Mass Effect 3 Catch-All

kexx wrote:

But yeah, back on topic, never brought them for what powers they had or if they were squishy or tanky. Didn´t care about that. Brought them to listen to their banter and/or interesting insight on things going on story wise.

Same here. But then I also never tried playing on Insanity. It seems like that would turn it into kind of a different game.

complexmath wrote:
kexx wrote:

But yeah, back on topic, never brought them for what powers they had or if they were squishy or tanky. Didn´t care about that. Brought them to listen to their banter and/or interesting insight on things going on story wise.

Same here. But then I also never tried playing on Insanity. It seems like that would turn it into kind of a different game.

Definitely. Garrus and the Prothean (whose name totally escapes me right now) were my Insanity run helpers. Every other run, I just try to stay balanced. With Insanity, I wanted as much damage output as possible as fast as possible (Liara also was helpful to replay Garrus if I knew shields weren't going to be prevalent as the Singularity that either I or the Prothean (this will be running through my brain until I know now) could break was handy.

Singularity is kind of an interesting skill because it primes even shielded enemies even though the auto-targeting and damage/lift effects won't work. So if something walks through the effect or if you throw it through them, they'll be primed for a biotic explosion. I imagine that you can't rely on Liara to use the skill this effectively though. What really makes me scratch my head about Insanity runs is that the companion AI never seemed very good to me. In my playthroughs I've ended up killing nearly all of the enemies. How are you all getting your companions to play effectively?

complexmath wrote:

Singularity is kind of an interesting skill because it primes even shielded enemies even though the auto-targeting and damage/lift effects won't work. So if something walks through the effect or if you throw it through them, they'll be primed for a biotic explosion. I imagine that you can't rely on Liara to use the skill this effectively though. What really makes me scratch my head about Insanity runs is that the companion AI never seemed very good to me. In my playthroughs I've ended up killing nearly all of the enemies. How are you all getting your companions to play effectively?

Hotkey a skill to the left and right d-pad buttons, and use that skill menu like crazy.

After recently replaying some ME2 DLC, I thought the ME2 AI was considerably better than the ME3 AI. I had to babysit my squadmates and tell them every little thing to do if I wanted to survive on ME3 Insanity. They never set off combos themselves, you always have to do that manually. Hell, Javik rarely uses his awesome biotic DOT that jumps when you kill someone. I had to hotkey that and do it myself. Taking shields down? Had to do it myself. Garrus almost never cast Overload unless I made him. Liara was the only marginally effective auto-caster I can remember, and even she stuck with Singularity.

Really weird.

DID YOU KNOW... Mark Meer, voice of Sheploo, also voiced all the Vorcha and Hanar parts, including Blasto. He also did the Volus "Biotic God" bit.

(skip to 3:32... maybe someday the youtube tag will support that :D)

So he is basically the Hank Azaria of Mass Effect.

I was just wondering whether any of you have installed the

Spoiler:

MEHEM (Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod

? I'm getting near the end of my first playthrough of ME3 and I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or not. I've just heard so many negative things about the ending.

concentric wrote:

I was just wondering whether any of you have installed the

Spoiler:

MEHEM (Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod

? I'm getting near the end of my first playthrough of ME3 and I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or not. I've just heard so many negative things about the ending.

Just go with the Extended Edition ending, the ending is still odd, but at least it's more coherent then.

Having never experienced the original ending, I have to agree that the Extended Cut ending is just fine. I really had no problems with it. I'm glad I never played through the original ending. From all accounts, there were a lot of things left hanging or just plain confusing that are much improved by the addition of Leviathan and the Extended Cut.

Thanks for the advice. I've filled the bar measuring all the military resources, which I understand is important. I'm glad I waited to finish the game because Leviathan was a great piece of DLC and I'd rather have it as an integral part of the story than as back-filler. I'm doing Citadel now. I'd have liked to have seen more banter like you get in it in the vanilla game.

kexx wrote:

So the fact alone that if you choose to romance anyone else (why on earth I don´t know), Garrus and Tali actually end up together. That´s just awesome beyond anything.

What.

Edit: How did I not know about this.

CptGlanton wrote:
kexx wrote:

So the fact alone that if you choose to romance anyone else (why on earth I don´t know), Garrus and Tali actually end up together. That´s just awesome beyond anything.

What.

I'd say characters having brains of their own and doing something that doesn't involve you is kind of cool.

Scratched wrote:
CptGlanton wrote:
kexx wrote:

So the fact alone that if you choose to romance anyone else (why on earth I don´t know), Garrus and Tali actually end up together. That´s just awesome beyond anything.

What.

I'd say characters having brains of their own and doing something that doesn't involve you is kind of cool.

Was weird when I was playing my femshep romancing Liara and they were talking about it in the gun battery. I thought it was really sweet... but I was terribly annoyed that she had betrayed my broshep from the previous playthrough.

CptGlanton wrote:
kexx wrote:

So the fact alone that if you choose to romance anyone else (why on earth I don´t know), Garrus and Tali actually end up together. That´s just awesome beyond anything.

What.

Edit: How did I not know about this.

I learned about it before my femshep play through and visited the pair over and over hoping to see signs that they were getting together. In the end they did. I was oblivious to it in my previous two runs.

complexmath wrote:

Singularity is kind of an interesting skill because it primes even shielded enemies even though the auto-targeting and damage/lift effects won't work. So if something walks through the effect or if you throw it through them, they'll be primed for a biotic explosion. I imagine that you can't rely on Liara to use the skill this effectively though. What really makes me scratch my head about Insanity runs is that the companion AI never seemed very good to me. In my playthroughs I've ended up killing nearly all of the enemies. How are you all getting your companions to play effectively?

