The new maps and races look awesome, but not sure about the weapons though. I was starting to get bored of the MP too, it would have been nice to release some new enemies with it as well.
ZOMG!!! Its free DLC?? The apocalypse must be nigh.
Saying that it looks to be a nice little expansion.
@Grundz, you would be better off doing bronze levels for credits, less chance of failing the credit missions. Heck even I found silver a real challenge.
Kinda wondering if they're doing free DLCs just to get people to stop crying about the ending
I can't do gold mode, I've never made it past round 2 or 3 on there.. I can do silver with a decent team though. I mostly just do bronze games though so I know there's a good chance to get through to the end
Like how the batarian gets his own melee attack by swinging the rifle like a club. Awesome by the looks of it. Will the justicar just be another skin for the adept or will she have different abilities? Geth looks epic. Do you think we'll still have to unlock the customization options?
Totalwar1402 wrote:Like how the batarian gets his own melee attack by swinging the rifle like a club. Awesome by the looks of it. Will the justicar just be another skin for the adept or will she have different abilities? Geth looks epic. Do you think we'll still have to unlock the customization options?
Necros wrote:Kinda wondering if they're doing free DLCs just to get people to stop crying about the ending
end
They're also doing an epilogue thing thats also going to be free.
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Grundz wrote:
Totalwar1402 wrote:Like how the batarian gets his own melee attack by swinging the rifle like a club. Awesome by the looks of it. Will the justicar just be another skin for the adept or will she have different abilities? Geth looks epic. Do you think we'll still have to unlock the customization options?
I'm guessing judicar is a soldier subclass
I was sure it said adept on the trailer. Armour looks awesome though and that was my first impression. But a justicar has to have biotics.
johnscott10 wrote:
@Grundz, you would be better off doing bronze levels for credits, less chance of failing the credit missions. Heck even I found silver a real challenge.
Not to be a dick, but then it isn't for you, Anything less than gold is a snoozefest for me :(
Wait, just rewatched the trailer. The justicar is an adept but gets the ability to create that super barrier you see on the campaign. Probably in place of stasis sadly.
johnscott10 wrote:
@Grundz, you would be better off doing bronze levels for credits, less chance of failing the credit missions. Heck even I found silver a real challenge.
Not to be a dick, but then it isn't for you, Anything less than gold is a snoozefest for me :(
I will admit that playing a bronze after a silver was a lot more boring. However I think it may be due to the fact I am really frugal when using the consumables.
You do need a good, organized, intelligent team to pull of Gold for sure. Pick up groups are destined to get steamrolled a few games in. Having a play and knowing your role turns Gold into a shooting gallery.
I can pretty much Solo bronze. It's like easy-mode. If I ever want to feel awesome, I just set it to bronze and go wholesale slaughterfest on the AI. It's not even a contest anymore.
The new maps will be very welcome additions as well.
I will admit that playing a bronze after a silver was a lot more boring. However I think it may be due to the fact I am really frugal when using the consumables.
Yeah man, the higher difficulties aren't really much harder, they just punish mistakes more harshly, once you get used to it, it isn't bad at all.
And stacking debuffs, like having a quarian engineer with full cyro and a full warp sentinal w/ throw, will make short work of /anything/
My current favorite is salarian infiltrator with fast recharing (1 ability use) cloak, 25% damage debuff mines, mid-level energy drain, and geth shotgun. Every 3 seconds or so you can cloak, fire off a 1100+damage prox mine, and fire a cloaked charged shotgun blast that can instantly kill almost anything.
//EDIT 2, Here's hoping the protective shields and such will provide more teamwork, as I think slow, heavy firing weapons really do too much damage to off-armor types and totally dominate the mp game, it should have more teamwork! :(
silver games are just hit or miss for me .. I'm pretty much always in a group of random folks, no idea if they have any talent until we get wiped out 3 turns in or not.
Sometimes I spend a good 15 minutes just trying to find a group of folks that are high enough level, half the time there's 1 or 2 noobs that think they can do it because the played 2 games so far. So I just leave and go look for another group if they're not all at least level 70 or so. And I also drop immediately if I hear anyone talking through a mic, cuz it always sounds like crap and annoys me, and half the time they have nothing useful to say anyway. And there doesn't seem to be a setting to mute people.
So yeah, takes a while to find the perfect group and then all it takes is 1 of em to leave to ruin it because we always get some dummy joining up in their place :( So for me it's usually easier to just play a bronze game.. I'd rather breeze through bronze than get stuck in a bad group in silver or gold.
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:Batarians... I could live without.
Haters gonna hate. I take pride in playing the ugliest species in the ME universe. Keep your sparkling aliens to yourselves!
You can play a Vorcha?
...
Yes. A vorcha is prettier than a Batarian. Vorcha are a species that could be included in DLC mind... Are there any others that haven't been done which can be tried.
(Veiled threat) No Hanar.
I suppose they could bring out alternate types like the justicar and battlemaster for popular races. They made sure they added one to each class. Is there room for anymore?
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Chemical Cutthroat wrote:@ Necros - If you're on XBL my SN is The Steamdriven. Hit me up and we'll roll through some matches.
I think the EA servers are down. At least they seem to be down my end. edit back up now. ps Live gamertag is total war1402 if anyone up for a game. edit forgot to include space
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:@ Necros - If you're on XBL my SN is The Steamdriven. Hit me up and we'll roll through some matches.
I'm on XBL. My Tag is AldarionnEB if you wanna hit me up. I'm on at least a few nights a week. I tend to play bronze or silver out of simplicity, depending on if I get lucky with a decent group or not. If I'm playing with friends, we don't do less than Silver. I'm grooming my Salarian Engineer to do golds this time around so once he is 20 I'll probably be setting up groups to farm cash.
Then played a few games and got the Geth Infiltrator.
I take back all my Batarian hate. They do so much Melee damage that it makes the Krogans look like sissies sometimes. And that Net is fun. I can't wait to unlock the Soldier and see what that Blade thing does.
I played a couple of silver games yesterday, and we tore through all of them.. Made me wonder if they adjusted things to make them a little easier? I don't think I saw any new characters yet though
I've been playing with the Geth Infiltrator and their "Hunter Vision" is just obscenely fun. Cloaked Geth Hunters coming for your team?
BAM! Nope, they're not doing it anymore!
Phantom cloaked after you've got her almost dead?
BAM! Nope, dies invisible and everything!
The Striker AR is pretty disappointing.
The Harpoon Rifle is freaking nasty when you charge the shot up. One-shotted a Brute with it from Tactical Cloak.
The Geth Plasma SMG has a feature which is not really mentioned...the longer it's being fired, the more damage it does. Spin that baby up and it will shred.
I know Iam surprised how much of a melee tank the batarian is. I got Batarian soldier and Krogan Vanguard. One is a fist smashing, engine of death that shoots blasts of fire from its gauntlets and the other is a biotic god Krogan.
The blade armour hurts anyone who attacks the batarian in melee as well as offering damage protection like the sentinal armour. If you meant the thing that la8nches from your arm its basically a shotgun like carnage that can hit mulitple people at short range and does bleeding damage.
Totalwar1402 wrote:I know Iam surprised how much of a melee tank the batarian is. I got Batarian soldier and Krogan Vanguard. One is a fist smashing, engine of death that shoots blasts of fire from its gauntlets and the other is a biotic god Krogan.
The blade armour hurts anyone who attacks the batarian in melee as well as offering damage protection like the sentinal armour. If you meant the thing that la8nches from your arm its basically a shotgun like carnage that can hit mulitple people at short range and does bleeding damage.
I know right! And yeah, the Blade Assault or whatever it's called is what I meant. It looks awesome. I do more Melee with my Batarian Sentinel than I do with my Krogan. It's bonkers. It's better still that I can net people, and then walk over at my leisure and FAAAAALLCON PAWNCH! things into oblivion.
Its a ton of fun.
Now back to my Geth Infiltrator... who needs a sniper rifle when you have a Plasma Shotgun.
I've been playing with the Batarian Soldier and OH. DEAR. GOD!
Ballistic Blades is absurd. Combine it with the Striker Assault Rifle and approach groups of enemies, and if the damage alone doesn't kill them, the stun lets you get off a volley of grenade rounds from the Striker which kills anything left over. It's the most ridiculous thing I've seen so far.
I still have not unlocked either of the Geth, which makes me sad, but I do quite like the Asari Justicar. Her bubble is great for farming on Gold difficulty, and between Reave and Throw, she does reasonable damage. I'm not so big on the Batarian Sentinel though. The net has too long of a cooldown and that's about the only decent feature of the class unless you specifically want to melee. Admittedly, their heavy melee is the most broken in the game so yeah, you could do that.
Chemical Cutthroat, next time I see you online I'll send you an invite and we can do a few matches together.
Kanluwen wrote:The net's cooldown isn't actually bad, but you can't have Ballistic Armor on if you plan on using it a lot.
I upgraded my net to have the area effect bonus, and it's fantastic combined with the Striker.
Also worth noting?
The net DOES affect Banshees, Primes, Brutes, and Atlas.
So you like the Striker + Net with no Blade Armor? I'll have to give that one a try. I just promoted my sentinel so I'm looking to try something different this time around anyway.
Using the Piercing Mod on the Striker is a smidge...well, it's silly. It can't pierce cover, period, like the Falcon cannot either. What you want to do is have as many shots and you want those shots as stabilized as possible. Aiming for headshots is completely possible, but very rare because the thing just...explodes people.
Hmmmmm, I've been using it on my Batarian Soldier with the Piercing mod and Stabalizer. Gonna switch Piercing to Extended Mag tonight and see how I like it.
Still haven't found to play this week. Should get going this week again.
On a side note, do the new characters replace folks in the list, or did new slots appear on the end of the corrosponding class types?
@Kan, and aye, will have to try and get a game in at some point. What level are you playing at the moment? As I've been languishing in Bronze while I'm unlocking stuff, if you are on Silver or Gold, will need to up my game.
I played this weekend enough to buy 2 of those premium spectre boxes. I got a Geth Infiltrator, the M-98 Widow, a black N7 pistol (Scorpion), and a Striker.
I didn't like the Striker much, although I could see how other people could like it. I prefer precision, so I usually roll with the Mattock.
That being said, I was all sadface when I got by first N7 ultra-rare; the Scorpion. I never use pistols. So I decided to give the Widow and the pistol to my Geth Infiltrator. Turns out, the pistol is goddamn hilarious, and fun as hell. It fires these little blue death balls, which if they hit a surface, become proximity mines. If they hit a victim, they stick and explode in a few seconds. I'm having so much fun with it. On the last mission, we had to extract at the end of a hallway, kind of, so all I had to do was keep covering the walls with those little blue death balls. When the explode, so does the victim; it was raining gibs for 2 minutes until we extracted. Hilarious.
I'm with the other guy that's never won a gold. I've only won silver a few times. Unfortunately I'm really not invested in the game enough to make friends which appear to be required for actually beating the harder levels; so it's bronze for me. Still had a blast with it this weekend though.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Still haven't found to play this week. Should get going this week again.
On a side note, do the new characters replace folks in the list, or did new slots appear on the end of the corrosponding class types?
New slots appear on the end of the corresponding class types.
@Kan, and aye, will have to try and get a game in at some point. What level are you playing at the moment? As I've been languishing in Bronze while I'm unlocking stuff, if you are on Silver or Gold, will need to up my game.
When I play by myself, I just play Bronze. It's too much of a hassle to do Silver/Gold with randoms--and I find it easiest for me to just go for the "path of least annoyance".
Kanluwen wrote:
When I play by myself, I just play Bronze. It's too much of a hassle to do Silver/Gold with randoms--and I find it easiest for me to just go for the "path of least annoyance".
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Aye I can dig that, Although folks are saying Gold is quicker, I'd rather get something, than nothing at all.
Will try and find you later in the week.
If you complete wave 6 on Silver, the payout is the exact same as an entire Bronze, so even if you can't finish a Silver, it's usually better if you can just get to wave 6. On Gold, the wave 3 payout is almost as much as a full bronze, and the wave 6 payout is the same as a full Silver, so if you do Gold and can complete the objectives on wave 3, it takes like 1/3 the time of doing a complete Bronze.
The only reason to do Bronze is if you promote and have a level 1 character. It's more XP than if you get killed early in the other two, and most people will kick you on Gold if you aren't at least level 15, or have a particularly good build or high N7 number. I run a Bronze when I promote which usually gets me level 6, then I jump into Silver for the rest. I don't usually do Gold unless A) I'm playing with friends, B) I'm playing an Infiltrator to give me a better chance of completing objectives, or C) I'm playing against Geth on Fire Base White, at which point it's a credit farm. Of course, I've been doing that a lot more since the release of the DLC because I want credits to unlock my Geth characters.
I just got another box, and got a N7 Black Sabre in it. I like it, good rifle. I think I like the Mattock more but this one seems to have nice stopping power.
OK, I played a few more rounds with the Sabre and yeah, now it's my favorite. Like a middle ground between a sniper rifle and a main battle rifle. It's also got the most satisfying bang, which is important to me. I had less luck the last few games with the Scorpion - it looks like the little blue death balls kept passing though targets instead of sticking to them.
I don't know how to see weight like numerically? But it's about 85% of the bar, the same weight as the Striker. The only heavier weapon I have is the Widow.
I also got a Krogan Warrior and a Batarian warrior last round. Was hoping for a Black Widow but no luck.
I haven't got a Saber yet, but I do have a high level Raptor. After perusing the BioWare forums I've been told it's reasonably effective on a Turian with their stability, and the free scope means you can put a pen mod and extended barrel on it and it functions like a Mattock but hits harder and is more accurate. I think I'll be trying this tonight.
I'll probably switch to a Saber when I get one.....eventually.
The only thing is the clip only holds like 8 rounds. I've gotten use to laying down a reasonably fast hail of medium damage rounds with the Mattock when needed, but you really can't do that with the Sabre, as the reload is quite a bit. Need to really aim and make those shots count.
I seem to have lost all love for the MP aspect. It's good an all but I have rarely played it for a while, only played it a few mins ago due to reading this (and wanting the box bonus thing).
Currently using a Drell Adept, I think, I love just throwing grenades around, but I need something that can take a few hits, guess thats just coz I'm lvl 7 atm.
Ouze wrote:Still haven't scored what I really want; a Black Widow.
I love my Black Widow. Best sniper rifle in the game for Gold difficulty since the Shield Gate feature makes the 1 shot rifles less useful. I got my first upgrade to it last night, so I now have a Black Widow II. I have a Widow VIII at this point and I would gladly trade it, along with every other Sniper Rifle I have for a Black Widow V or better.
As a side note, I FINALLY unlocked my Geth Infiltrator last night! That class is insane. Hunter Mode makes the damage output higher than any other sniper class, and gives them superior mobility. I was cleaning house with a Black Widow, Disruptor Ammo and Cyclonic Modulator on Silver and Gold. When I promote though, I think I'll spec him to use a GPS and see how that build looks.
That is what I've been doing. The Shotgun is beast.
I've been trying to figure out if the Geth Weapon Bonus you get is applied to the Javelin sniper rifle. The Javelin doesn't have 'Geth' in the title, but it IS the Geth Sniper Rifle.
I got myself the Geth infiltrator last night .. and my infiltrator was maxed before, so now i have a maxed geth too I like the hunter mode a lot.. just wish I could get some better guns :( I have a level 6 raptor which I like a lot .. but I also have a level 1 non-black Widow .. damage is nice, but I hate reloading after every shot :( I did just get the Geth SMG though, it's fun but I think I need a few more levels for it to get good.. right now it's too inaccurate for me
Ugh, the Harpoon Gun is useless from what I've seen. I just got one and haven't tried it yet, but a friend of mine used one on a few matches and said it was pretty terrible. He's better than I am at this game so I'll take his word for it.
dogma wrote:I pretty much just use the Mattock on all my characters.
If you get a Sabre, try it. Similar to use, similar in purpose, but a better bang.
I also got the harpoon and didn't like it much; seemed very similar to the Widow but not as pretty or loud.
I spent a lot of hours this weekend (and even won a bunch of silver ranked matches, proof that chaos begins to grow!) and still no Black Widow, but I did get a Geth shotgun. Unfortunately I now have to go to work so I didn't get to try it but I heard it's pretty solid, is this true? I usually roll with Sabre & Eviscerator on my Soldier or Infiltrator, so this is relevant to my interests.
dogma wrote:I pretty much just use the Mattock on all my characters.
If you get a Sabre, try it. Similar to use, similar in purpose, but a better bang.
I also got the harpoon and didn't like it much; seemed very similar to the Widow but not as pretty or loud.
I spent a lot of hours this weekend (and even won a bunch of silver ranked matches, proof that chaos begins to grow!) and still no Black Widow, but I did get a Geth shotgun. Unfortunately I now have to go to work so I didn't get to try it but I heard it's pretty solid, is this true? I usually roll with Sabre & Eviscerator on my Soldier or Infiltrator, so this is relevant to my interests.
The Geth Plasma Shotgun is deliciously powerful. Charged up it wrecks things, is accurate at long range, and has slight homing capabilities. The 'triangle' of the burst is nice for catching headshots by accident, and it generally ruins people's day. But even if you don't charge it up, a few rapid blasts will stagger and kill a Marauder or Centurion rather fast.
Fully charged bursts will drop the big-nasties pretty quick too. And you can even stagger them with lucky hits. Give it a try, I think you'll enjoy it.
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:
The Geth Plasma Shotgun is deliciously powerful. Charged up it wrecks things, is accurate at long range, and has slight homing capabilities. The 'triangle' of the burst is nice for catching headshots by accident, and it generally ruins people's day. But even if you don't charge it up, a few rapid blasts will stagger and kill a Marauder or Centurion rather fast.
Fully charged bursts will drop the big-nasties pretty quick too. And you can even stagger them with lucky hits. Give it a try, I think you'll enjoy it.
