Mass Effect 2 was NOT "dumbed-down"

[Frotality]

All of the items in ME2 were a matter of choice, sure there were upgrades and stuff like that, but every item is unique and has something over the next one.

Lets take the heavy pistol for example: The M-3 predator does not have as much stopping power as the Phalanx or Carnifex, but it has much more ammunition and each clip is 12 rounds, compared to the 6 rounds per clip of M-5 and M-6. This makes the M-3 invaluable if you find yourself needing a stable back-up with enough ammo. This is the same with the Assault Rifles, Sniper-rifles, SMGs, shotguns and heavy weapons.

So no, its actual choice, there is an actual trade-off for picking the one over the other. Though i am sure that you will soon find your favorite weapon as it fits your play-style much better.

again i must stress...all the differences between weapons in ME2 are the same stats that make up ME1's weapons, its just that the difference is far more obvious because there are less options. the only functional difference is the ME2 killed the sense of progression. i found myself just using whatever weapon i found after the last because different or otherwise it felt like a clear improvement. it didnt matter if i liked the viper better than the widow, the widow did more damage with less shots, there just isnt arent numbers to tell you that. you could still use the viper if you liked, but you use any manufacturer you liked in ME1 as well, both games are easy enough to do that.

part of this is just different tastes im guessing; i felt the choice in ME2 severely lacking because there was so little of it; it doesnt even matter how different each choice is, because once you have those 2-3 levels its over; you get the collector ship weapon and the entire ordeal of equipment has ended. i never had a question of what to use; you cant even get half the weapons until your done with half the game, and you can only get the final step near the end, there is no time or reason to chose between any of them. thats how i felt about it, clearly you feel differently.

the average CoD game has more variety of weapons; ME2 really felt like a step backwards and was stripped to its bare bones. to me, the arbitrary progression of ME1 was more satisfying than the bare bones choices in ME2. just my experience.

 

[valleyshrew]

I don't give a shit about the battle system, it's a generic shooter and it's so nerdy to be debating the merits of it when it would be much better if they did away with combat all together and focused on creating more engaging varied gameplay. Mass effect 2 is dumbed down because it's more linear and formulaic. Mass Effect 1 was not that great, but it had a lot of potential if it was succesful that they could work a lot harder and make a deeper game. But instead they cashed in as quick as possible and made a much shorter cheaper game. The only thing good about it was the characters. The plot was awful. Alpha protocol was a lot better than mass effect 2 in almost every way. Better gameplay (if you choose to stealth), an innovative reputation system that is far far better than a nonsensical binary choice karma system (99% of people are just going to do all paragon or all renegade, making the actual choices meaningless), more creative level design, better plot and better writing. The only thing ME2 did better was graphics. No idea why it got such good reviews.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

You might have the beginnings of a point if you actually knew what you were trying to address. That's not insulting

Er, yes it is. I don't mind the insult, but being told it's not insulting is actually rather irritating.

it's simply that you seem to be basing your arguement off of rants you've seen from other people who were also misinformed, rather than looking at the issue itself.

My rant is my own, and your attempt to undermine it with a baseless accusation of plagiarism is rather cheap. I wouldn't be surprised if these things have been said before somewhere - ME2 has been out quite a while - but that doesn't mean that the people who've said it before are the only ones on the planet who are capable of forming these opinions.

In general the battles involving Mass Effect revolve primarily around RPG gamers vs. shooter gamers. It has little to do with any kind of "PC elitism" as the arguements are universal and accross platforms, with console gamers being upset by most of the same issues that are being discussed.

My word, you're a piece of work.

The bottom line is that RPGs require a game to be stat based, as opposed to depending on the skill of the player. The original "Mass Effect" included things like weapon skill, aiming your targeting sight at the opponent and hitting "fire" meant very little, as the success or failure of your shot depending on your character's weapon skill, vs. the opponents defensive abilities, with an invisible dice being rolled to determine success or failure. This meant stats like "accuracy" were influacing the results rather than your abillity to aim.

