dm04
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Post by dm04 on Apr 24, 2017 14:57:16 GMT
I became aware of this "issue" some time ago during my 2nd playthrough, when doing missions on Elaaden. So lets begin... When you create a world with predesigned content, this content have to be consistent, the stories of each mission have to match to some degree and be consistent. Each mission is its own variable and when the variables do not match (contradicts the story of another mission), it pretty much gnaws on the immersion. And immersion is something that should not be dismissed. When this immersion breaking things happen now and then, we are quick about to forget and in the end we say "now that was great". But if such moments happen on a regular basis, we tend to remember them and in the end, we see problems with the story, a lot of problems. Some people can connect the dots and pinpoint this and find out what was wrong, but some can not and they usualy just say "story bad", "narative bad", "delivery bad". While playing MEA, I ran into way too many missions that just do not add up and make no sense. It's as if they (BW) totaly lost any track of their mission flags and just put content into the game wildly, without looking left and right. I remember how this worked in NWN, where anything you could do (conversation etc), it based on a "ton" of possible variables. If this and this and this and that is true, do that, or do that. The problem with this is, the more content you have (missions and npcs), the more varying outcomes you need, and mechanics how to work around it. Now, since my few (and I only mention a few, because otherwise I would be writing a novel here)examples are full of spoilers... During my 1st game I went to Voeld first, rescued the Moshae and did some other missions. I was lost in the sheer ammount of missions avaiable. At some point, pretty late in the game, I noticed this mission from Cora and her Asari Ark loyalty mission. First step: lockate the transponder on Voeld. So I went there and at the transponder Cora said something like: "I do not understand this, Kett are about taking prisoners, not killing people." And I knew she was right, I finished enough mission (especialy the Moshae rescue) to know about Kett agenda.
During my 2nd game, I went to Havarl first and made just the scientist mission. This time I noticed Coras loyalty mission and when tasked to rescue the Moshae on Voeld... well, I decided to look for the ark transponder first. Now... when at the transponder Cora says: "I do not understand this, Kett are about taking prisoners, not killing people." And I was like. EH WHAT? The Angara fight the Kett for 75 years and have no idea or a damn clue what Kett want, and we do not either (not yet). So what is this about?
Well, this small discrepancy did break immersion a little bit.
The next one is on Elaaden... I decided to go for the remnant ship powercore first, in both games. However a small difference.
1) I was kind of tired and wanted just to finish the mission, so I went straight to the navpoint, not looking left or right, I got the core, returned it. Done, everything fine.
2) This time I had more time, so I acutaly looked around... I decided not to go over the mountain, but to take the road. Behind the door is already the flophouse full of enemies attacking... triggering the events there. I ignored it and went to the core. But there was an exclamation mark, this time, I went there and activated it, it was about Anneas hidden water source. And Ryder said: "Well we activated the Vault, there will be water." EH WHAT? I have not activated the Vault yet. Again, another immersion breaking point.
And stuff like this happen at least once per gaming hour. That is bad, just bad.
Another immersion breaking mechanic (at least to me) is this complete lack of time and "world progression". Like with the Moshae and Asari Ark, I have both missions, actualy, I now ask myself: "What to do first?" Go to the ark first and risk the MOshae to be killed or end like Aksul, or go for Moshae first and risk more dead Asari? Sadly, this "dilema" is taken from me through the game design. It does not matter where I go first. I think they could have actualy implemented some sort of a change. Sure, mission exclusives are not realy good, it cut content. But variations can be made, like "if you go for Moshae first, there will be more Kett aboard the ark". There are other missions like this... for instance: Kett take some Angara prisoners and you are tasked to rescue them and are told "they dont have much time, they will be killed or taken offworld"... but hey, who cares? Finish 2 other worlds, like 50 sidemissions, 3 primary missions, and the prisoners are still there to be rescued. Or the Voeld command center, we are told the key to the shield changes regularly and we do not have much time since we got the intel, but we can wait as long as we please. And this goes on and on. Another example can be Eos command center, the "content" there is the same pre Archon shop, post Archon shop and post Ramnant spacestation and it does not make much sense. Or Voeld architect, we "create" the outpost, talk to Addison via Vidcom and 1s after the conversation end, the mayor tells us some techs are missing and we find them on the other end of the map...
