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Lightning Knight posted:Absolutely, but they don't say that, they just say that they'll lose against the ship in a straight fight, which is ridiculous. Well, presumably Cerberus ships have a lot of the same technology than Normandy. No stealth systems, but the armament is probably of similar quality. And a Cerberus cruiser is a much larger ship than Normandy.
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Dec 22, 2013 20:58
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Smol posted:Well, presumably Cerberus ships have a lot of the same technology than Normandy. And a Cerberus cruiser is a much larger ship than Normandy. Perhaps, but post-ME2 military tech in the universe seems to be sitting in this weird place where they now have massively powerful weapons as being relatively common (particle lasers) with no particularly effective defense for them. Reapers seem to get by on just having massively more powerful shields than conventional ships. I think the Normandy being smaller would be in its advantage, a smaller target better at dodging. And I doubt any Cerberus vessel would end up being much stronger than a Collector ship, which were titans - their "cruisers" were dreadnaught sized - and the Normandy cut the Collector ship in half in two shots.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:01
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Lightning Knight posted:Absolutely, but they don't say that, they just say that they'll lose against the ship in a straight fight, which is ridiculous. Man, I didn't even remember that the Normandy had a Thanix cannon. It's not an egregious sin, sure, but it's another indicator that Bioware wasn't really interested in anything that came before. It's not like they forgot that the Thanix cannon was a thing, because they're being shot all over the place in the final battle. And there's... urgh... 'Thanix missiles'.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:08
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Milky Moor posted:Man, I didn't even remember that the Normandy had a Thanix cannon. It's not an egregious sin, sure, but it's another indicator that Bioware wasn't really interested in anything that came before. It's not like they forgot that the Thanix cannon was a thing, because they're being shot all over the place in the final battle. And there's... urgh... 'Thanix missiles'. I think it has to do with the fact that technically the Normandy having a Thanix cannon is optional and you could not have gotten one in ME2, but they really should've just wrote in "and the Alliance added all that poo poo you should've been adding because reasons" to side step that issue, as there's soooo many points in the game that make much less sense if you remember that the Normandy has some serious firepower it can bring to bear. I mean, that whole bit on Tuchanka and Rannoch against the Reaper destroyers is kind of strange if you remember that the Normandy has a weapon that could conceivably damage them given enough shots and is much more mobile than a Reaper destroyer on the ground.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:16
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They could have just had a line stating that the Alliance removed the big gun because a frigate shouldn't have so much firepower because it violates whatever treaty.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:30
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Is there any thematic moment where Leviathan is ideal? Or is it isolated enough that it can 'fit' anywhere? I know Citadel is a just-before-the-end-is-most-ideal DLC. And as an aside, you know what sucks about the ME series more than anything? I can't spell Citadel. I always think its Citidel, for some reason, which makes wiki-searching a pain in the rear end.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:30
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MisterBibs posted:Is there any thematic moment where Leviathan is ideal? Or is it isolated enough that it can 'fit' anywhere? I know Citadel is a just-before-the-end-is-most-ideal DLC. There's actually several points Citadel is "ideal." If you're going to do the main mission (by responding to Joker's mail in the apartment) the ideal time to do it is after Rannoch so you have Tali and everybody else around in the squad. You get locked out of everything else until the main mission of Citadel is done. The short vignettes everybody else gets around the boardwalk and apartment can actually be done whenever as they refresh after every mission and/or round in the combat simulator. The party itself is what you want to leave until after Horizon as that is the last point where a person is flagged to show up or not. As for Leviathan, I'd personally put it closer to the end since its about the origins of the Reapers. Maybe after Rannoch as well.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:37
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I wouldn't put Leviathan anywhere.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:40
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It's fine anytime, and you don't have to do it all at once. You can space out the Leviathan missions if you want. It makes sense either way.
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Dec 22, 2013 21:49
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Honestly, I think some of the blame for Cerberus being so strong in 3 comes down to Shep. Even if you played him purely Paragon, you acquire a lot of tech improvements and material boons that get their way back to them before you cut ties. Some of the mini missions in 2 had some mildly worrisome mission-complete blurbs. They'll be keeping tabs on this person, they'll have access to that container, etc. Honestly, I think the whole Working For Cerberus aspect of 2 was kind of weak. It's a great concept, but I think the way Cerberus was depicted in 1 really didn't set the table well. Instead of a fringe anti-alien group whose entirely shtick was "Everything we do fails", a better depiction would have been quasi-recognized Group Running Things In The Shadows of the Terminus systems. Every race has people that aren't happy with Mainstream Citadel Society, so they've gone their own way to do their own thing. Less formal, less moral, less ethical. That way, working for them in 2 would have been a case of Shep being so discredited over his warnings that the only people who'd listen was a group/society that most people consider disreputable or untrustworthy (contrast with Cerberus, which most consider a terrorist group and outright evil).
