Mass Effect 3 discussion

[Surf Solar]

The writing is pretty bland, but then again it's the same in all BioWare games I know. It's functional, sometimes cringeworthy, nothing to write home about.

I haven't progressed very far in the game yet (10-13hours in, but I am a slow gamer) but I couldn't find many choices in sidequests. From what I heard, there are a few of these though.

The beginning of the game is very linear for some 1-2 hours, but it was the same in ME1 too from what I remember.

Yes there are some consequences from previous games, but it's mostly just "fake" - as in if character X from ME1 for example dies, he just gets replaced by a crappier alternative character later on. Some of the cameos are better than in ME2, it's less "only email" and more "cool I can actually talk with guy XY".

About the game being "an RPG" - I don't know, it's the same as ME2 mixed with a bit of ME1 in terms of tone. I never really looked at the ME games for being "Role playing games". Some people complain you now have only the "good" and "badass" dialog choices with the neutral ones being cut out, but I personally don't really care.

The combat system got improved upon and it's really fun on higher difficulties (you will die a lot but it's fun if you eventually discover a winning strategy).

 

[Lexx]

Well, you do not only want to build the Tiegel, but also recruit more military personal for the fleet and you do this with solving everyones tiny problems, like the genophage and stuff.

 

[brfritos]

I think some changes had been forced, wasn't it like this? Like, some party members had been alive, regardless of if they died in ME2 or not. Stuff like that was said some month ago from BioWare.

Actually no, I think is really a bug.

I did a "fuck myself" playthrough and the save was imported correctly: only 2 squads survive in ME2, Wrex dead, dated Liara in ME1/cheated her in ME2, genophage cure destroyed, Legion sold to Cerberus, Tali and Garrus dead, etc.

If they had said something like "the superweapon needs all the galaxy's forces delaying the Reapers to be completed on time" then that'd be a bit easier to swallow, but they don't even explain that is the case. I shouldn't have to make assumptions and leaps in logic to make sense of why I am doing things.

Actually THAT'S EXACTLY what Hackett tells you after the Mars mission, you are only delaying the Reapers until the Crucible is completed, when you ask what good is uniting the galaxy against them.
Not joking man, take a look again in the dialog.

The rest I agree with you, the start is really bad, even with the oustanding destruction happening around you.
The dialogs between Anderson and Shepard are embarrassing, to say at least.

I think the game is fun to be played and should at least be tried once, but I still stand with my opinions.
Is not a satisfactory end to the trilogy and the events are all imposed on the player, unlike ME1 and ME2, when they were also imposed on the player but the game was very competent into fooling us that we had control of it.
As a stand alone game is very good, but this isn't a stand alone game, is the final part of a trilogy.

 

[Ilosar]

I will say the writing on Earth and Mars is by far the worst of it. Once it gets back into the typical Mass Effect groove, things are better, but there's still a lack of dialogue options - interrupts have almost entirely been removed and I think I have seen a single persuasion option.'

I have seen about 8 or 9 interrupts so far (16 hours in) and 4 Charm/Intimidate options. I don't complain that much about the later, they always seemed more of a ''I'm Right, I Win'' option than anything to me.

The central plot really bothers me, though. The game is all about building the superweapon to stop the Reapers, right? So why the fuck do we spend most of the game in the Normandy solving diplomatic conflicts? I know BioWare wanted to tie up the loose ends of the story, but they did a pretty poor job in actually making it fit coherently into the theme of the game. If solving those problems got us closer towards our goal, I'd be happier, but it doesn't - curing the genophage doesn't make us complete the weapon faster, nor does babysitting turian diplomats. These individual sections are done well, but just like Mass Effect 2, they do not really fit into the device driving the story itself. If they had said something like "the superweapon needs all the galaxy's forces delaying the Reapers to be completed on time" then that'd be a bit easier to swallow, but they don't even explain that is the case. I shouldn't have to make assumptions and leaps in logic to make sense of why I am doing things.

Eh? It's clearly stated, several times, that you recruit both scientists to help build the Crucible and the fleets/troops to take the fight to the Reapers and/or defend the superweapon. You cured the Genophage so that the Krogans can relieve pressure off the Turians so that they can send in their fleets and dispatch their engineer corps. It's plainly said, and Shepad can call bullshit on it if you want. I find that every mission, including the side-quests, fit very much into the main narrative; pretty much all of them give you War Assets of some sort, even the boring fetch quests not worthy of a dialog sequence.

