Mass Effect 3 Catch-All

Hmmmm, I know people "hate" both characters somewhat, but I wonder what people would be thinking if there was a ME1 Virmire (Ashley or Kaiden has to stay behind) type decision in this one. I suppose you're always losing one, and the choice is which rather than either/both/neither.

Ok, well, there's a difference between missing content entirely and experiencing different content because of a decision you have to make that is critical to the story. On Virmire, you can't proceed until you pick one to save. I didn't pick Kaiden because I never used him in my squad the entire game. I was losing nothing, really. Now I have to deal with getting rid of my connection to Ashley so my Shepard can be gay, but oh well. In addition, Virmire is a bit of a weak example, because I'm pretty sure both the rest of ME1 and all of ME2 are not even remotely consequentially affected by that choice (don't know about ME3 yet, but I suspect it isn't). I didn't feel like I missed anything, though.

MojoBox wrote:
Luggage wrote:

While I agree with not "Wiki"ing a game to death, I have a low tolerance for hidden timers and fail criteria of games that require a 30+ hour time investment for a single playthrough.

I just don't see why though, it's not like you fail the game and get a gameover and have to reload, you just get a different story. And that story reflects what you as the player did, I see that as nothing but a good thing. But to each their own.

More pointedly, I think these sorts of mechanics are the only way to progress towards more interactive narrative in games.

I think this is just confusing people because it's a shift from how BioWare games traditionally work, which is to tell you to everything is an emergency but then not actually fail the mission on a timer. In this case you're being told the same thing but the behavior is different. Overall, it's a good thing, but it will take some adjustment.

Yeah normally it's just the one big "point of no return"... now there are a bunch of little ones.

The important thing to me is that it must be clear which missions are on a timer, because it means as soon as I've picked one up I don't take any more missions until that one is complete. I'm guessing there's no timer on when missions are available, so unless you cross an act transition that eliminates the person entirely, he'll just stand there indefinitely offering his critical mission?

Overall, this seems like a good thing because it forces the player to be more engaged with the content. In a lot of RPGs I'll just go talk to everyone with a question mark over their head, skip the text, and read about what I'm supposed to do in the quest log later. Timers make this approach unfeasible, so you actually have to pay attention to what the quest is before accepting it. The only drawback is that it may make the game even longer because it seems to mean a lot more traveling back and forth.

The Hanar Diplomacy mission is bugged for some people, apparently if you leave the Citadel during the missions it bugs out of the the control panels. Right now I have two bugged missions that cannot be completed.

i38warhawk wrote:

The Hanar Diplomacy mission is bugged for some people, apparently if you leave the Citadel during the missions it bugs out of the the control panels. Right now I have two bugged missions that cannot be completed.

I found this trying to fix that: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Cit...

Holy crap that is EVERY SINGLE THING that happens in the mission.

Also, have you tried going back again? I had a similar issue but it was fixed by saving and reloading/leaving the area and coming back. And what is the second mission?

LobsterMobster wrote:

Haven't we spent years begging for more nuanced stories with a more natural flow that don't fall as easily into rigid definitions of morality or success? If that's what Mass Effect 3 is, then why is that a problem? Messy stories are less comfortable but that's what makes them memorable and meaningful. When there's no such thing as a perfect decision or a perfect outcome, the story is no longer about whether the hero was "right" or "wrong."

I think part of the problem is that there IS such a thing as a "perfect" outcome, or at least an optimal outcome, and the means to attain it is hidden. Bioware wants it both ways: they want to have a strong storytelling experience in which the player roleplays a character in the world and brings only as much knowledge into each situation as that character would actually have, and on the other hand they want to have a game with a big green meter that can be filled to 100%, which naturally brings out the min-maxer in many gamers. The problem is that these two goals are in direct opposition to one another.

I think it might be better for the game if the player were given LESS information, not more. In Mass Effect 2, when I was confronted with the choice of whether to go on the suicide mission to rescue my crew right away or continue preparing, there was no meter telling me that I was at X% mission readiness. I had only my crew's advice and my own gut instinct to draw upon, which is the exact same information Shepard had (assuming I didn't go check a wiki). And I think the game was better for it.

NSMike wrote:

Everyone is talking about multiple playthroughs and the like, but I generally only do one playthrough, unless the game latches on to me as an exceptional experience.

