Mass Effect Series Catch-All

And that style of play works just as well in reverse. My dudeShep was a xenophobic asshole who took sh*t from nobody due to his gang affiliated background and surviving a terrible mission in his background. But there was a certain romance option in 2 and to that character, he was nothing but sweetness and kind words. Made for a kind of complicated character.

I've often said that Mass Effect is ironically one of the very few RPGs that actually allow you to create a character - that is a fictional person, not a spreadsheet of numbers and combat abilities. You can roleplay Shepard to be from a broad range of characters. Min-maxing the Charm/Intimidate or the Paragon//Renegade dichotomies is one way to play Shepard, but there are many, many, many other Shepards to play.

Just as long as we all agree that FemShep is the one true Shep

Yeah, I find that the existing broad strokes of the character make it easier for me to properly role-play than a complete blank slate does. I found the same in The Witcher.

Just follow your heart.

jrralls wrote:

This is just a personal preference, and there is no "right" way to play a RPG, but when I'm playing a Role-Playing game I like to Role Play my character. So even if it seems like what my character would do, I'll do it, even if it's not the best action for the game itself.

Definitely my preference as well. Feeling like I was playing the same character throughout the 3 games was my favorite part about the experience.

billt721 wrote:

Thanks to discovering that these controller mods exist and purchasing a Steam Link, I'm playing through the series again for the first time since ME3 came out. This is something like my 10th time playing through ME1, but will be just my 3rd of ME2 and 2nd of ME3 (and first with the DLC).

At this point I'm far enough along in ME1 to already hate that I'm forced to work for/with Cerberus in ME2. Since I've never played renegade in ME2 or ME3, I'm going that route this time. Or I'm mostly doing so. Some of the renegade choices in ME1 are so pointlessly mean that I just can't make them. There's no reason to kill all the colonists on Feros, for example, so I'm still ending up with a decent number of paragon points.

Given the number of times I've played it, the first game no longer holds any surprises for me, but that's not the case for the next two games. I remember very little about ME2 and basically nothing about ME3, so that should be fun.

Well, almost 2 years later I finally got through ME2. I've started on ME3 with all the DLC and I'm enjoying it. It's been long enough and I've only every played it once, so I don't remember all the specifics. I'm a few hours in now and it feels like some of this stuff should have been taken as early warning signs of the quality that we could expect in future ME games.

Like -- why are side quests almost nothing but 'go to system, scan for item, press A'? Also, apparently nobody wanted to work on the journal, because it's barely even there. There are quest names, and that's about it. Even the first game had at least minor quest descriptions. I can't imagine trying to get back into this game after taking a month off in the middle of it. This is a real bummer coming off the Witcher games last year where the journal was filled with relevant quest information. Speaking of stripping stuff out from earlier games -- why are there mostly only 2 conversation options at a time? And it seems like there's a lot less 'Investigate' options during conversation as well. Finally, some of the animations look ridiculous (running while out of combat is ... awkward, but looks fine during combat), and the writing seems worse in places.

But, my memory of this game is that they nail a bunch of the storyline endings: genophage, geth/quarian, etc, and I've heard the DLC is actually pretty good. So even though I'm finding the experience far more frustrating than I expected, I'll keep with it.

I only played ME3 once after launch and I’m wrapping up my second playthrough this week. I’m playing through all the DLCs (which I’d bought but hadn’t because too many feelz), and they’re spectacular. Citadel particularly (although I did find some of the fights overlong). The whole DLC reads like a love letter. Mass Effect is still my favorite franchise ever (and I can’t believe I hadn’t posted it here yet).

I’m surprised, though, Billt721, I typically see three dialog options, the typical Paragon, neutral and Renegade options. It’s true that there are fewer neutraloptions in the situations where something only has two outcomes though. I don’t see it as that much of an issue, since the game kinda pushes you towards picking Paragon or Renegade. BioWare doesn’t really do middle grounds.

Loved one. Loved two. I wanted to love 3 so much damnit.

I loved parts of 3. And the multiplayer came out of nowhere to be a gem.

billt721 wrote:

I can't imagine trying to get back into this game after taking a month off in the middle of it.

