Harvesting resources has long been a staple of RPGs. That I have to gather resources is of little surprise and I'm okay with it. What I'm not okay with is when farming becomes a chore. Nothing is worse than feeling like you have to do something in a game; feeling like part of it is work. I'm playing a game! I shouldn't feel like ripping my hair out over something as static and necessary as farming.
Oblivion had one of my favorite harvesting systems because at its heart it was simple: run around and pick flowers. It was the video game equivalent of busy work, but that is why it worked. Sure I have to get flowers to get my potions skill up, but I'm also exploring the world and meeting strange new people and creatures which I then kill for exp. It killed three birds with one stone.
Mass Effect 2's system is annoying on a few levels. The system is very simple: come across a planet, scan and launch probes. However the scanning system takes for-bloody-ever to do correctly. Since I'm fairly OCD when it comes to stuff like this, I'm not satisfied until the "Rich" planet becomes "Depleted." (Somewhere the Avatar cat people are crying) So this means sloooooooooowly moving your scanner back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, around the entire rotation of the planet in hopes of finding elements. Then launching probes and collecting them.
I'm going to digress here for one second. Launching a probe to collect a mineral? Yet there are mining colonies across the entire galaxy because they've been mentioned and I've visited a couple. If ships can launch probes from space to gather the entirety of the planet's resources, I have two questions: 1) why the %$#@ would there still be mining colonies, and 2) why the %$#@ hasn't every ship this side of Illium ravaged every world in the sector WITH THEIR PROBES? Apparently Shepherd is the only cool cat with this technology. Right.
Anyway, this is expected to be done on every planet in the game so that you can both acquire enough resources to upgrade your ship, and in the vain hopes of discovering an "anomaly." Which is generally a wrecked ship or the case of the most boring mission ever, a planet where a shield of some type is down and you gotta repair it for them. Huh? But I've digressed again. The point is that this is quite possibly my least favorite mining system in the history of gaming. Nothing puts me to sleep quicker than scanning and probing.
I would, in all honesty, prefer to drop onto a planet and run around with a goddamn pick, or even the stupid probes that magically place the minerals in my ship, than scan. At least running around gives the player a sense of DOING something. And wasn't that what was great about Mass Effect? Dropping down and exploring planets? Sure sometimes you explored a 5'-square patch of grass, but you were exploring! And doing something! Hell, maybe you'll even find some interesting people to kill. This is what makes RPGs fun.
Mm. This is exactly the issue I raised with my husband about ME2. I know the first one got a bit tedious with the Mako, but part of me liked bumming around in a big hummer exploring planets. I kind of missed it! (better than getting wrist strain looking for 'space' oil! Peh! -_-')
ReplyDeleteME2 is good, but aside from the main missions and the loyalty ones, it feels like it lacks the same...expanse as the first one. I feel more in a contained galaxy despite the fact there are MORE planets on this map. e_e;;;
I guess we'll have to wait another two years for ME3 to come out to see how it pans out. ME2 is kind of a bridge game between the first and third? Maybe that's what Bioware was thinking?