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Dec 23, 2013 00:57
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I would've boxed Shep in a little more in ME2, to better sell the feeling that you literally have nowhere else to go but Cerberus if you want to stop the Collectors. I would've liked the Council and Alliance to actually not believe that Shep is Shep, that you're actually a Cerberus-controlled clone or a geth-made android or something, and they might have a kill-on-sight order on you. Your encounter with Anderson would be clandestine instead of an official meeting in his office. Something like that. Hackett is the only other person besides Anderson that believes you, that way Arrival still works.
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Dec 23, 2013 02:26
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Lycus posted:I would've boxed Shep in a little more in ME2, to better sell the feeling that you literally have nowhere else to go but Cerberus if you want to stop the Collectors. I would've liked the Council and Alliance to actually not believe that Shep is Shep, that you're actually a Cerberus-controlled clone or a geth-made android or something, and they might have a kill-on-sight order on you. Your encounter with Anderson would be clandestine instead of an official meeting in his office. Something like that. Hackett is the only other person besides Anderson that believes you, that way Arrival still works. Should have let us join the Collectors 
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Dec 23, 2013 02:46
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Lycus posted:I would've boxed Shep in a little more in ME2, to better sell the feeling that you literally have nowhere else to go but Cerberus if you want to stop the Collectors. I would've liked the Council and Alliance to actually not believe that Shep is Shep, that you're actually a Cerberus-controlled clone or a geth-made android or something, and they might have a kill-on-sight order on you. Your encounter with Anderson would be clandestine instead of an official meeting in his office. Something like that. Hackett is the only other person besides Anderson that believes you, that way Arrival still works. This is just spitballing, but maybe something like- the beginning up until the first meeting with TIM happens as normal, but instead of the attack on Freedom's Progress already having happened TIM makes it clear he knows its about to happen, asks Shepard to intervene. Shepard refuses because Cerberus and goes back to the Citadel or whatever. But then! Freedom's Progress gets wiped out and Shepard totally wants to investigate or whatever but the the Alliance/Council won't let 'em, so now Shepard is all, "gently caress the rules" and peaces out to see what Cerberus is up to because they seem to sort of know what's going on and are actually doing something. Then Freedom's Progress and the rest of the game happens as normal(ish). This lets you see firsthand how the Alliance/Citadel aren't doing anything, and maybe hopefully makes working with Cerberus more palatable because at least you tried. Of course this also means a largish non-combat stretch sort of like the first Citadel visit in 1 and that wasn't the most well received so I dunno.
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Dec 23, 2013 02:51
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Zoran posted:That's not possible outside of hacking, unless you mean when you don't do Samara's loyalty mission at all, in which case they'd probably handle that by ignoring Morinth in ME3. You can fail Samara's loyalty mission and Morinth will get away. If you don't then get Samara killed in the suicide mission, they'll both be alive and known to Shepard in ME3.
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Dec 23, 2013 03:32
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Sorry for a boring post but I finally decided to beat ME3 (bought it when it came out hahahaha). I just finished a ME1 and ME2 playthrough...but realized that the DLC for ME3 would run me a few bucks. Does that stuff ever go on sale? Any hope of a holiday drop in price or am I just doing the 40 or whatever that it costs to get the main DLC? E: Sorry Origin/PC version. ChiTownEddie fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Dec 23, 2013 |
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Dec 23, 2013 04:03
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ChiTownEddie posted:Sorry for a boring post but I finally decided to beat ME3 (bought it when it came out hahahaha). I just finished a ME1 and ME2 playthrough...but realized that the DLC for ME3 would run me a few bucks. Does that stuff ever go on sale? Any hope of a holiday drop in price or am I just doing the 40 or whatever that it costs to get the main DLC? It's never been on sale for PC so far (or the silly Bioware points you need for it, for that matter) and considering not even ME2 DLC has ever been on sale, even years after its release now, I wouldn't hold my breath for a sale during the holidays or whatever.
