Loyalty vs. Friendship/Rivalry - A Discussion

[mechapotatoalex]

Just a heads up - this will contain general spoilers for Dragon Age II. Nothing specifically plot-related, but I'd recommend you stay away if you're trying to remain completely spoiler-free.

I nearly didn't write this up - it's very easy to get excited about DA2 and want to share it with the ME crowd. However, this is a subject I think is ripe for

Comments

long rant is long

[goldeneagle]

TBH, as much as I liked some of the loyalty missions, I feel like they might have been stronger conceptually if they were a little more geared towards "there's one last thing I need to take care of before I might die" rather than the somewhat haphazard "hey I just found out that something's happening, do you want to help me?" I like the idea of the crew coming onto the Normandy with specific baggage that you know you're going to have to specifically address

Re: long rant is long

[goldeneagle]

While Jacob's loyalty mission has gotten some shit for being a bit plot-holey, his fits that model rather well: he gets the news about the Gernsback's distress signal, and is like: "Look, if we get the chance, I want to know what happened to my Dad. It's kind of been a mystery for the past decade and I'd like some closure." The way he talks about it makes it sound like one last thing he needs to do before he dies, rather than something that happens to be happening right now so can we take care of it for me plz? Regardless of your opinion of the mission itself, at least it's personal and makes sense in the grander scheme of things. Likewise, Jack and Garrus' are about closure and revenge, and you know that it's something that they need to do for peace of mind. Dying wish, bam. Garrus' admittedly has a bit of that "WHOA I JUST GOT INFORMATION LET'S DO IT NOW," but to a lesser extent than some of the others

Re: long rant is long

[lanoger]

Oh, good argument. That's exactly what was bothering be about the missions, only you said it with clarity.

After the teammate had completed their One Last Thing they would be loyal to the mission. These people are ready to die for the cause and no hissy fit is going make them take their ball and go home. They may not like Shepard, but they're not going to leave.

I didn't like the DA:O system even without the bribery angle and it would have been an ill-fit for ME1 and 2. The quickest way to strip the emotional impact of Mordin's mission would have been (Mordin approves +25, Miranda approves +5, Grunt disapproves -10)

Now, if ME3 lets you push the krogans someone into the Reaper camp...

Re: long rant is long

[goldeneagle]

Oh the DA:O system was FAR from perfect, and the example you gave is ... GAH. I mean, as much as I would have liked your party member to comment on the situation a bit more (rather than quietly sitting in the back of the cab because Mommy and Daddy are having a fight Shepard and Garrus are having a heated discussion), but that would have been terrible. I just think that DA:O got the personal quest activation right, and I wish the idea of "you have to actually talk to your party members to get their quest" had been used for ME2 as well, since all you need to do is wait around a bit for Kelly to tell you: "Go to that corner of the ship and you'll unlock a mission

[sinvraal]

I think the loyalty missions were a great idea in principle, but came out too mechanical and disconnected in the final game. Individually, they're great stories, but their lack of connection to each other or the central plot thread only serves to highlight the central plot's weakness

[mechapotatoalex]

Yeah, I'm not convinced we'll be seeing it in ME3. I'd love it if we did, but given that everyone's pretty certain the main focus of the game is on recruiting whole races to fight the Reapers, I don't think they'll be devoting as much time to the backstories of our squad members.

[lyandar]

Good points, and a very interesting topic... I like the idea that my choices affect the way NPC's act towards my character, it makes the game more interesting, though I may not always like the outcomes

[mongoose_bite]

Whatever system a game uses, I hope it isn't too harsh. One thing I really disliked about KotOR 2 was the fact that I always felt I had to kiss ass or the characters wouldn't like me. I didn't say what I wanted to say, I second guessed what the characters would want me to say. I liked the fact that in DA:O I could be an unrepentant bastard (or decent person - looking at you Morrigan) but I wouldn't lose my crew as long as I gave them presents and talked my way out of it.

In KotOR 1 and ME1 I could explore basically any dialogue options I wanted and I liked that; the conversations felt far more natural.