME3 final chapter without jarring side missions (help the Consort make friends with the spurned General? Come on!!)

Modifié par UltraBoy360, 25 mai 2010 - 04:42 .

[Iakus]

uberdowzen wrote...

In DAO, at one point Sten confronts you and asks what your plan is. Even in game your character doesn't know what his/her plan is. And (I don't really want to do this because I love DAO) why are gathering the treaties? You don't even know how you're going to defeat the Darkspawn, why do you need an army?

In ME1, you don't even know what the conduit is. You're not even totally sure the Reapers exist. And why do you need anyone to come with you? You've always got your crew.

And remember that most of the crew of the Normandy think that going to Ilos is probably a suicide mission, they just don't make as big a deal out of it.

DAO plot aside, a large part of what you're doing in ME 1 is finding out what the Conduit is.  And Shepard at least is sure Reapers exist (or something that fits their description) thanks to the visions from the Prothean beacon. 

Going to Ilos was a last-ditch effort, once the Council and Udina tried to shut you down,  if you die, all you did was deny the Reapers the pleasure of killing you

[Tasker]

UltraBoy360 wrote...

As for ME1's constant shopping, crate searching and armour swapping (in mid battle) - totally immersion breaking IMO.

Standard fare for your typical RPG though and people come to expect ( and sometimes even like ) doing them.



Now I have to say that for me personally...
 
Teleporting everywhere thanks to the removal of elevators and airlocks, that's immersion breaking.

End of mission screen popups, that's immersion breaking.

Switching characters half way through for no real reason, that's immersion breaking.

Squad mates wearing inappropriate clothing for combat, that's immersion breaking.

Squad mates wearing practically nothing in the cold vacume of space, that's immersion breaking.

Squad mates referencing the suicide mission as something we still have to do whenever I talk to them, when we've already done it and come back, that's immersion breaking.



ME2, whilst an enjoyable game, felt more like playing a spin off than a sequel. 

Modifié par Orkboy, 25 mai 2010 - 05:06 .

[Iakus]

RiotDragon wrote...

Prospective mercenary "What's the job?"
Commander Shepard" We're going to stop the Collectors."
Merc: "Great!  How we gonna do that?"
Shep: "Find clues that lead to the location of their base and attack."
Merc:  "Who are the Collectors anyway?"
Shep: "An unknown race of aliens that have abducted hundreds of thousands of colonists."
Merc "What kind of defenses we gonna be up against?"
Shep: "More advanced than ours, however the most advanced isn't always the winner. Look at Sovereign."
Merc: "You at least know where their base is?'
Shep: "Through the Omega 4 Relay. Nobody has come back from there yet, but there's always a first."
Merc: "So what do you need?  Biotics?  Sneaky types?  Big bad melee fighters?  Ship gunner?"
Shep: "Someone willing to risk their life for the safety of all life in the galaxy. What you are best at doesn't matter."

More likely what Shepface would say. You decide the ending.

Well, that's dressing it up all paragon-y, but:

 "Find clues that lead to the location of their base and attack."

Isn't true, and

"Someone willing to risk their life for the safety of all life in the galaxy "

doesn't apply to a sizable chunk of the recruits

[bjdbwea]

UltraBoy360 wrote...

It was one of my problems with ME1 that you were in a race against time to save galactic civilization and you were spending all that time deactivating rouge AIs on the moon and tracking down 20 year old nuke sites for the Alliance.

You did that exactly as long and as much as you wanted to. Just want to go through the main story? Could always do that. It's beyond me why people demand an RPG to be linear for everyone, just because all your shooters are linear too. ME 1 allowed you to be play it completely linear if that's your desire. It also allowed people to do side missions - missions that indeed have nothing to do with the main story, that's why they're called side missions. This is called freedom.

UltraBoy360 wrote...

I much preferred the N7 mission structure in ME2, because it made sense to be doing those missions as a way to prep your team before the all-important and less time sensitive Suicide Mission.