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Dec 23, 2013 12:25
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Lycus posted:I would've boxed Shep in a little more in ME2, to better sell the feeling that you literally have nowhere else to go but Cerberus if you want to stop the Collectors. I would've liked the Council and Alliance to actually not believe that Shep is Shep, that you're actually a Cerberus-controlled clone or a geth-made android or something, and they might have a kill-on-sight order on you. Your encounter with Anderson would be clandestine instead of an official meeting in his office. Something like that. Hackett is the only other person besides Anderson that believes you, that way Arrival still works. I think it's really dumb that you can just waltz back onto the Citadel and be like, "'sup" in ME2, but apparently everyone has a mad-on for the Citadel, so I guess I can understand why Bioware went the way they did.
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Dec 23, 2013 13:56
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I think in retrospect, the Mass Effect Trilogy could be a lot better if it all tied together more. But I like to take into account that this was the first series to really try something like this. Here's hoping that it can serve as a blueprint for either Bioware or another developer so that it can be done better. I can't imagine trying to do a trilogy over 7 years, with technology advancing so much even before you finish one game.
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Dec 23, 2013 16:28
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Burning Mustache posted:It's never been on sale for PC so far (or the silly Bioware points you need for it, for that matter) and considering not even ME2 DLC has ever been on sale, even years after its release now, I wouldn't hold my breath for a sale during the holidays or whatever. Bleh, thats fine. Thanks haha! Time to buy all the DLC in one go. The bigger decision is what class do I play...
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Dec 23, 2013 18:01
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epenthesis posted:You can fail Samara's loyalty mission and Morinth will get away. If you don't then get Samara killed in the suicide mission, they'll both be alive and known to Shepard in ME3. That's what I was thinking - if Samara made it through the suicide mission she is at the monastary; if Morinth 'takes her place' then she makes it by pretending to be Samara; otherwise (dead Samara and unrecruited Morinth) you get what you have now with a dead Samara. Lycus posted:It's fine anytime, and you don't have to do it all at once. You can space out the Leviathan missions if you want. It makes sense either way. Leviathan is best if you space it out, since you have to run back to the Citadel a few times and you may as well do that when you have to go back anyway. Also make sure to click on the Loch Ness Monster.
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Dec 23, 2013 18:53
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I looked at the Extended Cut DLC page on the fan wiki, and it says that it "The required Effective Military Strength rating to achieve all possible endings is lowered from 4,000 to 3,100." Does this mean I don't need to play MP anymore? I ask because goons have said MP is still viable, practically I'm sitting here with a Searching For Games for long stretches of time...
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Dec 23, 2013 19:50
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MisterBibs posted:I looked at the Extended Cut DLC page on the fan wiki, and it says that it "The required Effective Military Strength rating to achieve all possible endings is lowered from 4,000 to 3,100." I'm pretty sure yes, if you don't mind scanning like everything possible. Having single player dlc also makes reaching that target easier, if you've got any. As for multiplayer, have you downloaded all the free expansion stuff? There's 4 I think with new weapons and characters and whatnot. You need them to get matched with other people who have them and since they're free everyone has them.
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Dec 23, 2013 19:57
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No, you don't need to. Extended Cut lowered the threshold enough to make it easy. Of course, we all know that it's really not important anyway, though. Lycus fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Dec 23, 2013 |
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Dec 23, 2013 19:58
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MisterBibs posted:I looked at the Extended Cut DLC page on the fan wiki, and it says that it "The required Effective Military Strength rating to achieve all possible endings is lowered from 4,000 to 3,100." Yup. Hilariously, they eventually figured out that you did have to play multiplayer in order to get the "best" ending, and their previous statement saying that you didn't was because they got the math wrong.
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Dec 23, 2013 20:54
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MisterBibs posted:I looked at the Extended Cut DLC page on the fan wiki, and it says that it "The required Effective Military Strength rating to achieve all possible endings is lowered from 4,000 to 3,100." 
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Dec 23, 2013 21:26
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Getting 3100 EMS is only difficult if you do something like both screw the Krogan with Wrex in charge, and kill either the Geth or the Quarians. Otherwise you may need to do some planet scanning and fetch quests.
