Have Bioware lost their balls? (Mass Effect 2 SPOILERS)

[Indecipherable]

Case in point:

I replayed ME 2 and did Tali's mission right at the very end before the suicide mission. You know, the one where she was being charged with treason for sending back active Geth components to the Migrant Fleet. Out of morbid sense of curiosity, I decided to take Legion along with me.

And you know what?

There were one or two arguments with Quarians who were upset about an active, walking talking Geth on the Migrant fleet, but all I needed to do was be angry with them and they were fine with it. I just told them to f*** off and they backed down.

Is Bioware serious? Or have they just given up on the RPG elements of this game. Because frankly it appears that I can make the most appalling decisions possible and STILL succeed. Why the heck weren't the Quarians blasting the Geth, Tali, my entire crew, into oblivion?

It seems a continuing trend right now. I don't even know if I can actually fail more than one or two missions in the whole game. The suicide one, Zaeed's Loyalty mission... what else? What can you actually lose on?

I really miss old RPGs where if you did something, or said something, profoundly stupid, you were punished for it. Right now it seems I can do whatever I want, at any time, and the game just keeps rolling on without consequence.

Same as Dragon Age 2 by the way.

Thanks for reading my rant.

 

[Julianking93]

I think they're just trying to appeal to a wider variety of gamers.

Lots of people (myself included) don't like the RPG elements that were present in DA1 or ME1 and found that the changed combat and general atmosphere in both sequels to be vast improvements. Granted, I've only played about 10 minutes of ME2 but it seems to be a similar change to DA2, so I can't really comment on the example you're giving but so far, it seems every action I've done in any Bioware game has consequences, be them large or small.

Plus, I'd imagine that Bioware just wants the story to be able to continue regardless of the choice you make. It just changes things up a bit depending on the decision you made.

Oh and it would do good to state just what you're spoiling in the title of this so people who have yet to play ME2 won't get that ruined for them.

 

[Indecipherable]

I think they're just trying to appeal to a wider variety of gamers.

Lots of people (myself included) don't like the RPG elements that were present in DA1 or ME1 and found that the changed combat and general atmosphere in both sequels to be vast improvements. Granted, I've only played about 10 minutes of ME2 but it seems to be a similar change to DA2, so I can't really comment on the example you're giving but so far, it seems every action I've done in any Bioware game has consequences, be them large or small.

Oh and it would do good to state just what you're spoiling in the title of this so people who have yet to play ME2 won't get that ruined for them.

Good point, I added ME2 to the topic title.

I loved the new combat for ME2, it was a huge improvement on the clunky system of ME1. ME2 is one of my favourite games of all time now, but the more I play it the more I realise I can't actually do anything wrong. I will always win, even despite my best attempts to do things that are foolish.

 

[Gigatoast]

Yeh, I noticed nobody seems to have any reaction to a Geth just walking around. It was probably just an unavoidable oversight.

Failing missions is just stupid. There can be multiple outcomes, not all of them good, but when you accidentally click the wrong speech option and it pretty much screws your entire game what's the point? You're just going to reload anyway so there was no reason to have that option to begin with.

The character confrontations on the other hand are pretty good at getting across the same feeling, but in a good way. On your first playthrough of ME2 they just come out of nowhere, and unless your paragon/renegade is high enough you'll end up losing the loyalty of one of your team members. (and it's a pain to get back)

I'm mostly defending Mass Effect, since I don't really care for Dragon Age 2 (didn't like Origins that much either).

 

[Julianking93]

Good point, I added ME2 to the topic title.

I loved the new combat for ME2, it was a huge improvement on the clunky system of ME1. ME2 is one of my favourite games of all time now, but the more I play it the more I realise I can't actually do anything wrong. I will always win, even despite my best attempts to do things that are foolish.

Once again, this isn't something I can comment on seeing as I haven't played ME2 for more than a few minutes but I see what you mean in regards to that complaint if it's anything like in DA2.

No matter what you do, you don't fail anything. You just get more options to complete it.
If you piss someone off, they will attack you. If you go with what they want, things will go smoothly but there isn't an automatic fail option if that's what you mean.
Not entirely realistic, but what fun would that be if the game just ended if you make one bad decision? :3

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

They do it to appeal to more people. I wish the potential for utter disaster was in (recent) RPGs.

 

[pixiejedi]

Well, your with a well respected member of their community and you have quite the reputation. You can screw up that mission if you sell out her dad instead of being a bad ass. Also the two points where crew members are yelling at each other can cost you too so there is that.

I don't think the point is whether or not you can fail those missions. I think its about learning more about your crew and what makes them them and about making crucial decisions about their lives. They react differently to different stuff but you still help them and for goodness sake you earn their damn respect for being so awesome.

 

[Indecipherable]

Failing missions is just stupid.

This single statement here I absolutely disagree with. Consequences are necessary. Those old RPG games I used to play, there were many, many missions that I failed and I just played on because honestly it was just a part of how things worked back then.

