Mass Effect 3...I think that people are overreacting

[NKRevan]

Face it, story took a back seat in ME2...

Care to back that up with some reasoning or examples there sir?

Exactly what about ME2 put story in the back seat? Exactly what took it from "intelligent space opera" (built around a glaring plot hole) to "stab an alien in the face with a friend"?

People can't deal with Story-Arcs that are different from the classic "Epic-Hero-Journey". That is to say, if you don't have a clear defined evil that needs to be defeated and progress the plot along those lines and everything else is just minor fluff and banter, it is a bad story.

I have maintained this for a long time. Whenever BioWare deviates from the old, rusty, BORING formula of Hero finds out about great evil, hero goes to defeat great-evil, hero saves the day in the end, they get ***** slapped by a bunch of wanna-be writing professionals.

ME2 used a different storytelling focus. Sure, you had the overarching Plotline of defeating the reapers. But instead of solely focusing on that and leaving everything else to be side-work, they instead gave more focus to the Companions and THEIR background. The story had a different focus. The Collector Threat was there, but it was not the main focus of the narrative through most of the game.

Incidentally, the same principle applies in DA2. DA2 had, among numerous flaws and problems, a different take on the story focus. Instead of making it a classic fantasy story (which DA Origins was), they focused on the personal story of Hawke, how a single person lives through the trying times, encountering various problems along the way and rises up to meet the challenges. (Before some dink tries to rage at me for defending DA2, please re-read the part where I said it had many flaws and problems, thank you).

ME2's story was different, the focus was on other elements. And people, a lot of people, cannot deal with change, because....I don't know, I guess it frightens them?

But that's just my theory.

 

[go-10]

this is turning into FFVII now where the cool thing to do is hate on popular things

I enjoyed Mass Effect 1 & 2 so I know I'll enjoy 3 I could care less about tube tops or armor tits, they're just cosmetics I don't see how in any way would that ruin my experience.

I don't care about Bioware as a company but Mass Effect and Dragon Age are products I've enjoyed and see no reason to scorn them or wish they never existed. I didn't enjoy Dragon Age 2 as much as Origins but that doesn't mean its the worst pice of shit on Earth, there's still a lot of people that liked it and it provided me with enjoyment for a while it didn't engulf me like the first one but it was good for what it was worth

 

[Ares Gandhi]

-"Increasingly sloppy writing, including plot holes and dissatisfying overall plots."
This doesn't hold water for me because ME1 was completely built on a giant plot hole. Saren and Sovereign spend the entire game searching for the conduit which they have absolutely no need for. I cannot speak for "dissatisfying", as that is a wholly subjective notion. Lastly, I will happily agree that Arrival was terribly written.

So you're saying that Saren could've just waltzed into the Citadel with his army of geth without anyone noticing? I don't think so. The success of the whole attack depended on the element of surprise, because even Sovereign wasn't invincible. Without the Citadel control in disarray and the relays around it disabled, the Citadel fleet would've been far more coordinated and able to call in reinforcements.

The only thing I'm fearing is that Arrival's quality of writing will carry over to ME3.

-"Over-emphasis on romances and nonsensical oversexualization of characters."
The whole romance business was not emphasized any more in the second game than the first. There were just more characters. You can still play through the game without having anything to do with it. If by "nonsensical over-sexualization" you mean the visual design of female characters, then sure, I agree.

I'm mainly talking about the way you can't have a conversation with anyone without them making a pass at you or your conversation options only including either making passes at characters or being an asshole. Or how in ME3, you can sleep with anyone (ignoring the characters' prior behaviors) so the people who play the games for the romances wouldn't get offended. This reduces the whole idea of a romance subplot from something that potentially adds a level of depth to your experience into a rigid, mechanical feature where the characters are no longer believable individuals, but interactive sex toys for the player.

-"Most of all, the "streamlining" of ... gameplay and story."
This one especially puzzles me. The story in the first game was not particularly complex, certainly no more so than in the second. Given the increased emphasis on character arcs and the inclusion of 'loyalty missions' in the second game it had a lot more going on, although it was admittedly less focussed.'

ME2 being less focused on the main plot was the issue for me. Consider the overall plot: from the beginning of ME2, you know exactly what your final mission is going to be. The plot consists of collecting squad mates (which is the best part of the game) and MacGuffins so the predetermined final mission can eventually commence. In ME1, you had absolutely no idea what was going to happen in the end. You didn't know what you were really up against or who turned out to be the ultimate villain. Every mid-story mission in ME1 changed the status quo and your knowledge of the situation significantly, whereas in ME2, all the mid-story missions did was give you one more trinket or a piece of ultimately trivial information.

From the looks of it, ME3 is going to turn out much like ME2, with the predetermined final mission being "take back Earth", and instead of collecting squad mates, you collect civilizations to help you out. This, of course, begs the question of why Earth is so important that aliens should care about saving it instead of defending their own homeworlds. But I digress.

