Mass Effect 3 Discussion Thread

[Eumerin]

Major Spoilers:

When Anderson died (apparently I missed an interrupt that can save him, cried when I found that out too)

Actually...

You don't really save Anderson. He has a short post-TIM conversation with you and then collapses. And unfortunately, the best version of the conversation - where he asks you if you ever thought about settling down and how excited your kids would be to have Shepard as their mom/dad - didn't make it into the game. Might have something to do with the fact that Shepard's almost guaranteed to *not* survive... That conversation is in the data files, though (which is why people know about it), and has been put on YouTube.

There's a list of "16 different endings" floating around, but they pretty much amount to how bad the Earth looks during the brief scene with the Reapers leaving, whether you destroyed the Collector Base or handed it over (I assume this only affects the way that TIM looks, but I don't know for certain), which sparkly color displays during the ending, whether EDI is one of the people stepping out of the Normandy (tied to the sparkly color choice - specifically, anything but Destroy), and whether someone who is probably Shepard is seen drawing a breath in rubble after the Normandy crash scene. The green sparkle (Synthesis) might not be available if you don't have enough war points, and "Shepard" drawing a breath is only available at the higher war points totals and only if you picked Destroy (red sparkles).

In short, you're not looking at anything as personally significant as which of your ten squad members die like in ME2.


I'm not overly enthusiastic about the end game (pretty much everything after the pillar in London - I'm not even too keen on the TIM encounter, which most people don't complain about), but the inexplicable scene with the Normandy at the end - complete with squad members who should still be on Earth - is probably the least liked segment of the ending for me simply because it makes no sense whatsoever given what we know. It's somewhat akin to seeing the Millenium Falcon crashing on Tattooine at the end of Return of the Jedi and watching Han and Leia walk out, and thinking to yourself, "Wait a minute, wasn't that ship just fighting at Endor? And weren't those two people on the moon's surface and not on the ship?"

As for MP, I just finished the personal goal for Operation: Goliath - i.e. beat a Silver Reaper map and get at least one team mate extracted. I was not one of the people who got extracted because I got stuck on a ladder.

>.<

Not the first time that's happened, either...

I started out with an Asari Vanguard (unlocked her with my freebie starter pack), but I've grown dissatisfied with it. She seems to be a bit too ineffective against the really big stuff - particularly things that like you to get up close so that they can one-shot melee kill you (like Banshees, for instance... I *hate* those...). More recently I've been playing with a Turian Sentinel, and that's what I beat the Goliath challenge with. I find his Overload and Warp abilities to be very useful against the big nasties. Weapon unlocks are slow, for obvious reasons (gotta keep you playing!), but they're slowly coming along. I haven't received any Rare weapons yet, but I have unlocked a couple of the Rare race/class characters.

[eldargal]

If the rumoured ending DLC is paid for that will be a bit offensive, I have to admit. I'll still buy it because I love ME3 and want more story, and I enjoyed the current endings well enough. I don't actually need closure or a happy ending to appreciate the themes of the series and in that context the endings are excellent. I'm actually inclined to believe the Indoctrination theory as it does explain all the plot holes and 'waking up' after a certain ending.

The trick to taking down Banshees with a Vanguard is to biotic charge, and start jumping back before you hit her, then you actually impact and jump back instantly and don't give her a chance to grab-stab you. Shoot, charge, back up, rinse repeat. Just make sure you have room to maneuver. The same works with Brutes, Atlases and Phantoms but with Phantoms you can sometimes risk a heavy melee when their barriers are down. I tend to keep my missile launchers for wave 10 or extraction if I can so I can take down the big things from range safely rather than risk it. Hitting a banshee with a missile is hard to do, though. The main thing I'm having trouble with as a Vanguard is Ravagers, they don't seem to take much damage from biotic charge nor SMGs nor shotguns nor heavy melee.

[Lord General Armstrong]

In my experience Engineer beats everything, Overload for shields, barriers and geth, Incinerate for armour and living targets, Combat drone for Guardians (As they appear behind them making the silly frakkers turn around). I have also never had trouble with banshees anyway, it only takes that single rocket or combined automatic fire.

[eldargal]

Engineers are great against Cerberus (assuming those are the ones that can hack turrets?) but in matches against Reapers (I've not managed to get a game against Geth in two days) they don't seem to do too well. Just my experience, though.

I'm having a terrible run at Silver matches, clipping problems (I end up floating above the base unable to target or see anything but able to be killed), disconnects when killed and getting put in a group with three infiltrators where everyone would target me and their slow firing sniper weapons didn't seem to thin out the crowd much. I also haven't seen a medi-gel drop in ages even in equipment boxes which I thought always have them.