And well another problem... "time progression" is tied to "missions finished". Lets say we have mission A and when done, it is ON HOLD, and it continues when we finish mission B. But, if we finish B before first step of A, then there is no time between. Like Peebee telling me she have to find out of something works and she will come to me later... so I turned around, moved like 3m closer to the galaxy map, when SAM said "new email", so I read it, and it was Peebee who figured it out... in what, like the last 10seconds?
The major problem herein is, the more handcrafted content we have, the more variables are out there, and the more accurated we have to keep track of them. I am sure some, maybe many, people will call this "nitpicking" and actualy, it is. This kind of stuff is not new and haunts many games and BW games never were free of this problem. But, the more content you have and the less diferent outcomes, the higher the chance it is noticed. I know the MEA story is actualy not that bad (yah could be better, but it is not bad), so I asked myself all the time: What is the problem here? Why dont I like the pacing, the narrative, the delivery? Well and while there are other problems, this seems to be a major problem to me. There are way too many "WTF, this makes no sense" (also called plotholes) moments. |
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cobalt72
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Post by cobalt72 on Apr 24, 2017 15:02:31 GMT
Eh, never really paid attention to "immersion" and open-world games. I can start a quest and finish it 50 hours later and it wouldn't seem to matter to the quest giver or story
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Post by warlorejohn on Apr 24, 2017 15:43:42 GMT
Actually jaal tells you kett capture his people
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Post by klijpope on Apr 24, 2017 15:59:53 GMT
But if such moments happen on a regular basis, we tend to remember them and in the end, we see problems with the story, a lot of problems. Some people can connect the dots and pinpoint this and find out what was wrong, but some can not and they usualy just say "story bad", "narative bad", "delivery bad". While playing MEA, I ran into way too many missions that just do not add up and make no sense. It's as if they (BW) totaly lost any track of their mission flags and just put content into the game wildly, without looking left and right. I remember how this worked in NWN, where anything you could do (conversation etc), it based on a "ton" of possible variables. If this and this and this and that is true, do that, or do that. The problem with this is, the more content you have (missions and npcs), the more varying outcomes you need, and mechanics how to work around it. <snip> I am sure some, maybe many, people will call this "nitpicking" and actualy, it is. This kind of stuff is not new and haunts many games and BW games never were free of this problem. But, the more content you have and the less diferent outcomes, the higher the chance it is noticed. I know the MEA story is actualy not that bad (yah could be better, but it is not bad), so I asked myself all the time: What is the problem here? Why dont I like the pacing, the narrative, the delivery? Well and while there are other problems, this seems to be a major problem to me. There are way too many "WTF, this makes no sense" (also called plotholes) moments. I think you are getting to the crux of the problem. The problem ME:A has is not "bad writing" per se (I'll come back to this), but mission structure/layout, along with some continuity issues like you pointed out. A lot of these issues (not all, by any means) could be fixed by redesigning both the Journal and the Map. I have just done two playthroughs also, and went to Voeld initially in my first run too. And this is where the stories started to break apart for me. I ended up running around triggering quests and doing nearby markers, each time picking up a snippet of a narrative, and in the end it felt like I was trying to read a short story anthology where, while I got each story in the right order, all the stories got mixed up together and then I didn't know what was what. Second time, I went to Havarl first, and that is a more conventional BioWare 'zone', with enough discovery and story in one place without being overwhelming (as long as you leave when given the suggestion to come back to talk to the Anagram researcher). I rescued the Moshae before hunting the Ark clues on Voeld, so I didn't get this particular continuity issue. I did, however, on Elaaden. It assumed I had done the Vault when I hadn't. Most of this can be put down to the lack of time for polish. The quest journal and map is going to be the last system finalised, and it was clearly slapped together at the last minute and no finesse put into it. Elaaden is the last planet you locate, and is not critical path relevant; it seems it also had the least time to tighten up its plots. I can think of two simple fixes that would ameliorate some of these problems. 1. Designing more iconography for the map, so map markers for collections (e.g.: mineral scans) are differentiated from map markers for quests. Also have unique markers for respawning enemy camps (akin to monster nests in the Witcher). Finally, differentiate quest markers for 'proper' quest lines (critical path, planet viability, ally quests) from "!" quests, which are not meant to be substantial. 