Same goes for this notion of "streamlined" gameplay. ME1 did not have complex gameplay. It had unpolished cover-based shooting, terrible AI and simple RPG elements with a clumsy inventory interface. I say this a lot, but the skills and equipment were simply a matter of making numbers get bigger. Adding +2 to decryption, swapping a shotgun with 110 damage for one with 130 damage, swapping a heat sink II for a heat sink III. In ME2, for all its simplification, at least you had to choose between a warp ability that affected more targets or one that did more damage and between a powerful slow-firing pistol with scarce ammo or a weaker one with plentiful ammo.

You know what? I agree. ME1's inventory management, powers and leveling systems were weak, and ME2 did a lot to improve them. I certainly enjoy ME2's gameplay more than the first game, though it's not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. However, I believe that the features of ME1 could've been improved without taking off as much as they did.

 

[Deathmageddon]

Bioware already said "let's make this one suck" back when they were developing ME2...

 

[anthony87]

Meh, I'm looking forward to it. Have been for a while in fact. Don't worry OP, there's still people out there who play games for the sake of enjoyment. Rather than the sake of having something to ***** about.

 

[Canadish]

I'm going to listen to everything Dear Leader, Bioware says and buy all their products and there is nothing you can say to stop me!"

Have lots and lots of "fun" bro.

Your TV tropes link sure shows how silly we all are for wanting a good conclusion to a series we were all emotionally and financially invested in.
I'm sure EA would never use that customer loyalty to turn out maximum profit for minimum effort.

Remember to save those $7 extra for the plot essential Protheon Squadmate DLC.

 

[NKRevan]

I'm going to listen to everything Dear Leader, Bioware says and buy all their products and there is nothing you can say to stop me!"

Have lots and lots of "fun" bro.

Your TV tropes link sure shows how silly we all are for wanting a conclusion that is perfect in our own opinion to a series we were all emotionally and financially invested in.
I'm sure EA would never use that customer loyalty to turn out maximum profit for minimum effort.

Remember to save those $7 extra for the plot essential Protheon Squadmate DLC.

Corrected that for you there m8. Wouldn't wanna assume, right?

 

[Zhukov]

So, aside from having a checklist of loyalty missions being the meat of the game (tick: mirandas sorted, tick: jacob doesnt need a therapist anymore, tick: Something about the green guys son) the collectors are just about the worst implementation of a hostile alien race, ever ever. I mean, you see a grainy screenshot of them in the beginning and their hardly mention until later (much later). The Illusive man is such a transparent 1 dimensional character masquerading as a "deep" (spare me) mysterious (gag) benefactor.

But mainly the loyalty mission. They just feel soooo tacked on and inorganic, just out of place with ME1 as a reference. In ME1 There was a build up, and a crescendo that felt very organic, similar to Dragon age origins where each mission aggregated into something. The Loyalty missions are a DEAD END, once its over, the arc is dead forever, and theres what, 11 of them or so? So I just spent upwards of an hour doing the questline and once its over, its just over? No narrative weave into the overarching story? Cool. It just throws the whole balance of the story off center not by inches, but miles. Really, god awful story telling.

Y'know, I can actually see where you're coming from. You're making sense.

However,

- The collectors first show up at the very start of the game. Then you see the photo. Then you're fighting them in person after just four (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) recruitment missions. Incidentally, this isn't much different to Saren in ME1. He gets his incredibly corny intro ("this human must be eliminated!" *gag*) then disappears for almost the entire game until Virmire.

- the inclusion of loyalty missions does not constitute "story taking a back seat". It just shifts the focus to include the characters. I suppose that's what you mean by throwing the balance of the story off centre. Fair enough.

- The loyalty missions are mostly optional. You can successfully run the suicide mission with just two loyal characters.

- Couldn't you say the exact same thing about all the side missions in ME1? How does hunting Cerberus, scanning 20 keepers or driving around a pallet-swapped planet raiding identical pirate bases advance the main story? What about the three character missions in ME1? (Tali's pilgrimage data, Wrex's armour and Garrus's escaped suspect.)

- I still don't see how any of this constitutes a switch from "intelligent space opera" to "CoD tards".

 

[Zhukov]

So you're saying that Saren could've just waltzed into the Citadel with his army of geth without anyone noticing? I don't think so. The success of the whole attack depended on the element of surprise, because even Sovereign wasn't invincible. Without the Citadel control in disarray and the relays around it disabled, the Citadel fleet would've been far more coordinated and able to call in reinforcements.

Almost.

In the game, Saren and some Geth use the conduit to get to the tower while Sovereign and the geth fleet come through the mass relay and attack. The people on the citadel try to close it, but Sovereign just charges run on in.

There was nothing stopping Sovereign and the geth fleet from just charging in at any time, dropping off Saren and as many geth as they wanted on the tower and going about their business.

(One could also wonder why the Repears would build their doom machine to require an organic on the inside, but that's getting into nitpick territory.)

I'm mainly talking about the way you can't have a conversation with anyone without them making a pass at you or your conversation options only including either making passes at characters or being an asshole.

This is factually wrong. With the exception of Jack, characters never make a pass at you (and in Jack's case it's an aggressive challenge, something that suits her character). The romance subplots only start when you make a pass at them. Also, you are never forced to be an asshole. If you have examples then, by all means, please name them.