AIs will hold and defend a place you assign them to defend. This is effective for setting up flanks. Some close-quarter AIs are very good as flankers. Tali's pretty decent up close with a shotgun so long as you keep fire off of her. Assigning squadmates guns determines at what range they'll engage the enemy. Shotguns are close range. Pistols, SMGs, and assault rifles are medium. Sniper rifles are long. If Jacob is at medium and you assign him a shotgun, he will move up and engage at knife range.

Without any specific command, AI squadmates will seek to rally around Shepard. This is bad when you're a Vanguard or Sentinel and squishy little Mordin wants to stick by your side. You need to stick him somewhere he won't get killed before you charge.

Suqaddie powers are essentially yours on alternate cooldowns. Squaddies can auto-fire these powers but they don't do so smartly. It's much better to think of them as alternative power loadouts and separate cooldown timers for Shepard herself. In fact, the powers are targeted and originate from Shepard in ME3 so long as the squaddie is not in view.

ME3 always forced me to assign 2 specific types of weapons to NPCs. I was never allowed to change that or omit one. Did I miss something? As for the powers, I must have missed that you can hotkey them. I was expecting the pause menu like in previous games.

I seem to recall being able to not assign a secondary weapon to ally NPCs in ME3 only in order to increase power recovery. I also recall hot-keying squaddie power attacks in ME2. I'd assign squaddie Pull to mousewheel up and Shepard Warp to mousewheel down.

complexmath wrote:

ME3 always forced me to assign 2 specific types of weapons to NPCs. I was never allowed to change that or omit one. Did I miss something? As for the powers, I must have missed that you can hotkey them. I was expecting the pause menu like in previous games.

True, but you can set them, with the weapons menu in combat, to use a specific type. Having both weapons is not like Shepard having multiple weapons, weapon weight does not influence their cooldown times.

LarryC wrote:

I seem to recall being able to not assign a secondary weapon to ally NPCs in ME3 only in order to increase power recovery.

Weight doesn't apply to NPC cooldowns.

I'm probably misremembering. It's been a while.

Slowly working my way through this (5-month-old ftw), and I am a little confused by the "galactic readiness" thing.

Is there going to be a big hint in the single player saying "hey you should go play a few rounds of MP before you embark on this mission (wink wink)"?

I dabbled in the MP, but given the decay rate on the readiness, combined with my limited play time, I don't want to do anymore until I can get the maximum benefit out of that time.

They don't say exactly that, but they do warn you when you are about to hit the point of no return and I think it's at that point that your readiness matters. Not that it really matters because they patched it.

Is there a crack somewhere that can be downloaded on PC to give full benefit of MP? I played one game of MP and don't ever want to touch it again. But I also want to experience the full gamut of what this game has to offer, story wise.

MoonDragon wrote:

Is there a crack somewhere that can be downloaded on PC to give full benefit of MP? I played one game of MP and don't ever want to touch it again. But I also want to experience the full gamut of what this game has to offer, story wise.

You can probably get up to full readiness using the iOS app, provided that you start doing so early enough in your playthrough.

Check the wiki for what readiness rating you actually need to get the "best" ending. You should be able to get there or at least almost get there just from doing quests in-game, provided you have the enhanced ending patch applied.

billt721 wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:

Is there a crack somewhere that can be downloaded on PC to give full benefit of MP? I played one game of MP and don't ever want to touch it again. But I also want to experience the full gamut of what this game has to offer, story wise.

You can probably get up to full readiness using the iOS app, provided that you start doing so early enough in your playthrough.

You can really get to full readiness without needing the boost from MP since the patch that came with the extended ending. I haven't even finished the Krogan storyline and I'm already more than halfway there on my current playthrough.

So maybe I am just confused?

There is both the military forces progress bar, and then a readiness percentage. I haven't found anything other than MP that changes the galactic readiness.

I can't tell if it matters or not, but the hologram admiral dude seems unhappy that it isn't higher.

I have the war effort progress bar maxed out, but was under the impression I needed both maxed to get the "best ending"

I ended up like 50 points below the threshold on my playthrough, though I didn't know that at the time. I ended up not fully exploring all systems because the scanning mechanic with reaper attacks got too annoying. Anyway, if I'd known what readiness level I was shooting for I might have pushed for those last few points.

[edit]

Yes, the readiness level thing is really confusing. I suggest reading up on it in the Mass Effect wiki. But in short, when you scan random planets you'll often find something that helps the war effort. Sometimes you'll get a side-quest for these things, but they're pretty much everywhere. I don't think you can get the "best" ending without a good bit of planet scanning, assuming you avoid MP and the iOS app.

Underflow wrote:

So maybe I am just confused?

There is both the military forces progress bar, and then a readiness percentage. I haven't found anything other than MP that changes the galactic readiness.

I can't tell if it matters or not, but the hologram admiral dude seems unhappy that it isn't higher.

I have the war effort progress bar maxed out, but was under the impression I needed both maxed to get the "best ending"

If you look at the bar shown on Galactic Readiness, what you'll see is a bar split into two parts. If you aren't playing MP, it'll be split at 50%. That bar shows how much readiness you have, and how much is being applied to your game at this time. If you should raise that % by playing MP or using the iOS app, more of that bar will be utilized than is utilized... you know what, this sounds confusing reading what I'm writing and I actually understand it. :X About to leave work, will try to be more coherent later.