2. When you select a quest line from the Journal, turn off other quest line markers (apart from collections and "monster" camps). Basically the Rockstar method (you can't start a mission for one dude and then in the middle of it trigger a mission for another due in GTA, for example). These 'may' be possible in an update. The continuity issues may actually be bugs. Hard to know right now. As for the writing, certain scenarios feel a little undercooked. The ideas are good, but some feel rushed. However, I think presentation is the main culprit. Cut-scenes can start and end abruptly, and a lot of information can fly at you quickly without giving you the time to parse what's happened. Essentially, film-making technique is a bit lacking. In a lot of cases, even just a slow fade-in/fade-out would have helped. Maybe this new generation of devs has fewer film school grads in it than previous generations, given that nowadays there are plenty of game dev degrees to choose from (wild speculation on my part). TL/DR: A journal/map design that was more fully iterated could have nixed many of the story issues people are encountering. Better film-making technique in the cut-scenes would make the delivery feel less giddy and breathless. |
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Post by aglomeracja on Apr 24, 2017 16:05:43 GMT
Right, "nitpicking"...
I was immersed in the story for about 1-2 hours. It broke when I got to Nexus for the first time and since then it was only getting worse.
Starting with Ryder waking up after his fathers sacrifice and unexpectedly becoming a pathfinder- for some reason he doesn't seem to care about all that and neither does his crew ("don't sell yourself short, you can do it!").
Then Addison greets you with some ridiculously childish and antagonizing blabbering and you can't even make Ryder stand up for himself. Again, his dad is dead, sister is in coma, he just got shot at by aliens and their golden world is uninhabitable. How about some emotions FFS?
...and if you continue talking to Addison she changes her attitude right away, you can hear some really bad use of the word "poetry".
Then I went to Tann, and he was antagonizing as well. Conversation ended before I asked about everything, so I talk to him again and now his sympathizing with Ryder.
...
Fast forward to landing on Aya- second first contact of the game. Ryder cracks a joke, comes out and 2 minutes later I'm back on the ship with my new alien companion. Well, that was fast...
Jaal states that we don't trust each other yet, ok. I go to Veold, talk to resistance scouts and one of them is sceptical of Ryder but Jaal defends him right away and states that he trusts our fresh pathfinder.
This is how this game looks like, at least for me. Sometimes you manage to do things in the right order and you encounter less of those immersion breaking moments, but even if you focus on the main story alone, it just breaks.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 17:09:55 GMT
OP: If I understand you correctly, you're trying to describe some of the content (probably dialogue in particular) that's a little out of context or sequence for a particular playthrough, right? There are various other examples of that - lines spoken by Peebee and Drack on the Tempest before they've been recruited, email messages mentioning people and things that have not occurred yet, and the like. I think it's fair to say that these things are bugs - whether they were introduced by programming errors or writers not providing a full set of conditions (and alternate dialogue as needed) to trigger this content is something we don't really know. Maybe some of each? Some of these things might be fixed in patches, though I think they have the greatest impact on one's first playthrough. In subsequent playthroughs, it can get a little difficult to remember the exact context / story progression you're dealing with, anyway. But, yeah, I think these issues do impact people's impressions of the overall quality of the narrative and writing. Then Addison greets you with some ridiculously childish and antagonizing blabbering and you can't even make Ryder stand up for himself. Again, his dad is dead, sister is in coma, he just got shot at by aliens and their golden world is uninhabitable. How about some emotions FFS? Yanno, after all the flack they took over Shepard's reaction to the loss on Thessia (among other things), I'm not surprised they chose to avoid imbuing Ryder with a lot of heavy emotional drama. They've heard too many "MY Shepard didn't feel that way, would never act that way!" and may be trying to avoid doing that to Ryder. |
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Sanunes
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Post by Sanunes on Apr 24, 2017 17:15:01 GMT
Yanno, after all the flack they took over Shepard's reaction to the loss on Thessia (among other things), I'm not surprised they chose to avoid imbuing Ryder with a lot of heavy emotional drama. They've heard too many "MY Shepard didn't feel that way, would never act that way!" and may be trying to avoid doing that to Ryder. I think a lot of people forget that when criticizing aspects of BioWare games is the amount of flak they get over anything they have in the games. I can see that in a lot of complaints is people want the old systems or design ideas back, but at the same time people wanted those systems gone with a passion and BioWare did attempt to fix the issues. At times to me it feels like "remove everything I don't like, but keep everything I do" is the approach some of these discussions go and that just isn't possible. |
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Perpetual Nirvana
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Post by Perpetual Nirvana on Apr 24, 2017 17:15:47 GMT
I kinda get what you mean. It's clear from the 2.5 playthroughs I've done that after the brief stop on Aya, you're supposed to go to Havarl first, then back to Eos, then on to Voeld. I dunno why they even gave you a choice when deviating from that breaks the chain of events.