 

[Easton Dark]

Everyone knows Shepard could easily murder everyone on the ship if his crew was attacked.

 

[j0frenzy]

I haven't gotten to ME2 yet (still wrapping up 1) but I think I would need to see some context and see the lines before I made a judgement. Best answer I could give you, they didn't want you to auto-fail and have to reload because you picked the wrong teammate, particularly since I am assuming they carry over similar achievements from the first game, meaning keeping a consistent team matters. Locking out a whole quest just because you decided to play a team with Tali and the geth at the start of the game and want to be consistent would be kind of a dick move. Also, you are Shepard the Spectre. If saying that Spectre can't get you out of any situation then I no longer know how to proceed with life.

 

[Scabadus]

You've gotta remember that Legion isn't acting as a typical Geth (as percieved by the Quarriens) acts. They think of all Geth as manical killing machines, so your robot is obviously just a particularly intelligent android build in particularly poor taste.

That and, Shepard's thing is being a good leader and a good talker. Sure he's a competent fighter too, but there are characters on the team who are (disregarding the whole player-character-is-always-awsome aspect) better at pure fighting than he is. Shepard's real talent lies in getting people to follow him and in persuading others. If you can

Spoiler: Mass Effect 1 Spoiler

get Sauren to shoot himself

then you can get an annoyed Quarrien to back down.

 

[Indecipherable]

Not entirely realistic, but what fun would that be if the game just ended if you make one bad decision? :3

A straw man argument; I never suggested this at all. Funnily enough though I am not opposed to it so long as the severity of the poor decision was great enough. You can always reload if you totally ballsed the whole thing up and it serves as a timely reminder to think before doing something radically moronic.

 

[Vault101]

Case in point:

I replayed ME 2 and did Tali's mission right at the very end before the suicide mission. You know, the one where she was being charged with treason for sending back active Geth components to the Migrant Fleet. Out of morbid sense of curiosity, I decided to take Legion along with me.

And you know what?

There were one or two arguments with Quarians who were upset about an active, walking talking Geth on the Migrant fleet, but all I needed to do was be angry with them and they were fine with it. I just told them to f*** off and they backed down.

Is Bioware serious? Or have they just given up on the RPG elements of this game. Because frankly it appears that I can make the most appalling decisions possible and STILL succeed. Why the heck weren't the Quarians blasting the Geth, Tali, my entire crew, into oblivion?

It seems a continuing trend right now. I don't even know if I can actually fail more than one or two missions in the whole game. The suicide one, Zaeed's Loyalty mission... what else? What can you actually lose on?

I really miss old RPGs where if you did something, or said something, profoundly stupid, you were punished for it. Right now it seems I can do whatever I want, at any time, and the game just keeps rolling on without consequence.

Same as Dragon Age 2 by the way.

Thanks for reading my rant.

assumign you went down the redegade path....

the Idea there I think is not "good or evil" but different ways of going about things

renegade shepard is a jerk but not technically evil...he just doesnt let morality get in the way of his job

and renegade shepards decsiions do have consequences

didnt save the council? well now everybody hates humans even more because they are in charge

gave the collector base to cerberus?.....what were you THINKING??!!

killed the rachni queen?...well I have a feeling shes going to be useful later on

 

[Julianking93]

A straw man argument; I never suggested this at all. Funnily enough though I am not opposed to it so long as the severity of the poor decision was great enough. You can always reload if you totally ballsed the whole thing up and it serves as a timely reminder to think before doing something radically moronic.

Of course I don't mean the whole game is going to end but you have to give the possibilities of keeping the story going. There are possible outcomes to everything. If you choose the "wrong" one, then you face the consequences but there is the possibility of getting out of it just fine.
I'm not really sure what the problem here is. You're mad because you want there to be a "Oops, fucked up, now the world's ending" option?
Or is it just that you want more variety in the gameplay? Either way, I think Bioware has pretty much done all they can for one game. :3

 

[gamer_parent]

any well established publisher that strives to moves millions upon millions of copies of their game tend not have a whole lot of balls to begin with.

 

[Indecipherable]

If you choose the "wrong" one, then you face the consequences but there is the possibility of getting out of it just fine.

It's not that you have the possibility of getting out of it... it's that it is impossible to /not/ get out of it. The conversation choices feel absolutely meaningless if the end result is always the same.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I think Bioware is trying to make games with more life than a single hit. Look at the first KOTOR game. You had the option to save the galaxy as a Jedi or ensure the Sith empire wins. Great game opportunity for player driven story but that also made a sequel's storyline that much harder to write. If Bioware ensures that a player can't change the story too much, its that much easier for them to write the next one.

 

[Indecipherable]

PS: The Old Republic promises to have permanent 'consequences' for poor decisions. Being an MMO with no reload button, I like this idea very much Now just to hope the decisions have more impact than a single one-liner later in the game.