The N7 missions are just as unrelated to the main story as the side missions in ME 1, and they do nothing for preparation for the main story. The levels in ME 2 are handcrafted, which is an improvement. They are also completely linear, often very short, sometimes ridiculously dumb and simple, have no spoken briefings and debriefings, and no interaction or choices during the actual missions. Which is all a step back.

UltraBoy360 wrote...

It annoyed me in ME1 that Virmire could be sitting in your journal for so long. I would have much preferred that mission (which seemed to me like the perfect penultimate act) to only activate when everything else (virtually) had been done.

Freedom. It's a strange concept, I know.

Modifié par bjdbwea, 25 mai 2010 - 05:37 .

[Tempest]

I did not mind the linearity of of ME2 as well because i've played games where it was linear but VERY fun. What really hurt ME2 was that the focus went from the shepard we all made from scratch and put it on the squadies.

I really like the squadie recruitment and loyalty missions because it fleshed out the squadies, but left very little to no room for how to make shepard feel about his current situation. You don't really see many choices to join the alliance if you didn't like cerberus, but got small samples of staying as who you were instead of who you are now. The second every squadie got fleshed out, the ending of the game came....which is very.....odd. I love my squadies but I would have loved to build my Shepard even more. I would have liked to of been given many choices in the game to either get cerberus' favor or their wrath. Such an easy secondary measurement like paragon/renegade would have added a lot more to building Shepard's character.

Modifié par Tempest, 25 mai 2010 - 06:58 .

[CroGamer002]

finnithe wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

KitsuneRommel wrote...

No. That depends on what class you play really (and difficulty). I know I've mentioned it few times already but my "ideal" squad in ME2 was me as an adept, Garrus for overload and squad AP ammo and Miranda for overload and warp.

For me it works for all classes.And i played all classes on insanity.Overload is pointless compared with disruptor.

Not all classes have disruptor ammo.

But zaeed have it and he and his mission was free.

And how is overload useless compering to disruptor ammo?
Did you even upgrade overload for your squadmates?

This discussion is tangential to the debate at large. It'd be nice if you guys could get back on topic.

He started.

[Darth Drago]

uberdowzen wrote...
For starters, you went through the whole of Mass Effect not knowing what you were actually trying to achieve. Quite a large portion of the game is spent chasing leads which don't turn up anything. You know that the collector base is on the other end of the Omega 4 relay (because that's always where the Collectors come from). When you're building the team, you don't know exactly what you'll face but a) you'll still need a team to investigate the collectors (I guess you should just do what you did in ME1 and hope some squadmates turn up while you're investigating) and surely not knowing what you're going to face would encourage you to build a more diverse team.

-Sorry but if your talking about ME2 hen your way off. Most of the game is recruiting and babysitting your companions you get. Yes, you get a little teaser with Mordin about the possible genetic reasons the Collectors and Reapers are interested in humans but nothing else with the others. Your little group you get isn’t even that diverse in their powers or abilities when you think about it. Most of them are biotics (Jack, Jacob, Miranda, Samara/Morinth and Thane) in fact. Without Zaeed and Kasumi your group only consisted of 2 actual techs with Legion and Tali and 2 real tanks with Garrus and Grunt, yea you could consider Thane and Samara/Morinth but with their biotics they are kind of specialists in that way. Now considering that you have the option to turn Legion over to Cerberus and not birth Grunt your down to 1 of ech of those positions. Call me old fashioned but I would prefer quite a few more soldiers (warrior) or people can bypass security (thief) in my group than all the biotics (spell chuckers) i did get.

uberdowzen wrote...
Also, very few people complain about DAO's plot, yet for most of it you don't even know how to kill the Arch Demon.