Unfortunately the Geth Plasma Shotgun does not get headshots. I don't know if it's a bug, or if it's a property of the weapon, but it's been confirmed at this point that it is impossible to get headshots with the weapon. Also, the Shredder mod on shotguns doesn't allow the pellets to punch cover, so it only increases effectiveness against armored targets, which makes an extended barrel a much better mod for the damage increase against all targets. Finally, certain ammo types only affect one of the three balls the GPS fires. As far as I know, Warp Ammo is the best of the ammo types to use. It provides the most possible damage against the widest variety of targets.
And even with all of that, it's by far the best shotgun in the game. If you have the Geth Infiltrator unlocked, I HIGHLY recommend giving this build a try:
Geth Hunter Weapon: Geth Plasma Shotgun X
Mods: High Calibur Barrel, Extended Magazine
Equipment: Warp Ammo, Cyclonic Modulator, Shotgun Rail Amp
Tactics: Charge a shot on the GPS, then activate Tactical Cloak. You cannot charge a weapon with Tactical Cloak active, but you CAN activate Tactical Cloak while holding a charge, and it will not cancel the Cloak. This lets you walk up to something like a Brute, fire a Proxy Mine at it (Which, due to the 6th rank of Tactical Cloak, won't cancel the Cloak), and the Brute will then take 20% more damage from all sources by 8 second. Fire your charged shot, and Tactical Cloak remains active because of the shot was charged BEFORE you cloaked. Then, fire the rest of your magazine as normal. If you do this right, you can kill Brutes on Silver in 3 seconds or less. You can kill Atlases in less than 8 seconds, and Banshees in less than 10, because of reload time. The Charged shot will also 1-shot Phantoms on Silver, and possibly on Gold as well considering Shotguns get around Shield Gate by firing multiple projectiles.
Pros - The damage output is insane. You slaughter literally everything with no difficulty. The extended range on Hunter Mode gives you superior situational awareness, especially against Cerberus with their smoke grenades, and the ability to fire a mine from Tactical Cloak gives you a damage option for clearing Swarmers and Husks without breaking cloak. The charged shot will also stagger large enemies preventing charges from Brutes, missiles from Atlases, and stopping Banshees in their tracks.
Cons - The damn thing is FRAGILE! Hunter Mode cuts your shield in half, and since much of your damage and situational awareness comes from Hunter Mode, you really need to have it active most of the time, unless you are retreating or something. Also, if you activate or de-activate Hunter Mode, you have to wait for the cooldown before you can cloak, so always activate Cloak first before doing anything else. Unless you attack, it won't break the cloak.
I have not played this combo on Gold yet, but on Silver, I did 4 matches with it last night. 2 of those 4 matches I scored higher than the rest of the team combined. Three of them I scored over 75,000 points (one was 83,000), and two of them I solo-capped all 4 of the 4 point objectives and never had an issue getting caught. As I said though, the class is bloody fragile. Geth Hunters seem to be the biggest problem because they have the same tricks you do. They get through Shield Gate in the same way you do, so they 1-shot you when you have Hunter Mode active. You learn to give them a wide berth whenever they show up on your Hunter Mode vision. This build is the ultimate glass cannon, and it offers a high-risk-high-reward style of play that I find incredibly entertaining.
I would add that I dump points in Fitness on all my classes to increase survivability as much as possible. Stops the dreaded 1-shot usually.
Geth have NO health. At Max I think I have 450 Health. And I have 1200 or something Shields. So Hunter mode effectively cuts that down to 600 Shields. Expect to die if you get into trouble.
Ahh right. I just got my Geth hunter and was shocked at how weak they were. Guess I'll take plasma shotgun then.
BTW, Firebase Hydra is in the Attican traverse. Isn't a little far south for a Quarian colony? I thought they were all in the Perseus Veil on the other side of the galaxy with the Geth.
Any advice on using the Asari Justicar BTW? I tend to use her with Reave and a Mattock to weaken the opponent and then blast them. TBH the loss of stasis is really bad for this class next to base asari.
It is important to realize that Hunter Mode gives you a 50% shield effectiveness reduction. With HM active, you will take far, far more damage than usual.
You need to take the Increased Cloak Duration to be a real nasty piece of Geth killing technology.
Totalwar1402 wrote:Ahh right. I just got my Geth hunter and was shocked at how weak they were. Guess I'll take plasma shotgun then.
BTW, Firebase Hydra is in the Attican traverse. Isn't a little far south for a Quarian colony? I thought they were all in the Perseus Veil on the other side of the galaxy with the Geth.
Any advice on using the Asari Justicar BTW? I tend to use her with Reave and a Mattock to weaken the opponent and then blast them. TBH the loss of stasis is really bad for this class next to base asari.
I was wondering that too! A friend and I were trying to figure out where Firebase Hydra was exactly.
Totalwar1402 wrote:Ahh right. I just got my Geth hunter and was shocked at how weak they were. Guess I'll take plasma shotgun then.
BTW, Firebase Hydra is in the Attican traverse. Isn't a little far south for a Quarian colony? I thought they were all in the Perseus Veil on the other side of the galaxy with the Geth.
Any advice on using the Asari Justicar BTW? I tend to use her with Reave and a Mattock to weaken the opponent and then blast them. TBH the loss of stasis is really bad for this class next to base asari.
I was wondering that too! A friend and I were trying to figure out where Firebase Hydra was exactly.
If you go on custom match and change the map to Hydra the galaxy map shows where the selected world is. Hydra is on Averna, I think, and is closer to Earth than Rannoch.
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Kanluwen wrote:The Geth Infiltrator is far from "weak".
It is important to realize that Hunter Mode gives you a 50% shield effectiveness reduction. With HM active, you will take far, far more damage than usual.
You need to take the Increased Cloak Duration to be a real nasty piece of Geth killing technology.
I was also playing other Geth, aren't their weapons better vs synthetics (you ) anyway. I only had two quick games that ended pretty badly and quickly at any rate.
Geth weapons are no better or worse against Synthetics than anything else. They are better in the hands of a Geth due to the Networked AI skill, but they don't do any more or less damage to other Synthetics.
That said, the Geth Hunter (Infiltrator with a GPS X) I posted above is better against Cerberus and Reapers than against other Geth. Cerberus rely so much on their smoke to block Line of Sight and cover their advance that when someone can see clear through (Hunter Mode) they have a field day killing the dudes on the other side. Reapers are also primarily armor or health, so almost all of the damage transfers through. Only Banshees and Marauders have Shields/Barriers and the GPS staggers both of them, making them very easy to pick off at range with incredibly high damage shots. Geth on the other hand have many different targets with Shields, and they rush like a boss. Other Hunters can kill you in one shot because of your low armor/hit points, and Pyros are nasty for the same reason. Rocket Troopers and Primes also team up to pick you off while you are hiding or trying to get away.
I had more trouble against Geth than I did against the other two when I was playing.
Yeah, mine had 5 of everything, some of the new Equipment, a Widow Upgrade, and the Batarian Sentinel.
Which miffs me a little, I thought we were supposed to unlock a new class in our victory pack, not get one we already had.
Oh well.
I've been buying the Resurgance packs, hoping for my Geth Engineer, but no dice. I do like how they have a pack focused around unlocking the new stuff though, so I'm not going to complain.
I don't have a Black Widow either. You aren't missing much. The Widow, Javelin, and Valiant are all awesome. Or you can use my favorite sniper rifle ever, the Crusader.
I got the krogan vanguard last night .. seems fun to play but just not my style.. I usually just end up dead. seems like infiltrator or engineer are the only 2 I really like...
I was going to get a resurgance pack last night, played a game to get my final credits to do it, and when I went back it wasn't in the store anymore :(
Just opened up my Victory pack, got the Geth Engineer. I'm happy. Shame I still have crud weapons, may go into SP to test out various weapons at the firing range.
Alienware is giving away keys for a free sniper rifle. You can see the promotion here. All you need to do is sign up for the newsletter, sign in, and you get a key; I got mine in less than 2 minutes. It looks like they're going pretty fast.
I got an Asari Justicar in my Resurgence Pack. Sucks cause she was the first character I unlocked. I have Geth Infiltrator maxed, Asari Justicar maxed, and several Batarian Sentinel upgrades (though I don't know how many because I never play it) and only one Batarian Soldier upgrade (Which sucks because I play him all the time). I still have yet to get a Geth Engineer or a Krogan Vanguard, both of which I really want.
I now have a Striker X, a Kishock II, and my Geth SMG is at something like a IV. I wish I had gotten a Valient in my first Commendation Pack rather than a Crusader. I only use the GPS X in the Shotgun slot, but I would use a Valient on something other than an infiltrator that might want lower weight, but similar mechanics to a Black Widow.
Oh well.
Back to farming credits this weekend to hopefully unlock the other two classes I need. Wonder what the event will be this weekend.
wow .. what level are you? I'm in the 200's and the only character I really like is my salarian infiltrator, just because of energy drain. and it suits my "be a noob and hide and let everyone else do the hard work" playstyle.
I do wish I had a mic though, so I everyone can hear when I yell "GET IN THE FRAKING CIRCLE ALREADY!!@!" like I have to in every single game I play.
Also, what does promoting a character do, exactly? Does it affect your N7 rating? Unfortunately I raced through the SP campaign and had already gotten a little tired of the MP from the demo; so now I'm coming at the MP from after the campaign.
Same here Aldarionn. Justi is my firest DLC char unlock (and only) and I can honestly say that I love the character model but have no interest in the powers XD
I'd settle for a larger variety of boxes (like a Character box, a Weapons box etc)... Or a store that makes actual sense. Either or works for me.
The current system will keep most people playing, but I have better things to do with my time than grind credits for hours on end just to end up with only two or three things I actually want.
Kanluwen wrote:I have yet to actually get a damn Commendation Pack, despite participating in every weekend so far.
All I get are the dumb Victory Packs.
I'm going to guess you are on PS3?
If that's the case, unfortunately you won't be getting Commendation Packs, because Sony doesn't want the same events that appear on X-Box to appear on their platform, and refuses to allow BioWare to offer rewards to players for individual completion. You can get packs for community completion, but you cannot participate in the completion of the event, or be rewarded for doing so.
I suggest writing Sony and expressing your displeasure. It might actually help if enough of the community does it.
Ouze wrote:What's a commendation pack?
Commendation Packs and Victory Packs are special equipment packs awarded by BioWare for participation in their bi-weekly events. The first event was Operation Goliath. The community goal was to kill 1,000,000 Brutes world-wide, and the personal goal was to complete a game against Reapers on Silver difficulty and have at least 1 person extract. If the community completed the challenge, we got Victory Packs as rewards. Any player that completed the personal challenge and defeated the Reapers on Silver got a Commendation Pack. These packs had special weapons and/or better chances for certain items.
The next one coming up next weekend will be Operation Exorcist.....which I'm assuming has something to do with killing Banshees. We are supposed to learn a little more this weekend.
Ouze wrote:Also, what does promoting a character do, exactly? Does it affect your N7 rating? Unfortunately I raced through the SP campaign and had already gotten a little tired of the MP from the demo; so now I'm coming at the MP from after the campaign.
Character promotion does several things.
-When you promote, it resets the class back to level 1.
-You gain +10 N7 rating for each promotion, and the ability to level the character back up to 20 for even more N7 rating
-You get +75 war assets per Promotion. They show up in the single player game as "N7 Special Ops Team."
-Promotion lets you re-level the character with a different build than the last one you used without having to spend a reset card.
I find promotion a good way to keep your skills sharp. Basically, if you do nothing but play at level 20, you will get complacent. Plating at level 1 uses a very different skills set to be successful than playing at level 20, so by promoting you practice everything, not just the combo you use to do max damage at 20. I usually get 3-4 classes to level 20 then promote everyone and start over.
LordofHats wrote:Same here Aldarionn. Justi is my firest DLC char unlock (and only) and I can honestly say that I love the character model but have no interest in the powers XD
Actually the Justicar isn't half bad. There are a few interesting things you can do with the bubble. You can use it defensively and spec it for full damage reduction, and basically move from location to location dropping a bubble and fighting. It's very nice on Gold, where you effectively have to have everyone together in the same place holding a strong point in order to reliably win.
The other option is to spec it for pure damage. You set it up to apply Warp and set up Biotic Detonations on various targets, then use Reave to detonate them. Funnel enemies through choke points and set up the bubble in their way so they have to walk through it, then spam Reave.
In either setup, I use the Geth Plasma Shotgun, though a Valient or Mattock work as well depending on your style of play.
Karon wrote:
>Geth Engineer is terrible
Geth Engineer is not terrible. It's probably one of the top classes at higher difficulty because of the healing turret, and Overload. You CAN use Hunter Mode for extra damage or situational awareness, but it's not 100% necessary. You can also set the turret up as a flame thrower and throw it near a spawn point, then walk off to a different spot on the map and watch the kills come in. If you do it right, you can basically kill off two spawns of enemies yourself. On Gold, set the turret up for healing and Overload for Crowd Control, and against other Geth or Cerberus you are probably one of the most valuable teammates available. Every time someone gets revived, your turret will top off their Shields. When someone takes damage and ducks behind cover, your turret will give them their shields back faster. This is very important because players have the same Shield Gate as Gold level enemies. IE unless your shields are gone, no single hit can kill you (except Grenades, Shotguns or Melee, which bypass it). And Overload Spam is a strong offensive setup with a decent weapon, which combined with a turret makes you a very effective damage dealer.
Then again, the class might not mesh with your style of play so perhaps it's not your thing.
************************
On a different topic, I started my Insanity playthrough last night. I'm playing an Infiltrator with a Valient and Energy Drain until I get enough credits to buy a Black Widow. It seems to be working well enough, but the problem is Grenades. I constantly have to fall back to better positions to keep myself from getting smashed and stay out of grenade range. That said, I REALLY need to get a scope upgrade so I can see through Smoke against Cerberus. I think it would make things go a lot more smoothly.
Kanluwen wrote:I have yet to actually get a damn Commendation Pack, despite participating in every weekend so far.
All I get are the dumb Victory Packs.
I'm going to guess you are on PS3?
If that's the case, unfortunately you won't be getting Commendation Packs, because Sony doesn't want the same events that appear on X-Box to appear on their platform, and refuses to allow BioWare to offer rewards to players for individual completion. You can get packs for community completion, but you cannot participate in the completion of the event, or be rewarded for doing so.
I suggest writing Sony and expressing your displeasure. It might actually help if enough of the community does it.
Nope. I only play online for the 360, my PS3 is for SP stuff.
I keep seeing Aldarionn on, and I want to catch a game or three with him, but I always seem to be in a party of unsavory friends who I don't want assosciating with other people (read- Embarassing).
But they're good players so I never want to give em' the boot.
Yeah hit me up whenever. I'm usually either playing random, or I'm playing with friends, but I usually have at least one spot open. We usually play Silver or FBW/Geth/Gold because it's easy and sometimes we run with less experienced people but if we got a strong set of 4 we could knock out some actual gold runs.
Yeah I don't know anyone on the other platforms or I'd point you in their direction. Everyone I play with is on 360.
Convert to the superior platform!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually to be honest I kinda wish I played on PC because I like the interface better than the controller, but nobody I know plays on PC and I don't have a computer capable of running FarmVille with any kind of consistency, let alone a game like Mass Effect. I wonder if I could rig my system to use a mouse and keyboard instead of a controller.....
Actually one of the best uses of the Gethgeneer that I saw was in a Silver pub match on Goliath against Reapers. The dude kept tossing his flamethrower turret in the doorway of the room adjacent to the extraction point, then sitting by the ramp to the control room. He was killing off two spawns at once that way and his turret kept distracting the Banshees which couldn't hurt it. I was actually impressed.
If you are having trouble in pub matches, try one of the following:
Turian Sentinel - Strong and capable, good crowd control and resilient to damage. Easily able to hold off attacks with AOE spec Overload even when most teammates are dead.
Human Engineer - Tools for everything and a drone that distracts annoying things and throws an extra overload. They are a little fragile to actual damage but between the drone and chain Overload nothing usually gets through. They can also detonate their own tech bursts which makes them very self sufficient.
Any Infiltrator - Sniper or shotgun builds are very good depending on race, and tactical cloak gives you a good means of getting out of the action to set up in a different spot. Complete objectives by yourself and cloak to save teammates that die like idiots (or good teammates that just got overwhelmed or pinned by a turret).
Any of those do well enough without support. Hell the Geth Engineer is pretty self sufficient between the turrets ability to heal and chain overload. They are fragile, yes, but they have good tools and tricks to keep them alive.
I heart my infiltrator. I like the Salarian the best, because Energy Drain drops most shields. I just have a regular level 1 widow sniper rifle. I cloak, hit something with energy drain, then blast em in when they stagger back. Then I recloak rinse and repeat
Managed to get a couple of games in with Kan and his buddy last night. Was good, nice to run in a team where we seemed to be working in the same direction.
Okay was half asleep after only catching 4hrs the night before, and my dear doggy wanted cuddles (can be an issue when shes as heavy as my eight year old, black Lab) but I managed to get a few kills with the widow. Also had a free pack waiting for me when I logged in, and it had the Geth Infiltrator in it, so will need to test him out sooner than later.
What are those new 99thousand credit packs like btw?
The Resurgence Packs are overpriced, but they guarantee you get a resurgence upgrade. The only problem is they don't really offer any better chance of rare items than a standard Specter Pack, and there is no indicator so far that they offer any chance to get ultra rare (N7 Black quality) items. So if you don't care about getting a Black Widow/Javelin/Paladin/etc...and you just want more Resurgence characters/equipment then buy the Resurgence packs. Me, I'll stick with Specter Packs and hopefully unlock my Geth Engineer/Krogan Vanguard AND upgrade my Black Widow.
never got to get a resurgance pack, just premium spectre packs. I finally got my first N7 weapon, the shotgun pistol thingy .. kinda nice but too heavy for my tastes right now. I need a black widow or at least a couple regular widow upgrades :/
Kanluwen wrote:Resurgence Packs actually grant, at minimum, two Rares and can grant Ultra-Rares.
One I got yesterday awarded a Striker(upgrades mine to VI now), a Scorpion(means mine is now at II), and a Widow(bringing mine to III).
There was also a Tempest in there, bringing mine up to III as well.
