No "Meaningless Stat Games" in Mass Effect 3

[Jodah]

So its an FPS (or TPS I suppose) pretending to be an RPG?

Well, to be fair that's kinda what this franchise has always been. I mean I enjoy the talky bits as much as the next person but the gameplay from ME1 to ME2 seldom deviated from "go to place and hand out bullet pastries" formula.

Fair enough. It just seems like they are moving further away from the RPG aspect with each installment. They may as well call it a TPS is all I'm saying.

 

[rsvp42]

What if we just reclassify Mass Effect as a shooter? Would that make everyone feel better? That's what ME2 was, after all, a conversational shooter, and it worked out very well.

Fine with me, if it means people stop getting so worked up. I'll be pissed on principle if I see another user-review bomb over pointless crap. People need to view games as a whole and not based on how well they conform to some preconceived genre notions.

 

[Agayek]

People do realize RPG stands for "Role-Playing Game" right? As in the point is a deep story, not a crapload of minor stat increases and equations. As long as the story and character development is still really good I think it's still gonna be a blast.

However, I'm reserving judgement until I get more concrete information. These vague comments are just plain unhelpful.

Considering the emerging trend with Bioware games, I'm not sure we'll actually have a good story.

Let's consider:

ME1 - Awesome story. Some of the best characters (especially antagonists) in any media. Exceptionally well told and finely crafted.

Dragon Age: Origins - Pretty good story. Sufficiently epic in scope, but incredibly cliche. All-together, well told, if somewhat disjointed at times (especially with DLC).

ME2 - Generally bad story with (sometimes very) good moments. The main storyline made no sense whatsoever, and several situations clearly required at minimum 3 supposedly smart, ruthless and/or driven individuals to make momentously stupid decisions that run directly counter to their goals, not to mention what it did to the Reapers. The individual character arcs were quite good (generally), and there were some truly great moments, but it was decidedly "meh", leaning towards bad, overall.

Dragon Age 2 - Complete shit story. It made absolutely no sense and was disjointed as all hell. There was very little actual coherency to the whole thing and a number of plot points just flat out do not compute. Not to mention the terrible, terrible ending (or the hilarious retconning they did).


From where I sit, it seems fairly clear that ME3 is almost certainly going to have a terrible story. All of Bioware's games since KOTOR have been declining in quality at a fairly steady pace. It drives me up the fucking wall, because I really want them to make good games. Four of their games sit firmly in my "Top 10 Games of All Time" list, and it kills me to see what they've become, but that doesn't change the fact that Bioware is swiftly becoming one of the worst AAA developers in the business.

 

[Saelune]

Bioware is getting senile. The king going mad in their later years before being dethrowned.

 

[mjc0961]

So, I have to ask. Where did all of you guys get a copy of Mass Effect 3 from? I would sure like one. Then I can play it and join in this discussion about how they ruined the game by making it appeal to more people and what exactly "meaningless behind-the-scenes stat games" means in terms of what they changed. Because all I've got right now is a couple of articles that are so vague that they don't really tell me anything. So please, tell me where I can get a copy of the game so I can play it and join this conversation withe the rest of you.

...Unless none of you played it either, and are all just getting your panties in a twist over some vague statements that currently have no meaning. That would certainly be silly, wouldn't it?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

What if we just reclassify Mass Effect as a shooter? Would that make everyone feel better? That's what ME2 was, after all, a conversational shooter, and it worked out very well.

That is what I have done. It did work really well. The amount of "RPG of the Year" awards it took home kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I just want Bioware to admit it is a shooter, and, you know, not bad mouth other types of RPGs.

 

[latenightapplepie]

I now have grave fears for this game.

I don't think I'm going to enjoy it at all.

 

[Duskflamer]

I think what all of us want is for Bioware to come out with some concrete details, so we can stop fretting over maybe's and vague statements and instead make clear exactly which parts of what they are doing we do/don't approve of.