I used to think like you. Then I took an arrow--

IMAGE(http://cdn2.hark.com/images/000/002/800/2800/original.jpg)

Sorry about that. What I mean to say is, then I started asking myself a simple question: given that I'm probably only going to do one playthrough of most games, does making my one playthrough a total completionist run actually make that experience any more FUN?

The answer is almost always "no." Constantly switching back and forth between the game and a guide or GameFAQs screen, reloading an old save any time I miss absolutely anything, those things tend to up my stress level and totally suck the joy out of what should be a fun and leisurely passtime. I may have "wrung the most content" out of my $60, but if half of the time I spent doing so was boring busywork (which it almost always is if I give in to my OCD desire to see/do/collect/achieve EVERYTHING), then what's the point?

If I get to the end of a game and enjoyed it so much that I still want more, THEN I start over (or start a New Game Plus) with a FAQ in hand and do a completionist run. And if not, I move on to the next thing. There's too much awesome stuff coming out all the time for me to stress over whether I got the "best" ending (there's always YouTube if I want to see what the "best" ending was) or whether some progress bar read "112.18% completion" when I put the last game down.

Y'know, there are only so many fake timers I can tolerate before it starts chipping away at my sense of verisimilitude. It seems like every mission has me rushing forward to save this person or that, but they never earn these fake timers by investing me in the situation beforehand. I must admit, I find the writing lacking 10 hours in.

I hate timers in any game for any reason. Full stop.

Also, I am extremely disappointed in Bioware. ME3 doesn't feel as good as the others despite having vastly superior mechanics. The underbelly of the game just isn't as strong. That includes the story presentation and overall polish. It really could have used several more months to fix the bugs and journal.

Is there expected to be DLC? Because that would be a hard sell to customers since this is the last game.

Vector wrote:

I hate timers in any game for any reason. Full stop.

Also, I am extremely disappointed in Bioware. ME3 doesn't feel as good as the others despite having vastly superior mechanics. The underbelly of the game just isn't as strong. That includes the story presentation and overall polish. It really could have used several more months to fix the bugs and journal.

Is there expected to be DLC? Because that would be a hard sell to customers since this is the last game.

The rumor mill says that DLC will address the problems people have with the endings.

hey guys. I have an extra M55 Argus Rifle download code that I am wanting to trade. I don't know if it is ok to do this here but I thought it would be worth a shot. I am looking to trade it for any other ME3 add ons. It is for the 360 btw.

I've been hitting bugs more often and they're starting to really piss me off. Some of them are minor graphical glitches, whatever. But the game slows down, people don't talk, and the game is locking up on my 360.

Anyone else running into these problems? I like the game when it's working, but it's getting hard to get a decent session in.

MadcapLaugher wrote:

I've been hitting bugs more often and they're starting to really piss me off. Some of them are minor graphical glitches, whatever. But the game slows down, people don't talk, and the game is locking up on my 360.

Anyone else running into these problems? I like the game when it's working, but it's getting hard to get a decent session in.

Same on the PC. I'm currently in the middle of glitch I can't get out of (autosave is at the start of the mission...and my manual save is 4 hours of play-time prior to the autosave) which has no dialogue sound and most of the scenery textures are just black so I can't see any features or anything. I've updated my drivers, so I'll give it another go this afternoon.

But the more I think about it, I might just scrap that playthrough and start over. The longer I played with that Shep the more I disliked the look she had. I had the "can't import a face that was made in ME1" bug and so had to try and eyeball my Shep to get the face right. I thought I did, but it wasn't right.

Also, anyone else annoyed that the "tight, military-style bun" hair was replaced by the "grandmother bun" hair? The new style looks like I'm wearing a pillow on my head.

Played my first multi. So fun! Add me on Origin: EKastel

BishopRS wrote:

Played my first multi. So fun! Add me on Origin: EKastel

Hey BishopRS I think you are looking for the multiplayer thread. http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

*on the issue of bugs*

I have people on normandy on the crew deck who have no voices, but are clearly talking to one another. (the rest of the ship is fine)

I have the game sometimes showing me go through a mass relay when I enter a system... but I traveled the using ftl. No mass relay in sight.

