CREW | Giving them additional tasks and enacting solo missions

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@fudgietroll wrote:

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@RoastPotato26 wrote:

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@mcsupersport wrote:

@RoastPotato26  "It'd make your life much easier of course but i dont think Bioware wanna go the way to let the AI solve the problems that otherwise would be your task."

Umm...this one line makes me scratch my head, and reply.....SAM, hack this door for me.....SAM, look at this data and tell me where I need to go....SAM......

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EDI existed in ME2 and 3 as well, helped you during the missions but it didnt mean she did it for you. Of course if she wouldnt be there it'd be much harder or impossible to do things but sending a teammate to do a task where you dont need to be, and still get the reward for it is different. That what i was talking about. Lets say you go to Havarl , but you send Jaal to scan some minerals on Eos that you missed, send Liam to scan the scavenger bodies on Elaaden and so on. By the time you finish what you are doing on Havarl your teammates may would finish those missions as well, making the additional tasks in the journal totally neglectable by the player as the AI could simply do it if not on the first then on the second or 3rd try.

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Alternatively, you could have your squad do specialized strike team missions or even be able to attach to your strike teams to provide a one mission bonus, with each squadmate having a different bonus. I do like the idea of having some way to get out of the unmarked drive around in circles part of some quests.

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That makes more sense. I would support that one. Putting them to lead a certain strike team to boost their chance of success.

Additional tasks, as some have pointed out, could be heavily influenced by Loyalty and Flirting options. Having your team mates in the right mood would be the key to have them performing these tasks with optimality.

The idea of having them able to do solo missions is regarding the fact the game doesn't urge us to save the Nexus in any way. Then come the toothless guy and asks, "Oh, yeah, how about the multiple times Addison snaps at us saying that people are starving? Eh, EH!?" Well, that's the thing. People are starving and yet, there we are, collecting flowers, helping people with courier jobs, finding incredible, RYDERRR, craters and taking our sweet time to do anything else, and we are not penalized for not getting straight to that same terrible urging mission.

Solo missions would require some expertise for proper handling, a starting level limit, chances for failing, a different rewarding return, the absence of the assigned crew mate. Besides, when doing main missions, you would require your whole team at the ready. Sending them would not be something fail safe, but could pay back the time every now and then if you were willing to trade experience and rewards, and the possibility of failing and having your squad mate not willing to do that any more; failure would impact your squad mate mood, affect additional task performance, depending on the task, that squad mate would refuse doing a another mission for a while etc. It is not supposed to deliver easy jobs on a silver plater. And assigning jobs to optimize our time is just logical, given we are suppose to try and get the Nexus on track as fast as possible.

The game should, in my opinion, show the draw backs if you don't cope with the urging issues as soon as possible. And most of this issue is tied with Viability being so permissive. There should have a minimum of viability of what, 50% so you could avoid some draw backs in a given planet, allowing you to leave it and move somewhere else. Viability is also non fluctuating. If you get 70%, it'll stay like that until the end of times, regardless you do anywhere else. It's as if, in spite the fact enemies keep respawning endlessly, and sometimes additional enemy gears and machinery sprout later, viability remains ever the same. What, the enemy simply gives up? There are no unexpected tidings?

The fact the game makes our time not really urgent, disregards the importance of trying to optimize it, so it leads us to dull adventures to collect things back and forth, solving family issues, solving back pain, collecting faeces samples, we simply do everyone else's job, and ... that's all right? Weren't people starving? Wasn't the Moshae about to die or whatever? Aren't the kett and other enemies respawning on all planets we landed? Are they going to mess up with anything if we don't get back and grant the planet's viability? Where's the urgency which was here this instant? You are not truly penalized by meandering. You are only rewarded. That's how the game ends up not having a tangible sense of impact upon our choices, because it seems we can afford doing anything, because results will always reward you, even when it looks like you failed.