Finally, an actual argument. And it would be quite a good one were it not for the fact that the accuracy rating made no discernible difference unless you were sniping (BTW I've already conceded, earlier in the thread, that snipers in ME1 may have enjoyed slightly more depth than the other classes).

Some shooter player could run up with a weapon, fire it point blank, and miss entirely, if they didn't have the requisite weapon skills to even make that shot.

That, sir, is BS (unless you're talking about shooting with a sniper rifle without zooming in).

<a lot of stuff which doesn't seem to be relevant>

From a couple of the comments in the rest of your post it seems you've assumed that I'm the kind of person who thinks an RPG is a rocket launcher. You're wrong, and while it's tempting to dump a small essay detailing my long history roleplaying on computers and tabletops, it's quicker to just say this: do yourself a favour and stop assuming you know everything about a person based on one post they've made. As I said in the OP, choices only add depth if they matter. I'm aware there's an accuracy rating in ME1, and I did see it make a little bit of difference to the shooting, but only a little. I've played as Sentinel, Soldier, Vanguard, and Adept, and never once found myself thinking "damn, I need to put more points into accuracy". As I said, I gather things are somewhat different for a sniper so I'm happy to make an exception in that case, but for the rest of the classes the accuracy rating hardly mattered at all.

As for the rest of it, it seemed like a bunch of stuff you wanted to get off your chest rather than anything relating to this debate, so I hope you don't mind if I leave it unanswered.

 

[Kahunaburger]

it's so nerdy to be debating the merits of it

I don't really have an opinion on your post in general, I just find it hilarious that you're posting on a video game site and saying "nerdy" like it's a bad thing.

On topic, I'd rather have a well-balanced and fun combat system than a needlessly complicated and fiddly combat system. For instance, I'll take the authentic gameplay variety offered by the ability to teleport vs. the ability to go invisible vs. the ability to generate an overshield on demand over the fake gameplay variety that comes with deciding which pair of pants gives me better armor.

 

[darkfox85]

I?m sorry. I?m not convinced. It absolutely baffles and even enrages me how anyone can say that the ME2 mechanics weren?t dumbed-down. It makes me concerned this trend will continue.

In ME1, the first time I played through was as an Infiltrator (which seems to be a curiously important detail ? reading through the last five pages) and as I levelled up I was presented with various choices. I could choose whether I wanted to increase my skills with a particular weapon, or to increase my resistance to damage.

But perhaps I wanted to improve my electronics/decryption skills and leave those previous two elements I mentioned to wait until my next level-up. Or perhaps I wanted to invest some points into the ?spectre? section and improve my revival skills. Or maybe pimp myself out in charm or intimidate. Or maybe I wanted to invest long-term with decent sniping skills. Or maybe in first-aid or maybe whatever, whatever. I?m sure everyone had their own favourites and there are many combinations, but the point was I had to do the *tiniest* bit of thinking and planning and weighing out consequences and trying to think about the long-term, and then using and applying my decisions within the game. Amongst RPG?s, no big deal.

This *smidgeon* was absolutely gutted from ME2. I was reduced to six/four choices, all of which were largely interchangeable and with limited investment in each one. Whether or not you *like* that sort of thing is subjective, and frankly I think that?s what this debate really boils down to. But still, it?s just as well I didn?t have the option to improve my hacking skills since the match-the-text and match-the-icons minigames were so freaking easy.

I don?t think I needed to go into so much detail, but I?m unconvinced by the arguments I?ve ploughed through, yet I?m getting a creepy feeling that I?ve missed something. Am I not supposed to like this?

Now I could talk about the inventory, weapon cooldown versus ammo, long tech/bio cool-down versus shared cool-down, superb story and characters versus superb story and characters, medi-jell versus regenerative health (which I can?t believe hasn?t been brought up yet) the drunken Mako versus the teetotal accountant, grenades, more weapons, and the rest, and the rest, and the rest, but I?m sure we?re all tired and I just wanted to look at that one detail.

