BioWare Trims Mass Effect 3 Squad to Focus on Deeper Relationships
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Trimming down? I don't like the sound of that. Especially when well liked characters and former brothers in arms get relegated to Garden Gnome duty, standing around in one spot with 5 lines of dialogue.
Of course, It is to early to tell and foolish to jump to conclusions. I will just have have faith in Bioware and the good folks working there.
Of course, It is to early to tell and foolish to jump to conclusions. I will just have have faith in Bioware and the good folks working there.
I was never much for the new characters introduced. I always have Garrus with me (really original, eh?) and as much as I'd like to have Tali along all the time as well... it's just redundant with two engies.
I for one like that they make the char roster smaller and focus on those that are there. What I am worried about is the need to grab the cod audience and streamlining the game to a fricken silk ribbon!
I for one like that they make the char roster smaller and focus on those that are there. What I am worried about is the need to grab the cod audience and streamlining the game to a fricken silk ribbon!
You were saying that the franchise was being dumbed down by reducing the number of squad members. I assumed you were one of the people who were complaining after Mass Effect 2 was released, since that game had roughly the same changes as Dragon Age 2 (limited looting, companions have their own armor, isolated missions, corridors). If you preferred Mass Effect 2 to 1, then I'm not sure what you have to worry about.Jandau said:
Mass Effect 2 demonstrated that adding more squad members only spread the character writing too thin (for the most part), leading to certain party members getting very little characterization outside their loyalty missions. Hence, Garrus calibrating all the goddamn time.
Reducing the number of characters doesn't necessarily mean they'll reduce the total amount of writing, just that more of it gets put into each character. In theory, anyway. I obviously haven't played Mass Effect 3. It could be that everyone is making calibrations this time around, who knows?
[sub]Although the article does say "to focus on deeper relationships".[/sub]
I'm Commander Shepard and this.... is a really overused statement.
OT: This to me sounds like a fairly reasonable change as half the time player stuck with the characters they know and love apart from when they get forced to use them such as the loyality missions. Obviously everyone is going to have their own favourites but I am actually going to trust Bioware on this to make the right choices for the right reasons on who to save and who to cut. Also hopefully they will be looking at all their data they have been collecting in the background about the users play throughs and such to make the right calls.
I only have two things to say about it from a implimentation point of view 1) there was two characters in ME2, three if you include Shepard, that had a seemingly far reaching and possibly instrumental desison to make (Mordin and Legions loayality missions and Shepard's desision past the Omega 4 Relay) please let this develop into something awesome which has a impact on how the story progresses in the third game, even if these are the players that get relegated to NPC's and 2, with a smaller sqaud it should be far easier to do those nice little touches with your squadmates interactions with each other and you, granted it's a very small and non important part of anything, but it always made me smile to see that they have chemistry and a memory outside of the game that you are playing (e.g. Shepard and Garrus are perticually good at this)
OT: This to me sounds like a fairly reasonable change as half the time player stuck with the characters they know and love apart from when they get forced to use them such as the loyality missions. Obviously everyone is going to have their own favourites but I am actually going to trust Bioware on this to make the right choices for the right reasons on who to save and who to cut. Also hopefully they will be looking at all their data they have been collecting in the background about the users play throughs and such to make the right calls.
I only have two things to say about it from a implimentation point of view 1) there was two characters in ME2, three if you include Shepard, that had a seemingly far reaching and possibly instrumental desison to make (Mordin and Legions loayality missions and Shepard's desision past the Omega 4 Relay) please let this develop into something awesome which has a impact on how the story progresses in the third game, even if these are the players that get relegated to NPC's and 2, with a smaller sqaud it should be far easier to do those nice little touches with your squadmates interactions with each other and you, granted it's a very small and non important part of anything, but it always made me smile to see that they have chemistry and a memory outside of the game that you are playing (e.g. Shepard and Garrus are perticually good at this)
As long as Mass Effect 3 has Kasumi and Tali as Squadmates I'll be happy. Also can we PLEASE have Tali be a FemShep relationship path.
This is the first recent ME3 announcement that hasn't made me fear for the future. If less team mates means deeper and more interesting conversations then go for it.