I'm not sure how I feel about this game. The opening was honestly so bad that I was willing to crucify it. The writing is so sloppy and disregards so much from the prior games that they might as well not have happened - in fact, the existence of the superweapon itself is so glaring an issue that if anyone had noticed it before Liara, it literally would have rendered the previous two games completely redundant. Plots that rely on people being lazy are not good plots, period.

Opening mission on Earth was terrible, yeah. ''We fight or we die'' No shit Shepard. About the blueprints on Mars, someone did notice it (Alliance explicitely classified much of the Archives), they just didn't need nor have the ressources to build a (potentially) galaxy-ending superweapon until the Reapers showed up.

gameplay is vastly improved in a lot of respects (though it does not do a good job of tying into the war theme)

What do you mean by tying into the war theme?

it feels much more like Mass Effect 2.2 than a true, resoundingly conclusive follow-up.

It does feel like an upgraded ME2 in gameplay. But story-wise it fits ME1 much more, it's really a blend of both games, as expected, with more ME2 than 1 obviously. I'm perfectly content with this myself. Bioware changed the formula enough from 1 to 2, more sweeping changes would just have brought too much trouble imo.

EDIT:

Well then in that case shouldn't Shepard be working to get the Catalyst online? They don't even know what it is, so wouldn't it be a good idea to take Liara and sift through all the Prothean data to find out, then go get it? Again, I don't mind having to help people but it'd be nice if it tied in with the main goal more. Prepping everyone for a dramatic last stand doesn't even make much sense. We're spending what, days flying around the galaxy trying to solve issues, and Earth fell in a matter of minutes? Even uniting everyone together probably wouldn't delay things by more than an hour, considering nobody has any weapons that can even damage the Reapers.

Shepard is not a scientist, he's an improbably powerful war hero with an inexplicably magnetic personality. You don't put that kind of guy in a labcoat, you send him out to fight the enemy on key fronts and win important allies. Crucible is Hackett and co's job. Also, the flavor text for their fleet states that the Turian destoyed several Reaper ships (Capital Ships even, think Sovereign, which is extremely impressive if that's not a typo) during the initial attacks on Palaven, EDI says that the Reapers aren't THAT invincible, Codex confirms several weapons (such as Thanix cannons and the torpedos of some fighters) can damage the Reapers if focused enough, and the Destiny Ascension's main gun probably packs enough of a punch to dent their barriers. The Reapers are too advanced to beat conventionally, but not invincible, and organized fleet with officiers having fought the Reapers at its helm would probably last more than Earth's fleet which was taken by surprise. And you can end up with the fleets of pretty much every single race in the galaxy if you play your cards right.

 

[brfritos]

What do you mean by tying into the war theme?

A layer of strategy to things would have really helped this game. BioWare basically grafted the war stuff onto the standard Mass Effect gameplay (i.e. fucking aliens, shopping on the Citadel, flying around the galaxy doing fetch quests) with no consequence for it even though it doesn't fit in with, you know, the immediate and impending destruction of all life everywhere.

If you ask me, the game should have been semi-non-linear, with options to choose a handful of missions and the ability to only complete a few of them before the other locations were taken over by the Reapers. Different missions would give you different advantages - fleets to delay the Reapers in a given sector, espionage to uncover bonus intelligence, supply lines to reinforce existing sectors, etc. On top of that, you could also take advantage of those resources in missions, like calling in air strikes or working with a separate team of commandos. You wouldn't be able to save everyone, but smart use of *actual* war assets (and not just a fucking progress bar) would let you come out with fewer damages. There wouldn't necessarily need to be a timer, just some sort of limit so that ideal "100%" outcomes would be impossible.

But nope, instead we get flying around the galaxy fighting hundreds of Cerberus soldiers while everyone patiently waits on Shepard to save everyone.

Yes, but if you do this the actual gamer, wich is a spoiled cry baby, complains that the game is unfair because don't give you the option to make all the quests.
No shit you spoiled cry baby dumbass gamer, that's the whole point of choice and consequence.

There's a mission in the game in wich you work with another spectre and with a previous character from ME2, in the human embassy regarding a hanar.
I don't know in wich part of the game you are or even if you are still playing it so I won't spoil things more than I already have, but one of whole points of this mission is a choice you maded in ME2.
But guess what? The choice you did in the previous game regarding the option to destroy or not a tool is totally irrelevant.
If you don't destroy it the game aknowledge your choice and proceeds with the quest.
But if you destroyed the tool the game subverts your decision and change it, using the famous subterfuge of "reconstructing some pieces that gives the owner some clues".