I?ll just close by saying that although despite all I?ve said I probably prefer 2 over 1 (unrelated reasons,) they threw out the baby with the bathwater, and I think that maxim can be applied to most of the changes between ME1 and 2, especially from the perspective of people who like RPG?s.

 

[deathbydeath]

im not mad at that, just that the plot was bollocks. and people praised it for that same plot.

 

[Saviordd1]

It wasn't dumbed down at all in gameplay mechanics. I quite liked the gameplay and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The problem with ME2 is that they shat all over the story and took one of the best villains in any piece of media I've ever seen and made them pants-on-head retarded.

Care to explain? I know the story was filler but they didn't ruin the reapers and it wasn't THAT bad

 

[Twilight_guy]

ME 1 and ME 2 had different mechanics. People compare differences and make value judgments about them. People all have different opinions. Therefore, some people might judge the differences as "dumbed down" while others don't. Who right? Nobody, these are all subjective assessments.

 

[Agayek]

Care to explain? I know the story was filler but they didn't ruin the reapers and it wasn't THAT bad

Yes they did. They remade the Reapers from one of the most effective and genuinely intimidating forces I've ever seen into a Scooby Doo villain.

Every single move they make in ME2 makes no logical sense, and that's what computers do.

Spoiler: Their mistakes:

1) Kidnapping humans to make a Reaper. It would be far more efficient and timely to build a ship out of actual materials (or even use the Collector ship) and throw some AI into it to make it go. Or hell, they could have sent the Collectors to attack the Citadel and open the relay. Or even just kidnapped someone, indoctrinated them and made them do it, Trojan horse style. Any of those options would have been vastly more efficient, timely, cost-effective and far more likely to succeed. Logic dictates they should have taken one of those options. Since they didn't, we can conclude they've gone from an utterly alien threat to fucking Bugs Meany.

2) The entire premise of the Collectors. There's absolutely no reason for the Collectors to exist. It is a massive drain on the Reaper's resources just to keep them alive for the last 50,000 years. Especially since the Reapers would have no reason to expect them to be necessary. It's completely illogical and inefficient to keep them alive. And if they did exist, where the fuck were they when Sovereign was trying to capture the Citadel? If the Collector tech was nearly as advanced as they claimed, then they could have turned the tide of that battle.

3) The complete lack of a "back up plan" for the Reapers. "Oh god, the Protheans fucked with the Keepers. Oh well, time to hump it from the edge of the universe." There's no excuse for that. If the cycle really has continued for so long, someone previously would have done a similar thing, and they should have devised a back up plan, like I don't know, an open relay to where the Collector base is or something that they could use at any time.

Long story short, ME2 effectively removed any sense of intelligence or even threat from the Reapers. We don't need Shepard to deal with them, we need the god damn Mystery Machine.

 

[Kahunaburger]

It wasn't dumbed down at all in gameplay mechanics. I quite liked the gameplay and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The problem with ME2 is that they shat all over the story and took one of the best villains in any piece of media I've ever seen and made them pants-on-head retarded.

Care to explain? I know the story was filler but they didn't ruin the reapers and it wasn't THAT bad

I'm guessing he's talking about the terminator. Although I kinda liked Harbinger, but mostly because he's hilarious after the first 30 mins.

EDIT: Just read the post above this one and Agayek makes some good points about the various plot holes as well. That's the main issue with writing the villains as super-intelligent - they have to actually act super-intelligent or the whole story falls apart.

 

[SageRuffin]

It really depends on what your definition of an RPG is. If it's all about who's got the best armor, the best gun, the best skills, or generally speaking, the best numbers, then yes, ME2 has become less of an RPG to become more of an action-oriented game.