I have also had an issue with cut scenes where my femshep does not want to make eye contact and looks off to the far left or right. Maybe as someone else mentioned earlier she is trying to avoid the lack of film grain.

So far I have to agree with Vector that the polish on this game is not as good as ME2 and I am a bit disappointed.

Bioware got lazy? or EA would not let them change the release date?

I just started an Infiltrator playthrough. Wow. It feels totally different. My Soldier playthrough was distinguished by the use of Inciendary Ammo nearly the entire way - even up to the last battle. Soldier line improvements improves damage considerably through Ammo boosting and direct improvements to Shields and Health.

Inciendary Ammo is marked by improved damage to both Health and Armor, and an almost-assured chance of panic. It allows a Soldier to basically charge a single target or two and gun them down with automatic fire, so long as they do not have Shields.

Infiltrator is really different. Lack of significant hardiness bonuses means I feel more fragile, and lack of Inciendary Ammo means that I have limited means of ameliorating incoming fire. Cryo can freeze, but not kill, and the chance is low until I an evolve it fully. However, Tactical Cloak on a ridiculously low timer means that I can basically flank with impunity and even melee-kill health-only enemies at close range! Bonuses to Sniper slow-time means I can line up headshots on flanks like nothing.

Currently, I'm conflicted on what Bonus Power to get, since I've unlocked them all with the Soldier playthrough. I'm currently sporting Carnage, which is brutally good, but I'm tempted to shift to Armor Piercing Ammo. It won't have the fire-suppression of Inciendary, but I least I get raw Health damage boosting. Too, Carnage is somewhat redundant with Infiltrator's built-in Incinerate power.

Any advice from Infiltrator players?

Bonnonon wrote:
BishopRS wrote:

Played my first multi. So fun! Add me on Origin: EKastel

Hey BishopRS I think you are looking for the multiplayer thread. http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

*on the issue of bugs*

I have people on normandy on the crew deck who have no voices, but are clearly talking to one another. (the rest of the ship is fine)

I have the game sometimes showing me go through a mass relay when I enter a system... but I traveled the using ftl. No mass relay in sight.

I have also had an issue with cut scenes where my femshep does not want to make eye contact and looks off to the far left or right. Maybe as someone else mentioned earlier she is trying to avoid the lack of film grain.

So far I have to agree with Vector that the polish on this game is not as good as ME2 and I am a bit disappointed.

Bioware got lazy? or EA would not let them change the release date?

Feels like a mandated release date to me. A few weeks before release they had their huge "Games to a weather balloon" promotion planned out. Willing to bet they didn't want to lose the money from that one.

You know what I did right around the time the Banshees started showing up in pairs?

I put it on Casual and I think I enjoyed the game more because of it.

I don't play Mass Effect for the combat, almost to the point where I wish there was less of it and in my mind my Shepard is the most badass of badasses, Arnold, Rambo, and John McClain all rolled into one times a thousand. Him mowing down enemies there at the end just felt RIGHT to me. I know I probably robbed myself of some tension at the end, because obviously those fights are supposed to have you barely hanging on (as with all shooting games, the fights ramp up to 11 right before the climax so no spoilers here).

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

You know what I did right around the time the Banshees started showing up in pairs?

I put it on Casual and I think I enjoyed the game more because of it.

I don't play Mass Effect for the combat, almost to the point where I wish there was less of it and in my mind my Shepard is the most badass of badasses, Arnold, Rambo, and John McClain all rolled into one times a thousand. Him mowing down enemies there at the end just felt RIGHT to me. I know I probably robbed myself of some tension at the end, because obviously those fights are supposed to have you barely hanging on (as with all shooting games, the fights ramp up to 11 right before the climax so no spoilers here).

Confession time: I finished the game on Normal, not Hardcore. There was no essential change in the game. In fact, I think that the difficulty is essentially just adding HP to your enemies and increasing their damage. It makes defensive maneuvering essential on Hardcore, but the offensive play is not materially affected.

After I finished the game, I remembered that I had something like 40+ points unassigned. I assigned them and fully upgraded my guns and replayed my Soldier ending on Hardcore. Same experience as Normal.

So don't sweat it. Unlike ME2, you're not losing essential game by playing on Normal or Casual.

I'm about to trigger the endgame, I think, and I do have one complaint if some of the basic issues I've heard talked about are true.