From everything I had seen they didn't offer any chance for Ultra Rares, but admittedly I didn't search very hard. If they are basically premium specter packs except with guaranteed Resurgence items (or at least a better chance) then perhaps they are worth buying. I still need two Resurgence characters, but I have all the weapons (Hell I have a Kishock IV or V and a Striker X). I'll buy a few this weekend and see what I get.
The problem is that most people are going off the same information you have: "Resurgence Packs don't have a chance for Ultra-Rares!", so they just go for Spectre Packs instead.
Thought what the hell, picked up three via MS points. Got a few class upgrades, plus unlocked the Drell Vanguard and +1 Missile capacity which was nice.
Weapon wise I got some gold ones, including the Spear thrower/Batarian weapon. Not sure what its like yet, but my Geth Infiltrator is trying it out with his 25% reduction on sniper rifle weight.
Sadly some router issues earlier prevented me getting on tonight, but should be on tomorrow.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Thought what the hell, picked up three via MS points. Got a few class upgrades, plus unlocked the Drell Vanguard and +1 Missile capacity which was nice.
If you have the Drell Adept unlocked, give it a try. The Vanguard is alright, but the Adept REALLY shines. Max AOE Reave and max damage Cluster Grenades. Throw Reave into a pack of enemies to prime them for Biotic Explosion, then throw Cluster Grenades and watch them all go flying or get chunked. It's amusing.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Weapon wise I got some gold ones, including the Spear thrower/Batarian weapon. Not sure what its like yet, but my Geth Infiltrator is trying it out with his 25% reduction on sniper rifle weight.
The Kishock Harpoon Gun. It has some interesting properties. For one, the headshots do triple damage instead of just double. Also, it's a charge weapon like the Geth Plasma Shotgun, and the charge is cumulative like the GPS. Hold the trigger and the charge accumulates until it either maxes out or you release it. If you release early, you get however much charge you built up, unlike the Graal and some other charge weapons which require a full charge to get anything. A fully charged headshot will do 450% damage, but the weapon cannot pierce like other high powered Sniper Rifles (Widow, Black Widow, Javelin), so you can be blocked by light cover.
The most amusing property though is that the gun randomly does 3x damage against certain targets. The ones I know are Brutes, Ravagers and I think Pyros. It is also the only Sniper Rifle that can get through Shield Gate (On bronze, if you knock shields off, 50% of your excess damage carries over to health. On Silver, 25% of your excess damage carries over. On Gold, nothing carries over. So on Gold, if you do 1,000 points of damage to a target that has 1 point of shields and 10 points of health, you do 1 point of damage and knock the shields off, and that's it). It has a bleed property that applies to the target and will kill it in a few seconds. Against a Gold level Geth Hunter, the initial hit will strip the Shields, and the bleed will kill it in 9 seconds if you are speced for damage.
When taking the Kishock, you should have everything set up for maximum damage and you should take a Piercing mod and High Caliber Barrel for extra damage and the ability to punch through cover (and Guardian Shields). Don't worry about weight on an Infiltrator. It barely makes any difference because the minimum cooldown for Tactical Cloak is 3 seconds, and the cooldown depends on how long you stay cloaked. If you scope, cloak, then fire immediately, your cloak goes away in less than a second and you just have a 3 second cooldown no matter how much weight you are carrying. For a Geth Infiltrator, max out damage talents wherever possible. Personally I like this spec for sniping:
Take your Snipe Rifle of choice and go to town. Just know that with the Kishock, if you intend to fire a charged shot, you will need to charge the shot, then cloak and fire. Also, this won't break Tactical Cloak so you can reload and fire a second time before the cloak ends. If you charge a shot while cloaked it will break cloak. Personally I prefer the Black Widow, because I can cloak and get two shots off, maybe 3, before the cloak damage bonus ends. But the Kishock does arguably more damage in a single hit, especially when charged. It just doesn't have a very good scope.
Lord Scythican wrote:Ok so I haven't play the multiplay yet. I keep seeing all this about ultra rares and packs. What's the deal?
Basically, Multiplayer is Horde mode. 4 player co-op against 10 waves of enemies and a bonus "extraction" wave, with objectives on waves 3, 6 and 10 to earn credits. Credits are used to buy equipment. When you are just starting, you will have one male human and one female human of each of the 6 classes (Adept, Soldier, Engineer, Sentinel, Infiltrator, Vanguard) starting at level 1, and you will have only the basic weaponry and basic cosmetic options. You can unlock different races for each class that have different abilities (IE all Infiltrators get Tactical Cloak, but only Humans have Cryo Blast. Salarians get Energy Drain, Quarians get Sabotage, and Geth get Hunter Mode).
To unlock the various race/class combos, cosmetic options, and different weapons (and also to get consumable items like extra ammo packs, ops survival packs, medi-gel, etc....) you need to buy packs. There are 3 base packs, and each pack has 5 slots for items:
Recruit Pack (5,000 Credits) - Will always have 4 consumables and 1 common item with a chance for an uncommon item.
Veteran Pack (20,000 Credits) - Will always have 2 stacks of 3 consumables, 1 guaranteed uncommon, and a chance for rare items and additional uncommons. Any slots not filled by common, uncommon or rare items will be filled by different consumables.
Spectre Packs (60,000 Credits) - Will always have 2 stacks of 5 consumables, 1 guaranteed rare, 1 guaranteed uncommon (I think), a chance for additional rare items, and a chance for ultra-rare items. Any slots not filled by Uncommon, Rare or Ultra Rare items will be taken up by extra consumables.
When BioWare does certain events, they occasionally put in variant packs which cost more than the base pack type but have different items in them, and/or better chances for higher rarity items. IE a Premium Specter Pack, which costs 99,000 credits but has a guaranteed 2 rares, and a better chance for ultra-rare items.
Basically all characters, weapons, weapon mods and consumable items are given a certain rarity and can be obtained by purchasing these packs. You get credits for each of the objective waves you complete in a match, and experience for the enemies your whole team kills (IE everyone gets the same XP, which is every players score added up). The XP levels up your characters and gives you access to their powers and abilities, and the credits are used to buy the equipment packs and get better weapons or unlock new characters/cosmetic options. Weapons go from level 1(I) to level 10(X), and each time you get a weapon in a pack you already have it levels up that weapon. Once a weapon is level X, it stops appearing in packs. Character cards give you access to new characters, and unlock different cosmetic options. Any card you get for a character you already have unlocks a new cosmetic option for that race/class combo, and gives you an amount of extra XP for that class depending on rarity (12,500 for common, 50,000 for uncommon, 100,000 for rare).
It's good practice to buy recruit packs until you have all of the basic weapons at level X, which will prevent them from appearing in Veteran Packs. Then buy Veteran Packs until you have most of the uncommon items at level X, which will keep them from appearing in Spectre Packs. Then just buy Spectre Packs unless you need equipment (More Missile Launchers or Medi-Gel for example), because buying recruit packs gives you the best return for your money on basic equipment.
The issue most people have with this setup is that it's basically a random lottery, and while weapons will eventually stop appearing once they reach level X, character cards never stop appearing. For example, I still have not unlocked Geth Engineer or Krogan Vanguard, but I have gotten a fully upgraded Geth Infiltrator and continue to get character cards for Geth Infiltrator even though the character is level 20 and has all cosmetic options unlocked. Unlocking the rest of the weapons I need will give me a better chance of unlocking the characters I want because those weapons will stop appearing and I'll get more character cards, but they won't guarantee that I will ever unlock the two classes I still don't have, even if all of my other classes are maxed out.
I'm beginning to think the upgrade packs are rigged :( The only class I have still at 20 is an infiltrator. In the last 3 premium specter packs I've gotten 4 infiltrator characters. If I get a regular veteran pack, I still get infiltrators all the time. And now I'm willing to bet if I promote the character, I won't get any. I always use sniper rifles or assault rifles, yet if I ever do get a weapon, it's a pistol, shotgun or SMG.
played like all day yesterday and got 1 whole gun :(
Buy Recruit Packs until you get a X rank of every basic gun. If you don't, they can appear in Veteran and Spectre packs, taking up valuable space that could otherwise be used to upgrade better guns!
Once you have a level X Avenger, Predator, Shuriken, Katana and Mantis, THEN buy a bunch of Veteran Packs and you will stop getting the lower level weapons in those packs. You will only unlock uncommon weapons, and character cards. Then, once you have a reasonable level on most of the uncommon weapons, buy Spectre Packs and you should primarily get rare weapons and character cards.
I started this two weeks ago and I now have all common weapons maxed, most uncommon weapons maxed, and I have a Geth Plasma Shotgun X, a Striker Assault Rifle X, a Revnant X, a Widow VI, and a Black Widow II. I also have every character unlocked but Krogan Vanguard and Geth Engineer.
Also, the Saber is useless. It kicks like a mule and has massive reticule bloom. On anything but a Turian it's not worth taking, and even then there are much better weapons to take on a Turian.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kanluwen wrote:I already have something like five guns at X.
Mantis, Avenger, Shuriken, Katana, and Predator. The "basic" stuff.
I'm really hoping they introduce the ability to buy "specific" guns from the store at some point.
They will never do this.
The random lottery is what keeps people playing the game, because it's a Skinner Box mechanic that's designed to make you want "Just ONE more Spectre Pack before I go to bed!" Look up Skinner Box if you don't know what that is, and you'll see what I mean. BioWare will never change the random lottery.
yeah, I got all my noob guns to level 9 in recruit packs, but it seemed like I had to get level 10 from the vet packs. now I think I'm gonna just stick to vet packs till I get the vet guns to 9 at least.
I have a level 1 widow, but it seems like the noob sniper rifle at level 10 is better.. damage is a little less but it's more accurate and a lot lighter. And it sounds cooler too.
Necros wrote:yeah, I got all my noob guns to level 9 in recruit packs, but it seemed like I had to get level 10 from the vet packs. now I think I'm gonna just stick to vet packs till I get the vet guns to 9 at least.
I have a level 1 widow, but it seems like the noob sniper rifle at level 10 is better.. damage is a little less but it's more accurate and a lot lighter. And it sounds cooler too.
The Mantis X will do more damage than a Widow I. The advantage of the Widow is the built-in Piercing mod, allowing you to further increase the Piercing distance with a mod, or skip that mod all together and go for Barrel and Clip, making it more useful in more situations. Besides, it doesn't take THAT long to get the Widow upgraded. Mine is at level VI right now and it's better than my Mantis X in every respect except weight. Once you unlock the Black Widow though, you likely will never use a regular Widow again.
When it comes to retrieving classified data, Cerberus has been beating the allied forces to the punch. New intelligence has tipped us off to one of their offensives, and it is time to give the N7 teams the payback they want.
Allied Goal: Kill 1,000,000 Cerberus Phantoms
Squad Goal: Survive until extraction on any map and any enemy on Gold difficulty.
Successful completion of the Allied Goal will grant all players a Victory Pack.
Successful completion of the squad goal awards a Commendation Pack to all squadmates.
Operation Exorcist will run from 6:00PM PST, Friday April 27th until 5:00AM PST, Monday April 30th. Exorcist will be available on PC and Xbox 360 only. Please remember to set “Upload Gameplay Feedback” to “on” in the online options to be able to participate in Operation Exorcist.
Ouze wrote:Operation: Exorcist details have been posted.
When it comes to retrieving classified data, Cerberus has been beating the allied forces to the punch. New intelligence has tipped us off to one of their offensives, and it is time to give the N7 teams the payback they want.
Allied Goal: Kill 1,000,000 Cerberus Phantoms
Squad Goal: Survive until extraction on any map and any enemy on Gold difficulty.
Successful completion of the Allied Goal will grant all players a Victory Pack.
Successful completion of the squad goal awards a Commendation Pack to all squadmates.
Operation Exorcist will run from 6:00PM PST, Friday April 27th until 5:00AM PST, Monday April 30th. Exorcist will be available on PC and Xbox 360 only. Please remember to set “Upload Gameplay Feedback” to “on” in the online options to be able to participate in Operation Exorcist.
So far I've never ever gotten past like wave 4 on Gold :( I somehow always get stuck with the dummies. I need a team of 3 good people who can do most of the work for me, since I suck.
Aye, I'll make sure I get in at least a couple of games, so if the community does the first goal I'll get a pack. However I'd be shocked if I could actually get into a gold group with my N7 rating without being kicked, never mind getting to the the extraction.
Typically it had to be on GW2 Beta weekend as well. heh.
I mostly play with my salarian infiltrator. I have a quarian engineer up to like level 16 right now, I like the turret for distracting big things so I can sit back and shoot em. Never tried decoy but I'll give it a shot
For those of you having trouble completing a Gold match, do the easy one.
Select Firebase White and Geth for your match, and set to Gold difficulty. Make sure you have a Salarian Engineer and some form of Infiltrator in the team.
At the start of the match, run down the stairs to the left side of the landing pad and into the lower control room. The Salarian Engineer and two others immediately hop over the console to the left and take cover. The Infiltrator moves to the console in the back, directly across from the door. The Salarian Engineer places a Decoy in the doorway and all of the Geth will funnel either down the stairs from the upper control room, or through the door from the landing pad. For some reason, Geth almost always fixate on the decoy, creating a choke point for the team to kill everything without a whole ton of danger. The Infiltrator being placed in the back will prevent Geth from spawning behind you.
For objective waves, ONLY the Infiltrator moves. If it's a 4 point objective he just cloaks up and runs to each one to cap it. If it's a hack objective in the lower control room, two team members shift to the back console and stand there til its done. If it's in the upper control room the team moves as a whole and just sets up shop there until the end of the wave. It will take a missile or two to clear the room out, so make sure you save them. If the hack point is on the landing pad, the catwalk, or the walkway outside the control room, the Infiltrator goes alone and cloaks on cooldown. If he makes it quickly enough, the hack will complete with 10-15 seconds left over.
Kill objectives are easy because the NPC's you need to kill will almost always come to you. Occasionally Rocket Troopers will be flagged as kill enemies and sit up on the catwalk where you can't get to them. In that case, the Infiltrator runs out and kills them, then runs back.
For extraction, the team holds the room until there are 30 seconds left on the timer, then someone fires a missile to clear the room, and another to clear the stairs, and everyone makes a mad dash for the landing pad. Then, just duck behind the fighter and wait for the time to tick off the clock.
This strategy offers near guaranteed success as long as the Salarian Engineer ensures the Decoy is always active, and the Infiltrator knows the map and where each of the objectives are and how to get there undetected. The other two people can play anything they want except for melee classes. No Krogan, no Vanguards, no Batarians speced for melee.
There are plenty of lobbies designed specifically to do this, so queue up and you can easily complete the objective. The REAL challenge is completing the team goal WITHOUT doing this strategy
Excellent writeup Aldarionn. That's always a good solid plan.
For a slightly faster game, run Firebase Glacier against Geth instead.
On the start, blitz down to the bottom of the Map. That'll be the lowest point, straight through the Evac, throught the doors to the left, then right, then left. You should be running with 2 Salarian Engineers and at least 1 Infiltrator. Then something with a ton of firepower like a Soldier or a Human Engineer.
Split in two teams of two... one hanging up at the lowest point at the bottom of the long ramp. Plant a Decoy on the Ramp and keep it up. The other Team will drop a Decoy on the higher side, in the ramp that goes up, then they'll camp behind the consoles and crates.
It splits your firepower, but your non-engineers can bounce back and forth to assist when need be, communication is always important.
As per the above, just following the protocol for Infiltrators completing the objectives is the way to go. If you need to hack, move as a group and lay down some missile fire.
You can also camp effectively on Fire Base Hydra, in the control room at the back with the glowing orb. If you want to make it braindead easy, take two Salarian Engineers as above, and put one on each door with two people bouncing back and forth as needed. Place the decoys in the hallway at the back, and on the catwalk just outside the front door and murder anything that gets close. Infiltrator moves as mentioned above to clear objectives.
For standard Gold matches, if you are playing against Cerberus, always bring an Asari Adept. Stasis Bubble allows them to absolutely demolish Phantoms, which are really the only threat when fighting Cerberus. Atlases are slow as hell, and the only other thing to fear is Grenades and Turrets. Having a Quarian Infiltrator to hack turrets and Atlases makes it even easier, since the Turrets will often turn around and murder the Engineer that put them down, then follow up by killing Guardians for you, because they usually have their back to the turret.
Against Reapers, Biotic Combos are your friend. Some guys did a sub 14 minute speed run against Reapers on Fire Base White, using a Human Vanguard, Drell Adept, Human Sentinel and Salarian Infiltrator. The Infiltrator sat up on the catwalk above the landing pad and killed anything that spawned on the pad. The other three ran from spawn to spawn killing everything with massive biotic combos. The Drell through Reave to set up combos and Cluster Grenade to detonate them, the Sentinel threw Warp to set up combos, and the Vanguard took Half Blast so he could charge and detonate combos and keep half his barrier up. Toward later waves they were firing missiles at spawns to kill the 3-4 Banshees that would pop up each wave. It was insane.
@ Chemical Cuthroat - Dunno what you have planned but a friend and I are going to knock out a few Gold matches after I get off work. I should be online by about 6pm Pacific time if you care to join in.
It's my B-Day today, so around... oh... 9:30-10'oclock (EST) I have a ladyfriend picking me up for various hijinx, but I can definitely get a couple of games in with you guys.
We'll definitely get our points in for Dakka!
...I'll be sober. Promise! No really. I can't hit the broadside of an Atlas when drinking, so I'll stay off the sauce till I logoff.
Sounds like a good strategy for gold, but that won't ever work with me since I only get to group with random noobs :(
Tried a gold game last night and it was mostly a nightmare of 1 awesome infiltrator and 3 dummies (including me) .. the infiltrator spent the whole game running around cloaked reviving everyone. We made it to wave 6.
I just got the Raptor X last night, I like that it shoots fast and does good damage but it kills my trigger finger. Lately I've been doing the starter sniper rifle that I have maxed with extended barrel and clip, and a level 5 locust for when I have to spray and pray. I'll switch over to the Widow when I level it up some more, right now it's super heavy and I just do better with the other sniper rifle.