I, for one, have always thought the point of a Role-Playing Game was the role-playing, a.k.a. the story, and our own role in the story as the character. In that way, ME2 didn't deviate too much from the genre trappings of RPGs. I would go so far as to say that I welcome the direction Bioware is taking its RPGs: streamlining combat while focusing more on characters and letting go of the whole "you're the only one who can save the world" thing.

With that said, ME2 had its flaws, namely its lack of freedom that ME1 provided, which allowed for much more profound immersion. I think people may be confusing that with "dumbing down".

I agree with you wholeheartedly OP, btw, if that wasn't clear.

P.S. I also liked Dragon Age 2, so maybe I'm just one of the "dumb" people.

You, good sir/madam, just made my night.

And yes, that's good.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Totally off topic but...

1) Kidnapping humans to make a Reaper. It would be far more efficient and timely to build a ship out of actual materials (or even use the Collector ship) and throw some AI into it to make it go. Or hell, they could have sent the Collectors to attack the Citadel and open the relay. Or even just kidnapped someone, indoctrinated them and made them do it, Trojan horse style. Any of those options would have been vastly more efficient, timely, cost-effective and far more likely to succeed. Logic dictates they should have taken one of those options. Since they didn't, we can conclude they've gone from an utterly alien threat to fucking Bugs Meany.

2) The entire premise of the Collectors. There's absolutely no reason for the Collectors to exist. It is a massive drain on the Reaper's resources just to keep them alive for the last 50,000 years. Especially since the Reapers would have no reason to expect them to be necessary. It's completely illogical and inefficient to keep them alive. And if they did exist, where the fuck were they when Sovereign was trying to capture the Citadel? If the Collector tech was nearly as advanced as they claimed, then they could have turned the tide of that battle.

3) The complete lack of a "back up plan" for the Reapers. "Oh god, the Protheans fucked with the Keepers. Oh well, time to hump it from the edge of the universe." There's no excuse for that. If the cycle really has continued for so long, someone previously would have done a similar thing, and they should have devised a back up plan, like I don't know, an open relay to where the Collector base is or something that they could use at any time.

Long story short, ME2 effectively removed any sense of intelligence or even threat from the Reapers. We don't need Shepard to deal with them, we need the god damn Mystery Machine.

1) Sovereign already had all the help he needed with the Geth; there was no need to bring the Collector's (one and only) cruiser. The Geth proved to be more than enough assistance to smash through the defenses of the Citadel. Sovereign just didn't count on Shepard obtaining a deus ex machina device from Ilos. As for the idea of an indoctrinated trojan horse, people become less functional the more indoctrinated they are. That was all explained in ME1. Which leaves the idea of building a ship out of actual materials, but if they could do that then they wouldn't need to harvest organics at all, would they? And the whole premise of ME1 would fall flat on its face.
2) The collectors job is to collect samples of various species for study and experimentation. Given that the reapers need organics, it makes sense that they'd want them studied as they evolve.
3) Sovereign was the backup plan. A reaper left behind in case plan A failed. Plan A did fail. Then plan B (Sovereign) failed. Apparently there was no Plan C.

I do agree that the reapers were mildly spoiled in ME2 ("I know you feel this!" - puhleez) but not for the reasons you give.

 

[Agayek]

I'm guessing he's talking about the terminator. Although I kinda liked Harbinger, but mostly because he's hilarious after the first 30 mins.

EDIT: Just read the post above this one and Agayek makes some good points about the various plot holes as well. That's the main issue with writing the villains as super-intelligent - they have to actually act super-intelligent or the whole story falls apart.

It's not even that. Intelligent people make some mind-bogglingly stupid mistakes, if anything their mistakes are usually even dumber than a "dumb" person's.

The problem is that they act out of character. They are sentient machines, whose age and power we literally, physically, cannot comprehend. They are the epitome of artificial life, cold, logical and emotionless, save the disdain in which they view organics.