I played the game through, and skipped a ton of little sidequest things. Tons of them. Bunches of them I was never interested in at all to start with, but the game added them to the journal mission log anyway because I f*cking walked past the people having the conversation. That is actually my biggest annoyance with the game. I hate it. I hate it a lot. Don't add a quest to my log without asking me. I don't want to have to scroll through fifteen quests I never wanted to do in the first place to read the description of the one I wanted to read a description of. And then I ended up randomly discovering bits for some of those sidequests at some point and going out of my way to run back to the citadel while I could remember where I was supposed to go to give the whatsit to whoever, only to eventually hear that doing so probably meant I wasted too much time and will end up with a sh*tty ending, despite my 100% galactic readiness and an operational military strength that maxed out that silly green bar 2,500 points ago.

And even better, how about you update the damn mission logs in the journal when part of it has been completed? I've picked up a few quests that sound interesting but I have no idea even where to start to do one of them, and the game makes no effort whatsoever to tell you where to go to do any of them. And then when you do stumble on the thing you're supposed to get for that person back on the citadel the game is super vague about whether or not that's actually a quest item and makes no attempt at telling you who you're supposed to give it to if it is in fact a quest item.

I had a rough few hours in kind of the middle of my run through the game where I got super annoyed every time I looked at the mission log in the journal. I kept going back to it, kind of instinctively, to try and figure out what I was supposed to be doing with something or where I was supposed to be doing something and it was almost never helpful at all. It was a mental block kind of thing, due to long years of games training me with the idea that if I want to know where I need to do something the game will tell me. This game doesn't do that at all unless the mission is a priority for the story. There's no way to highlight a sidequest and have it waypoint you there.

I eventually broke the habit of checking the mission log for anything and started having much more fun with the game but there is in fact some really weird design decision type stuff going on in this game.

Thin_J wrote:

I'm about to trigger the endgame, I think, and I do have one complaint if some of the basic issues I've heard talked about are true.

I played the game through, and skipped a ton of little sidequest things. Tons of them. Bunches of them I was never interested in at all to start with, but the game added them to the journal mission log anyway because I f*cking walked past the people having the conversation. That is actually my biggest annoyance with the game. I hate it. I hate it a lot. Don't add a quest to my log without asking me. I don't want to have to scroll through fifteen quests I never wanted to do in the first place to read the description of the one I wanted to read a description of.

And even better, how about you update the damn mission logs in the journal when part of it has been completed? I've picked up a few quests that sound interesting but I have no idea even where to start to do one of them, and the game makes no effort whatsoever to tell you where to go to do any of them. And then when you do stumble on the thing you're supposed to get for that person back on the citadel the game is super vague about whether or not that's actually a quest item and makes no attempt at telling you who you're supposed to give it to if it is in fact a quest item.

I had a rough few hours in kind of the middle of my run through the game where I got super annoyed every time I looked at the mission log in the journal. I kept going back to it, kind of instinctively, to try and figure out what I was supposed to be doing with something or where I was supposed to be doing something and it was almost never helpful at all. It was a mental block kind of thing, due to long years of games training me with the idea that if I want to know where I need to do something the game will tell me. This game doesn't do that at all unless the mission isn't a priority for the story. There's no way to highlight a sidequest and have it waypoint you there.

I eventually broke the habit of checking the mission log for anything and started having much more fun with the game but there is in fact some really weird design decision type stuff going on in this game.

Yeah the Quest Log is worthless almost to the point where it feels unintentionally broken. But it probably is intentional.

Why even have a log at all if it provides almost no pertinent information outside of the Priority missions? And you don't even really need those because they are GLOWING LIKE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS on the galaxy map.

I can officially say that the ending of the game is seriously effecting, in a very negative way, how I gauge the 25 hour experience as a whole.

LarryC wrote:

Confession time: I finished the game on Normal, not Hardcore. There was no essential change in the game. In fact, I think that the difficulty is essentially just adding HP to your enemies and increasing their damage. It makes defensive maneuvering essential on Hardcore, but the offensive play is not materially affected.

After I finished the game, I remembered that I had something like 40+ points unassigned. I assigned them and fully upgraded my guns and replayed my Soldier ending on Hardcore. Same experience as Normal.