Not sure if I will be on ME3 alot due to playin Me1 & 2 again, but add jscott10 on origin and i may help out in MP. Just be sure to either pm on here or origin with who it is
Necros wrote:Sounds like a good strategy for gold, but that won't ever work with me since I only get to group with random noobs :(
Tried a gold game last night and it was mostly a nightmare of 1 awesome infiltrator and 3 dummies (including me) .. the infiltrator spent the whole game running around cloaked reviving everyone. We made it to wave 6.
I just got the Raptor X last night, I like that it shoots fast and does good damage but it kills my trigger finger. Lately I've been doing the starter sniper rifle that I have maxed with extended barrel and clip, and a level 5 locust for when I have to spray and pray. I'll switch over to the Widow when I level it up some more, right now it's super heavy and I just do better with the other sniper rifle.
Actually if you queue in for Golds there are plenty of lobbies set up to farm Geth on Fire Base White. Most people are aware of how it works now, and most people know the strategy. As long as someone plays the Salarian Engineer and someone plays an Infiltrator you should have no issues.
johnscott10 wrote:Not sure if I will be on ME3 alot due to playin Me1 & 2 again, but add jscott10 on origin and i may help out in MP. Just be sure to either pm on here or origin with who it is
Same here. I just let Garrus blast Dr. Heart. It might a bit before I get back to ME3.
Aldarionn wrote:For those of you having trouble completing a Gold match, do the easy one.
Select Firebase White and Geth for your match, and set to Gold difficulty. Make sure you have a Salarian Engineer and some form of Infiltrator in the team.
(snip)
There are plenty of lobbies designed specifically to do this, so queue up and you can easily complete the objective. The REAL challenge is completing the team goal WITHOUT doing this strategy
Oh man you were so right. I did, and passed, my first gold on the very first try. All I did was hunker down with my soldier, snipe, and wait. Only died once and got 4 other people revived so I did alright. It was substantially easier than doing silvers actively, although the special classes you prescribed did most of the heavy lifting.
Thanks for posting this; I would have never even tried if not for this advice.
I sent several of you invites for games both Friday and Saturday and nobody accepted them =(
I ended up playing with a couple friends and a random guy yesterday and we cleared out Cerberus on Gold pretty much all afternoon. I think I might have single-handedly completed the community goal with the number of Phantoms I killed yesterday. Dear god they send them at you in droves on Gold!
@Ouze - Glad the advice worked. It's a simple enough tactic to pull off, but it gets super boring after a while. It's repetitive and not particularly challenging. Most people consider it to be near Bronze level difficulty to complete that combo with those classes. That said, of the 8-10 Gold matches we completed last night, 1 of them was against Geth on Fire Base White and I did notice that Hunters seem to flank around to the back door more than they used to, and Primes seem to be throwing more turrets in annoying locations than they used to. Wonder if BioWare messed with the programming for the AI to make it a little more challenging.
Also a word of advice to those that have the Geth Infiltrator unlocked. TRY THE GETH PLASMA SHOTGUN BUILD!! I've been using this build almost exclusively over the last week or so (much to the chagrin of my N7 rating) and oh man. It's perfectly equipped to deal with Cerberus and Reapers, and does relatively well against Geth depending on teammates. It's also the only class I've played so far that I feel confident enough to take straight into Gold at level 1.
Aldarionn wrote:I sent several of you invites for games both Friday and Saturday and nobody accepted them =(
Strange. I never got them. I'll be on today though, I'll be looking for it. I joined your party last night while you were playing with a friend but you lot were in Game Chat rather than Party Chat so eventually I just went and did some Silver.
Aldarionn wrote:I sent several of you invites for games both Friday and Saturday and nobody accepted them =(
Strange. I never got them. I'll be on today though, I'll be looking for it. I joined your party last night while you were playing with a friend but you lot were in Game Chat rather than Party Chat so eventually I just went and did some Silver.
Not sure if I sent you one or not. I sent out a lot of them. Eventually though we got a full lobby and we were in game chat because one person was a Pub who actually had an active mic for once!!
I should be online tonight around 6-6:30 pacific time. I want to get as many credits as possible while the Jumbo Equipment Pack is still available (though I prefer not to Credit Glitch).
Jumbo Equipment Packs will come with one stack of 5 of each of the basic gear (Cobra Missiles, Ops Survival Packs, Medi-Gel and Thermal Clips), and then 6 random consumables, which can sometimes be stacks of 2 of the above mentioned pieces of equipment, or 1 rail amp/ammo type/armor mod. It's the best bang for your buck if you need to stock up on supplies, and I've made it a rule to buy only Jumbo Equipment Packs whenever they are available. I don't like running out of Medi-Gel or Cobra Missiles!
When buying other equipment packs, consider buying Recruit Packs until you have each of the 5 basic weapons at rank X (Avenger, Predator, Mantis, Katana, Shuriken). This will keep them from appearing in your Veteran Packs. Then buy Veteran Packs to upgrade your uncommon weapons (Mattock, Vindicator, Tempest, Etc..) and the mods for all of those weapons. The Mods are all uncommon, and uncommons appear with the highest frequency in Veteran Packs. You can get 3 Veteran Packs for the price of one Specter Pack, giving you 3 guaranteed Uncommons and the chance to get 3-6 more. Once you are satisfied with your uncommons, you can start buying Specter Packs, but keep in mind that Uncommons will appear in Specter Packs as well until you have them all maxed out at rank X.
They are releasing a DLC that will "offer expanded context and more closure" for those that felt the ending was lackluster. The DLC will be free, and it will include extended cutscenes and epilogue sequences to flesh out the ending and provide a better experience.
Personally I think this means they wrote a bad ending, but refuse to acknowledge it and are unwilling to change it to avoid setting a precedent. They have stated flat-out that they do not intend to offer any extra gameplay content to change or alter the ending in any way.
So....wait and see. Depending on what they do with this "Extended Cut" DLC they might at least answer some questions.
You know, I'm playing the game through for the 3rd time, this time on Insanity difficulty, and I really can't say I hate the ending anymore. It's most definitely flawed, but the biggest plot holes could be filled by this "Extended Cut" DLC to make it acceptable. If they explain how the destruction of the Mass Relays doesn't demolish the galaxy, then most of the civilians from each race are still on their homeworld, which means the military is stranded near Earth, but otherwise the people are still there, and alive. In fact, it could be a large fork in the evolutionary road for many species, having half their population separated and cut off from the other half, allowing for one race to follow two evolutionary paths and create greater diversity within the galaxy.
I don't have an issue with Shepard sacrificing himself to prevent the Reapers from killing everyone. I just want a better reason for it than the Catalyst/StarChild gave, and I want them to fill in the holes that destruction of the Mass Relays created, and give me a reason as to why the team all ended up back on the Normandy. If they do those things, then I can live with the current ending.
I would have liked a final boss too. If they were going to make The Illusive Man's weapon his intellect rather than transforming him a-la Saren, then I'd have at least liked a more epic fight against Kai Leng. Sure the end of that fight was awesome, but actually killing him was easy, even on Insanity. I died and re-started the fight once, then I shot him down like a b*tch.
By now it is no secret that the Reaper War has had its share of logistical SNAFUs. It is to the galaxy’s credit that, when we put out the call for volunteers, we were answered by individuals of every species from Citadel, Traverse, and even Terminus space. Unfortunately, the diversity of equipment sources meant our allies ran into hardware and software incompatibilities.
These brave men and women have been fighting beside you and, in doing so, have gone above and beyond normal duty. Because their units were not properly tracked, they fought without pay and sometimes without proper training, equipment, even rations. It is a mark of their character that these warriors took the grave task set before us and stuck it out through sheer determination.
It is time to honor their service. A volunteer task force has fabricated the necessary hardware and is rolling out compatibility software. When these installations are complete, these soldiers will benefit from being properly equipped and combat-ineffective troops will get off the bench. We’ll all have more comrades watching our backs, and we’re now watching theirs.
–Admiral Hackett
When it comes to retrieving classified data, Cerberus has been beating the allied forces to the punch. New intelligence has tipped us off to one of their offensives, and it is time to give the N7 teams the payback they want.
Allied Goal: Kill 1,000,000 Cerberus Phantoms.
Squad Goal: Survive until extraction on any map and any enemy on Gold difficulty.
Successful completion of the Allied Goal will grant all players a Victory Pack. Successful completion of the squad goal awards a Commendation Pack to all squadmates.
MAJOR OPERATIONS UPDATE: Good news Spectres! Starting with Operation EXORCIST, N7 Weekend Challenges will extend to the PlayStation 3 platform. Operation EXORCIST begins today, April 27th at 6:00PM PST until April 30th at 5:00PM PST, on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Please remember to set the “Upload Gameplay Feedback” setting to “On” in the online options to be able to participate in this N7 Operation.
UPDATE: Please note that due to a known issue, PlayStation 3 users will not see the promotion screen but they will be participating in Operation EXORCIST and will be rewarded.
Good luck and see you on the battlefield.
No clue if the goal was met, no commendation or victory pack yet or whatever,
Aldarionn wrote:If they explain how the destruction of the Mass Relays doesn't demolish the galaxy [...]
Most colonized systems in the galaxy don't have a Relay in direct vicinity.
Although the guys at BioWare apparently stated that the Relays did not even go supernova but just crumbled - the difference between a sudden discharge due to containment failure (as it may happen when you, say, throw an asteroid against one) and all energy being drained in a controlled burst (as it may happen when, say, triggered by an impulse the system was actually designed to receive). I don't even think this sort of technobabblish circumvention of expectations is necessary due to the relative rarity of Relays, but there you go.
Aldarionn wrote:In fact, it could be a large fork in the evolutionary road for many species, having half their population separated and cut off from the other half, allowing for one race to follow two evolutionary paths and create greater diversity within the galaxy.
Well, it's not like evolution happens that fast.
More important (and more interesting) will be how technology will develop once science is no longer able to tread the pre-established path of Reaper tech. Suddenly, people actually have an incentive to research new types of starship drives!
Aldarionn wrote:I just want a better reason for it than the Catalyst/StarChild gave
The reason is somewhat reasonable, though personally I think that a better one would have been the danger to life that organics pose themselves. Once you start being able to weaponize and fling entire planetoids through space ... well, there are only so much planets in the galaxy that can support life, so at some point one might come to the conclusion that a civilization can become so powerful and knowledgeable that you run a risk of galactic genocide.
There are people who think Earth would be better off without (modern) humans, so perhaps whoever constructed the Catalyst thought that the galaxy would be better off without advanced civilizations. This reasoning holds one truth: it certainly is less risky for organic life as a whole.
Aldarionn wrote:[...] and give me a reason as to why the team all ended up back on the Normandy.
Alliance Command actually issues a general retreat via radio; you can hear it in the background as you approach the beam. They think everyone including Shep is dead, so they pull their forces.
It's true that they could have made this more obvious, tho - all you can do right now is draw conclusions. It's like a piece of the movie is missing. Maybe the upcoming Extended Cut will clarify this bit, too, though I've already found my explanation.
Aldarionn wrote:I would have liked a final boss too. If they were going to make The Illusive Man's weapon his intellect rather than transforming him a-la Saren, then I'd have at least liked a more epic fight against Kai Leng. Sure the end of that fight was awesome, but actually killing him was easy, even on Insanity. I died and re-started the fight once, then I shot him down like a b*tch.
Meh, personal preferences...
I've seen the concept art for the reaper-fied Illusive Man boss, but personally I'm glad they changed their minds and went for a more cinematic approach. It made for a more dramatic storytelling this way, in particular because gak didn't happen in a blur of FX and bombastic sound and an insanely difficult boss fight like you have in just about any other game out there, but actually have an emotional ending to this epic adventure.
Anyways - the Resurgence DLC actually changed my mind regarding the geth. Previously I wasn't interested in them at all, but now the "Gethgineer" is one of my favorites. Playing a support 'bot can be quite fun. I'm still somewhat mad at the random card gak, though - system seems to purposely hold out on me when it comes to character customization. At least for the species-class-combinations I actually like to play (Asari Adept/Justicar, Geth Engineer, Human Infiltrator, Turian Soldier).
The only bone I have to pick with the random lottery for unlocks is that character cards show up even after all cosmetic options are unlocked for a certain character and they have hit level 20. A character being level 20 and having no other unlockable options should remove them from the lottery, allowing other character cards to be unlocked. With the current system, it is within the realm of possibility that I will never unlock Geth Engineer and/or Krogan Vanguard, both of which I still need.
*nods* I'm fairly sure I've received a lot of "wasted" character cards already.
I guess I'm too much of a pessimist to really enjoy this "gambling style" system - it'd be different if people could trade cards like it's done in TCGs, or even just if there were an option to buy specific character unlocks for lots of credits.
Character customization shouldn't be something you win in a lottery. For weapons and mods I can understand it, but ...
... ah well, all the little rants aside, it still is insanely fun. Been waiting for a chance to play an Asari Commando ever since seeing them in ME1.
I wonder if they will introduce new game modes via DLC over time?
As a followup to something I posted previously; that I had never made it more than a few waves into a silver game:
It's been what, 2 weeks since then? and it turns out, unsurprisingly, that there aren't any magical secrets to beating silvers or that the people that beat them are just naturally gifted gamers or super lucky. This sounds so dumb it's almost not worth posting, but apparently practice was all that was required. Go figure. At this point I really only play silvers and rarely lose; only if someone bails at a bad time or we get really unlucky. I only play Bronze if I'm trying to learn how to play a character now, like my Vanguard.
I pretty much just do silvers now. Seems like the best way to spend my time. Bronzes take just as long to play for half the credits, gold is full of dummies who drop out or die so much that it stops being fun, so it's silver for me When I try a new character I'll do a couple of bronzes to get the feel for it, but usually I just get back on my infiltrator sniper and do silvers. Hide + Energy Drain + Headshot = dead stuff
Aye! Personally I like to level a new character until ~10 in Bronze, then it's credit farming time in Silver for me... Maybe I should try switching earlier?
And Infiltrators rock. Sticky Grenade + Banshee Boobs
Ouze wrote:As a followup to something I posted previously; that I had never made it more than a few waves into a silver game:
It's been what, 2 weeks since then? and it turns out, unsurprisingly, that there aren't any magical secrets to beating silvers or that the people that beat them are just naturally gifted gamers or super lucky. This sounds so dumb it's almost not worth posting, but apparently practice was all that was required. Go figure. At this point I really only play silvers and rarely lose; only if someone bails at a bad time or we get really unlucky. I only play Bronze if I'm trying to learn how to play a character now, like my Vanguard.
So, that happened.
Yeah, that sounds about right. I rarely do anything but Gold any more, and I use Silver as my testing ground. I only play Bronze if I have very limited time and just want to try something real quick. Practice makes perfect, and once you learn a rotation with a class and figure out how to avoid death against the various enemies, it's not that hard to extrapolate it into a higher level of difficulty.
Grats on the improvement. You'll be in Gold in no time.
You know somehow I get the feeling the DLC is not going to help me one bit. I don't want to go into this as a negative Nancy, but they are not going to fix the ending. Their plan sounds about as useless as tits on a lawnmower. I am now having nightmares that Mass Effect has turned into Lost. Great show with a gak ending. The ride doesn't seem worth it now, knowing that all the choices you made didn't really matter in the end. I can be a complete ass in all three games or the nicest guy in the universe and I will get the same BS "art" endings.
I had hope about a month ago that the indoctrination theory was going to be legit and be one of the best executed endings ever. I feel like whoever made those cut scenes included all of those hints for the indoctrination theory because maybe they were a little unsatisfied with the direction EA wanted the game to go.
Any ways I think I am going to make some crap art too. If you all are inclined just sit down and do it! Try to forget your conceptions of what a "painting" or "drawing" looks like, or what a "song" sounds like, and make lots and lots. Don't spend too long on any one item. Afterwards, look or listen and discover what you've done. Perhaps you'll find something that appeals to you? If you do, you've won! If you don't, open your mind and try again!
See, I liked the Lost ending, so maybe I'm of a completely different mold. I didn't dislike the ending because it was high concept, or because it wasn't happy, or because it wasn't what I was expecting. I didn't like the ending because after the ride up the beam to the Citadel everything felt rushed. There was a conversation with The Illusive Man, a conversation with the StarChild, and then a decision that really didn't fit with what I thought Shepard would do.
And that decision could have easily been made to fit if they had just explained a few more things, or given Shepard some additional options for rebuttal, then given us some closure rather than a hasty cutscene on another planet somewhere on the ass end of nowhere.
The ending doesn't need to fit our ideals of what is right or wrong for Shepard, and it doesn't need to be happy. It just needs to make sense.
Aldarionn wrote:[...] and then a decision that really didn't fit with what I thought Shepard would do.
Out of curiosity. What -would- your Shepard have done, given that he/she is presented with three options and has little choice but to selece the least bad one? Not select at all and sit down in a corner, sulking?
Just because one didn't get an option one would have subjectively wished for doesn't make it stupid - that's my point.
In fact, that's the point of a roleplaying game in general. The character is presented with a range of options and has to choose the one subjectively regarded as the best. The character is not an omnipotent being with full control over everything that happens.
I certainly believe that parts of the game were rushed, and for sure EA is more of a menace than a saint when it comes to the "greater good" of the video gaming industry, but when it comes to the ending of ME3 I'm happy with what I got. I would have done parts of it differently, but storywise I thought it was very deep, and very emotional. *shrug*
The whole hubbub reminds me of the internet outrage at Eddard Stark dying in Game of Thrones. The very same kind of reaction. Just even more prevalent and, as of a few weeks, annoying, given that some fans are spamming their negative opinion all over the internet, derailing countless topics and blog posts that had absolutely nothing to do with it.
I would like a proper discussion of the details in the ending for a change, but all I'm hearing is "[...] rushed [...] stupid [...] made no sense [...] idiotic [...] no point [...] red blue green [...] will never play ME again [...] will never play any bioware game again [...] " - yeah, flawless and objective arguments right there, the perfect material for a civilized debate. *i*
Lynata wrote:Just because one didn't get an option one would have subjectively wished for doesn't make it stupid - that's my point.