Yet every single move they make in ME2 makes no logical sense. They are computers. Computers are ruled by logic, not emotion, yet every thing they do in ME2 is either one of the most inefficient ways of achieving a goal or it runs directly counter to their stated goal.

Mass Effect 2 completely shat all over them, robbing them of any sort of effective presence as villains.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

What the hell are you talking about?

Bioware essentially removed all the bad things instead of fixing them. The cooldown shit doesn't matter at all since the game is so piss easy a fucking five-year old could beat it on insanity.

As for story, it's all filler. Spoilerbot 3000 from ME had already told you all you need to know, and the rest of ME2 is just being a psychologist in space.

It was a brainless, mediocre game to being with and they turned it into a repetitive pile of shit. The only thing it has going for is dialogue.

 

[gring]

After reading much more then I should have from this thread, I have to say that the people saying ME2 was dumbed down bring a much more solid argument and generally have much more examples to reference.

I mean, you can find so many sites that break it down so simply what was wrong w/ ME2, BOTH story-wise and gameplay-wise, but you can't find as many sites proving the exact opposite. Why? Because the argument isn't as strong.

What's the most hilarious about this thread though, are the people who say it isn't dumbed down, while at the same time using examples of where it clearly is either simplified or even removed. or i'll even read "theres a lack of choices in me2, but that doesn't mean its dumbed down" ...I'm sorry, but thats EXACTLY what that means! lol.

Then theres the OP, basically saying (before anyone else can even START discussing) that the people who disagree with him are stupid. I'm sorry, but I've seen this kind of thing many times before: when one side of the arguments supplies facts, the other supplies the name calling, USUALLY THE SIDE WITH THE FACTS IS THE SIDE THAT'S RIGHT.

 

[Agayek]

1) Sovereign already had all the help he needed with the Geth; there was no need to bring the Collector's (one and only) cruiser. The Geth proved to be more than enough assistance to smash through the defenses of the Citadel. Sovereign just didn't count on Shepard obtaining a deus ex machina device from Ilos. As for the idea of an indoctrinated trojan horse, people become less functional the more indoctrinated they are. That was all explained in ME1. Which leaves the idea of building a ship out of actual materials, but if they could do that then they wouldn't need to harvest organics at all, would they? And the whole premise of ME1 would fall flat on its face.

2) The collectors job is to collect samples of various species for study and experimentation. Given that the reapers need organics, it makes sense that they'd want them studied as they evolve.
3) Sovereign was the backup plan. A reaper left behind in case plan A failed. Plan A did fail. Then plan B (Sovereign) failed. Apparently there was no Plan C.

I do agree that the reapers were mildly spoiled in ME2 ("I know you feel this!" - puhleez) but not for the reasons you give.

1) Fair enough about the deus ex machina bit. The only real complaint about it barring that is simply lazy story telling. They didn't foreshadow the Collectors at all, and that just reeks of being lazy.

1a) As for the Trojan Horse: Saren worked for them. They literally had one of the most well-respected and influential individuals in the entire galaxy working directly for their ends. If they could do that with Saren, they could do it with someone else. Threaten their family or something and you can get compliance, especially since the common folk don't actually know anything about the Reapers. Then you're problem is solved.

1b) They don't need to build a brand new Reaper though. I will concede that it's certainly possible that they do actually need a slushy of several hundred thousand organics to give a new Reaper that spark of life or whatever, but they don't need a new Reaper. They need someone to get to the Citadel and open the relay. Just take the Normandy after the Collector's attack it, throw Harbinger into it and bam, you've got a functional Reaper ship that no one in Citadel space can actually detect. Instead, they spend months and months harvesting thousands upon thousands of humans, which is practically guaranteed to draw the attention of the only individual ever to effectively fight against them.

2) Fair enough. It's glaringly inefficient to use a organics that you need to waste resources feeding, resting, etc on though. Just have some probes ala The Empire Strikes Back that go around kidnapping organics and doing some exploratory surgery on them. It's more... morbid for lack of a better term, but it's far more efficient.

