Mass Effect 2 Catch All

I was planning on switching to Infiltrator but I played the Shadow Broker DLC for the first time last night. It was pretty awesome, chasing that Asari around with my charge attack. No other class could have kept up but I was right on her leap for leap. That sort of thing has never come up before and is unlikely to come up again, but it was pretty awesome.

And yes, Jacob is pretty well useless, but Jack has an ammo ability, arguably the best. Upgrade it to Squad Warp Ammo and you can bring her along as a squad buff (which is also the only reason to bring Miranda since she provides passive bonuses to squadmates).

kyrieee wrote:

The Locust is an SMG replacement for an Assault rifle, but when you get a proper AR you're much better off with the Tempest in my opinion.

The only chance to get an AR as anything but a soldier is the Advanced Weapon Training on the collector ship. True, if I didn't have the Locust, I getting my hands on an AR or a Sniper Rifle would have been a godsend. So I guess having the Locust paves the way to choosing the Claymore shotgun over anything else.

Luggage wrote:
kyrieee wrote:

The Locust is an SMG replacement for an Assault rifle, but when you get a proper AR you're much better off with the Tempest in my opinion.

The only chance to get an AR as anything but a soldier is the Advanced Weapon Training on the collector ship. True, if I didn't have the Locust, I getting my hands on an AR or a Sniper Rifle would have been a godsend. So I guess having the Locust paves the way to choosing the Claymore shotgun over anything else.

It's also starting to look like it's a waste to take training instead of a unique weapon. In ME3, all classes will be able to carry any weapon (so training becomes irrelevant), but I've read that you'll be able to import your arsenal from ME2.

I edited my save game so that I have all three unique weapons, including one I can't even equip in ME2. I hope I haven't mangled it too much for ME3 to import.

kyrieee wrote:

The Locust is an SMG replacement for an Assault rifle, but when you get a proper AR you're much better off with the Tempest in my opinion.

If an enemy is close enough for the Tempest to be effective, they're close enough to be shotgunned in the face

I just finished the reaper IFF this time around and I have to say I have a new fav squad mate. Thane. I'm a sniper focused infiltrator so I didn't use him last time... but his biotics+sniping really cuts through the enemys quickly. I think it will be him grunt and me for the final mission... (grunt's team incendiary ammo and thane's team shredder ammo should help)

I've been replaying this lately. I played ME1 to completion 4 times, with multiple partial playthroughs to get achievements, but I only did one run of ME2 with my Paragon femShep. I'm doing a Renegade broShep now and it's reminding me how much the game just didn't click with me like the first one did. They're the common complaints that many people have, so I won't belabor them. I am still looking forward to ME3 though, and have the collector's edition preordered.

One thing I find interesting about the conversations here is how many there are about specific tactics required when playing on harder difficulties. One of my problems now is that playing on Normal is pretty boring. I'm playing as an Adept and the powers just don't feel satisfying to use. I'm lvl28 I think so I won't have enough points to upgrade any other power to full, but I'm curious about how it would feel to play on Insanity.

How does it work when you start a game with a Lvl 30 ME2 character? Can you still change your class, and you're just given 30 levels of skill points right away? It sounds like Insanity, even with a fully leveled character, isn't the pushover that ME1's Insanity was when you had a level 50 or 60 character.

If you do a new game plus you can't change your class, and the game is actually harder. Yes, you start out with all your abilities but the big thing is that you don't have any upgrades and the enemies scale to match your character.

beanman101283 wrote:

How does it work when you start a game with a Lvl 30 ME2 character? Can you still change your class, and you're just given 30 levels of skill points right away? It sounds like Insanity, even with a fully leveled character, isn't the pushover that ME1's Insanity was when you had a level 50 or 60 character.

It's been a while so forgive me if I'm a little fuzzy on the details. You start out at level 30. I don't believe you can change classes. Reputation is reset to 0. You do keep all advanced training skills (the ones you gain through loyalty missions), all armor pieces, and all weapons except the Locust SMG, including the flamethrower from Zaeed's mission and the Geth pulse rifle you get from Tali's mission on hardcore or above. You do not get to keep any upgrades.

Indeed. I'm just doing shadow broker dlc again now and it's still as good as I remember it. It is by far the best DLC i've seen come out for a game.

I thought roaming around on the outside of the Shadow Broker ship was super impressive. It was way cooler than anything in the main game.

Malor wrote:
Indeed. I'm just doing shadow broker dlc again now and it's still as good as I remember it. It is by far the best DLC i've seen come out for a game.

I thought roaming around on the outside of the Shadow Broker ship was super impressive. It was way cooler than anything in the main game.

Probably because even though it is a corridor level just like the rest of the game, it doesn't look like a corridor level.

Malor wrote:
Indeed. I'm just doing shadow broker dlc again now and it's still as good as I remember it. It is by far the best DLC i've seen come out for a game.

I thought roaming around on the outside of the Shadow Broker ship was super impressive. It was way cooler than anything in the main game.

Just played it for the first time last night, and it reminded me of the Citadel end game in ME1.

Just stepped on Citadel ground for the first time with this character and noticed something. FemShep tells Bailey that she'd prefer to not be back on the grid. He agrees to not updating the records and keeping her dead. 30 seconds later the tourist information AI welcomes FemShep with name and last date of visit. xD

MannishBoy wrote:
Malor wrote:
Indeed. I'm just doing shadow broker dlc again now and it's still as good as I remember it. It is by far the best DLC i've seen come out for a game.

I thought roaming around on the outside of the Shadow Broker ship was super impressive. It was way cooler than anything in the main game.

Just played it for the first time last night, and it reminded me of the Citadel end game in ME1.

I got that feeling, too. May have had something to do with the fact that you were clinging to the exterior of a ship.