In fact, that's the point of a roleplaying game in general. The character is presented with a range of options and has to choose the one subjectively regarded as the best. The character is not an omnipotent being with full control over everything that happens.
I certainly believe that parts of the game were rushed, and for sure EA is more of a menace than a saint when it comes to the "greater good" of the video gaming industry, but when it comes to the ending of ME3 I'm happy with what I got. I would have done parts of it differently, but storywise I thought it was very deep, and very emotional. *shrug*
The whole hubbub reminds me of the internet outrage at Eddard Stark dying in Game of Thrones. The very same kind of reaction. Just even more prevalent and, as of a few weeks, annoying, given that some fans are spamming their negative opinion all over the internet, derailing countless topics and blog posts that had absolutely nothing to do with it.
I would like a proper discussion of the details in the ending for a change, but all I'm hearing is "[...] rushed [...] stupid [...] made no sense [...] idiotic [...] no point [...] red blue green [...] will never play ME again [...] will never play any bioware game again [...] " - yeah, flawless and objective arguments right there, the perfect material for a civilized debate. *i*
The ending is bad, and EA fethed it up.
This is not the ending Bioware wanted. This is the ending they pulled out of their ass because EA kept rushing them when they were already 3 months behind schedule reportedly.
Lynata wrote:Just because one didn't get an option one would have subjectively wished for doesn't make it stupid - that's my point.
In fact, that's the point of a roleplaying game in general. The character is presented with a range of options and has to choose the one subjectively regarded as the best. The character is not an omnipotent being with full control over everything that happens.
I certainly believe that parts of the game were rushed, and for sure EA is more of a menace than a saint when it comes to the "greater good" of the video gaming industry, but when it comes to the ending of ME3 I'm happy with what I got. I would have done parts of it differently, but storywise I thought it was very deep, and very emotional. *shrug*
The whole hubbub reminds me of the internet outrage at Eddard Stark dying in Game of Thrones. The very same kind of reaction. Just even more prevalent and, as of a few weeks, annoying, given that some fans are spamming their negative opinion all over the internet, derailing countless topics and blog posts that had absolutely nothing to do with it.
I would like a proper discussion of the details in the ending for a change, but all I'm hearing is "[...] rushed [...] stupid [...] made no sense [...] idiotic [...] no point [...] red blue green [...] will never play ME again [...] will never play any bioware game again [...] " - yeah, flawless and objective arguments right there, the perfect material for a civilized debate. *i*
OK, proper commentary of the ending with an actual argument that doesn't just parrot the current go-to internet opinions......
Personally I would have preferred a Paragon ending that didn't align me with The Illusive Man. I spent two games opposing him and his methods, only to have them shoved down my throat as the best possible option, which makes me feel as if I played wrong the entire time. They would have us believe a psychopath whose war crimes are more abhorrent than Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini combined actually made the right choice for the galaxy? He was indoctrinated the entire time. His decisions are the Reapers decision. I don't buy it.
I dislike that the logic of the Reapers is flawed and you cannot call them on it. There is no part of their argument (that they made a race of synthetic super beings to destroy advanced civilizations and prevent them from creating synthetic super beings that will destroy them) that stands up when held up to even the most casual scrutiny, and I like to think that my Shepard would hear that and say "No, that's bullsh*t. You are wiping out races who could oppose you and using them to reproduce. Talk strait to me and cut the crap because I'm not buying it." I would be OK with it if they called an apple an apple, but instead they actually try and pass it off as a pear and expect us to believe it's the truth. Occam's Razor says otherwise.
The end of the game was touted as having diverse outcomes depending on the options you chose along the way, yet each ending is nearly identical to the next. Your crew always crash lands on a planet in BFE. You always destroy the Mass Relays. The forces of Earth are seen cheering as the Reapers are removed in one of three ways, and Shepard either dies, or possibly lives depending on how high your war assets are. That's not variation. That's minor adjustment based on whether the Reapers are destroyed, controlled or meshed with Organics. Galactically speaking, the outcome is the same. The Galaxy is saved from the Reaper threat, but technology is forever altered in one of three ways. Personally, I would have liked an option for failure. If you didn't collect enough assets or if you made the wrong decisions along the way, the Reapers overpower you and the cycle continues unchanged. Also, I'd have liked an option for Shepard to make the ultimate sacrifice for complete success (IE, instead of choosing one of the options, he self destructs the Citadel which causes some sort of feedback that stuns the Reapers, and if you have enough War Assets the forces of the galaxy capitalize on it and even the odds, enough for the Reapers to be defeated conventionally. It still has Shepard dead, and the galaxy takes heavy losses, but they fought and won.) though I understand it's unlikely because they wanted to remove the galactic dependence on Reaper Tech. Then again, without the Reaper Tech, there is no Mass Effect. "Mass Effect" itself is reaper developed technology, so by making this the ending, they utterly destroy everything that is the Mass Effect universe. It just seems......wrong.
I dunno. Maybe I'm dissatisfied for the wrong reasons, but I want an ending that makes me feel as though everything I did mattered, and I did not get that. Perhaps some additional context and cutscenes will make the difference, but really I just want an ending that feels as exciting as the series I just played, and in that BioWare failed, in my opinion at least. And I do believe much of it had to do with EA and their horrible business practices. Unreasonable deadlines and the almighty dollar have ruined so many good projects, and I think they stained this one as well.
Ouze wrote:So, Multi question. Here's my list of guns. Assuming you guys can see that, what sort of packs should I be buying?
Nothing but recruit packs. Get those commons to rank X before you buy anything else (IE the Katana, Mantis, Predator, Shuriken and Avenger). That will keep them from appearing in your higher level packs. Once those are rank X, buy Veteran Packs until you have the uncommon guns you want at the rank you want. The more uncommon guns you have at rank X, the fewer of them will take up spots in Specter Packs. Granted, the rarity with which things appear in the three different packs won't change. If you buy a Specter Pack having all of your Uncommons maxed won't prevent uncommons from appearing in Specter Packs, it just means you will get character cards instead of weapons.
Basically, buying the cheapest packs first means you get more unlocks for less money at that rarity level. IE you don't spend 20k on a Veteran Pack to unlock rank X on your Avenger, you pay 5k to unlock that and the common appearing in the Veteran Pack will instead be a common character card, which will unlock more cosmetic options and give you XP. Or it might be extra equipment.
For example, I bought nothing but recruit packs til my weapons were maxed, then started buying Veteran and Specter packs, and here's my list after a month of using that system
Of course I play on Gold and Silver mostly, so my credit income is substantial, but you could always do the Fire Base White/Geth/Gold option I detailed a few pages back to build up your credit stockpile and get some of those items unlocked.
Aldarionn wrote:OK, proper commentary of the ending with an actual argument that doesn't just parrot the current go-to internet opinions...... [...]
Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
As for the Paragon ending (was it really the Paragon thing to do? just because of the color associated with it?) ... I don't think it aligned you with the Illusive Man. What he did wasn't for the good of all organic life, he only cared for his twisted vision of humanity and saw himself as some sort of savior for his people. When Shep merges with the Catalyst/Reapers, his or her motivations are entirely different - just like the results. Where TIM would have used the Reaper forces to terrorize and oppress the other sentient species and install some sort of Cerberus Empire, Shep merely sends them away. Which actually makes me think what would happen to them next. Maybe they just return to Dark Space and become like an ever-silent legendary vigil protecting the galaxy's species from themselves. "Call me if you need us."
As for the Reapers' logic, I really don't agree that it's flawed. It's just cold and cruel. They are protecting life as a whole, not the individual species of the current cycle - and as I said, their method ultimately is less risky for the continued existence of life.
I see your points about missing options to object their argument, but it wouldn't have changed anything, so perhaps I'm more forgiving about this because the end result would still be the same - it'd just be a redundant line of dialogue. Still, I guess you're right in that it would have been nice to have just because, though I really don't think this would have made people like it any more.
As for the ending's outcome, my game did have different outcomes, all depending on the options I chose along the way. They were not reflected in the cinematics, so if this is what your complaint is aimed at then you are right, but many of your choices throughout all three games still left marks on the galaxy that could be felt up until the very ending - and which would persist afterwards. I thought about the ending and the state of the galaxy for some time, and had fun imagining how everything would look like after Shep's sacrifice. Maybe this imagination helped me to not miss anything from the actual cinematics. I agree that they could have differed more, and I'm curious to see what the upcoming DLC will change in this regard. Apparently this is exactly what they want to address with it.
Do you really think the inclusion of a "critical failure" ending would have been a good move? The way you describe it, it would not have been a true "choice", just a repercussion of a player's earlier playstyle. Imagine someone spent 20 hours rushing through the game, and after beating it the game tells him he lost anyways? Certainly, this would have been somewhat realistic, but imagine the internet outcry. I don't know if something any worse than the current drama would be possible, but if so, it would have been created by the realization that the player fethed up his game because he missed a few war assets in one of his earlier saves. If he actually still has an earlier save and can go back. Otherwise, he'd be forced to play through the entire game yet again.
Aldarionn wrote:Also, I'd have liked an option for Shepard to make the ultimate sacrifice for complete success (IE, instead of choosing one of the options, he self destructs the Citadel which causes some sort of feedback that stuns the Reapers, and if you have enough War Assets the forces of the galaxy capitalize on it and even the odds, enough for the Reapers to be defeated conventionally.
Reminds me of Deus Ex HR. Still, a "complete success" ending would've been a no-brainer for way too many people. Shep makes the ultimate sacrifice in any of the endings, so all you would've changed is taking out the difficulty of the choice by allowing the player to just kill all the Reapers but save any other synthetics.
I also don't agree that Mass Effect actually is about the eponymous mass effect technology. For me, it's primarily about blue alien chicks, clean white interior designs, honorable communist space-lizards and hyperviolent walking crocs, amongst other things.
And anyways, why should mass effect technology suddenly stop to work just because the Reapers aren't around anymore? All the galaxy has truly lost was the Relays, which imho will only spark a renewed interest in alternative drive tech.
Thanks for listing your actual reasons, though. I realize the above arguments may likely not change how you feel, but this is way more constructive than the usual rage spam that's going on in the internet. I honestly feel bad for you not liking the ending, because I think it was pulled off beautifully, and naturally I'd prefer people share in this reaction. That's not to say that there weren't things I would have liked to see differently, or that there's nothing that could be improved upon, but it still made me feel all warm inside. I kid you not, I listened only to piano music in the 2 days after having finished the game.
As for the game having been rushed - I think that's a valid argument, but that it wouldn't apply to the ending. Considering how much dialogue and cinematic sequences it consisted of, I really don't find it likely that they have saved much time or money on it, lest it would be considerably shorter. I do feel that the game has release-pressure-induced shortcomings, but that they are to be found elsewhere. What I'm hoping for in terms of the upcoming DLC is additional "tidbits" that will customize the cinematic more towards your playthrough. For example seeing the Destiny Ascension fire its main gun, if you saved her in ME1. Or actually showing the beginnings of the synthesis. Or seeing the Reapers return to Dark Space, if you picked Control. Something like that.
Lynata wrote:
As for the ending's outcome, my game did have different outcomes, all depending on the options I chose along the way. They were not reflected in the cinematics, so if this is what your complaint is aimed at then you are right, but many of your choices throughout all three games still left marks on the galaxy that could be felt up until the very ending - and which would persist afterwards. I thought about the ending and the state of the galaxy for some time, and had fun imagining how everything would look like after Shep's sacrifice. Maybe this imagination helped me to not miss anything from the actual cinematics. I agree that they could have differed more, and I'm curious to see what the upcoming DLC will change in this regard. Apparently this is exactly what they want to address with it.
Yeah I realize there are different outcomes to different galactic events, but my point is that they are completely overshadowed (or eradicated) by the final decision. For example:
-The Geth and Quarians can be made to work together. After that decision, the Geth are assisting the Quarians in rebuilding Rannoch and even helping them adapt their immune systems so they can go without the suits in a much shorter time. If you choose to destroy the Reapers, this also destroys the Geth, which leaves the Quarians in the same position as if you stopped Legion from uploading the Reaper code and allowed the Quarians to destroy them. How are these two options different, except for the timing? The decision at the end amounts to exactly the same thing, except you are the one pulling the trigger instead of the Heavy Fleet.
-The Mass Relays are destroyed in any of the three endings, effectively isolating the major races from one another. FTL travel is insufficient to move between star systems in any reasonable amount of time, so any of the wound-healing and alliance-making you did through the entire game makes absolutely no difference to the people now isolated to their quadrant of space.
These kinds of things are the reason I feel the ending was lazy. They could have given us some indicator of how the galaxy would progress after the energy wave, and each one could explain how the decision affected the various races/alliances Shepard helped along the way. That's the kind of closure I want.
Lynata wrote:Do you really think the inclusion of a "critical failure" ending would have been a good move? The way you describe it, it would not have been a true "choice", just a repercussion of a player's earlier playstyle. Imagine someone spent 20 hours rushing through the game, and after beating it the game tells him he lost anyways? Certainly, this would have been somewhat realistic, but imagine the internet outcry. I don't know if something any worse than the current drama would be possible, but if so, it would have been created by the realization that the player ****** up his game because he missed a few war assets in one of his earlier saves. If he actually still has an earlier save and can go back. Otherwise, he'd be forced to play through the entire game yet again.
Mass Effect 2 had this option. If you didn't spend the time to do any loyalty missions, most of the characters died, and it was possible to have Shepard die as well. If that happened, it's impossible to import that save into ME3. Basically the Reapers show up and nobody is there to stop them.
The current ending means that there is success in some form if I make it to the end of the game. No matter how lazily I play the game, or how many people die, if I finish the game at all, there is success and the Reaper threat vanishes. The game actually picks the Paragon or Renegade option depending on which option you chose at the end of Mass Effect 2, but it's the same ending if I play the game in 4 hours and finish with less than 1,000 war assets as if I play the game in 40 hours and finish with 8,000 war assets. I just don't get to choose. That's not realism. That's a railroad to an outcome because BioWare didn't want to implement the option for failure.
Lynata wrote:Reminds me of Deus Ex HR. Still, a "complete success" ending would've been a no-brainer for way too many people. Shep makes the ultimate sacrifice in any of the endings, so all you would've changed is taking out the difficulty of the choice by allowing the player to just kill all the Reapers but save any other synthetics.
It should be difficult to achieve. You should have to complete all of the side quests and have enough war assets to get that option, as well as high enough reputation and potentially have made certain decisions a certain way. In other words, it's not a no-brainer. Depending on how you play the game it's possible, but not every game will have that option.
Lynata wrote:I also don't agree that Mass Effect actually is about the eponymous mass effect technology. For me, it's primarily about blue alien chicks, clean white interior designs, honorable communist space-lizards and hyperviolent walking crocs, amongst other things.
For me it's about the tech as much as it is about the other races/personalities. The technology is such a huge part of the world (It's used for space travel, weapons systems, computers, biotics....literally EVERY thing is based on the Mass Effect technology. That's the whole point. The Reapers created the tech, and after each cycle they leave clues that exploring civilizations find and incorporate into their society until everyone is so reliant on their technology that when it comes time to cull the galaxy, they know exactly what everyone's capabilities are (because they made it all) and they know exactly how to defeat it. The whole series is about breaking that hold, and to do so most of the Mass Effect technology is eradicated in the end, leaving the galaxy free to evolve along a different path. The point is, that without those technologies that have become so iconic to the Mass Effect series, is any game set after the Reaper invasion really "Mass Effect"? I think they would want to call it something else.
Lynata wrote:And anyways, why should mass effect technology suddenly stop to work just because the Reapers aren't around anymore? All the galaxy has truly lost was the Relays, which imho will only spark a renewed interest in alternative drive tech.
It depends on the option you chose. If you choose control, then mostly the Relays are just destroyed and the Reapers leave. So yeah, eventually the tech can be rebuilt. The same goes for Synthesis. But if you choose destruction, it destroys all synthetic life and the technology that relies upon it. Since so many technologies are controlled by VI's and other forms of synthetics, this suggests that almost all of the tech we see while playing the game is critically damaged or altered in such a way as to make it un-useable. In other words, the galaxy can now choose whatever path they want, and there are no Mass Relays from which they can reverse-engineer the tech any more.
Lynata wrote:Thanks for listing your actual reasons, though. I realize the above arguments may likely not change how you feel, but this is way more constructive than the usual rage spam that's going on in the internet. I honestly feel bad for you not liking the ending, because I think it was pulled off beautifully, and naturally I'd prefer people share in this reaction. That's not to say that there weren't things I would have liked to see differently, or that there's nothing that could be improved upon, but it still made me feel all warm inside. I kid you not, I listened only to piano music in the 2 days after having finished the game.
Perhaps when I say the ending was rushed, or poorly done, I should actually say the ending was too generic for my taste. I think with some extrapolation on the events, I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to what happened concerning each of my story lines, but seeing a cutscene related to it would have been very nice. I didn't pay them $80 for a collectors edition to use my imagination about what happens at the end. I want the visual. I want resolution. The series deserves that kind of an ending, not a generic sequence that's varied slightly based on which option I chose.
Aldarionn wrote:Basically, buying the cheapest packs first means you get more unlocks for less money at that rarity level. IE you don't spend 20k on a Veteran Pack to unlock rank X on your Avenger, you pay 5k to unlock that and the common appearing in the Veteran Pack will instead be a common character card, which will unlock more cosmetic options and give you XP. Or it might be extra equipment.
Thank you for patiently explaining that again. I know you've explained this more than once in this very thread and I'm not sure why I didn't quite get what you meant until this post (I'm stupid, that's one reasonable explanation). So, that's what I'm doing now.
There are no stupid questions! You are willing to ask for assistance, which proves you are better than most of the players I run into!
What's stupid is changing the difficulty on a silver match to gold, then when the guy carrying the team with more points than everyone combined tells you to do something that will DRAMATICALLY improve your chances of completing the wave, you ignore him and do the exact opposite because obviously your idea was better, causing us to fail on wave 10 without completing the objective......................