3) Any being with the Reaper's level of raw age and experience, especially when the continuation of their existence likely depends on it, will have more than one way to their "feeding grounds", for lack of a better term. The sheer fact that the only way to get from wherever they were into the galaxy is the Citadel is just fucking retarded. Put a copy of the stupid thing with the Collector base that you can use whenever. Then once enough time has passed, jump through it, problem solved. You don't even need to worry about the organics fucking with it like they would the Citadel. Locking yourself to only one way in or out is just plain stupidity.

 

[NewYork_Comedian]

Another FPS fan who dislikes RPG's ranting about how gutting all the customization and depth from Mass Effect 2 was a good thing.

Nothing new to see here.

Did you only read the title of the thread and then started typing? Chances are that someone who is a "pc gamer" probably loves RTS's and RPG's waaaaay more than First Person Shooters. He completely shows his opinion rather than yelling "ME2 is better than ME1 because i say so!" and that is good enough for me.

OT: Yeah i agree with you spot on. Sure some parts were fun in Mass Effect 1 [taking on my first thresher maw comes to mind], but overall ME2 is a sequel that improved on the first. Now if we could have a proper loot system on the other hand...

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Hmm, yeah, I probably shouldn't have made the "dumb" comment at the end of the OP. But I did warn up front that it was a rant.

 

[Dorian_Winter]

With the original premise of the thread, I am completely for the argument made. I found nothing 'dumb' about the game, and get rather annoyed at people who rage about how it was. It was less complex of a mechanical level, but this was due to shifts in gameplay focus and improvements on old systems.

Guy Jackson ftw.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

1) Fair enough about the deus ex machina bit. The only real complaint about it barring that is simply lazy story telling. They didn't foreshadow the Collectors at all, and that just reeks of being lazy.

1a) As for the Trojan Horse: Saren worked for them. They literally had one of the most well-respected and influential individuals in the entire galaxy working directly for their ends. If they could do that with Saren, they could do it with someone else. Threaten their family or something and you can get compliance, especially since the common folk don't actually know anything about the Reapers. Then you're problem is solved.

Okay, fair point. But wouldn't they need a reaper to open the relay? Even Saren didn't have the ability to actually open it, he had to hand control of the citadel to Sovereign in order to get the relay open.

1b) They don't need to build a brand new Reaper though. I will concede that it's certainly possible that they do actually need a slushy of several hundred thousand organics to give a new Reaper that spark of life or whatever, but they don't need a new Reaper. They need someone to get to the Citadel and open the relay. Just take the Normandy after the Collector's attack it, throw Harbinger into it...

I don't think Harbinger is anywhere nearby. I thought he was communicating with the Collectors from a distance (presumably from dark space).

2) Fair enough. It's glaringly inefficient to use a organics that you need to waste resources feeding, resting, etc on though. Just have some probes ala The Empire Strikes Back that go around kidnapping organics and doing some exploratory surgery on them. It's more... morbid for lack of a better term, but it's far more efficient.

Actually organics are extremely energy efficient compared to machines. A PC consumes several hundred joules per second, whereas a human uses only a handful of joules per minute. Of course, the reapers should be a lot more advanced than a PC, but still, Sovereign didn't look like he was designed with efficiency in mind, what with all that firepower.

3) Any being with the Reaper's level of raw age and experience, especially when the continuation of their existence likely depends on it, will have more than one way to their "feeding grounds", for lack of a better term. The sheer fact that the only way to get from wherever they were into the galaxy is the Citadel is just fucking retarded. Put a copy of the stupid thing with the Collector base that you can use whenever. Then once enough time has passed, jump through it, problem solved. You don't even need to worry about the organics fucking with it like they would the Citadel. Locking yourself to only one way in or out is just plain stupidity.

Yeah, I guess they should have had a plan C. But we (organics) have to have some sort of chance or there is no story.