I get to test out my own complaint .... and it's mostly fine. I have no memory of what quests I've actually done or what their outcomes were due to the terrible journal, but the overall plot of the game is pretty simple so it's easy enough to hop back in. Anyway, some impressions 7 hours in:

The Good:

  • Mark Meer is totally fine as Male Shep. My only other complete playthrough was as femshep and she was great, but I have no complaints about the male version. He was a little flat in ME1 in places, but there's none of that here.
  • While I really dislike the story in ME2, I do love the characters. Well, everyone but Jack and Zaeed anyway, so I'm happy anytime one of them makes a cameo in the game. However...
  • I love what they did with Jack. I couldn't have cared less about her in ME2 but her brief appearance here was just fantastic.
  • The combat is definitely the best in the series, which would be awesome if that's remotely what I came to Bioware games for.

The Bad:

  • One of few complaints I've seen expressed about ME2 was how it was too often mid-sized battle arenas separated by short corridors, and (so far at least) it's the same here. They've just moved the corridors to more expansive outdoor areas so that they don't feel like they're funneling you somewhere even though they definitely are.
  • Just a bit up above this post I put together some very early game impressions and those basically still stand, so you could just read those if you were interested.
  • Actually, I still can't get over how stupid Shepard looks when running while out of combat.

I'm enjoying the game (again -- didn't last long when I said that back in July), but there are definitely quality issues that appeared to continue into ME:A for the 10 hours or so that I played it. It's a good thing the Dragon Age team is still putting out (mostly) good stuff, otherwise I think I'd be done with Bioware at this point.

I'm probably better suited to ramble on about my Mass Effect playthrough here, as oppose to the Andromeda thread. It's been a long standing goal to experience the game that started it all. Finally, I have made a move and got the ball rolling.

It was in part the positive defense of Kaidan Alenko, by Eleima, that pushed it over the edge. I need to explore the relationship between Shepard and Kaidan, as well as Shephard and Ashley, prior that decision, and for one of them, the thereafter. (The plan is Kaidan.)

It was only a few pennies on the 360 store due to the Black Friday sale, better still with Gold which was a steal at £1 for a month. The savings I can potentially have...

The only advice I have is to talk to characters. All of them. Make the rounds after every mission (major story beats, not necessarily “go kill random mercenary”), talk to everyone, the six squad mates, Joker. That’s what gives the game flavor. The jokes, the stories, the relationships.

RnRClown wrote:

I'm probably better suited to ramble on about my Mass Effect playthrough here, as oppose to the Andromeda thread.

Same here with ME2.

After 4 complete runs before I'm not going to do all the minigames. I'm just using gibbed save editor and adding resources whenever I have stuff to buy.

Recruited Mordin last night. He's still a joy every time. Going after "Archangel" next.

I've got 3 points in Charm. Is it worth opting in for Intimidate also? Assuming I can ever bring myself to opt for the latter.

If you're trying to min-max, then no, not really; you're better off choosing whether you're going for a Paragon or Renegade playthrough and going all the way down that path.

If (like me) you think that binary systems that encourage you to make exactly one meaningful choice at the very beginning of a playthrough and then do nothing but execute on that choice for the next 20-30 hours are limiting and dumb, then set the difficulty to easy, roleplay your Shepard the way you like, and don't worry too much about what's "worth it."

Personally, I started my playthrough intending to roleplay Shepard as a bit of a human chauvinist, picking mostly Renegade options and adopting an "ends justify the means" ethos. As I continued through all three games and fell in love with all the cool alien races and party members the game served up, I couldn't bear to continue in that vein, and rather than start over as a more open-minded and Paragon-leaning Shepard, I decided that this would be "my" Shepard's character arc: gradually learning to accept alien cultures and work together with the galactic community.

I found that way more satisfying than if I'd decided, "Well, this is my Dark Side run, guess I'm sticking with it because that's what the gameplay systems reward."

That's a good way to go with the original Mass Effect. In Mass Effect 2 though, there are conflict resolutions between crew members that have a significant effect on the end game. Unless you have a high enough paragon or renegade score, you will not be able to choose the conclusive resolutions that keep your team together.

You may or may not care about that, but if you are continuing into Mass Effect 3 and want everybody around, you can't be a pragmatist.

RnRClown wrote:

I've got 3 points in Charm. Is it worth opting in for Intimidate also? Assuming I can ever bring myself to opt for the latter.

I'd say no. In the first game most situations where there's a dialog option that's gated by your paragon/renegade score has an option for both of them, so choose one and stick with it.

Also, you get free points in those fields as you fill the paragon or renegade bars. Filling one of them really requires at least 1 new game+ playthrough. If you were on PC, you could use the console or save game editor to just give yourself the points, but I think you're stuck with what you actually acquire on the console version.