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Dec 23, 2013 21:33
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Nah, back in the spoiler thread we'd post our war asset scores without MP boosts, they were all below the 4k req for ~tippy top best ending~ that was still the same as everything else. There was one goon that had a bugged play and was getting double asset score. Didn't matter since MP games were so easy to do. A couple bronze matches and you'd get pushed over 4k. MP was fun enough on its own though to let lots of people forget about the campaign and just play shootymans with friends against enemies everywhere. edit- Misread. Yeah it's easy to get over 3100 needed now for all ending thingies. Cleatcleat fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Dec 23, 2013 |
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Dec 23, 2013 22:02
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SubponticatePoster posted:Go post over in the MP thread and guaranteed there will be someone playing on your platform of choice that will do games with you. I played it so much I can now get the best ending literally without doing a loving thing
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Dec 23, 2013 22:07
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Lycus posted:I really don't know why someone would go to that much trouble, though. Shepard taking a breath is just not that special or interesting to see. Did you not enjoy the speculation? Perhaps you are playing the game wrong!
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Dec 23, 2013 22:38
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Mazerunner posted:As for multiplayer, have you downloaded all the free expansion stuff? There's 4 I think with new weapons and characters and whatnot. You need them to get matched with other people who have them and since they're free everyone has them. This was it, evidently I forgot two of them. Now I feel bad for someone I don't know, because last night I chanced into a match with one other person who must've been in the same situation as me. Godspeed, Soldier Dude. Edit: I'm not at home to check for myself, but if a planet has multiple missions there, can you choose which one you want to do? I have the priority mission for KroganWorld, and some side missions, and I want to do the side missions first. Edit2: vvv Yeah that's what I'm asking. Can't remember the game giving me the option to select which mission to do... MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Dec 23, 2013 |
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Dec 23, 2013 23:05
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The key rule is: always do Priority missions last. Edit: Oh yeah, you can choose freely. Lycus fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 23, 2013 23:10
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If you have multiple missions on the same world, it presents the planet as if you're scanning it, and you get to choose which mission to do.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:05
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Spikeguy posted:I think in retrospect, the Mass Effect Trilogy could be a lot better if it all tied together more. Yeah. Don't ignore the events of the first game, don't ignore the hooks set up in the second game, and don't bring in entirely new elements in the final act. It's probably the biggest problem with the series. And, to me, the stand out issue is the 'dark matter' hints in Mass Effect 2. I know, it might've been a stupid ending anyway, but it's pretty bad the writers chose to completely ignore it instead of mentioning it at all, even as a red herring, or as part of the Crucible.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:25
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Milky Moor posted:Yeah. Don't ignore the events of the first game, don't ignore the hooks set up in the second game, and don't bring in entirely new elements in the final act. It's probably the biggest problem with the series. And, to me, the stand out issue is the 'dark matter' hints in Mass Effect 2. I know, it might've been a stupid ending anyway, but it's pretty bad the writers chose to completely ignore it instead of mentioning it at all, even as a red herring, or as part of the Crucible. The planned dark matter ending was also really dumb, but that bit of foreshadowing could have been made to pay off in other ways. Maybe use it to help answer the mystery of why Reapers don't seem to need any fuel ever.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:29
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Zoran posted:The planned dark matter ending was also really dumb, but that bit of foreshadowing could have been made to pay off in other ways. Maybe use it to help answer the mystery of why Reapers don't seem to need any fuel ever. Yeah, certainly. 'Join with us to stop the galaxy exploding' is pretty average, but it's still leagues ahead of 'My giant synthetic space squid have to destroy you because synthetics might kill you'. I still don't really understand why Bioware just couldn't land the series with a stock standard 'Shepard kills the Reapers, minor consequences based off decisions, probably in an epilogue sequence' ending that everyone expected. Something like that would prevented it from becoming the, well, Star Wars prequels of video gaming.