Excuse me, I find this offensive and disrespectful.
It was my choice, is what I want, IS MY PROBLEM!

You know what, I give up: the only thing I'm interested right now is the combat, wich is extremelly fun.
I'm not interested in MP though.

Remember the Adept in ME1? The king of the spawn power is the engineer now, what a terric class to play if you are into this (but contrary to what people say, defensive turrets are not that good, they deploy too slow).

The Infiltrator is crippled, Bioware changed the class so you don't have that insane slow motion for perfect head shots anymore, but sniper rifles reload so slow that they simply don't work in the game, so is better to use SMGs and ARs. Your new friend is the cloak, not the sniper rifle, wich is odd since you are equipped with one from the game's start.

I didn't tested the Vanguard, but is my less favorite class.

The sentinel returned somewhat to his roots, the power combos simply don't work efficiently by their own, the class is more fited for support roles and not frontal assaults, so take a soldier with you if you like to use the class.

I need yet to test the adept, but for what I've saw of Liara, the class is much better than ME2 and is not the king of all classes like in ME1.

The soldier defenelly returned to the roots of ME1, good lord, more than 1000 HP and 1000 shields without using any piece of armor!
Is a tank, pure and simple, it can survive the melee attack of a brute even on insanity and his melee attack is devastating, but lacks tech/biotic attacks.
The cryo ammo is the new best ammo, it can freeze or slow targets and crack armors, for shields and biotic barriers you use a shield pierce mod in the gun, problem solved.
After all ME3 was designed to be this, a shooter.

And I'm done with Bioware, what they did with the series is a crime, pure and simple.

 

[Lexx]

^ Pretty much this. With cryo-ammo and my assault rifle, I was pwning dem bitches. In the end game, I was using cryo ammo with the black widow sniper rifle and killed most enemies with one hit (the cannibal dudes died with one, regardless where and everyone "normal" died with a bullet into the head).

 

[ZeusComplex]

Does Readiness effect you're war assets or something?

[spoiler:903cf8bc32] I'm done with the citadel attack[/spoiler:903cf8bc32] and I already have over 3000. I've done a few multiplayer matches but I didn't think it was enough to make a difference. I just can't be near the end of the game. If that's the case, this is the shortest ME of them all.

 

[Lexx]

With 3000 effective war assets and no multiplayer, you probably have seen most of the game.

 

[Ilosar]

Does Readiness effect you're war assets or something?

Your total War Assets are multiplied by your Readiness, which has a minimum of 50% and maximum of 100%, and can only be improved by playing multiplayer, about 4% per map. So if you got 3000 war assets and 50% readinessyou have 1500 Effective Military Strength (EMS), and EMS is what counts. There's enough War Assets in the game to attain the highest ending with 50% readiness, this was confirmed by players.

Okay, there are a handful of interrupts, but most of them were in that conversation with Vega, and the majority have been Renegade rather than Paragon. I have yet to see a "I'm so badass, I'm gonna shoot your gun out of your hand" thing either.

Interrupts seem more meaningful this time around [spoiler:933cb23757] Such as killing Udina or stopping Samara from killing herself [/spoiler:933cb23757], I prefer them that way.

The salarian thing I haven't seen yet - I understand the Alliance wants the turian fleet, and the turians want the krogan, and to do that we need to cure the genophage (or fuck them over and get salarian support instead), etc. but I guess it's very easy to lose sight of the overarching goal... especially when there are still plenty of random side-quests to do and no ticking clock attached to everything.

Actually, there are ticking clocks; some missions fail if you don't do them in time, I had a friend [spoiler:933cb23757] Not save the Grimmson Academy before the attack on the Citadel [/spoiler:933cb23757] and the mission became unavailable, the game stating that everybody at that place had been killed. I also disagree that the overaching goal is absent; if anything, it's way more present than in ME2, as you report to Hackett after every mission and they talk of the Crucible or the war effort every single time.

A layer of strategy to things would have really helped this game. BioWare basically grafted the war stuff onto the standard Mass Effect gameplay (i.e. fucking aliens, shopping on the Citadel, flying around the galaxy doing fetch quests) with no consequence for it even though it doesn't fit in with, you know, the immediate and impending destruction of all life everywhere.