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Post by aglomeracja on Apr 24, 2017 17:36:11 GMT
Then Addison greets you with some ridiculously childish and antagonizing blabbering and you can't even make Ryder stand up for himself. Again, his dad is dead, sister is in coma, he just got shot at by aliens and their golden world is uninhabitable. How about some emotions FFS? Yanno, after all the flack they took over Shepard's reaction to the loss on Thessia (among other things), I'm not surprised they chose to avoid imbuing Ryder with a lot of heavy emotional drama. They've heard too many "MY Shepard didn't feel that way, would never act that way!" and may be trying to avoid doing that to Ryder. If they didn't want drama then they probably shouldn't start the game with death of main characters relative  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 18:05:51 GMT
Yanno, after all the flack they took over Shepard's reaction to the loss on Thessia (among other things), I'm not surprised they chose to avoid imbuing Ryder with a lot of heavy emotional drama. They've heard too many "MY Shepard didn't feel that way, would never act that way!" and may be trying to avoid doing that to Ryder. If they didn't want drama then they probably shouldn't start the game with death of main characters relative Point - missing it. Any emotional reaction in this situation would have been definitive for Ryder, and that definition would be OOC for some players, just as Shepard's were. |
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dm04
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Post by dm04 on Apr 24, 2017 18:12:30 GMT
OP: If I understand you correctly, you're trying to describe some of the content (probably dialogue in particular) that's a little out of context or sequence for a particular playthrough, right? There are various other examples of that - lines spoken by Peebee and Drack on the Tempest before they've been recruited, email messages mentioning people and things that have not occurred yet, and the like. I think it's fair to say that these things are bugs - whether they were introduced by programming errors or writers not providing a full set of conditions (and alternate dialogue as needed) to trigger this content is something we don't really know. Maybe some of each? Some of these things might be fixed in patches, though I think they have the greatest impact on one's first playthrough. In subsequent playthroughs, it can get a little difficult to remember the exact context / story progression you're dealing with, anyway. But, yeah, I think these issues do impact people's impressions of the overall quality of the narrative and writing. [...] Yes thats the point, and it is more then just "a little" out of context. And I know there is more, as said, if I would have listed them all, I would be propably writing till tomorrow afternoon. While bugs are possible, software not reading conditional flags properly, I rather think they missed to set some (many) of this conditional flags. |
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dm04
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Post by dm04 on Apr 24, 2017 18:21:26 GMT
Yanno, after all the flack they took over Shepard's reaction to the loss on Thessia (among other things), I'm not surprised they chose to avoid imbuing Ryder with a lot of heavy emotional drama. They've heard too many "MY Shepard didn't feel that way, would never act that way!" and may be trying to avoid doing that to Ryder. I think a lot of people forget that when criticizing aspects of BioWare games is the amount of flak they get over anything they have in the games. I can see that in a lot of complaints is people want the old systems or design ideas back, but at the same time people wanted those systems gone with a passion and BioWare did attempt to fix the issues. At times to me it feels like "remove everything I don't like, but keep everything I do" is the approach some of these discussions go and that just isn't possible. Which in particular? Also, there is always the problem listening to the wrong people. The best thing is: do what you want, but make it good. |
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Post by aglomeracja on Apr 24, 2017 18:22:47 GMT
If they didn't want drama then they probably shouldn't start the game with death of main characters relative Point - missing it. Any emotional reaction in this situation would have been definitive for Ryder, and that definition would be OOC for some players, just as Shepard's were. Yes, but now (almost) complete lack of emotions is definitive for Ryder, and that definition is OOC for me and, I suppose, some other players as well. We can choose what Ryder says after waking up and if you choose more emotional response then not being able to continue that during the very next conversation is just as much out of character. I don't think it was intentional because this way they only substituted one potential problem with another. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 18:30:50 GMT