So don't sweat it. Unlike ME2, you're not losing essential game by playing on Normal or Casual.

I've been playing on normal with an Infiltrator imported from ME2, spending all the proficiency points I can. This is mostly because I just don't give a sh*t about Mass Effect's combat system (which, incidentally, is very unfortunate for me given how this game is made). It still manages to be hard sometimes, though, since I like to charge headlong into fights with my freezing sniper rifle, Incinerate, and grenades.

Interesting to hear that the difficulty curves are not as divergent this time around.

LarryC wrote:

Any advice from Infiltrator players?

I only have a couple bonus powers available right now (only 8ish hours in) but I grabbed armor-piercing almost immediately. That + the damage bonus when I'm cloaked with my sniper....I laugh in the face of danger! So fun.

Speedhuntr:

Thanks. I already used AP Ammo bonus power extensively on my Soldier, though, so I'm a little loathe to play the same way twice (I also sniped a lot with my Soldier). I'm thinking of using Fortification and my Reckoning Armor plus Melee Cloak to go all stabby on guys going out of Cloak. Now, where's that Claymore?

4xis.black:

That's unfortunate. There's a Story setting you can use to skip essential combat if you don't care for it, and there's a Narrative mode below Casual in the settings if you imported a save and can't choose at the start.

For my part, I like the combat because it's an evolved cover shooter, particularly ME3. It's the only shooter I know where you can snipe your enemies from behind cover, then roll out and essentially throw a Fireball. Sure, it's blue and it's called biotics, but it's still a Fireball.

If you're an Infiltrator, you can throw an actual (red) ball of fire! You can even bend it around cover if you aim it nicely, which I enjoy.

I am aware that the combat can be skipped, but I don't really want to do that. The problem I'm having is that ME3's story on its own has not proven interesting enough to be worth playing, nor has its combat. There does, however, seem to be enough synergy between the two things that I find myself drawn to the game, even though I have few kind words to offer thus far.

The story has been stringing me along by throwing increasingly-illogical and irrelevant obstacles in my path, so rather than exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations and/or boldly going where noone has gone before (as we did in the previous games) I'm just sort of hearing about then firing weapons at other people's stupid problems while they remind me who the hell they are and why I should find it important.

Heh. Any excuse I can find for throwing fireballs and firing ice bullets at techno-zombies is a good excuse. Have I mentioned that you can be a Jedi that doesn't find the notion of using projectiles useless somehow?

I must say that as someone who was very excited about ME3, but prevented from playing thanks to a dead graphics card the coolness of the impressions is pretty disheartening. I wanted to get this day one, but couldn't and now I'm in no rush to get a new card to play it.

I restarted my character, and I decided to to the Eden Prime mission as soon as I got on the Normandy. Damn thing is broken exactly like it was yesterday--no dialogue sound, only ambient sound, and all the mid-ground scenery is blacked out (meaning I see what is exactly in front of me, like characters and door panels, and stuff off in the distance, but everything else is just matte black.

Been searching the Bioware forums for similar experiences, but nothing there. And cause the Origin account that is connected to ME3 is not my Bioware account, making me create another Bioware account, I have to wait 24 hours before I can even post on the forums there. So annoying.

Has anyone else here had any problems with the Eden Prime mission (i.e. the From Ashes DLC)? When did you do it in your playthrough? Maybe I'm doing it too early?

In singleplayer I'm finding the cover system to much more problematic than the last game. I end up rolling around near cover or standing next to it spamming A rather than reliably just dropping into it. It's weird because I have no problem in multiplayer. Hopefully it'll click with practice.

Cluster grenades are feeling pretty useless at the moment. In the first Mass effect I liked grenades a lot. Throwing grenades so far in ME3 they seem to either scatter all over the place way short of the target or, if the enemies are closer, they will bunch together and fly, laser like, past all enemies and explode harmlessly behind them.

There is a feeling of less polish in the game but maybe I'm looking back on the previous games with rose tinted optical displays.

My characters faces wouldn't import. I'm trying to be philosophical about it. I tried recreating them but they aren't the same. Game informer came up with a good analogy for it. It was like a trilogy of films where one of the Baldwin brothers played the star and then, for the third film, they cast a different Baldwin brother in that roll.