Edit:
Edit:
This too, keep Tali, Garrus, and Mordin and make the conversations more interesting, and they can cut all the characters they want.Sarukin said:
Good, they did have too many characters. Mmm, what characters do I want them to keep. Legion, Tali, Miranda, Mordin & Garrus are definitely my favourites. Though I wouldn't Garrus buggering off to do this own thing. (I'd rather have Garrus become a fellow specter than a follower.) Good to hear Jack will finally be putting some clothes on (was hoping she'd do that). And I'd like to see a return of Lara T'soni.
aaaaHHHHH female shepard with a male krogan and his four tesicles... sounds something suspiously like you would find on deviant art :/Kysafen said:
renegade that bastard and set his balls on the black market for 10,000 credits a pop!
the fact that I can remember that there is a black market for their testicals deeply disturbs me D:
UltraDeth said:
Granted, they could be able to, but I argue why bother? the more characters they add, with an equally large amount of associated text, the more characters there are to choose. But like with any game with a large amount of choice, whats to say people wont stick to the same combination of teammates? They could put 18 characters in, and half of them could hardly ever be used; hell, there may even be one or two that are never used. Why waste time and resources making more characters that fewer people will use, when they can make fewer characters that more people will be guaranteed to use.
Honestly, how many people actually used a different two characters every time they stepped out for a mission ME2? Which character did you almost never (or even didnt ever) use for an entire playthrough (outside of loyalty missions)? More is not always better, its just a freaking waste. I would rather they have fewer, deeper characters than more, but shallower characters; and I would definitely prefer fewer over more of equally deep characters, as than I wont have wastes of space aboard the ship.
Just because quality and quantity are both possible, doesnt mean its a great idea...
Hmm, I did like most of the party
Tali, Grunt, Legion kinda need to stay with Shepard.
Each of the other crew members where interesting, Mordin is amusing and well I liked listening to his observations at times. Thane's outlook on life was interesting for me. Garrus, well Garrus is the old buddy. I don't mind too much about the human crew, seeing them would be nice but I only really liked.... Kazumi, sure Miranda, Jacob and Jack wheren't bad, I just didn't spend too much time with them outside of their needed missions. As for the Justicar, she scared me xD.
As for ME 1 members, I would like Wrex back [Two non-crappy Krogans as back up, Shepard could rule the galaxy!?] Kaiden/Ashley, meh I always let the love interest one die in ME1 and Liara, well she is already helping.
Tali, Grunt, Legion kinda need to stay with Shepard.
The Normandy is Tali's home now.
Shepard is Grunts superior and krantt.
Legion well, I really like legion.
Shepard is Grunts superior and krantt.
Legion well, I really like legion.
Each of the other crew members where interesting, Mordin is amusing and well I liked listening to his observations at times. Thane's outlook on life was interesting for me. Garrus, well Garrus is the old buddy. I don't mind too much about the human crew, seeing them would be nice but I only really liked.... Kazumi, sure Miranda, Jacob and Jack wheren't bad, I just didn't spend too much time with them outside of their needed missions. As for the Justicar, she scared me xD.
As for ME 1 members, I would like Wrex back [Two non-crappy Krogans as back up, Shepard could rule the galaxy!?] Kaiden/Ashley, meh I always let the love interest one die in ME1 and Liara, well she is already helping.
Hmmm, having only recently gotten into the Mass Effect series (Being a PS3 player I only got ME2 a few months ago), I feel a bit out of place complaining about the changes being made in Mass Effect 3. I only ever played the so-called 'dumbed down' sequel so it seems like I came in halfway through the change. But anyway, most of the news about ME3 has made me pretty sure I don't want to buy it. It seems like its going to remove or tone down all the bits of ME2 that I liked the most. This bit of news doesn't really make me side either way though... On the one hand, I recruited all the characters in Mass Effect 2 but there was only a few that I really felt connected with, and only ever really used a few of them that often. While fewer, more developed characters may solve this problem, it also kind of gets rid of (what I kinda though was) the main point of the ME games... choice. With more characters, you have a greater choice of who to pick (for missions/just to talk to/whatever). And I know great characters are great (and the characters in ME2 were already great) but shouldn't Bioware try to work on giving the player more choices.
I realise this post is already pretty long and probably has nobody reading it, and I should be studying, but I have a little more to say. I think you should have a chance to do a mission or 2 with a character and then have a choice if you want them on your team, that way the player would probably have a better feeling of choice than having been told, "Recruit Person X, Y and Z" by the Illusive Man, or what ever system was in place in the first Mass Effect.
I'll still have to wait for some review before I make any kind of definite choice on the game, and I'll have to play it before I make an opinion, but so far its looking like instead of getting Mass Effect 3, I might just have to start up a new game in Baldur's Gate, actually, I'm gonna do that anyway.
I realise this post is already pretty long and probably has nobody reading it, and I should be studying, but I have a little more to say. I think you should have a chance to do a mission or 2 with a character and then have a choice if you want them on your team, that way the player would probably have a better feeling of choice than having been told, "Recruit Person X, Y and Z" by the Illusive Man, or what ever system was in place in the first Mass Effect.
I'll still have to wait for some review before I make any kind of definite choice on the game, and I'll have to play it before I make an opinion, but so far its looking like instead of getting Mass Effect 3, I might just have to start up a new game in Baldur's Gate, actually, I'm gonna do that anyway.