T H I C C sheev facts

I don’t think andromeda is bad. Yes I did say that.

Andromedas not a BAD game either.

Andromeda is not bad. It could be better if had given to the A team instead of the Noobies.

Andromeda was a good game. I think people were let down because they were expecting an amazing game. I really wonder how things would have turned out if they had pushed the release another month or two. Thank God they didn't stick with the original holiday 2016 release window.

Those aren't negative feedback loops. Negative feedback loops aren't messing things up, it is more something that balances the playing field. The example I gave in the video was Mario Kart and how the person winning would only get coins and bananas in the boxes, while the person in last gets blue shells, bullet bills, and other powerful pickups. The negative feedback loop is something so the winner doesn't keep winning and the loser doesn't keep losing.

In the examples I gave, the loser doesn't keep losing because of alternatives like Omni-gel or the ability to revert to a remnant decryption key. The winner doesn't keep winning because the item is available for hacking only once. It's your book, so if you don't think it fits so be it. I think it does fit well enough with the criteria you gave. Alternatively, ME1 and MEA both grade the items in the crates to the player's level in the game. (ETA: If the odds of finding the higher level rare items is less than the odds of finding the same items at lower levels, then you would clearly have a negative feedback loop working in the background - the problem is testing it so that you would know for certain whether or not that is the case or whether it is just purely random.) ME3 makes items missed during missions available for purchase through the Spectre Requisitions Terminal, so, like the examples I gave above, it is a manual form of such balancing by giving the players a conscious way to rectify a missed opportunity. Since ME is a single-player game, there is no individual player who is "winning" vs. another individual player who is "losing." You'd have to go to the multiplayer segments for that sort of scenario to apply.

Further on this - As I understand negative feedback loops is that they are, in general terms, something that restores stability to a system. In the case of the examples I gave above, they allow the player to become "unstuck" at a point and the game to continue to completion. There may also be hidden negative feedback loops if, say, after so many consecutive critical mission failure screens, the game lightens up on the numbers of enemies that spawn or adjusts their health or AI, making the enemies easier to kill (I don't have the means to test for that, but I've long suspected there is something like that going on.) In a way, ME:A does this more obviously with the random encounter areas on planets like Voeld. If the player dies in a camp and the autosave is used to resume the game, the random enemies don't respawn in that camp. To balance things out further, random side quest triggers (like volatile canisters or datapads) do not respawn in that particular camp either, making the player have to venture to a new camp to continue the hunt for those items.

Game Design. I got my bachelors in that degree and about to graduate my masters in the same field

..... Shit.... I have to know Dragon Age to do that - Tucker

Iris Ravenhild tali's personality is cute af, never cared much for her looks, though she does look badass

Women are different than men, that's why you like Garrus, and that's why men like Liara and Tali.

It's Tali's personality that made her the standout romance option for me, not her figure. But to say that her figure didn't have a big positive bonus effect adding more attraction towards her besides of her personality, would be indeed called lying. So yea, I agree with you. You don't need the waist-to-hip ratio principle to make your characters attractive (which you have proven with a few examples of why you fell for Garrus), but it also doesn't hurt to have this principle, since it is in our biology to be attracted more towards certain figures in people. So that's why we have both in BioWare games; great personalities and attractive looks. Of course in all cases we don't have both sides of the best coin, but there's no real need anyway. Garrus might not be a looker, but his personality is great. Ashley is a looker however, but her personality is shit (space-racist). It's not all one sided that the male players have the best choices, we have shitty ones too. Anyway, to prove a point, I can say that I'm a male and I can't romance characters like Ashley even though they have a great body. It's because I don't like their personality / behavior. We males run deeper than that, even in games. I firmly do believe that. If there is no personality whatsoever, and all of the romance options are hollow bimbos, then we just pick the one with the best body, but that has never been the case with BioWare games.

@@tommi2580 actually, Garrus does fall under the waist-to-hip ratio, but for males.

Would Tali have been as popular as she is if her personality was the same but her body was more like a Volus? I'm not claiming to know the answer to that, and I won't pretend to know each person's individual tastes. Just wondering what would happen if someone tried that.

J. M. I mean, there are "right choices." The morally correct ones (if you left Project Overlord and David in the care of Dr. Gavin Archer, you're a monster) and those that make sense -- like sending an ACTUAL tech to be the tech during the suicide mission itself. Sure, you can send Jacob, and that will get you different dialogue, but, why would you send the biotic/combat specialist to do a Tech's job? Especially when you have Tali (stated to be a tech prodigy even among the technically inclined Quarians), Legion (a robot), and Kasumi (she who can break into anywhere) right there, begging to be picked. Sure, some are a little more gray in nature. Deleting Keiji's memories in Kasumi's loyalty mission, who could lead the fireteams in the suicide mission (some thought Zaeed would be a good pick), and others, but there ARE some pretty clear moments of when you make a "correct" decision.

Within the confines of your morality and your own understanding of the choices to be made, there are correct ones - ones that give you the result you personally desire (in the case of your video, you say it is to save everyone). Still, this is a game and a story you're writing. Authors do write/create characters who are amoral. They also write tragedies where people die. It makes for interesting stories but does not necessarily make those authors morally dubious people. Bioware, in designing these games, gives players multiple opportunities to "write" varied stories for themselves within their (i.e. Bioware's) budget limitations and the limitations of the technology they're using at the time. Keep in mind that we're discussing game design here - not what is morally correct or dubious IRL. The game is clearly designed expressly to allow for completion of it (i.e. beating the game) even when morally dubious decisions are made. So, I believe I have every reason to object to your calling me a monster for, on occasion, choosing to write a story where a Shepard character I'm evolving leaves David to Cerberus. If it serves the narrative I'm writing for that playthrough, Bioware has designed the game in such a way that I can indeed use that decision and still complete the game. A good example of this is Mordin. You expressly state that he dies and basically can't be saved... but this is not true. He can live in ME3 IF you kill Wrex in ME1 and opt to not cure the genophage in ME3. The death of Wrex is used as a catalyst to present the "other side" of the moral debate of the genophage since Wreav is portrayed as being far more intent on using a Krogan population boom to completely take over the galaxy. Wrex, on the other hand, indicates that he'll ask the Council for a new planet to settle on and start anew and, if Eve lives, there are assurances that the intent it to advance a much more peaceful Krogan society. Furthermore, Wrex's death may occur without any moral choice being made. That is, it can happen simply because the player did not do Wrex's side quest and had not allocated enough points to either Charm or Intimidate to diffuse the situation. An example of a death situation during the suicide mission: If you happened to recruit Morinth, then "arranging " her to die by selecting her as the 2nd second team leader unlocks a dialogue that presents the idea of her redeeming herself in the end (a classic architype of what happens with hardened criminals in stories).

They do actually