[Lord General Armstrong]

Heh, I have never used any of the in game equipment except for the missile launcher, I currently have over 50 medigel, 60 thermal clip recharges and 60 health and shield restores but however I do use armour and ammunition abilities every game. I do think the reapers are the hardest enemy but my geth assualt rifle and predator seem to thin them out pretty easily.

[Eumerin]

I'm having a terrible run at Silver matches, clipping problems (I end up floating above the base unable to target or see anything but able to be killed), disconnects when killed and getting put in a group with three infiltrators where everyone would target me and their slow firing sniper weapons didn't seem to thin out the crowd much. I also haven't seen a medi-gel drop in ages even in equipment boxes which I thought always have them.

Haven't had the "all infiltrator" issue. But I have seen an awful lot of level 1s (with N7 rank 1, so they don't have a higher level alternate character) in Silver match lobbies. I also saw one Silver lobby with two rank 4s.

>.<

Overload is still useful against organic unshielded targets. It has a chance of briefly stunning them. And if the stun triggers, then it pops them out of cover (they stand up when they get stunned). I've found that VERY useful against Nemesi. If you get both "additional nearby target" skill ranks, then it's also handy against clustered troops. So far, I've been loving my Turian Sentinel against Reapers. Overload for the stun as well as knocking down shields on Marauders (had one wave in which I was defending the rear of the "encampment" and single-handedly picked off several Marauders; two appeared at first, I overloaded the shield of one at long range, head-shot it with my battle rifle, and then another appeared to replace the dead one) and barriers on Banshees, and Warp for use against Brutes and Ravagers, and the armor on Banshees.

[eldargal]

I never used medi-gel as a soldier, but as a Vanguard I go through it fairly quickly. On the upside in some games I end up doing more damage than the rest of the team combined (I don't care so long as we win, but it shows I'm doing my job).

When I was starting out with quickmatches I ended up in a couple of silver matches by mistake, I didn't embaress myself fortunately. But it is a little disturbing to see a silver match where I've got more levels than the other three combined. In fact I've noticed another irritating thing, there seems to be groups of low levels that join matches and then quit as soon as they start. It may be disconnects but given that it happened quite a few times and they were all level 1 it seemed a bit suspicious.

[Firebreath]

I finished the game yesterday, and... I am going to ignore the end and the MP for the time-being.

Instead, how do you people feel about the selection of squad members?

Personally, I found the offered possibilities strangely limited.
If you play the game as a Soldier, you'll have exactly NO choice in selecting a Biotic. It's Liara or nothing.

You'll get 2 Tech people, so that's okay, I guess.

And then there's 3 Soldier types - although Garrus would probably classify as an Infiltrator with some Tech abilities - James (with a Shotgun) and Ashley (with a Sniper Rifle).

Come to think of it, if you rescued Kayden instead of Ashley in ME1, the choice would become slightly more balanced.

But still, I ran with Garrus and Liara most of the time, unless the game gave me no choice.

Also, I found the game strangely hard in some places, even on Normal difficulty level. Seems I still need to figure out HOW to play this game.

[Eumerin]

I finished the game yesterday, and... I am going to ignore the end and the MP for the time-being.

Instead, how do you people feel about the selection of squad members?

Personally, I found the offered possibilities strangely limited.
If you play the game as a Soldier, you'll have exactly NO choice in selecting a Biotic. It's Liara or nothing.

The bonus character from the DLC is a biotic. And from various comments, it appears that the game was designed with him in mind. The semi-official story (i.e. the version suggested by some of the data that lies somewhere between the official completely official story and the version entertained by the most cynical fans) is that the game was designed with the bonus character planned for release, but not all of his content was ready by the official "stop development" date.

So that's where your missing Biotic is.

Garrus is a mix of Tech and Soldier, and has been since when he was introduced in ME1. Of the six characters in ME1, three of them were "pure" primary class types (i.e. Soldier, Tech, Biotic), and the other three each represented one of the three mixes that you got from merging two of the pure classes. Garrus was the soldier/tech hybrid.

As for Vega, I didn't like him much myself. But he's got a somewhat odd skill set that's designed to allow him to be used as a tank. iirc, one of his skills is suspiciously similar to Tech Armor, which is most definitely not a Soldier skill.

[Charax]

Throughout the Mass Effect series I've never really mixed up my squad much, so the selection doesn't bother me either way.

In ME3 my squad tended to be EDI/Javik or Liara/Tali, so either way I get a Biotic and a Tech. I avoid the Soldiers, except very rarely taking Garrus if I know something big needs taking out.