Also, y'know, still completely optional. I've played through ME2 without jumping in bed with anyone and without being an asshole about it.

Or how in ME3, you can sleep with anyone (ignoring the characters' prior behaviors) so the people who play the games for the romances wouldn't get offended. This reduces the whole idea of a romance subplot from something that potentially adds a level of depth to your experience into a rigid, mechanical feature where the characters are no longer believable individuals, but interactive sex toys for the player.

Do you have a link for that? I've heard a lot of people freaking out about it (generally to the tune of, "Oh no, they're gonna make Garrus gay!") but I am yet to see a single solid indication that this is actually the case.

ME2 being less focused on the main plot was the issue for me. Consider the overall plot: from the beginning of ME2, you know exactly what your final mission is going to be. The plot consists of collecting squad mates (which is the best part of the game) and MacGuffins so the predetermined final mission can eventually commence. In ME1, you had absolutely no idea what was going to happen in the end. You didn't know what you were really up against or who turned out to be the ultimate villain. Every mid-story mission in ME1 changed the status quo and your knowledge of the situation significantly, whereas in ME2, all the mid-story missions did was give you one more trinket or a piece of ultimately trivial information.

Okay, this I can agree with.

However, I don't see how setting a goal at the start and then getting the player to work toward it makes for an inferior story. Also, how is getting Liara, the cipher and the location of the Mu relay any different to getting Mordin and the Reaper IFF?

Lastly, I will happily admit that the big twist in ME1 ("I am the vanguard of your destruction") was better than the one in ME2 ("they're Protheans!").

 

[Rhalle]

The COD-tardness in ME2 mostly came in the form of how they changed the skill system and the inventory, with the inventory change being at least defensible on the grounds that you would "upgrade" your equipment instead of finding or buying it, because Mordin Solus was on board. However, doing so basically meant that all those shady Sci-Fi Military-Industiral companies that gave flavor to the first one got neglected, the subtext of the change being that something like "Elanus Risk Control Services" was a little heady for the XboX crowd.

Also, apparently traditional RPG inventory management wasn't deemed an exciting enough thing. As horrible as it was in Mass Effect 1, it being the first list inventory Bioware had produced, it was still basically a traditional affair.

The first Mass Effect skill system had already been simplified relative to Bioware's previous efforts, and they simplified it even more for Mass Effect 2. Why ammo type is a skill that requires level-up points I have no idea. Arguably the addition of 'thermal clips' was a sop to the console shooter crowd also who are used to pressing the reload button and don't like being told that they can't shoot. The first game was just fine with its modifiable weapons that included heat-sinking parts; but presumably someone felt that a timed overheat delay would not please console shooter fans. Was there Bullet Time-- er, I mean, "Adrenaline Rush"-- in Mass Effect 1? I don't remember it being there. And as pathetically uncreative as "Pistol;Assault Rifle;Sniper Rifle;Shotgun" was for a Sci-Fi universe in the first one, at least you still had to use your brain a tiny bit to invest points into skills to use them.

And yeah, I agree, the plot didn't seem to me to be particularly dumbed-down. ME2 was your typical Seven Samurai/Dirty Dozen affair: build a team of all different sorts of experts for a mission in which the odds are stacked greatly in favor of the bad guys.

It looks like ME3 will be the standard "do missions to unite the warring factions and get them to work together against the common, world-threatening enemy" which, frankly, is the plot of virtually every RPG in recent memory.

 

[Uriain]

Here's the real thing of this..

the majority of the "issues" being "discussed" (and I use that term very loosely as its more of banshee wailing" are not actually issues.

1) Multiplayer - Not mandatory, doesnt effect your single player experience
2) Multiple play types - Play the one you want, as there is a classic RPG style
3) Kinect - Not mandatory, its a neat gimmick, but thats pretty much it, gimmick

The only "real" issue I see here is the Origin aspect. I can totally understand why that would anger someone. I play it on Xbox (started there going to finish there) so this particular issue doesn't effect me.

 

[thatfknninja]

me3 will be crap. people are complaining now because they can see it coming. bioware havnt made anything good in years. just let down after let down selling games on their name only.

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

Personally, I've avoided getting much information on ME3. I think a lot of people are building up too many expectations about the game and the companies involved. I imagine some people will still buy the game, in their heart believing its awful because of X, Y and Z, and then finally playing it and having an awful time. Because they now want it to be awful. Meanwhile, I will play the game with an open mind, and likely enjoy it a lot more!

TBH the hype and anti-hype around this game is the reason I'm becoming less of an active gamer and more of a recreational one. I'm not sure if its just the modern gamer mentality, but people seem to work themselves up so that they are unable to enjoy a game, before it is even released! Too much over-analysis! So much negativity! Give it a shot, you haven't actually played it yet!

 

[Caligulove]

I don't get why optional an optional co-op Firefight/Horde mode has so many people up in arms. The combat works well with that in mind. Not to mention all the combinations of abilities from the regular squad AI was practically begging for some kind of co-op functionality to be added.

Not to mention that it's all optional. You don't have to play it to beat the game. You don't even have to play it to get "better" endings and whatnot (as said by interview with Casey Hudson)