OP: If I understand you correctly, you're trying to describe some of the content (probably dialogue in particular) that's a little out of context or sequence for a particular playthrough, right? There are various other examples of that - lines spoken by Peebee and Drack on the Tempest before they've been recruited, email messages mentioning people and things that have not occurred yet, and the like. I think it's fair to say that these things are bugs - whether they were introduced by programming errors or writers not providing a full set of conditions (and alternate dialogue as needed) to trigger this content is something we don't really know. Maybe some of each? Some of these things might be fixed in patches, though I think they have the greatest impact on one's first playthrough. In subsequent playthroughs, it can get a little difficult to remember the exact context / story progression you're dealing with, anyway. But, yeah, I think these issues do impact people's impressions of the overall quality of the narrative and writing. [...] Yes thats the point, and it is more then just "a little" out of context. And I know there is more, as said, if I would have listed them all, I would be propably writing till tomorrow afternoon. While bugs are possible, software not reading conditional flags properly, I rather think they missed to set some (many) of this conditional flags. Yes, that's the crux of my point. Whether the conditions not being set was the fault of the programmers or the design is unknown. People generally view bugs as programming errors, but sometimes the actual flaw starts with the design. I may be wrong about this, but I believe BioWare is aware of these problems - and I'm hoping they're looking to try to fix as many of them as they reasonably can. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 18:37:05 GMT
Point - missing it. Any emotional reaction in this situation would have been definitive for Ryder, and that definition would be OOC for some players, just as Shepard's were. Yes, but now (almost) complete lack of emotions is definitive for Ryder, and that definition is OOC for me and, I suppose, some other players as well. Well - what's actually definitive for Ryder is that s/he doesn't put a lot of dramatic emotions on display in those specific situations. How the character actually feels about this sequence of events and processes it all is still player's choice, as is any headcanon you want to create about what s/he does in private. MEA is a lot less dramatic with the cutscenes than MET was - which is fine by me. |
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Sanunes
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Post by Sanunes on Apr 24, 2017 18:47:54 GMT
I think a lot of people forget that when criticizing aspects of BioWare games is the amount of flak they get over anything they have in the games. I can see that in a lot of complaints is people want the old systems or design ideas back, but at the same time people wanted those systems gone with a passion and BioWare did attempt to fix the issues. At times to me it feels like "remove everything I don't like, but keep everything I do" is the approach some of these discussions go and that just isn't possible. Which in particular? Also, there is always the problem listening to the wrong people. The best thing is: do what you want, but make it good. I think a lot of the direction of Andromeda was focused in that direction, I think the open world design of the game is probably the biggest offender for me. With both Mass Effect 2 and 3 you kept seeing the same posts talking about how "it needs to be open world" and now people are upset because of the limitations of being an open world game. I also agree that the best thing would be for them to ignore what people are saying and make the game they want, for those are always the games I enjoy the most because they aren't trying to cram in all kinds of features or aspects that they believe "the fans want", when it is only the loudest complainers. I think the new IP will fall into the category of a game I will enjoy regardless of what they are trying to mimic for they aren't trying to please the people that can never be pleased. |
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Post by dm04 on Apr 24, 2017 19:03:24 GMT