-Maybe because the plot in DAO is pretty solid on its own. You feel like your on an actual quest to fight the ultimate evil and not just baby sit your companions. There have only been if I recall 4 arch demons or at least only 4 blights in that game world history and only a very few people know anything about how to fight the arch demon. Figuring out how to beat one is part of the plot since its pretty much considered a god. Its similar to beating the Reapers. But h yea, in ME2 you don’t go against Reapers at all or learn much at all about them that you didn’t know (or already guess) and nothing how to beat them.

The main quests take a hell of a lot longer than 45 minutes to do as well and you have significant choices and outcomes with them all. Make the wrong choice and you may loose a companion by the leaving of having to kill them. What did ME2 have? Wasn’t it just the one big choice on what to do with the Collector base? Wow, impressive… At least in ME1 you had Feros (colony‘s fate), Noveria (rachni), Virmire (who dies) and the Council (save them or not) to decide.

[finnithe]

Darth Drago wrote...

uberdowzen wrote...
For starters, you went through the whole of Mass Effect not knowing what you were actually trying to achieve. Quite a large portion of the game is spent chasing leads which don't turn up anything. You know that the collector base is on the other end of the Omega 4 relay (because that's always where the Collectors come from). When you're building the team, you don't know exactly what you'll face but a) you'll still need a team to investigate the collectors (I guess you should just do what you did in ME1 and hope some squadmates turn up while you're investigating) and surely not knowing what you're going to face would encourage you to build a more diverse team.

-Sorry but if your talking about ME2 hen your way off. Most of the game is recruiting and babysitting your companions you get. Yes, you get a little teaser with Mordin about the possible genetic reasons the Collectors and Reapers are interested in humans but nothing else with the others. Your little group you get isn’t even that diverse in their powers or abilities when you think about it. Most of them are biotics (Jack, Jacob, Miranda, Samara/Morinth and Thane) in fact. Without Zaeed and Kasumi your group only consisted of 2 actual techs with Legion and Tali and 2 real tanks with Garrus and Grunt, yea you could consider Thane and Samara/Morinth but with their biotics they are kind of specialists in that way. Now considering that you have the option to turn Legion over to Cerberus and not birth Grunt your down to 1 of ech of those positions. Call me old fashioned but I would prefer quite a few more soldiers (warrior) or people can bypass security (thief) in my group than all the biotics (spell chuckers) i did get.

 

The mistake you are making is discounting every biotic as a spell-chucker, aka a squishie or glass cannon. Jack, Jacob, Legion and Garrus are hybrid characters. Jack and Jacob, despite being biotics, are soldiers. Bioware also has practice some gameplay and story separation obviously, as I'm sure Thane is proficient with technology as well as biotics, as an assassin would have to be. Jacob, as an Alliance soldier/Corsair, obviously has a variety of types of combat/arms training. Jack is shown to be a much deadlier biotic in cutscenes than she is in the game. Just going by their "game" representations is flawed, as Bioware has to balance their in-game representations to ensure that combat is challenging. 

[UltraBoy360]

bjdbwea wrote...


You did that exactly as long and as much as you wanted to. Just want to go through the main story? Could always do that. It's beyond me why people demand an RPG to be linear for everyone, just because all your shooters are linear too. ME 1 allowed you to be play it completely linear if that's your desire. It also allowed people to do side missions - missions that indeed have nothing to do with the main story, that's why they're called side missions. This is called freedom.


Freedom. It's a strange concept, I know.

My Shooters? Huh? I've played one shooter in my life - Bioshock (for the story). I love the assumption that everyone that liked ME2 is a shooter crazed 18 year-old. I'm 36 and I pretty much only play RPGs. 

And as for the freedom thing. Fair enough, but I would like to have freedom (eg. ME2 post Horizon) and for it to make sense. I guess the difference for me is I really love role-playing my Shepard, (small r and p) - playing a smart N7 officer, thinking about his background, motivations and personality and deciding carefully on the choices (as opposed to Role Playing - obsessing about finding Heat Sink X for my 14 Stinger IX pistols) - that means that doing the ME1 side missions when in a race against time facing galactic extinction is totally out of character - meaning I miss out on about 60% of the game content. 