Well, immediate is a big word, the Reapers take decades, centuries to harvest during each cycle. Since this time around they don't 1) have the element of surprise of coming through the Citadel relay 2) have their Vanguard present, since Sovereign and the Collectors are no more and 3) face an helpless enemy, Shepard and the Protheans saw to that, it's safe to say that the galaxy's fate will not decide itself in a matter of days. The Crucible is hidden, Shepard is gradually sending more and more help to finish and defend it, that's what matters. And again this time the fetch quests all pertain to the war effort, the side-quests even more. I do agree that we could just have entirely done away with the fetch quests, and add more full-fledged, plot-integrated side-quests like what we have. Bioware did good on that part.

If you ask me, the game should have been semi-non-linear, with options to choose a handful of missions and the ability to only complete a few of them before the other locations were taken over by the Reapers. Different missions would give you different advantages - fleets to delay the Reapers in a given sector, espionage to uncover bonus intelligence, supply lines to reinforce existing sectors, etc. On top of that, you could also take advantage of those resources in missions, like calling in air strikes or working with a separate team of commandos. You wouldn't be able to save everyone, but smart use of *actual* war assets (and not just a fucking progress bar) would let you come out with fewer damages. There wouldn't necessarily need to be a timer, just some sort of limit so that ideal "100%" outcomes would be impossible.

We all have our prefered gameplay. I do agree that receiving more actual support from our war assets would be nice, but it's no big deal.

But nope, instead we get flying around the galaxy fighting hundreds of Cerberus soldiers while everyone patiently waits on Shepard to save everyone.

Yeaaaah, biggest pet peeve so far. How did Cerberus go from being nearly bankrupt because of Shepard and the Normandy (EDI's words) to being able to field an entire army, complete with warmechs, advanced soldiers like the Phantoms, at least 2 Cruisers (these things cost more than the Normandy and have a crew of roughly 2000, mind you) and [spoiler:933cb23757] the ability to just attack the friggin Citadel like it was nothing [/spoiler:933cb23757] ? Because we're way past ''terrorism'' now, these guys are an NGO Superpower.

If so then this isn't made clear in the game, and sorry, but codex entries are not a replacement for effective storytelling. None of this is made clear in the dialogue, nor does it really mesh with the first game (Sovereign was ridiculously tough to take down even for the entire fleet), and while it's clear the Reapers are fucking morons because they don't just nuke everyone from orbit (or drop asteroids on them), we see hundreds of Reapers cut through the turian and Alliance fleets like butter. Even if the Reapers take some losses, their presence throughout most of the galaxy shows that they have more than enough numbers.

The Reapers don't want to exterminate. They want to harvest. Of course, they will kill many at first and disable all militaries, but the ultimate goal is to create new Reapers as seen in ME2. Plus, dropping nukes can make the planet unhabitable. and may leave traces even in 50 000 years. And I'd wager it's the first time in quite a while they meet prepared resistance; usually, the Citadel Relay is open and galactic civilization is paralysed immediately. Thanks to Shepard's actions in ME1 and the Arrival DLC, we had time to prepare. And don't forget Sovereign was surrounded by a huge Geth fleet; they take down the Destiny Ascension, for example, not it. Reapers are inhumanly tough, but the galaxy is catching up, that much is made clear.

It's just jarring and doesn't really make much sense. The game is about saving Earth and the galaxy, but Earth is already basically screwed in the first few minutes of the game. There is no clear sense of time to anything going on because BioWare are afraid of actually putting limits on the player or change up the formula at all. We hear about Anderson dodging Reapers and working with underground resistances and whatnot, events that sound like they take days, we spend hours on the Citadel and on the Normandy talking with our chums to no ill effect (and in fact it's necessary to do all this optional stuff for the best ending), etc. Meanwhile, Ashley/Kaiden recovers from a severe concussion and fractures to her bones in a matter of... what, hours? A day? What the fuck is even going on here?

Oh come on, that's just standard video game time compression. Travel doesn't take a few seconds as seen in the game's loading screens; a lot of time must pass between missions, but unless you absolutely want to watch Shepard stand around in an elevator or sit 20 minutes in a Citadel cab, it's just a neccesity. I doubt it takes less than a few weeks from the Mars mission to the Virmire Survivor's complete recovery (plus, medical technology is far more advanced than ours). The Crucible is also being built during that time, the thing seems huge and can't take days to build. As an example, Dragon Age: Origins takes, what, 40-50 hours to beat? Yet the events span more than a year.

 

[brfritos]

Remember, that quite a lot of Sidequest get locked out if you wait too long for them to do (happens after crucial main missions).

Actually this is very funny if you think about it.