The idea of assigning troops would be to give that meaning, of urging and rushing, speeding any side-tracking tasks so we could muster back our team on the Tempest and head to our  really important missions, to have them done, together, playing the utmost of our capabilities.

I feel like what you say is true about time not being urgent in this game, but generally speaking (especially in RPGs) this will be the case.  It almost has to be the case. 

I was thinking about this before and the thing is, people want to go at their own pace in games like this one and in addition to that, people need different things to win than others.  What I mean is, somebody might be able to defeat a boss at a lower level than myself, whereas I just can't until I'm level whatever.

Sure you can adjust the difficulty levels, but ehhhh.

So we take our time leveling as much as we want and getting the equipment we want and we don't want the Moshae to be dead afterwards, lol.

Yes it's more realistic and I can see how cool it could be, but mess with that time dynamic too much where you're just moving forward the whole time and you don't have a multi-pathed RPG, you have a linear action game.

Yes, I'm aware of that.

What I had in mind was mostly the fact that, whenever you were to face something that would require you to act without meandering, you would be, in a certain moment, notified, or even have your game automatically saved beforehand.

I remember certain Final Fantasy games (probably XII) in which, when you were about to enter a place you wouldn't be able to leave so soon, the game pointed it out that you should make another save file or so, something on those lines, instructing that it would take a while for you to be free to wander around again.

Another point is that we have a history of urgency in ME that acted that way. ME2, when the Collectors adbuct your crew, you can delay saving them as soon as possible by doing any remaining missions, giving the last mission is about going after the Collectors. However, the game penalizes you for not going as soon as possible, by killing your crew if you don't arrive in time. This result doesn't really make difficulty levels any more or less important. It just shows you that your choice in not acting had a consequence, no matter what. You wanted to be a completionist and do all your missions? Your crew paid the price. But before that, you had your time to do, as well.

I don't think the whole game required you to rush things. But there are key moments, and to be consistent, even to its own core, story and dialogues, it should have some locking down, to make the player understand the gravity they are in. MEA is too happy, too many jokes, work arounds, easy-going jobs and tasks. In certain aspects, it transpires what it intended, while makes the opposite way regarding others. The game is conflicting.

Speaking of FF XII, I think if MEA open world worked on the lines XII worked, it could be ok. FF XII gives you enough freedom to explore some areas with no imediate connection with the main story. The critical areas which required story to catch up were locked by something, but you could go to and fro rather freely meanwhile.

Not to mention many optional quests and challenges.

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And I had forgotten Lexi.

Lexi: talking with her about other crew mates, giving her more info regarding their behavior and field performance makes her increment health of all your crewmates and enhance their capabilities gradually. They gain more stats whenever they level up and they also get small bonuses upon some passive skills when tied to physical and psychological capabilties.

PandaTar wrote:

• Liam: nothing, he's useless. Kidding.

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     And yes, Liam needs more love.

No, you're first instinct was right.  He's useless.  I'd rather recruit the Archon on my team.  He doesn't need more love - he needs to be ejected out the airlock as close to a black hole as possible.  I wouldn't mind letting him scrup the toilets 24 hours a day.

As to your others points, great thoughts!

We could give Liam side quests all the time, so we didn't have to be in his presence.

There, DLC right there: LIAM gets side-quests. Alone. He can die.

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@PandaTar wrote:

We could give Liam side quests all the time, so we didn't have to be in his presence.

There, DLC right there: LIAM gets side-quests. Alone. He can die.

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Sooner or later, if you keep sending someone on suicide missions hoping they will die, something will happen and they will become a nemesis who runs off, goes rogue, and tries (repeatedly) to kill you. This could actually work out well. If you treat Liam well he stays with you, and if you try to get him killed he has a DLC or MEA2 questline where he is trying to destroy you (and possibly the Initiative). I still think there should be a third option to shift him off onto Prodromos or Kedara, or maybe Paradise, though.

That way would be interesting, given Liam would become a character I love to hate, instead of one I just don't fancy/care. ^_^