 

[Saelune]

What if we just reclassify Mass Effect as a shooter? Would that make everyone feel better? That's what ME2 was, after all, a conversational shooter, and it worked out very well.

Im not against a game series chaning its style in some spin off or new series...but for a game about what happins transfers between games, it should not genre jump before the end. If they want to make a crappy ME shooter AFTER Shepard's story is done, fine, go for it. I wont like it but it wont affect me. It sucks to think I likely wont finish my Shepard's story because it changed too much, even if it works for what its doing now. It kind of ruins the big deal about the ME series if no one playing ME3 even played ME1. (Maybe they secretly feel bad for the PS3 ME fans....)

 

[Drakmorg]

Seeing as how they don't really give us any solid details on what they mean by "meaningless behind-the-scenes stat games", I see no reason to get worked up about this.

 

[fulano]

I'm all for it. I loathe having to monitor measly stats. Stat-based gaming has misapropriated the idea of role-playing games.

As long as I can fiddle with equipment configurations I could care less.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Love this, anything to piss off traditional gamers amuses me. You can keep your minute level upgrades .01 sec to lift length etc, and exploring baren planets with about 15 textures. I'll take streamlined combat and bioware story over that crap any day.

Or, you know, they could have streamlined combat, a Bioware story, AND RPG elements at the same time.

But RPG elements are kind of an archaic thing for a modern game. Its immersion breaking when you exit a conversation and get a level up icon, "lets go save this guy in a bar fight.... after I decide if I want 6% shield bypass or 6% cooldown reduction". Or to say this pistol does 46 damage but this exact same model except with a VIII after it does 205. Its a gameplay mechanic whos existence makes almost no sense in any story or world.

RPG elements does not only mean percentages, stats, points, and XP. It's just as much gaining new abilities, upgrading a weapon modification like enhanced zoom, or choosing which area you want to explore first. It's about playing the game you want to play it. Not about that extra 25% damage, though that could certainly be an aspect for some people.

I'm seeing a pattern with the "RPG-naysayers", if you will. They seem to think that the "pro-RPG" crowd wants these stupid stats and percentage points to get in the way of the actual game when that is not the case at all. What they (or we, I suppose) want is choices not just in the combat, but in every aspect of the game. The combat is all well and good, but if you only get to hold one type of weapon that you can never upgrade or change until you buy the schematics halfway in the game (I just could not find those submachine guns in ME2, seriously, those things are really annoying to find).

I understand that and I think ME2 started off in a good direction. You didn't have levels of guns but you had a gun for every type. Semi auto sniper, and the Holy right hand of God one etc. I think you can spin that in game in a way that makes sense out of traditional RPG tropes. Or upgrades being like Black Ops in that they are cosmetic as far as not changing stats but changing how the gun is used.

 

[Duskflamer]

In the end, I think what all of us, or at least most of us, want is for Bioware to come out with more concrete details about what they are changing, so we can stop fretting over possibilities and vagues statements and instead make clear which parts of what they are actually doing we do/don't approve of.

Of course, I'm sure there are some people here who just like complaining for complaining's sake but even they wouldn't mind more concrete statements, it would just make it easier to latch onto something to complain about.

In an ideal world I'd like Bioware to come out and say "Here's what we were planning on doing, here's what EA is making us do," but I recognize that we aren't in an ideal world so I'll settle for some more concrete, blame-free statements about what they're doing.

 

[ZeZZZZevy]

snip

snip.

I enjoyed ME2's story, but we're both entitled to our opinions.

As for DA2, that was an entirely different team, so it's fairly irrelevant IMO.

Considering how we don't really have any details at this point anyway, everything is complete conjecture. Also, in general I don't like judging a game based on its developer's past performance, rather, I judge the game based upon its own merits.

 

[lullabykid]

This accurately summarizes my feeling on this issue. Why the hell do RPG developers keep removing the RPG from their games?

lol this is the exact mental image I had when I read the article. At first I thought everything would be okay when ea bought bioware but after dragon age 2, their game's quality seems to be dropping.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

So it's now 100% Gears of Wars in Space.