In ME2 you're faced with a serious threat, but not one on such a timer. Meaning it made total sense to do N7 and loyalty missions as a way of say, testing out Zaeed with Miranda or Tali with Samara in combat situations prior to the O4 relay made complete sense to my Shepard. Hence I could immersively enjoy the whole game from a role-playing perspective.

On another note, I don't see how the mission complete screens are any more immersion breaking than pressing pause and leveling up your character, or reading a codex. Plus I enjoyed the insight into the crazy world of the Illusive Man's thinking.  

[finnithe]

UltraBoy360 wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...


You did that exactly as long and as much as you wanted to. Just want to go through the main story? Could always do that. It's beyond me why people demand an RPG to be linear for everyone, just because all your shooters are linear too. ME 1 allowed you to be play it completely linear if that's your desire. It also allowed people to do side missions - missions that indeed have nothing to do with the main story, that's why they're called side missions. This is called freedom.


Freedom. It's a strange concept, I know.

My Shooters? Huh? I've played one shooter in my life - Bioshock (for the story). I love the assumption that everyone that liked ME2 is a shooter crazed 18 year-old. I'm 36 and I pretty much only play RPGs. 

And as for the freedom thing. Fair enough, but I would like to have freedom (eg. ME2 post Horizon) and for it to make sense. I guess the difference for me is I really love role-playing my Shepard, (small r and p) - playing a smart N7 officer, thinking about his background, motivations and personality and deciding carefully on the choices (as opposed to Role Playing - obsessing about finding Heat Sink X for my 14 Stinger IX pistols) - that means that doing the ME1 side missions when in a race against time facing galactic extinction is totally out of character - meaning I miss out on about 60% of the game content. 

In ME2 you're faced with a serious threat, but not one on such a timer. Meaning it made total sense to do N7 and loyalty missions as a way of say, testing out Zaeed with Miranda or Tali with Samara in combat situations prior to the O4 relay made complete sense to my Shepard. Hence I could immersively enjoy the whole game from a role-playing perspective.

On another note, I don't see how the mission complete screens are any more immersion breaking than pressing pause and leveling up your character, or reading a codex. Plus I enjoyed the insight into the crazy world of the Illusive Man's thinking.  

I don't like the sentiment that every shooter fan is some rabid idiot. I play a lot of shooters, but I've played my fair share of RPG's as well. Along with Bad Company 2, I have played DA:O, the KOTOR series, WoW and of course ME1/ME2. I also love playing RTS games, and have been trying out Civilization 4 and World in Conflict lately. Though Bad Company 2 is the game I"m playing most at the moment, my favorite game is Age of Mythology, the AoE series being one of my favorites. Did you notice that there were no grammatical mistakes, leetspeak, or insults in my post? Stereotyping a genre's fans only reveals how juvenile you are.

Plus, borrowing from other genres has shown to create successful games. While the Mass Effect series is a great example, CoD and Bad Company's own basic RPG mechanics (XP progression, gun/character customization) shows how genre crossovers can work to create great games without compromising what makes the genre great in the first place. 

[UltraBoy360]

finnithe wrote...

UltraBoy360 wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...


You did that exactly as long and as much as you wanted to. Just want to go through the main story? Could always do that. It's beyond me why people demand an RPG to be linear for everyone, just because all your shooters are linear too. ME 1 allowed you to be play it completely linear if that's your desire. It also allowed people to do side missions - missions that indeed have nothing to do with the main story, that's why they're called side missions. This is called freedom.


Freedom. It's a strange concept, I know.

My Shooters? Huh? I've played one shooter in my life - Bioshock (for the story). I love the assumption that everyone that liked ME2 is a shooter crazed 18 year-old. I'm 36 and I pretty much only play RPGs. 