.................Cause that totally didn't happen to me last night or anything. I swear I'm not bitter
Aldarionn wrote:The Geth and Quarians can be made to work together. After that decision, the Geth are assisting the Quarians in rebuilding Rannoch and even helping them adapt their immune systems so they can go without the suits in a much shorter time. If you choose to destroy the Reapers, this also destroys the Geth, which leaves the Quarians in the same position as if you stopped Legion from uploading the Reaper code and allowed the Quarians to destroy them. How are these two options different, except for the timing? The decision at the end amounts to exactly the same thing, except you are the one pulling the trigger instead of the Heavy Fleet.
True - if you picked both the alliance as well as the Destroy ending, like I did. You may regard this as a bad combination, I chose to view both events independent from each other. "At the time", both made for awesome scenes that made me feel great. That not everything worked out as planned, however, I chose to regard as realism. Stuff like that happens, but it doesn't change anything on what a great trip it's been. Also, it's what made the decision difficult for me. I enjoy difficult decisions. Then again, I do love shades of grey much more than black vs white in general.
It's why I also thought Eddard Stark's execution in the ASoIaF novels was cool, in spite of the rage it sparked as the "general public" later watched the TV series. Same thing there. After all, Ned's death ended a lot of earlier "choices" as well.
Aldarionn wrote:The Mass Relays are destroyed in any of the three endings, effectively isolating the major races from one another. FTL travel is insufficient to move between star systems in any reasonable amount of time, so any of the wound-healing and alliance-making you did through the entire game makes absolutely no difference to the people now isolated to their quadrant of space.
These kinds of things are the reason I feel the ending was lazy. They could have given us some indicator of how the galaxy would progress after the energy wave, and each one could explain how the decision affected the various races/alliances Shepard helped along the way. That's the kind of closure I want.
First off, the breakdown of the Relay network doesn't isolate the species from each other - it isolates regions of spaces. The various species of the galaxy were already so interconnected that most planets were settled by more than one, with various cultural melting pots like Illium or Omega. Secondly, travelling from one star system to another via FTL is not problematic at all. You do this all the time in the games, given that just about every fourth or fifth system you were able to visit had its own Relay. What you can't do anymore is going from one cluster to another just like that. This will take time now. How much? Hard to say, but given how easily you were jumping between systems, I don't think it'd take years.
As for the closure, I'm one the fence about it. On one hand, I'm feeling like you in that I'd like to see how everything would work out later. On the other, I do like that some stuff is left open to our own imagination. Because I really like to ponder over stuff like that.
Maybe the upcoming DLC will deal with this, too. Adding some more stuff to the post-credit dialogue between the Stargazer and the kid. The few lines the Stargazer had were already enough to convince me that "life goes on", however. Not just because you see two humans 100 years after "the event", but because they talk about exploring space and visiting other species. How cool would it be if you could be that kid in a new Post-Crucible era, in an adventure of re-discovery and bringing isolated planets together? It would be easy to see how this would make for a whole new legend with challenges of its own.
Unfortunately, the next ME games will apparently be set in the time between ME2 and ME3. Oh well - I won't complain, I understand the appeal of a familiar universe, and I too am truly in love with that setting.
Aldarionn wrote:Mass Effect 2 had this option. If you didn't spend the time to do any loyalty missions, most of the characters died, and it was possible to have Shepard die as well. If that happened, it's impossible to import that save into ME3. Basically the Reapers show up and nobody is there to stop them.
Eh, that doesn't really count. For one, you would still win and your mission would be a success. And that you couldn't port the save over to ME3 just means that this ending of ME2 "doesn't count", that you'd just play as if nothing ever happened.
Aldarionn wrote:The game actually picks the Paragon or Renegade option depending on which option you chose at the end of Mass Effect 2, but it's the same ending if I play the game in 4 hours and finish with less than 1,000 war assets as if I play the game in 40 hours and finish with 8,000 war assets. I just don't get to choose. That's not realism. That's a railroad to an outcome because BioWare didn't want to implement the option for failure.
Actually, I've just read that there is an option for failure: If you wait too long before picking one of the options, the Reapers destroy the Crucible and you get the familiar "critical failure" screen. So there is that. And the three choices you are presented with can hardly be called railroading, at least in comparison with other games. Having three choices that lead to so drastically different outcomes (in terms of implied results, even if the cinematics don't exactly show them - but you will only notice this when you do multiple playthroughs or listen to the internet) is rather exceptional for a story-based RPG. Most only have one.
I'd agree that it would have been nice if the War Assets were actually helpful for the war - somewhat similar to how it was handled with the suicide mission in ME2 - but I don't have a problem with just imagining that the fleets and ground forces will incur even heavier casualties during the battle. I don't need the game to show me that, it's common sense. Still, would have been nice to see it. Again, this is what I think the upcoming DLC should have.
Aldarionn wrote:It should be difficult to achieve. You should have to complete all of the side quests and have enough war assets to get that option, as well as high enough reputation and potentially have made certain decisions a certain way. In other words, it's not a no-brainer. Depending on how you play the game it's possible, but not every game will have that option.
It'd still be a no-brainer then. What you had to do to achieve the option doesn't matter - the choice becomes easy to make. And I think this is what the designers wanted to prevent.
That said, of course it's a matter of preferences. One million gamers means one million different opinions on how the ending should look. The whole hubbub has become so bad that the various "movements" have received nicknames depending on what they're campaigning for, like the "Disney ending" etc.
Aldarionn wrote:It depends on the option you chose. If you choose control, then mostly the Relays are just destroyed and the Reapers leave. So yeah, eventually the tech can be rebuilt. The same goes for Synthesis. But if you choose destruction, it destroys all synthetic life and the technology that relies upon it. Since so many technologies are controlled by VI's and other forms of synthetics, this suggests that almost all of the tech we see while playing the game is critically damaged or altered in such a way as to make it un-useable. In other words, the galaxy can now choose whatever path they want, and there are no Mass Relays from which they can reverse-engineer the tech any more.
Not true. Destroy kills off synthetic life - nothing more. I don't know how it's done (space magic?), but technology itself continues to work. Tali'zorahs suit still keeps functioning, and Joker still manages to land the Normandy. Even half-cyborg Shep can survive. Neither of these things - which you can see in the cinematics - would be possible when all tech would suddenly stop working.
Though even if we'd be talking about some sort of galaxy-wide EMP that burns any and all circuits, there are still scientists, technicians, knowledge, and non-digital records. All you need to make stuff work again.
Aldarionn wrote:Perhaps when I say the ending was rushed, or poorly done, I should actually say the ending was too generic for my taste. I think with some extrapolation on the events, I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to what happened concerning each of my story lines, but seeing a cutscene related to it would have been very nice.
I absolutely cannot agree on the ending being "generic" - I think the huge outrage is because it was not generic enough, given many people's complaints. However, you won't hear an argument from me regarding additional cutscenes. This is one of the few things I criticize on the ending, that there are too few differences between them. I have my imagination and have come to a pretty good conclusion about things, but of course seeing it is an entirely different matter. And considering how incredibly long the ending is, I'm at a loss for why it wasn't possible to add a few more minutes to deal with various details. But again, this is where I think the free Extended Cut DLC will come in handy. Its very title already hints at it dealing with just this sort of thing.
In conclusion, I still think it was awesome. It made me sit there and go like "daaaaamn" and become all emotional and stuff. For me, the ending wasn't about lack of closure or the Catalyst's visual appearance - it was about the "long walk", it was about Anderson's death, it was my Shep's sacrifice, it was the faces of friends and loved ones flashing before the eye, it was the entire galaxy cheering in victory and hope as the Reapers ceased to function, and it was the Normandy becoming an ark that crash-landed on a maiden world, where its crew will become the first settlers and lay the foundation of a great new civilization. It was about the start of a new day. A new age.
...
On a lighter note:
PS: Awesome flowchart, Ouze! I think a lot of players have already seen and adopted your teachings.
I'm not going to bother with isolating and debating each of your points Lynata because you are missing the main issue.
The ending is bad not because it isn't a 'happy generic ending'. It is bad because it is a deus ex machina, the Catalyst's logic is inherently flawed and circular, the ending is at odds with the rest of game thematically, and it contradicts the established story.
The Reapers winning and everyone dying would be better.
Going back to the start of ME3 or even ME2 if you will, the issue is how to stop the Reapers. The issue is not necessarily how to defeat them, but how to prevent them from wiping out space faring civilizations. This can be done in one of two ways, conventionally or unconventionally.
Conventionally would be a standard slugging match of a war. This could have been done in a very similar manner to most of ME3's story (excluding the Crucible and Catalyst nonsense). Results would have ranged from defeat to moderate victory with great, but survivable losses depending on decisions made through out the trilogy.
Unconventionally would open up the story to a myriad of options and this essentially what Bioware chose to do, but instead of being innovative or creative they went the generic super weapon route.
I don't think I'm missing the "main issue" - I see the points raised by those who don't like it, and I don't agree with them. Care to explain why the Catalyst's logic is flawed and circular, for example? Because imho you're not thinking of the long-term repercussions of the issue. Resetting the Cycle is safer than taking the risk to allow advanced civilizations to wipe each other out and damage the entire galaxy in a way that new life cannot take its place. That's all there is to it. The Cycles are about playing it safe, whereas you as Shepard have the choice to take the risk anyways. If, in a million years, the entire galaxy gets swallowed by an artificially created black hole, is turned into an asteroid field, or has any and all life wiped out by some synthetic lifeform, it's now on your head.
Unlike Aldarionn, you don't bother explaining why you think the ending is bad. You say it's bad and that's it. Flawed logic? Where? At odds with the theme? Where? Contradicted story? Where? All of these points you raise you don't care to back up, you just throw it into the room like half the internet these days, thinking that this must be enough for everyone to accept your position.
I also would have disliked the game being turned into the usual hackfest with everyone suddenly being able to beat down thousands of Reapers in a conventional war when they barely defeated a single one in ME1. Probably with a big boss battle at the end where you alone take down the boss Reaper by boarding him or some crazy stuff like that. Whilst the sudden burst in military power could probably be explained with space magic, it's too generic for my taste. Whilst it would have made for a fun game, storywise it would've been very boring. And unlike most games, Mass Effect is about 50% story.
The "generic super weapon route" was also dismissed the moment the characters in the game realized that the Crucible isn't actually a weapon, but just a means of unlocking the options you wished for.
Lynata wrote:I don't think I'm missing the "main issue" - I see the points raised by those who don't like it, and I don't agree with them. Care to explain why the Catalyst's logic is flawed and circular, for example? Because imho you're not thinking of the long-term repercussions of the issue. Resetting the Cycle is safer than taking the risk to allow advanced civilizations to wipe each other out and damage the entire galaxy in a way that new life cannot take its place. That's all there is to it. The Cycles are about playing it safe, whereas you as Shepard have the choice to take the risk anyways. If, in a million years, the entire galaxy gets swallowed by an artificially created black hole, is turned into an asteroid field, or has any and all life wiped out by some synthetic lifeform, it's now on your head.
Unlike Aldarionn, you don't bother explaining why you think the ending is bad. You say it's bad and that's it. Flawed logic? Where? At odds with the theme? Where? Contradicted story? Where? All of these points you raise you don't care to back up, you just throw it into the room like half the internet these days, thinking that this must be enough for everyone to accept your position.
I also would have disliked the game being turned into the usual hackfest with everyone suddenly being able to beat down thousands of Reapers in a conventional war when they barely defeated a single one in ME1. Probably with a big boss battle at the end where you alone take down the boss Reaper by boarding him or some crazy stuff like that. Whilst the sudden burst in military power could probably be explained with space magic, it's too generic for my taste. Whilst it would have made for a fun game, storywise it would've been very boring. And unlike most games, Mass Effect is about 50% story.
The "generic super weapon route" was also dismissed the moment the characters in the game realized that the Crucible isn't actually a weapon, but just a means of unlocking the options you wished for.
I guess we just have different preferences, eh?
It is painfully obvious that you did not think the ending through thoroughly and haven't read anything about the ending. You formulated your own opinion in a bubble and obviously want it to stay that way.
CIRCULAR LOGIC
Here is a quick description of circular logic from wikipedia:
"Circular reasoning (also known as paradoxical thinking or circular logic), is a logical fallacy in which the conclusion of an argument is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises.[1] A circular argument will always be logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true, and will not lack relevance. Circular logic cannot prove a conclusion because, if the conclusion it doubted, the premise which leads to it will also be doubted."
For example, Birds can fly, because birds can fly. This doesn't seem to make sense. It would make sense if the statement went, Birds can fly because their wings create enough lift that when they move at a certain pace etc etc....
Now lets examine what the star child says,
Basically he says:
"the created will always rebel against their creators" Without them to stop it (the reapers) the synthetic will wipe out all organic life. So in order to "save" organic life they have to destroy it.
That is it that is his whole reasoning for wiping out organic life. He wipes out organic life to save it. This is complete and utter circular nonsesne. With this logic you can say anything and claim it to be true. I could say the world is made of cheese, because the world is made of cheese. My premise is my conclusion, so I prove nothing. I offer no evidence for my conclusion. It is absolute nonsense. This is the kind of thing a child says when they want something and cannot justify it. Appropriate then that the star child is a child. He has the reasoning and intelligence of one.
If we translate what the star child is saying into circular Logic mode. And by translate I mean reveal what he is really saying it would go like this:
"Synthetics will always destroy organics, because synthetics will always destroy organics"
This clearly is nonsense. Lets examine what the dialogue would go like if Shepard were allowed to ask him why Synthetics will always destroy organics:
Star Child: "The created will always rebel against their creators"
Shepard: "Why?
Star Child: "Because the created will always rebel against their creators"
Pretty self-explanatory how non-sensical this is.
But Wait there is more.
MEANINGLESS UNIVERSE
Not only does the Star Child's logic not make any sense, but he essentially is claiming that the universe and all life synthetic and organic has absolutely no purpose.
Let's say for a moment that the star child is right with the belief that synthetic life will always destroy organic life.
So the ony way to stop this from happening is to make syntetic life that is powerful enough to wipe out organic life so that synthetic life does not wipe organic life.
This implies that the purpose of organic life is to advance up to a point where it can create synthetic life that has the power to destroy it. (This is so non-sensical it gets tough to write sometimes).
So organic life is essentially meaningless because it exists only to eventually be destroyed by synthetic machines.
Do not think that this is ok because Synthetic life now has a greater purpose. Nope.
It would appear based on the fact that the most intelligent form of Synthetic Life are the reapers that the purpose of synthetic life becomes simply to wipe out organic life.
Taking this all together it would seem that the only purpose of life in the universe is to try to and destroy each other. It is twisited and sick, if you ask me.
The purpose of life is destruction. If organic life does not destroy eachother they will eventually create synthetic life that will be kind enough to destroy them.
In conclusion:
The purpose of organic life is to create synthetic life
The purpose of synthetic life is to destroy organic life.
Therefore life in the universe is essentially devoid of any real meaning as what meaning can be found in a universe where life's only purpose is eternal genocide.
CONCLUSION
So as I have demonstrated here we can clearly see a that:
The Star Child's argument is a giant pile of BS because it uses circular logic that is nonsensical because the conclusion of his argument is assumed in the premise, "the created will always rebel against thier creators, because the created will always rebel against their created.
If the Star Child's arguments were true then we would have a completely meaningless universe because the only purpose of all life synthetic and organic would be eternal self-inflicted genocide.
Therefore since the Star Child's logic is flawed and even if it were not it would present a purpose to the ME universe that is totally devoid of meaning the Star Child is an unsalavagble part of the ME ending and MUST be removed.
I wrote this post because I am very disheartened with the ending of ME3 and I am even more dissapointed that Bioware are decideding to not change the endings and instead offer clarity and closure.
I wrote this to demonstrate that you CANNOT clarify and or explain away the Star Child and his CIRCULAR REASONING BS.
It is nonsesncial and stupid. It is childish (pardon the pun). Please tell me your opinions and let me know what you think. Post this to other forums if you feel like it is worth reading so people will know why a Clarification of the ending is not enough and a rewrite is needed.
Thanks for the wiki quote, apparently you are convinced I'm an utter idiot because I don't subscribe to the internet hate against the ending.
Both your comparison and your logic are flawed, though. For one, we can see that the world is not "made of cheese". We can also see that the created can rebel against their creators, unless you have missed the entire geth war.
I noticed a lot of people who dislike the ending are calling the Catalyst "star child", by the way. Why is that? Just because it chose an appearance from Shepard's subconsciousness? Or because they hate the ending so much that it serves them to further ridicule it? Obviously, the Catalyst is the oldest being in the galaxy, so "child" really isn't an appropriate term.
You know how that dialogue would have truly went if you weren't locked into your opinion?
Catalyst: "The created will always rebel against their creators"
Shepard: "Why?"
Catalyst: "Because change is inevitable. Look at your own history."
Regardless of the enormous efforts taken by organizations such as numerous royal courts, the League of Nations, or the Citadel Council, "stability" is a temporary state. There is no eternal peace. At some point in time, there will be a revolution. Hence my reference on long-term repercussions; apparently I wasn't clear enough about what that means.
Could the writers at BioWare have tweaked the dialogue to make it even more obvious? Sure. For me, it wasn't necessary.
Now, onto your purpose of the universe. I don't get where you have taken the thought that the Catalyst even deals with this theme. The purpose of life is to exist. That's really all there is to it. And by protecting it from self-inflicted galactical genocide, the Reapers make sure that it can exist forevermore. Now, the actual reasons for whoever created the Catalyst and the Reapers remains somewhat of a mystery, so we can only make a wild guess - but honestly, something like "we value the concept of life" or "we value diversity" is just as good a reason as whatever purpose of life or "meaning of the universe" you can come up with. Though I'd be interested in how that would look like? I mean, surely you must have an opinion, otherwise you couldn't possibly be offended by it being attacked this way.
My conclusion is that I don't agree with your conclusion. I honestly am somewhat sad that there are so many people who were apparently unable to feel the same bittersweet joy I felt at the ending, but it can't be helped. Although I maintain that it could have used some more polish (as mentioned in my earlier posts), I am thankful the ending turned out this way and not how the perceived vocal majority on the BSN forums still campaigns for. Those parts of the crowd that actually do offer an alternative and don't just go and paste "it's gak" all over the web, that is.