Plus the likable characters, interesting story and less machismo. Comparing Mass Effect to Gears of War is like comparing Assassin's Creed to God of War.

People are acting as if they said they'll remove the conversations, the choices, the likable characters, the space exploration, the powers acquired through leveling and the awe-inspiring environments. When did Gears of War have all that? Did you all play some enhanced edition or something?

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I don't know how to take this. On one hand I'm worried they'll end up cutting too much out rather than actually streamline it. On the other hand, it sounds like they're actually learning from their previous games and are working to add it all together to make a good balance between taking out too much and leaving it all cluttered.

 

[daftalchemist]

When is Bioware going to stop talking about the combat and start talking about the things people actually look to Bioware games for: character development, dialogue, and story? And now this? Why don't they just remove the skill systems entirely, have Shepherd grunt at everyone like a cave(wo)man, and stop with the whole pretense of ME3 still being an RPG.

The only thing that was "meaningless" in ME2 were the tedious, repetitive "hacking" and "unlocking" minigames that you had to sit through a thousand times just to score a few hundred credits.

 

[Jumplion]

Love this, anything to piss off traditional gamers amuses me. You can keep your minute level upgrades .01 sec to lift length etc, and exploring baren planets with about 15 textures. I'll take streamlined combat and bioware story over that crap any day.

Or, you know, they could have streamlined combat, a Bioware story, AND RPG elements at the same time.

But RPG elements are kind of an archaic thing for a modern game. Its immersion breaking when you exit a conversation and get a level up icon, "lets go save this guy in a bar fight.... after I decide if I want 6% shield bypass or 6% cooldown reduction". Or to say this pistol does 46 damage but this exact same model except with a VIII after it does 205. Its a gameplay mechanic whos existence makes almost no sense in any story or world.

RPG elements does not only mean percentages, stats, points, and XP. It's just as much gaining new abilities, upgrading a weapon modification like enhanced zoom, or choosing which area you want to explore first. It's about playing the game you want to play it. Not about that extra 25% damage, though that could certainly be an aspect for some people.

I'm seeing a pattern with the "RPG-naysayers", if you will. They seem to think that the "pro-RPG" crowd wants these stupid stats and percentage points to get in the way of the actual game when that is not the case at all. What they (or we, I suppose) want is choices not just in the combat, but in every aspect of the game. The combat is all well and good, but if you only get to hold one type of weapon that you can never upgrade or change until you buy the schematics halfway in the game (I just could not find those submachine guns in ME2, seriously, those things are really annoying to find).

I understand that and I think ME2 started off in a good direction. You didn't have levels of guns but you had a gun for every type. Semi auto sniper, and the Holy right hand of God one etc. I think you can spin that in game in a way that makes sense out of traditional RPG tropes. Or upgrades being like Black Ops in that they are cosmetic as far as not changing stats but changing how the gun is used.

I felt that the choice of weapons in ME2 were pretty subpar. I ended up using the same crappy starting SMG, hearing the same "rattata-rattata-rattata-clink" whenever I fired and reloaded, until I FINALLY found a newer one. It felt like I was firing a peashooter the entire time, not a hefty weapon that shreds through steel. The weapons only fit specific specific playing styles, and there was no reason to alternate different types of the same weapon as the next one was always a complete upgrade over the previous one.

I felt that the modifications in ME1, like acid/combustion rounds, or increasing rate of fire, provided more diversity in the weaponry even if the models never changed (and my god, were snipers completely useless in ME1).

 

[mr.mystery]

Oh god, incoming rage. Prepare thyselves, Bioware. Hell hath no fury like an entitled gamer scorned.

So anyone who has some standards is somehow branded "entitled" these days? Nice...

ha ha sooo true. I guess the Bioware forums are right...Mass effect 3 will be just like Dragon age 2...