I think a lot of the direction of Andromeda was focused in that direction, I think the open world design of the game is probably the biggest offender for me. With both Mass Effect 2 and 3 you kept seeing the same posts talking about how "it needs to be open world" and now people are upset because of the limitations of being an open world game. I also agree that the best thing would be for them to ignore what people are saying and make the game they want, for those are always the games I enjoy the most because they aren't trying to cram in all kinds of features or aspects that they believe "the fans want", when it is only the loudest complainers. I think the new IP will fall into the category of a game I will enjoy regardless of what they are trying to mimic for they aren't trying to please the people that can never be pleased. Few days on the bsn boards told me one thing: most people have no idea what open world is and what it is about. When the new IP hits, everyone will love it, but everyone will start telling them what they have to change. And BW will try to please them all, but finaly fail them all. Same story as usual. Imagine the original ME from 2007 with at least ME3 combat, and MEA environment gfx... getting shivers when thinking about it. Wonder when, if ever, developers finaly learn one lesson: improve and/or add, never take away... ah wait, take away: pointless features which are only in the game to be meaningsless content... like resource mining in ME2, oh boy was that stupid. Did actualy someone ask for it? And, is there someone at BW who actualy thought it was a great addition to the game? ^^ |
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Post by aglomeracja on Apr 24, 2017 19:22:47 GMT
Yes, but now (almost) complete lack of emotions is definitive for Ryder, and that definition is OOC for me and, I suppose, some other players as well. Well - what's actually definitive for Ryder is that s/he doesn't put a lot of dramatic emotions on display in those specific situations. How the character actually feels about this sequence of events and processes it all is still player's choice, as is any headcanon you want to create about what s/he does in private. MEA is a lot less dramatic with the cutscenes than MET was - which is fine by me. Unfortunately I find Ryder completely bland and having dialogue choices which are very similar to each other and lead to (almost) the same NPC reactions only makes it worse. I might have been fine with less "drama" if the plot itself wasn't dramatic. This is the first Bioware game I've played where I don't get any sense of danger or at least some feeling that what we're doing is not easy. Anyway, we're talking about preferences now. The point was that we we're given a choice to be emotional at first but 2 minutes later we can't continue that way. No way this was supposed to help anything. |
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Apr 24, 2017 20:31:23 GMT
The worst thing, I think, is that sometimes I suspect that a quest has been written cohesively down on a page before being implemented in the game and then upon implementing they give it to a quest-designer who thinks "MMO/RPG language" and he then thinks "Hmm, how do I make this quest varied?" so he'll drag the markers from one end to the next and take a single continuous storyline but make it so it no longer feels continuous since he has no clue about story.
I really think when you work in video games especially between artists and technical programmers etc. there's a tendency to be less finesse artistically on the programming front. You can't generalize entirely but to some people a good game means "lots of content" while to another gamer it means "the experience of the individual content" and I think it's here where BioWare has been going into an identity crisis lately. Since DAI or even ME3 their games have started to become gameplay/mechanics-oriented when they used to be story > gameplay which was true for quests more often than not too.
I think BioWare used to hire people who all shared an interest in pushing for story with their respective skillsets and many of those still exist but I think increasingly and in no small part due to EA taking over there's been an increasing amount of devs entering the studio who are all about the "games as a service" mentality that dominates some parts of the AAA industry. To some BioWare is just an "RPG developer" and they'll join them to make the next Diablo 3 ignorant of the fact that BioWare used to be about the CRPG type games back in the day. It could be a leniency from within BioWare too but I have a feeling more of it is EA-based than we like to admit.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 20:52:19 GMT
I have not noticed the out of context dialogues on Voeld/Havarl, so far.
The first time I run through Havarl first, and did not have Cora’s mission till fairly late in the game (after saving Moshae).
The second time through I started on Voeld, and one of the first memorable dialogues there was with the Angara resistance there, was the one that answered my question about the lights attracting the Kett with something like: “They aim to abduct us, but we fight to the death instead, so this is why we do not hide.”
It was a poignant and memorable statement (well, to me), so whenever the Arc mission triggers and I chose to do it, even if I would not have seen Kett’s Asari transformation, I would not be surprised if Cora remembered it. Abductions are also mentioned before that by the Angara. But that one on Voeld really got me…
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