BadKen wrote:

That's a good way to go with the original Mass Effect. In Mass Effect 2 though, there are conflict resolutions between crew members that have a significant effect on the end game. Unless you have a high enough paragon or renegade score, you will not be able to choose the conclusive resolutions that keep your team together.

You may or may not care about that, but if you are continuing into Mass Effect 3 and want everybody around, you can't be a pragmatist.

Which again, brings us back to min-maxing in pursuit of the "golden ending."

I prefer a storytelling experience that unfolds organically, where sometimes you are faced with hard choices and you can't always please everyone. I had party members whose loyalty missions I failed. I had some not make it out alive at all. I think that makes for a more interesting story than one where everybody is protected by save-scumming-enforced plot armor and everyone's guaranteed to be best friends by the end.

Isn't it a more interesting story and a more personal story if not everyone makes it and not everyone gets their ideal ending?

It wasn't that hard to get the ME2 ideal ending? Or maybe I just got lucky. My Shep did go down the paragon path and did all the character quests so that may have done the trick.

I don't remember exactly but it seemed to me that based on what order you did things, you had to have Paragon or renegade pretty high to do conflict resolution of any kind. So it's not so much making everything perfect as having the option to intervene at all.

It's been a long time since I played though, I might be misremembering.

Oh hush now! Getting a good ending in Mass Effect 2 is super simple!!
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JhtqY.jpg)

Eleima wrote:

Oh hush now! Getting a good ending in Mass Effect 2 is super simple!!
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JhtqY.jpg)

ME2 you say...

BadKen wrote:

I don't remember exactly but it seemed to me that based on what order you did things, you had to have Paragon or renegade pretty high to do conflict resolution of any kind. So it's not so much making everything perfect as having the option to intervene at all.

It's been a long time since I played though, I might be misremembering.

You had to have a Paragon/Renegade score high enough to keep both Jack/Miranda and Tali/Legion loyal when they have their little confrontations after completing their loyalty missions.

Rykin wrote:
BadKen wrote:

I don't remember exactly but it seemed to me that based on what order you did things, you had to have Paragon or renegade pretty high to do conflict resolution of any kind. So it's not so much making everything perfect as having the option to intervene at all.

It's been a long time since I played though, I might be misremembering.

You had to have a Paragon/Renegade score high enough to keep both Jack/Miranda and Tali/Legion loyal when they have their little confrontations after completing their loyalty missions.

Yeah, but even that wasn't too difficult. ME2 had a lot of opportunities to rack up points. Even in my second playthrough, in which I tried to make renegade decisions but still ended up racking up a lot of paragon points because I ended up playing the character much more gray, I still had enough renegade points to handle both of those issues.

Garrcia wrote:

ME2 you say...

This is the chart I meant to link to, but I was on my phone this morning, and did the best I could.
IMAGE(https://i.stack.imgur.com/e9Lvn.jpg)

Here we go, now I remember. This is a video I made over eight years ago (time flies!) showing all the conflict resolution options for Jack/Miranda and Legion/Tali.

TL;DW: The way the game figures out whether to make a conversation option available is a little weird. The important thing is to not skip paragon/renegade choices as you play through. Not necessarily the interrupts, although doing those helps too, just the dialogue choices. You don't necessarily have to optimize for one or the other like I did, but you do have to be decisive when the paragon/renegade dialogue options appear during the game. I remember this being verified by a dev on the now-defunct Bioware forums, because people were confused when they had a very high score but the dialogue option associated with that score was not available.

Note: this video is very spoilerful.

Thanks Ken. Think I resolved those successfully before but it won't hurt to have a reference when I get there again.

ME2 Paragon/Renegade leanings are significantly LESS demanding that ME1's, and that one only had gameplay bonus rewards, which may or may not matter. It's better to roleplay than to check boxes. I know that from many multiple playthroughs of each game - almost one playthrough for each class, and two for Adept and Soldier each - I had two distinct Shepards for each class. They're different characters, so there.

ME2's gates are so easy, I remember often having BOTH Renegade and Paragon special options open to choose.

Origin has some great Black Friday sales on Mass Effect content. You can now buy the ME 2 and 3 DLC bundles for actual cash instead of Bioware space bux. ME 2 bundle is $12.49 and ME 3 is $14.99. (I will probably get both since I never played them the first time around).

Sadly, ME Andromeda is $5.99 - which is a great price if you've never played it.