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Dec 24, 2013 00:36
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Milky Moor posted:Yeah. Don't ignore the events of the first game, don't ignore the hooks set up in the second game, and don't bring in entirely new elements in the final act. It's probably the biggest problem with the series. And, to me, the stand out issue is the 'dark matter' hints in Mass Effect 2. I know, it might've been a stupid ending anyway, but it's pretty bad the writers chose to completely ignore it instead of mentioning it at all, even as a red herring, or as part of the Crucible. Agreed. The writers had so many potential ways out, but somehow still managed to write themselves into such a big corner for the sake of keeping the war-story idea going. They could have remembered the newly discovered technology, gotten the Geth involved with their wildly divergent tech that Reapers can't predict so easily, have the Citadel Council reveal some secret planning (rather than being complete blind fools), remember the Reapers are 2000+ years overdue and had to push into the galaxy the hard way to weaken them, slow the invasion down, push the invasion back a few years; any of these ideas would have been better than what we got. Certainly they'd be better than the incredible the cop-out of a magical anti-Reaper weapon that nobody can figure out, but everyone desperately wants to waste their dwindling resources building suddenly being introduced. The writers must have been horribly disorganized for the whole project. Zoran posted:The planned dark matter ending was also really dumb, but that bit of foreshadowing could have been made to pay off in other ways. Maybe use it to help answer the mystery of why Reapers don't seem to need any fuel ever. Maybe, but it wasn't quite as dumb as declaring everything was all about synthetic vs. organic as if that would be enough to make the Reapers' absurdly horrible genocides seem remotely close to necessary. Either way we're looking at a hypothetical disaster at a vague point, but that one would tie back into the story, have actual evidence of inevitability, been built up over the story, and actually be big enough to somewhat justify measures as extreme as sacrificing a species to resolve. Milky Moor posted:Yeah, certainly. 'Join with us to stop the galaxy exploding' is pretty average, but it's still leagues ahead of 'My giant synthetic space squid have to destroy you because synthetics might kill you'. I can only assume that the writers, horribly disorganized as said earlier, wrote themselves into a corner near the deadline and let Hudson/Walters throw some pseudo-deep nonsense at the wall to wrap it all up. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 00:53
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MisterBibs posted:Does this mean I don't need to play MP anymore? I ask because goons have said MP is still viable, practically I'm sitting here with a Searching For Games for long stretches of time... MP thread for all your YouTubes of Turian Ghosts needs: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3499990&pagenumber=579&perpage=40 Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 01:08
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I don't think anyone can really contest that Mass Effect 3's writing staff was pretty disorganised. At the very least, we all know how the ending was written. Still, I always just point to Harbinger's codex entry as further evidence. They either wrote this early on in development:quote:The Reaper called Harbinger is believed to be the oldest and largest in the Reaper armada. From the reaches of dark space, Harbinger managed to control the Collectors, a race of human-sized insectoid bipeds, as it sent them on a campaign to kill and gather humans from vulnerable colonies. The Collectors became a terrifying force in the galaxy, responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands. Surviving colonists have described the tone of Harbinger's threats, heard through the Collectors as they attacked, as visceral and terrifying. And then, essentially, removed him from the game, indicating that there was a significant shift in storyline focus away from Shepard's battle with Harbinger. Or, they wrote it later, making it is a pointless entry that adds nothing to the game and only makes things more incoherent because why write a new codex entry and have someone voice it when Harbinger won't be there in order to not 'confuse new players'. The other Reaper entries are just as strange. quote:Harvesting So, the Reapers are essentially evil, cunning space squid dreadnoughts who have some necessary reason to prevent, essentially, concentration camp uprisings... quote:Reaper Capabilities ...and the Citadel races knew where they were (how?)... quote:Reaper Vulnerabilities ...and they can be defeated conventionally. The bit at the end there where they just sort of awkwardly plaster over the direct control vulnerability, something never seen again after Saren, implying that Reapers would regularly take control of thralls in a position where they can be killed, is just bizarre. The Reaper codex entries are some of the weirdest things you can read because it depicts a radically different idea about the Reapers than what we got. I'm not concerned with a Wookieepedia-esque 'true canon' approach, I just can't see the reason why these codex entries would be written and then not have them play into the final product in any way shape or form and, in fact, are basically contradictory to how the Reapers are presented during the main plot of Mass Effect 3. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 01:16
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Pattonesque posted:Yup. Hilariously, they eventually figured out that you did have to play multiplayer in order to get the "best" ending, and their previous statement saying that you didn't was because they got the math wrong. They didn't get the math wrong, they considered Synthesis the 'best' ending. Shepard breathing was just an Easter egg.
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Dec 24, 2013 02:39
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I'm not even sure why people are flustered about getting the better endings at this point anyway (on repeat playthroughs, at least). It changes nothing.
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Dec 24, 2013 03:04
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