Missions that contain "Priority: whatever" are better done by the last possible order!
Only this way you don't lock too many missions.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Oh come on, that's just standard video game time compression. Travel doesn't take a few seconds as seen in the game's loading screens; a lot of time must pass between missions, but unless you absolutely want to watch Shepard stand around in an elevator or sit 20 minutes in a Citadel cab, it's just a neccesity. I doubt it takes less than a few weeks from the Mars mission to the Virmire Survivor's complete recovery (plus, medical technology is far more advanced than ours). The Crucible is also being built during that time, the thing seems huge and can't take days to build. As an example, Dragon Age: Origins takes, what, 40-50 hours to beat? Yet the events span more than a year.

This is as big problem I have with recent games, there are a lot of ways of portraying a sense of the passage of time. But a lot of games don't even bother, you are lucky if you get a day night cycle, while logically I knew travel wasn't instant in ME it really does feel like the amount of time passed is the same as the amount of time played.

 

[Ilosar]

Found this http://worthplaying.com/article/2012/3/9/reviews/85420/

I don't agree with everything (especially about the lack of variety, I mean come on there are more than 20 different enemy types and countless weapons), but it's probably the most honest review one can find about the game.

 

[brfritos]

Found this http://worthplaying.com/article/2012/3/9/reviews/85420/

I don't agree with everything (especially about the lack of variety, I mean come on there are more than 20 different enemy types and countless weapons), but it's probably the most honest review one can find about the game.

Nice find, I agree with the review in almost everything and my personal score is exactly the same, 8.5/10.
Is not a bad game, but it could be miles better and definitely worth at least some plays.

 

[Serge 13]

Funny how most of the fans are...
[spoiler:c257cf395a]...crying at the Bioware forums because their shepard dies in the end. Seriously, I would have been pissed off, if they had let shepard live. Don't these guys realize that they will die too someday. I'd reckon they would have been happier with some shitty cliffhanger ending that would have opened a way for Mass Effect 4. Jeez!

EDIT: Can you use 'would have' 2 times in a sentence? My grammar skills kind of stopped working there. [/spoiler:c257cf395a]

 

[generalissimofurioso]

EXTREME Shepard cares not for anything.

Which is why he shoots everyone and looks like a frying pan with cheese burned onto it.

I should really clear some hard drive space.

 

[Lexx]

Well.

[spoiler:957be57267]Shepard doesn't have to die.[/spoiler:957be57267]

 

[ZeusComplex]

Well, if people are wanting to do multiplayer, I wouldn't mind getting about three of you guys to do a session. It's better than dealing with the random derptards it pairs me up against.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hello all,

I never expected something like this to happen in Mass Effect 3 but during the game I watched a scene I actually found very touching and actually gave me a feeling of true hopelessness and despair as you would expect people to feel when something like the Reapers would come and there is nothing you can do.

[spoiler:f977e48458]At some point Liara asks to come to your cabin to show a project she has been working on.

When she comes in she brings with her something like that looks like a black box you might find in a plane.
She reveals it to be a storage device she has been working on since the discovery of the Reapers, filling it up with information about them, the Crucible blue prints but also information about the species and civilizations that existed up to this point.

For a moment it really made me feel that people realize that these are the end times for them, that there is most likely not a victory in sight, let alone the chance of actually surviving it.
And they are making preparations now to pass on a little bit of themselves to whoever might arise as the next space faring civilization after the Reapers have finished the cycle and left.

To make sure that at least they will be remembered and not become another lost people and civilization

I honestly feel that Bioware writers should have done more like this as it felt like a very strong moment.[/spoiler:f977e48458]

 

[Lexx]

Yup, was pretty cool moment. A bit depressing.

 

[Hellion]

I think that most people are dissappointed by the ending not because Shepard dies (even though I admit that I wouldn't mind if my Shepard ended up on a farm back on Earth together with Liara, with 6 blue children running around ), but because practically everything you did in ME1 and 2 seems not to matter at all in the end.

It is supposed to be a series that's based on Bioware's claims that "there are no easy choices, everything you do matters, what you do affects the end" etc. However, regardless of if you went Paragon or Renegade, who you killed, who you romanced, what race you helped regain their former glory and what race you led to extermination for the duration of the 3 games, it all comes down to basically 2-3 vague choices that leave more things unanswered than the combined endings of ME1 and 2 together.

Vague choices that are offered to you by a God-Child from the Past, no less. A God-Child that you saw getting blown up by the Reapers back on Earth. And that is also haunting your dreams.