Bonus power was Javik's Dark Channel - unfortunately it unlocks VERY late in the game so I don't get much use from it, but once I have it I drop Javik and go EDI/Liara or EDI/Tali

Ashley has always been boring as hell, but she looked nice which is why I let Kaiden die. Pretty sure next time I'm just gonna shoot Ash in the face for questioning me. Apparently Kaiden gets Reave, which was fantastic on Samara in ME2
(My team for most of the suicide mission was Mordin/Samara:
ASSUMING DIRECT CONT-
*Incinerate* *Incinerate* *Reave* )

The more people who can have assault rifles the better, too - the Prothean particle rifle is a beautiful goddess of a weapon, and crossing the streams on a banshee brings me great joy (does bugger-all damage though)

I find difficulty spiked any time the game sent 3+ brutes at you in a confined space (Like summoning the thresher - I just ran like hell) or multiple banshees. Dear god do I hate Banshees.

The final boss was pretty tough too. Much respect, Guardian Shields

Edit: Oh, and regarding the ending, apparently a real "Final Boss" would have been too Video Gamey. well, this kind of conundrum has been resolved before. The Jesus thing is lame.

[Firebreath]

I hate Banshees as well.

Yeah, I need to experiment some more with different Squad members; also, I need to try this with an Adept to sate my lust for Biotic combos, haha.

As for Javik; I'm not going to bother, tbh. EA/Bioware fubar'ed this so much... There are no words.

I'm not mad, though. Just... very disappointed.

[paspinall]

A pretty good summary as to why I don't like Bioware as of late.

Anyway, it seems future DLC will indeed adress the aftermath of the game: http://kotaku.com/5894186/mass-effec...brings-closure

And yet another Bioware statement on their facebook i believe it was states they have no plans to alter the ending of the game.

[paspinall]

well with the difficulty levels, apparently its all been taken "up a notch" so if you are playing on the current ME3 normal, thats why its supposed to be about as hard as well hard was on ME1 and 2

[Firebreath]

well with the difficulty levels, apparently its all been taken "up a notch" so if you are playing on the current ME3 normal, thats why its supposed to be about as hard as well hard was on ME1 and 2

Yeah, possibly.

Also, in ME2 the enemy AI scaled to your level, so an import would have some tough times because of having no weapons upgrades to start with. I imagine ME3 would work about the same?

I'm going to start a new Character, Adept, and put it on "Hard", and see what happens.

[Eumerin]

Yeah, possibly.

Also, in ME2 the enemy AI scaled to your level, so an import would have some tough times because of having no weapons upgrades to start with. I imagine ME3 would work about the same?

I'm going to start a new Character, Adept, and put it on "Hard", and see what happens.

ME3 keeps your upgraded weapons when you import a character that previously finished the game.

It also provides bigger upgrades (finding a weapon on the ground increases the level of that weapon by three ranks instead of just one) on subsequent playthroughs with the same character.

[Ozorik]

It seems likely that the game was simply rushed with the unsatisfactory ending being the most obvious sign of this (there was also a lot of dithering over the eventual endings as well which didn't help matters). Not to worry though DLC will save the day!

I've not been especially impressed with the game to be honest; it feels strangely bland and I have even found myself skipping dialogue. Its still a good game, around the level of DA2 IMO, but I can't see myself replaying it.

[Satan]

And yet another Bioware statement on their facebook i believe it was states they have no plans to alter the ending of the game.

Nope. The statement was in response to the outrage of another, previous statemen that they wouldn't do so. They then had to post on their facebook page in no uncertain terms that they had not yet decided wether they would alter it or not.

It seems likely that the game was simply rushed with the unsatisfactory ending being the most obvious sign of this

Just like DA2.

Its still a good game, around the level of DA2 IMO

Which is confusing, because DA 2 is not a good game. Not at all.

[Ozorik]

Which is confusing, because DA 2 is not a good game. Not at all.

Your mileage may vary, as they say

[Satan]

Your mileage may vary, as they say

Yeah. I look forward to playing the game though, and hope they release a GOTY.

[Eumerin]

Originally Posted by Ozorik
It seems likely that the game was simply rushed with the unsatisfactory ending being the most obvious sign of this

Just like DA2.

VERY unlike DA2, actually. DA2 telegraphed almost from the start of the game that things were going to turn out badly, and continued to reinforce that point throughout the game. The longer you played, the clearer the details became. Meredith's fanaticism is brought up during Act 1, blood mages appear during the same act, and by the start of Act 2 Anders is already stating that eventually no one will be able avoid picking a side. The issues that people have with DA2 aren't due to an overhasty resolution, but because they feel that they should be able to influence events more than they do. DA2 isn't rushed. The end of the game is a very deliberate stylistic choice.

ME3, on the other hand, shows signs of things being cut at the end. And at least some of those cuts appear to have had a good chance of being the result of running out of time.

I'm somewhat skeptical of how much of an effect that had on the ME3 ending, though. I think the core of the ending is what was intended. Additional time would probably have added things, but I don't know how much would have been changed overall. I get the feeling that a good chunk of Bioware really does believe that the ME3 endings as they stand are amazing.