And as for the freedom thing. Fair enough, but I would like to have freedom (eg. ME2 post Horizon) and for it to make sense. I guess the difference for me is I really love role-playing my Shepard, (small r and p) - playing a smart N7 officer, thinking about his background, motivations and personality and deciding carefully on the choices (as opposed to Role Playing - obsessing about finding Heat Sink X for my 14 Stinger IX pistols) - that means that doing the ME1 side missions when in a race against time facing galactic extinction is totally out of character - meaning I miss out on about 60% of the game content. 

In ME2 you're faced with a serious threat, but not one on such a timer. Meaning it made total sense to do N7 and loyalty missions as a way of say, testing out Zaeed with Miranda or Tali with Samara in combat situations prior to the O4 relay made complete sense to my Shepard. Hence I could immersively enjoy the whole game from a role-playing perspective.

On another note, I don't see how the mission complete screens are any more immersion breaking than pressing pause and leveling up your character, or reading a codex. Plus I enjoyed the insight into the crazy world of the Illusive Man's thinking.  

I don't like the sentiment that every shooter fan is some rabid idiot. I play a lot of shooters, but I've played my fair share of RPG's as well. Along with Bad Company 2, I have played DA:O, the KOTOR series, WoW and of course ME1/ME2. I also love playing RTS games, and have been trying out Civilization 4 and World in Conflict lately. Though Bad Company 2 is the game I"m playing most at the moment, my favorite game is Age of Mythology, the AoE series being one of my favorites. Did you notice that there were no grammatical mistakes, leetspeak, or insults in my post? Stereotyping a genre's fans only reveals how juvenile you are.

Plus, borrowing from other genres has shown to create successful games. While the Mass Effect series is a great example, CoD and Bad Company's own basic RPG mechanics (XP progression, gun/character customization) shows how genre crossovers can work to create great games without compromising what makes the genre great in the first place. 

Some of my best friends are shooter fans...! Totally didn't mean to bag shooters, in fact, on the basis of ME2's combat - I reckon I'd probably like them - or at least TPSs. Reckon I would also dig RTS's but I'm not a PC gamer and frankly gaming (read Mass Effect and Dragon Age) are having a bad enough impact on my social life as it is!

[Darth Drago]

finnithe wrote...

The mistake you are making is discounting every biotic as a spell-chucker, aka a squishie or glass cannon. Jack, Jacob, Legion and Garrus are hybrid characters. Jack and Jacob, despite being biotics, are soldiers. Bioware also has practice some gameplay and story separation obviously, as I'm sure Thane is proficient with technology as well as biotics, as an assassin would have to be. Jacob, as an Alliance soldier/Corsair, obviously has a variety of types of combat/arms training. Jack is shown to be a much deadlier biotic in cutscenes than she is in the game. Just going by their "game" representations is flawed, as Bioware has to balance their in-game representations to ensure that combat is challenging.

-First off, a full soldier is someone I consider to be able to use an assault rifle, (the main weapon of any soldier) as their main form of attack. Only Grunt, Garrus (to some extent) and Zaeed fill this role.
-Next, Jack is in no way a soldier, period. She is a heavy biotic who can use a shotgun in addition to a pistol, unlike Samara/Morinth who can use assault rifles.
-Jacob is also no soldier he is a vanguard. He is only proficient in pistols and shot guns.
-Thane is not proficient in tech skills at all. His powers/skills are Throw, Warp, Shredder Ammo and Drell Assassin (which only helps health and weapon damage). He should have had a tech skill I will agree on that.
-A hybrid in this game would be only Mordin  Samara and Morinth. Everyone else can be practically broken down into the classes in the game.

If I had to classify them based on their powers (roughly):
Vanguard: Jacob
Sentinel: Miranda, Thane
Soldier: Grunt, Zaeed and Garrus (more so than another class)
Infiltrator: Kasumi
Engineer: Tali and Legion
Adept: Jack
Hybrid like: Mordin, Samara and Morinth.