Luggage wrote:

Just stepped on Citadel ground for the first time with this character and noticed something. FemShep tells Bailey that she'd prefer to not be back on the grid. He agrees to not updating the records and keeping her dead. 30 seconds later the tourist information AI welcomes FemShep with name and last date of visit. xD

Well, could just be that the tourist information AI doesn't have access to police records.

So all my weapons safe for one are upgraded 5/5, yet on the citadel, I can now buy damage upgrades for 3 of them. Does the 6th upgrade increase the damage boost to 60% or am I wasting credits?

Luggage wrote:

Just stepped on Citadel ground for the first time with this character and noticed something. FemShep tells Bailey that she'd prefer to not be back on the grid. He agrees to not updating the records and keeping her dead. 30 seconds later the tourist information AI welcomes FemShep with name and last date of visit. xD

Well you also get funeral ads, or maybe it was a coffin

LobsterMobster wrote:
Luggage wrote:

Just stepped on Citadel ground for the first time with this character and noticed something. FemShep tells Bailey that she'd prefer to not be back on the grid. He agrees to not updating the records and keeping her dead. 30 seconds later the tourist information AI welcomes FemShep with name and last date of visit. xD

Well, could just be that the tourist information AI doesn't have access to police records. ;)

Yeah shops have their own records.

There's another advertisement that says "you earned... 0... credits last year" and tells you to come shop there, or maybe do taxes or something... honestly I forgot what the ad was for, I just remembered the part where it was somehow accessing your military salary records and since you were dead, 0.

Luggage wrote:

So all my weapons safe for one are upgraded 5/5, yet on the citadel, I can now buy damage upgrades for 3 of them. Does the 6th upgrade increase the damage boost to 60% or am I wasting credits?

Yeah it goes to 6/6 when you add in DLC. Just another reason LotSB and Kasumi are awesome.

Even the Firewalker quest with the flying mako give you an extra biotic damage upgrade. And yes, it boosts it to 60%.

I've noticed this time too that when you buy everything from the vendors, leave, come back some time later, they have additional items. Never spotted that before.

BlackSabre wrote:

I've noticed this time too that when you buy everything from the vendors, leave, come back some time later, they have additional items. Never spotted that before.

I think shops get new stuff at certain trigger points in the main story -- I know some new gear popped up at the Citadel / Omega after I finished Horizon.

Yeah Horizon and Collector Ship are the two triggers for shops to restock, if they do. Not all shops do, and obviously some shops you can't reach until after the trigger, so there you go.

So far I've seen new stuff on Omega and Ilium. Going to head back to citadel and Tuchunka to see if they got restocked. It was worth it too. Ilium had a tech bonus and a damage resistance for me. Very nice for my Infiltrator.

A fan released a new (unofficial) version of the Gibbed editor today. You can get it here. It includes some neat new features, like flags for what you picked at the derelict. That'll let you get all three of the special weapons (permanently) without doing any Coalesced editing. Keep in mind that Shepard can only carry 5 weapons at once, so if you end up with access to all 6 you'll no longer be able to bring a heavy weapon into battle.

Ok cool, that's the same link from earlier, just it's the next version up.

Might go back and stick the Revenant on all characters. That thing is amazing.

Oh goody, 5 days before ME3, my friggin' ATI GPU decides that intermittent power-offs aren't enough anymore. Time to ramp up the texture flickering and other drawing errors like the one below.

IMAGE(http://www.abload.de/img/0ylai.jpg)

I've had it with this piece of s#!+ company. That's the 4th ATI that's died on me... out of the last 4. All of them within 2 years, two within 1. For every rig I've built I had to replace the GPU at least twice.

Eff that!

/rant

Actually, I get that on the last bit of Garrus' loyalty mission in the citadel on nvidia, and I think it's a map bug/hole/leak. What it looked like to me was that the background wasn't overdrawing the previous frames, presumably because there's a bit missing.

You see it a bit in some quake engine games, as well as others when you go outside the level/skybox. Imagine the level you're in has to be completely enclosed, and the engine draws everything around you, now remove one of the edges of the box so you just see literally nothing in that direction and the engine doesn't have anything to draw, so it doesn't have anything to overdraw the old frame with besides the foreground (shepard in that screenshot) leading to the 80's music video effect.

That's the 4th ATI that's died on me... out of the last 4. All of them within 2 years, two within 1. For every rig I've built I had to replace the GPU at least twice.

As Scratched says, that might just be a driver or ME2 bug, see if you keep getting it. And if you're losing THAT MANY ATI cards, then something else is wrong. Your power supply may be inadequate or failing.

Yeah. I've always used ATI cards and never ever had one go out on me. The one that did was my brother's fault for effing things up in the mobo but the card had the decency to have no visible effects so they had to replace it xD.

Yeah, that scene has had a weird ghosting effect every time I've played it, both on my old Nvidia card and my current ATI card.

Problem is, it's only one of three issues. And I have it narrowed down to the GPU, because in case of the blackout issue, sounds (music) keep playing like normal.

Oh well, it'll get me through the remaining hours of ME2 and I am going to order an Nvidia with overnight delivery.

Luggage wrote:

I also enjoyed the Shadow Broker arc for so many reasons. The well written story arc. The encounters. The car chase. Most importantly, having Liara as a squadmate and romancing her again got me so much more excited for her return in ME3. And the squadmate talent point reset. And dossiers, oh the dossiers. Mordin's had me grinning, while Miranda's completed her character so perfectly well, it reminded me why BioWare writing is one of my favorites.

TL;DR: if you plan to play ME2 for the first time or just replay it, do yourself a favor and get the Kasumi and Shadow Broker DLCs.

Yes, yes and yes. I genuinely laughed out loud while reading the dossiers, and it's a rare videogame that can make me do that.