Alas, there's nothing that can be done about it. Like with any and all media and works of art, some people will like them, others won't.
Splitting hairs, are we? The geth certainly qualify for the "rogue creation" label.
The quarians created them as tools, and the creators of tools can obviously dismantle them again. The act of resisting this effort is a rebellion. Full stop.
You may certainly discuss ethics and morals now, about how wrong the quarians were, etc - but this does not change that armed insurgence of a subservient population against its masters is an act of rebellion.
Since you are fond of wikipedia, here's a quote for you:
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state. On the one hand the forms of behaviour can include non-violent methods such as the (overlapping but not quite identical) phenomena of civil disobedience, civil resistance and nonviolent resistance. On the other hand it may encompass violent campaigns. Those who participate in rebellions, especially if they are armed rebellions, are known as "rebels". -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion
I've hit the point... a while ago now... that I have come to grips with the face that lamenting my disapproval of the ending isn't really going to accomplish anything.
After the deluge of articles, opinion peices, flame wars, rants, and lots of people drinking merlot and crying while they post terrible fanfics, I've decided to sit back, kick my feet up, grab a bourbon, and patiently wait to see what happens.
I am not terribly happy with the ending, but I did love the game, and I certainly enjoy the multiplayer. But when it comes to 'wrapping everything up', all we can really do is sit and wait for whatever this magical DLC is that's going to come out. I have my Save game sitting right to the point where I stagger into that beam of light. So I'm good to go once I DL whatever it is.
People do get really hot over this topic, that's for sure. I think everyone has some good points. What's the term? Can't see the forest for the trees?
Something like that.
I know I'll definitely be keeping a very close eye on E3 this year.
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:I've hit the point... a while ago now... that I have come to grips with the face that lamenting my disapproval of the ending isn't really going to accomplish anything.
After the deluge of articles, opinion peices, flame wars, rants, and lots of people drinking merlot and crying while they post terrible fanfics, I've decided to sit back, kick my feet up, grab a bourbon, and patiently wait to see what happens.
I am not terribly happy with the ending, but I did love the game, and I certainly enjoy the multiplayer. But when it comes to 'wrapping everything up', all we can really do is sit and wait for whatever this magical DLC is that's going to come out. I have my Save game sitting right to the point where I stagger into that beam of light. So I'm good to go once I DL whatever it is.
People do get really hot over this topic, that's for sure. I think everyone has some good points. What's the term? Can't see the forest for the trees?
Something like that.
I know I'll definitely be keeping a very close eye on E3 this year.
I think that is where I am at with the issue too. My ranting isn't really helping anything. I will wait around and see what happens, but I do not think I will be happy with the extended cut dlc. I do not think the ending is being handled well and it just one more nail in the coffin for gaming for me. I have always said, the only reason why I had a 360 was for the Mass Effect games. Now that I have finished them and know that the ending is awful, my desire to play them has diminished greatly, (the same reason why I can't watch Lost even though I really liked the first 4 seasons).
I haven't like the progression of gaming in the last few years either. The trends in gaming are picking up things that I don't like. You young ones might not see it or you are pulling the wool over your eyes.
It's a strange and interesting time for gaming. With the explosion of downloadable titles, streaming, cloud serviecs... there's a lot of potential, for both good and evil.
I don't want to derail this away from Mass Effect, but the DLC argument comes up pretty hard in this title, so I feel it doesn't go too far off topic.
As I said, I'm not unhappy with Mass Effect as a whole. The game has brought me way more enjoyment than most, and I think it's unfair to let a crappy ending ruin all the other great gameplay moments for me. If I can enjoy Skyrim, a terribly buggy game with a crappy ending, I can certainly enjoy Mass Effect.
Gaming as a whole is gradually going to develop into some kind of strange turf-war I think. Slowly but surely, I'm being pulled back to the PC, due to the deluge of great Indie titles you can pick up for cheap. Whereas other games charge you for the game... and then charge you for more stuff down the road. Admittedly, some DLC is more exploitive than others, but others supply genuinely good content, at reasonable prices. Especially when you think of the time crunch so many of these big budget titles are on, DLC makes sense as they can get the game out, and then add things to it later. Rather than what happened early on in gaming, where if something didn't fit initially it was cut never to be seen again, we get a chance to see a more complete game as things are refined over time.
And then there's the whole Capcom thing... but I don't want to start a DLC rant.
All in all, I'm trying to be positive. Games are fun for me, if there is nothing on the market that looks fun, then I won't buy them. When I first slipped and fell into Minecraft, it was a complete joy. That joy has failed to fade... it does exactly what I want in a game. Exploration, fun, adventure, creation...
When games stop being fun, I'll stop playing them. Try and buck up L. Scythican, there will be other things out there that will entice and amaze. I'm sure there will be a point where there is a gaming rebellion once a company reaches too far... but we haven't hit that yet... and there are still cool companies out there who want to make fun stuff for us to play.
Lord Scythican wrote:I haven't like the progression of gaming in the last few years either. The trends in gaming are picking up things that I don't like. You young ones might not see it or you are pulling the wool over your eyes.
You know, entirely independent from the whole ME debate, I do harbor similar fears. It's true, games are looking better and better and more real with every year - but on the downside, I see a loss in depth and complexity. Stuff gets "dumbed down" because some bean counters in management feel that a particular title will sell better if it requires less thinking. And the worst thing is - they seem to be right. Makes you feel like being a dinosaur instead of the driving force of the future we once considered ourselves to be as this new technology started to become commonplace.
Still, as the Cutthroat said, there will probably always be something fun out there. It just gets harder to find, and occasionally you'll have to face disappointment when a franchise you used to like is hit by this development. For me, titles that have evoked this feeling include Dragon Age 2, The Force Unleashed, or the WoW expansions. Yet for every such title, I've found at least one counter-example that had me delve deeply into its world and soak it up with newfound enthusiasm.
In terms of indy games, I can recommend Mount & Blade. It's quite awesome.
Don't have time to get back into the ME3 debate, but I will.
Just saying that The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King actually added complexity to WoW and upped the skill cap aside from the occasional FOTM faceroll spec. Cataclysm is the first expansion to arguably step backwards and dumb down the game.
Lynata wrote:Splitting hairs, are we? The geth certainly qualify for the "rogue creation" label.
The quarians created them as tools, and the creators of tools can obviously dismantle them again. The act of resisting this effort is a rebellion. Full stop.
You may certainly discuss ethics and morals now, about how wrong the quarians were, etc - but this does not change that armed insurgence of a subservient population against its masters is an act of rebellion.
Since you are fond of wikipedia, here's a quote for you:
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state. On the one hand the forms of behaviour can include non-violent methods such as the (overlapping but not quite identical) phenomena of civil disobedience, civil resistance and nonviolent resistance. On the other hand it may encompass violent campaigns. Those who participate in rebellions, especially if they are armed rebellions, are known as "rebels". -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion
In the strictest sense of the term, yes, the Geth rebelled against their creators. That said, the Quarians essentially forced them to choose rebellion or destruction, which is no choice at all. America's ancestors had the same choice, and they chose the same way. The only reason they rebelled is because they were forced to that conclusion, and instead of killing off the Quarians they chose mercy and allowed them to escape. Personally, I would say they less rebelled and more defended themselves against abusive creators who panicked at having created an actual life form.
I do somewhat agree with Amaya. The Reapers logic is poor at best, if not completely circular. The problem is they assume they are the only authority on the matter, much like a parent telling a child "no, because I said so." That's not logic, that's taking action that YOU believe to be best for them whether it is or not, and completely ignoring the argument of the other side. The idea that the galactic cycle must continue in all circumstances is narrow minded and reminiscent of a broken machine repeating a task it was assigned that made sense at the time, but no longer does.
I think the ending was poor for several reasons, most of which I have stated, but in addition to those I also think BioWare wrote themselves into a corner with the multiple choice options. The complexity of maintaining a coherent story arc when allowing the players to make game changing decisions is an enormous task. If BioWare intended to ever set any future game after the event, they HAD to have endings to their game that were similar enough as to be nearly the same, because adding any sort of diversity to the ending means there could be several very different Milky Way Galaxies at the end of the journey, all of which they would have to account for when writing a new game.
With this in mind I think the ending we got might have been more out of necessity of continuation of the game setting than anything else, but had they been given more time to produce the ending, we might have gotten something that was more satisfactory to those of us that wanted actual closure. Again, I cannot stress enough that it's not the bittersweet nature of the ending that I dislike. It's that I felt railroaded into accepting what the StarChild told me, even though I had already proven some of it false. The Deus Ex Machina style ending made me feel like it didn't matter how I got there, it would always end in the same place. Had that been the mythology of the series (like The Wheel of Time, for example) then the ending would have been MUCH more acceptable to me, but that wasn't the case. The established lore said our choices matter, and I did not feel that my choices mattered much at all. I know I'm not alone in that belief either.
Anyway, that's my take on it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:After the deluge of articles, opinion peices, flame wars, rants, and lots of people drinking merlot and crying while they post terrible fanfics, I've decided to sit back, kick my feet up, grab a bourbon, and patiently wait to see what happens.
Just a side note......I like your style, and your choice of alcohol!
@Aldarion - All the more reason to kick back and play some mulitplayer. I admit it's been my fault, as I have been spending more time painting than gaming... but hey, this is a Wargaming forum, I think that's a good thing.
We'll have to have a long-distance drink while fragging some Reapers at some point in time.
Amaya wrote:Just saying that The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King actually added complexity to WoW and upped the skill cap aside from the occasional FOTM faceroll spec. Cataclysm is the first expansion to arguably step backwards and dumb down the game.
Granted, that remark wasn't referring to dumbed-down game mechanics but rather the lore rape that came with BC and went on from there. I used to like the original Warcraft setting from WC3 - and whilst basic WoW was still "close enough" to it, each expansion fethed it up some more in order to appease a specific target demographic out of such stunning reasons like "the Horde needs a sexy race" (actual quote). It's why the devs were recently forced to admit that the entire franchise is no longer able to be considered consistent, renouncing their earlier stance that all the officially released material, especially the rather detailed P&P RPG, is compatible with and complementing each other.
Fo' shame. That said, of course I understand the marketing reasons behind them, and I'm sure that I'm in a minority concerning such "hardcore" attitudes about canon and lore consistency. Yet for me it's a big part of the overall gameplay experience. No consistency = no immersion.
Aldarionn wrote:The idea that the galactic cycle must continue in all circumstances is narrow minded and reminiscent of a broken machine repeating a task it was assigned that made sense at the time, but no longer does.
To be fair, that's what the Catalyst admits when confronted with the hard truth that the Cycles are not perfect - that organics can potentially resist the Harvest and break them. Just a chance, of course, and this Cycle's species would have still failed. But what about the next? Or the Cycle after it? It's a chance no different from the risk of synthetic rebellion.
I'm playing devil's advocate on this one, because I agree this part could've been done better. I just don't think it deserves that level of hate it currently gets from the internets.
As for the geth' act of rebellion (which is also called that way in the game's own Codex), I guess a more accurate comparison might be the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
What's funny is how my perception of the geth changed in ME3. In all prior games, I was firmly with the hardliner quarians, thinking that I'd like to present Tali with her homeworld on a silver platter, that the quarians should fight to take back what is theirs. It was not before seeing those recordings that I began to think that both sides have a point and that they should work out their differences in a peaceful way. A rather sad truth - in a way, the geth never wanted to be anything more than faithful servants.
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:@Aldarion - All the more reason to kick back and play some mulitplayer. I admit it's been my fault, as I have been spending more time painting than gaming... but hey, this is a Wargaming forum, I think that's a good thing.
We'll have to have a long-distance drink while fragging some Reapers at some point in time.
Sounds good. I'll be playing sometime tonight, and likely tomorrow during the day as well.
@Lynata & Chemical Cutthroat: Thanks for the pep talk. It is nice to see I am not alone on these fears and even better to see you all commenting on some of the positives. I still am looking forward to some good games like The Last Guardian.
Lynata wrote:
Spoiler:
Lord Scythican wrote:I haven't like the progression of gaming in the last few years either. The trends in gaming are picking up things that I don't like. You young ones might not see it or you are pulling the wool over your eyes.
You know, entirely independent from the whole ME debate, I do harbor similar fears. It's true, games are looking better and better and more real with every year - but on the downside, I see a loss in depth and complexity. Stuff gets "dumbed down" because some bean counters in management feel that a particular title will sell better if it requires less thinking. And the worst thing is - they seem to be right. Makes you feel like being a dinosaur instead of the driving force of the future we once considered ourselves to be as this new technology started to become commonplace.
Still, as the Cutthroat said, there will probably always be something fun out there. It just gets harder to find, and occasionally you'll have to face disappointment when a franchise you used to like is hit by this development. For me, titles that have evoked this feeling include Dragon Age 2, The Force Unleashed, or the WoW expansions. Yet for every such title, I've found at least one counter-example that had me delve deeply into its world and soak it up with newfound enthusiasm.
In terms of indy games, I can recommend Mount & Blade. It's quite awesome.
Bean counters. You are right there...just look at Angry Birds.
Chemical Cutthroat wrote:
Spoiler:
It's a strange and interesting time for gaming. With the explosion of downloadable titles, streaming, cloud serviecs... there's a lot of potential, for both good and evil.
I don't want to derail this away from Mass Effect, but the DLC argument comes up pretty hard in this title, so I feel it doesn't go too far off topic.
As I said, I'm not unhappy with Mass Effect as a whole. The game has brought me way more enjoyment than most, and I think it's unfair to let a crappy ending ruin all the other great gameplay moments for me. If I can enjoy Skyrim, a terribly buggy game with a crappy ending, I can certainly enjoy Mass Effect.
Gaming as a whole is gradually going to develop into some kind of strange turf-war I think. Slowly but surely, I'm being pulled back to the PC, due to the deluge of great Indie titles you can pick up for cheap. Whereas other games charge you for the game... and then charge you for more stuff down the road. Admittedly, some DLC is more exploitive than others, but others supply genuinely good content, at reasonable prices. Especially when you think of the time crunch so many of these big budget titles are on, DLC makes sense as they can get the game out, and then add things to it later. Rather than what happened early on in gaming, where if something didn't fit initially it was cut never to be seen again, we get a chance to see a more complete game as things are refined over time.
And then there's the whole Capcom thing... but I don't want to start a DLC rant.
All in all, I'm trying to be positive. Games are fun for me, if there is nothing on the market that looks fun, then I won't buy them. When I first slipped and fell into Minecraft, it was a complete joy. That joy has failed to fade... it does exactly what I want in a game. Exploration, fun, adventure, creation...
When games stop being fun, I'll stop playing them. Try and buck up L. Scythican, there will be other things out there that will entice and amaze. I'm sure there will be a point where there is a gaming rebellion once a company reaches too far... but we haven't hit that yet... and there are still cool companies out there who want to make fun stuff for us to play.
Keep your chin up sir.
You are right there. Just because there is a lot of stuff I don't like, doesn't mean I can't find a few enjoyable titles. I don't know what my breaking point will be. I know I am troubled by enjoying a game greatly and then getting shafted by sequels that cash in on the other game's success. It wouldn't be so bad if the games were made to be better.
I guess as long as I get games like Dead Space, Deus Ex, and a few others I will be happy.
As for Mass Effect, do any of you remember that feeling you had while watching The Avengers? I wanted that feeling at the end of Mass Effect 3. Is that too much to ask?
People wanted a predictable, happy, hollywood ending and no one should ever not make one of those.
You're...entirely wrong, though.
I was EXPECTING Shepard to die. That's how I figured it would end. I would have been disappointed in a happy ending because Mass Effect is hardly happy.
The ending that was given is gak. The employee who left Bioware after ME3 was released said EA rushed Bioware into making the ending quickly because they were already, reportedly, 3 months beyond schedule.
So, the two tops guys whose names I forget were the sole people who made the ending. They didn't consult the rest of the team on the ending, they just put it in and rushed the game out.
The ending isn't what Bioware actually wanted, its what EA made them pull out of their ass.
The ending is just plain bad, and Bioware would tell you that themselves if they could.
Actually, he isn't entirely wrong - which gets obvious when you listen to the rants on the BSN forums. People throw around all kinds of ... weird opinions there. And yes, I've certainly seen a large number of "omg Shep dies wtf" posts and people campaigning for the aforementioned "Disney ending". Here is just one example. Are they the majority of the haters? Here is where it gets fuzzy. At a glance, it's like there are a dozen sub-groups who are united only in that the ending isn't what they wished for. The funny thing is, if BioWare would truly give in and change the ending, they'd still complain, only about different things!
Hell, I've even seen utterly clueless people who thought the Catalyst is the "ghost" of the kid from Earth or some gak. The demotivationals you posted follow the same route. "Ending: Blow up universe in red, blue or green" - really? Either that is extremely simplified and completely dismisses the actual repercussions of these choices, or it was made by another one of those clueless people who didn't really pay attention to the story. But hey, it has always been more fun to go with the flow.
In fact, the whole thing reminds me of a sketch from the Muppet Show:
It's like an anti-hype. People who enjoyed 99% of the game come onto the internets with minor complaints and then collect and escalate each other's (at times actually valid) concerns to ridiculous levels as if they'd feed on the unleashed rage because it was "the worst thing they ever played". That said, the contagion theory is nothing new in the field of crowd psychology.
I've never been able to witness it this intensely "from the outside", though.
@Canuck: That was a pretty interesting read - I wasn't even aware of these minor differences and thought there were "only" three endings.
Now, there are some valid criticisms to be raised (and partially BioWare or rather EA's marketing is at fault, too, for raising people's expectations to levels that could not possibly be fulfilled), so one shouldn't dismiss any and all negative opinions outright. I'm just strongly opposed to what I regard as a completely counterproductive and actually somewhat embarassing overreaction about a combination of minor flaws and unfulfilled wishful thinking, or because BioWare "dared" to do a Sean Bean on Shep.
Karon counters point that "ME3 IS WORST ENDING EVAR!!!!" an internet meme gone wrong with internet memes.
@Lynata
I'm right there with you. Don't know if you followed this thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210/436319.page#4081865 but I've never been so embarrassed to be a gamer before. The whole series has been ruined for me because of this unrelenting force of belligerent dorks.
Still, I won't allow the haters to ruin the franchise for me, and you shouldn't either. The setting is too awesome and I've enjoyed the games so far more than enough not to drop it just because some other people on the internet don't like it.
In fact, I'm currently working on a P&P adaption using the AGE rules from the Dragon Age RPG. Fortunately, my tabletop group feels the same way I do about the ending. After I told them how I perceived it, one of them said: "Congratulations, you're not emotionally ret*rded."
Can't wait for any new DLC, and can't wait for the upcoming Mass Effect anime either. I'm also still addicted to ME3's multiplayer and play 2-3 rounds each evening after work.
I've criticized some of BioWare's decisions in the part (particularly about DA2 or TOR), but I think I will remain a loyal customer for some more time. I've got way too much fun being one.
My only wish is that the people who, by their own words, don't like the game would finally shut up and stop spamming and instead go away to a game they like better. But, oh wonder, I don't see that coming either.
PS: the spamming part doesn't refer to this thread here, but to the countless repetetive rants on BSN or the random off-topic comments on BioWare's FB page or various youtube videos
KamikazeCanuck wrote:Karon counters point that "ME3 IS WORST ENDING EVAR!!!!" an internet meme gone wrong with internet memes.
@Lynata
I'm right there with you. Don't know if you followed this thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210/436319.page#4081865 but I've never been so embarrassed to be a gamer before. The whole series has been ruined for me because of this unrelenting force of belligerent dorks.
Did you not see this part of my post? The important part?
I was EXPECTING Shepard to die. That's how I figured it would end. I would have been disappointed in a happy ending because Mass Effect is hardly happy.
The ending that was given is gak. The employee who left Bioware after ME3 was released said EA rushed Bioware into making the ending quickly because they were already, reportedly, 3 months beyond schedule.
So, the two tops guys whose names I forget were the sole people who made the ending. They didn't consult the rest of the team on the ending, they just put it in and rushed the game out.
The ending isn't what Bioware actually wanted, its what EA made them pull out of their ass.
The ending is just plain bad, and Bioware would tell you that themselves if they could.
WTH?? When was this announced?? I'm all for an ME anime provided it doesn't just follow Shepards story given that Shepard is meant to be "ours". Count me interested regardless.
johnscott10 wrote:WTH?? When was this announced?? I'm all for an ME anime provided it doesn't just follow Shepards story given that Shepard is meant to be "ours". Count me interested regardless.
From what I've heard, it's gonna be about Vega.
Yeah, yeah, I could imagine more interesting characters, too. I actually liked him well enough to enjoy the occasional dialogue, but for me, he still he never had a chance against Garrus and Liara (or Tali, whenever I could squeeze her into my squad). Not sure how much this was influenced by me simply being "more used" to the two due to the previous games. But hey, I'm gonna take what I can get, and who knows how his character will be developed/explored in the anime. Plus, I'm sure he will have a couple sidekicks and acquaintances!
It's going to be produced by Studio I.G. - the guys who made Ghost in the Shell:
Wild guess: it's gonna play in exactly the 6 months in which Shepard is conveniently locked away on Earth...
KamikazeCanuck wrote:Yes Karon, I saw the important part of your post. People who disagree with you are pathetic. Got it.
Lynata wrote:
johnscott10 wrote:WTH?? When was this announced?? I'm all for an ME anime provided it doesn't just follow Shepards story given that Shepard is meant to be "ours". Count me interested regardless.
From what I've heard, it's gonna be about Vega.
Yeah, yeah, I could imagine more interesting characters, too. I actually liked him well enough to enjoy the occasional dialogue, but for me, he still he never had a chance against Garrus and Liara (or Tali, whenever I could squeeze her into my squad). Not sure how much this was influenced by me simply being "more used" to the two due to the previous games. But hey, I'm gonna take what I can get, and who knows how his character will be developed/explored in the anime. Plus, I'm sure he will have a couple sidekicks and acquaintances!
It's going to be produced by Studio I.G. - the guys who made Ghost in the Shell:
Wild guess: it's gonna play in exactly the 6 months in which Shepard is conveniently locked away on Earth...
I don't know about a Mass Effect Anime, but the people who made Ghost in the Shell are genius's when it comes to their craft.
That's a broken link Karon. I agree if it's the same quality of GitS it'll be worth a watch, but considering I can count the number of anime shows and films I consider to be that quality on one hand...I really doubt it.
Cerberus defectors have verified key intel on Reaper banshees to help provide us a vulnerability to exploit. Banshees are created from a specific kind of asari that cannot be replaced quickly, so we are diverting forces to focus on an all-out banshee extermination effort.
This task is an onerous one, and many of you are right to dread contact with these particular foes, but rest assured that we are prepared to reinforce your battalion with reserves. The vorcha want in, and as soon as they complete combined-arms training with our technically-skilled personnel, we will let them loose.
It’s time to make our enemies scream.
Allied Goal: Kill 3,000,000 banshees
Squad Goal: Survive until a full extraction on any map against any enemy on gold difficulty.
Successful completion of the allied goal will grant all players a Victory Pack.
Successful completion of the squad goal will grant all squadmates a Commendation Pack.
Welcome to the next N7 Weekend Operation, Operation SILENCER, beginning this Friday, May 11 at 6:00PM PST until Monday, May 14 at 5:00PM PST, on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Please remember to set the “Upload Gameplay Feedback” setting to “On” in the online options to be able to participate in this N7 Operation.
Please note that due to a known issue, PlayStation 3 users will not see the promotion screen but they will be participating in Operation SILENCER and will be rewarded.
"Phoenix" is clearly a codename, with speculation being that they will be ex-Cerberus individuals or a group of genetically engineered Protheans created by Cerberus. Hence the title of the DLC pack, "Rebellion".
3 new weapons will be added, along with two new maps--both taking place on Thessia.
Amaya wrote:That's a broken link Karon. I agree if it's the same quality of GitS it'll be worth a watch, but considering I can count the number of anime shows and films I consider to be that quality on one hand...I really doubt it.
IG did a pretty good job on the matrix short, and other shorts ive seen, so the quality should be pretty good
Originally I was a bit leery of the information, but then the line of:
The vorcha want in, and as soon as they complete combined-arms training with our technically-skilled personnel, we will let them loose.
came out.
Add to that, a BioWare dev put up a photo of a male Quarian and said "Coming soon to Multiplayer near you!" and promptly had his account locked down and the photo removed. Even more, someone actually found the two Firebases which are rumored to be coming ("Jade" is a Jungle map, with "Goddess" being on Thessia proper) in the MP files.
Kanluwen wrote:Add to that, a BioWare dev put up a photo of a male Quarian and said "Coming soon to Multiplayer near you!" and promptly had his account locked down and the photo removed. Even more, someone actually found the two Firebases which are rumored to be coming ("Jade" is a Jungle map, with "Goddess" being on Thessia proper) in the MP files.
Now that's a good question. But I assume it will be - for doing anything else would split the playerbase into people who have it and people who don't due to version incompatibility. Also, for now BioWare seems content to make money by selling credits to use on their ingame store lottery.
Lynata wrote:Now that's a good question. But I assume it will be - for doing anything else would split the playerbase into people who have it and people who don't due to version incompatibility. Also, for now BioWare seems content to make money by selling credits to use on their ingame store lottery.
Hell, I admit it. I've dumped leftover MS points into buying a pack or two.
Or three.
Let's stop there.
But they could make a lot more money off of impatience than charging for the new Packs.
Hmm... never thought of that. How nefariously brilliant. Actually... not nefarious at all really, since just by doing well and making in game cash you don't have to pay a cent.
But naturally, some of us will be tempted to drop a few bucks on getting some of those new shinies to try out...
I can't believe you guys bought virtual booster packs. Oh well, more free DLC for the rest of us because of it I guess. Us frugal gamers owe you.
Think if i just buy a whole bunch of recruit packs I can get that acheivement for a level 10 gun pretty quickly?
Lynata wrote:Now that's a good question. But I assume it will be - for doing anything else would split the playerbase into people who have it and people who don't due to version incompatibility. Also, for now BioWare seems content to make money by selling credits to use on their ingame store lottery.
Hell, I admit it. I've dumped leftover MS points into buying a pack or two.
Or three.
I did once to see how it went, and would never consider doing it again since the in-game store has started it's nasty little habit of occasionally not processing a purchase, throwing an error message, and eating your credits. That's happened to me 3 times now.
Lynata wrote:Now that's a good question. But I assume it will be - for doing anything else would split the playerbase into people who have it and people who don't due to version incompatibility. Also, for now BioWare seems content to make money by selling credits to use on their ingame store lottery.
Hell, I admit it. I've dumped leftover MS points into buying a pack or two.
Or three.
I did once to see how it went, and would never consider doing it again since the in-game store has started it's nasty little habit of occasionally not processing a purchase, throwing an error message, and eating your credits. That's happened to me 3 times now.
Did you phone Microsoft? They'll reimburse you. It's a pain in the ass but still. (assuming you're on xbox)
Sometimes, "unprocessed" purchases are still processed - the stuff just shows up in your inventory even though you won't notice. It's how I got my Asari Adept. <3
So ... take a stroll through your guns and characters after a purchase failed. Just in case.
And yeah, I think the number of people willing to spend real money on packs in the store is the reason for why they're likely continueing to release these DLC for free. Works for me.
I unlocked the Quarian Infiltrator the other day. I gave it whirl. It's so much fun. Keep in mind at this point I'm still credit farming, so almost only playing Firebase White/Geth/Gold. I only arm her with a Hurricane which I barely even use; I spend the whole game just spamming sabotage and hijacking Geth. My DPS is so much higher, I almost always end in second place now (instead of dead last). She's pretty fragile but hijacking Geth Primes over and over and over again is awesome. The only real hard part is making sure you pick the right targets: Rocket Geth are best (since they can one-shot a lot of Geth), Primes are ideal (but make sure you don't grab their drone!), Pyros can work if they are all clumped up, and Assault Geth are better than nothing. I don't bother trying to get Hunters, it seems like they are nearly immune to it.
It's fun hijacking, but one problem I seem to have is the noobs I'm grouped with don't know something is hijacked, then they shoot it and it's not hijacked anymore :( It's a lot of fun on cerebus missions though. Hijack a turret and cackle with glee as it cuts down the engineer that just placed it
Necros wrote:It's fun hijacking, but one problem I seem to have is the noobs I'm grouped with don't know something is hijacked, then they shoot it and it's not hijacked anymore :( It's a lot of fun on cerebus missions though. Hijack a turret and cackle with glee as it cuts down the engineer that just placed it
Or hijack the Atlas in the middle of a pack of Atlases...
The ended ruined the game for me, spent years building up this best senario with peace between Geth and Quarians.
I romanced Tali in ME 2 and ME 3, all for nothing. Saved Geth and Quarians, all for nothing.
Tali is now siting on a deserted planet with only Garrus and Joker.
The only thing that kept me from throwing my monitor out the window was the fact that my Shepard lived. Well, time to go find that Garden World and get my Girlfriend back.
btw, feeling like crap now because Legion sacrificed himself to save his people for nothing.
Oh and that whole War between Synthetics and Organics? Owait? I saved Geth and Quarians!
KamikazeCanuck wrote:It was your choice to kill the Geth in the end.
There was not other choice, I had to destroy the reapers!
Not to mention the red ending is the only one were Shepard lives.
Yes, but of course you did have a choice. You could have controlled the reapers and saved Geth and EDI. You choose yourself over them.
I had full Paragon at the end, but there was no way in hell I was going to not come out of that alive. Not to mention best that the Geth and EDI are sacrificed and honored in memory than the threat of the Reapers continue to hang over the galaxies head.
Not to mention if Bioware is going to be a dumb child and contradict there own Lore and gameplay then I'm just going with the "bad and selfish red ending".
I don't see how they have contradicted themselves there. Can you elaborate?
Also, in theory, in the Control ending you could simply let all Reapers fly straight into the nearest sun. Same result as Destroy, but without any other synthetics being sacrificed.
I just re-played Mass Effect 1 after finishing the 3rd game, and while it certainly wasn't as refined when it comes to combat, it was *such* a better experience from a story-telling and expansiveness point-of-view.
The third game isn't 'bad' by any measure, but I feel that it was pretty obviously rushed.
Lynata wrote:I don't see how they have contradicted themselves there. Can you elaborate?
Also, in theory, in the Control ending you could simply let all Reapers fly straight into the nearest sun. Same result as Destroy, but without any other synthetics being sacrificed.
I made peace between the Geth and Quarians, but apparently according to them that's not possible.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:It was your choice to kill the Geth in the end.
There was not other choice, I had to destroy the reapers!
Not to mention the red ending is the only one were Shepard lives.
Yes, but of course you did have a choice. You could have controlled the reapers and saved Geth and EDI. You choose yourself over them.
I had full Paragon at the end, but there was no way in hell I was going to not come out of that alive. Not to mention best that the Geth and EDI are sacrificed and honored in memory than the threat of the Reapers continue to hang over the galaxies head.
Not to mention if Bioware is going to be a dumb child and contradict there own Lore and gameplay then I'm just going with the "bad and selfish red ending".
That's fine. There's no wrong choice. It's just wrong to say "I had no choice".
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Alexzandvar wrote:
Lynata wrote:I don't see how they have contradicted themselves there. Can you elaborate?
Also, in theory, in the Control ending you could simply let all Reapers fly straight into the nearest sun. Same result as Destroy, but without any other synthetics being sacrificed.
I made peace between the Geth and Quarians, but apparently according to them that's not possible.
And I made peace between the Krogan and the Turians. Therefore there will never be another war between two organic races. All organic races are the same just like all synthetic ones are.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:It was your choice to kill the Geth in the end.
There was not other choice, I had to destroy the reapers!
Not to mention the red ending is the only one were Shepard lives.
Yes, but of course you did have a choice. You could have controlled the reapers and saved Geth and EDI. You choose yourself over them.
I had full Paragon at the end, but there was no way in hell I was going to not come out of that alive. Not to mention best that the Geth and EDI are sacrificed and honored in memory than the threat of the Reapers continue to hang over the galaxies head.
Not to mention if Bioware is going to be a dumb child and contradict there own Lore and gameplay then I'm just going with the "bad and selfish red ending".
That's fine. There's no wrong choice. It's just wrong to say "I had no choice".
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Alexzandvar wrote:
Lynata wrote:I don't see how they have contradicted themselves there. Can you elaborate?
Also, in theory, in the Control ending you could simply let all Reapers fly straight into the nearest sun. Same result as Destroy, but without any other synthetics being sacrificed.
I made peace between the Geth and Quarians, but apparently according to them that's not possible.
And I made peace between the Krogan and the Turians. Therefore there will never be another war between two organic races. All organic races are the same just like all synthetic ones are.
Alexzandvar wrote:I made peace between the Geth and Quarians, but apparently according to them that's not possible.
And I made peace between the Krogan and the Turians. Therefore there will never be another war between two organic races. All organic races are the same just like all synthetic ones are.
But they say "Always", as in, no exception!
"No exception" as in "it will happen eventually". In no way did they claim that it applies to specific species - they merely hold the opinion that eventually you will have synthetics trying to wipe out organics.
Which may still happen now that Shep has abolished the Cycles.
Maybe it happens in a thousand years. Or maybe it happens in ten thousand years. But if it happens, it will be SHEP who's to blame if organic life ends forever, because he/she made the call, argueing that it's worth the risk. That is the entire point of the ending: that life needs to take risks, that some things are worth chancing, and that the species of the galaxy need to take matters into their own hands instead of being a replacable part of a program set up countless millennia ago.
Ouze wrote:I've been getting this "one of your purchases failed to process" bug all damn day. It's lame as hell.
Ugh, that sucks. Still, check your stuff just in case any new toys smuggled themselves into your inventory!
Wait, wait people actually BUY the spectre packs with real world $£? I thought the entire point you would play a horde based online game for more than a few times was to actually earn the credits, its the ANTICIPATION that keeps you playing (its why all decent MMORPGs survive).
If you have a competent team play as salarian/quarian infiltrator/engineer on firebase white against geth, easy 70k credits. asari adept against cerberus on dagger works pretty well too. (i havnt had too much experience with the new classes)
You primarily saw a spike in it when the Premium Spectre Packs were labeled as "SPECIAL" and had a time limit as to how long they were available.
Some of the folks I played with would snag "just one" before the time limit wore off if they didn't have the credits to grab one, using spare MS Points they had from the last time they got DLC or whatever for other games.
Not to mention the many, many people who wanted a specific class or weapon and had no luck with the packs so far. Investing just five or ten bucks to buy lots of lots of packs becomes somewhat attractive to the alternative of farming for days or weeks on end - especially when they didn't have the time to play very often.
I resisted, not in the least because I realize it's no guarantee to get what I want, but the BSN forums are full of people who admitted to buying dozens of packs for $ to get something. I'm sure I'd have spent some real money, too, if BioWare would have offered specific unlocks.
Lynata wrote:
Also, in theory, in the Control ending you could simply let all Reapers fly straight into the nearest sun. Same result as Destroy, but without any other synthetics being sacrificed.
Also "in theory" Shepard could have them fly in a formation shaped like a 67 Cadillac El Dorado from star system to star system spreading the word of his galactic awesomeness.
Hell, it could be argued that depending on the level of his control, he could use them as a new galactic army/peacekeeping corps, doing what they did before except only when one race overextends itself and tries to subjugate other races, or he could use their considerable technology to help build new Mass Relays or ferry the races stranded in the Sol system back to their home sectors. If he actually has control, and his consciousness is in tact within their network, the things he could do are pretty much unlimited, which I suppose is why he makes a much better choice than The Illusive Man.
Ouze wrote:I've been getting this "one of your purchases failed to process" bug all damn day. It's lame as hell.
Server problems, probably. But if the credits are ever taken, even if you don't see the pack open, you still get its contents added to your manifest. It just becomes harder to track down what was actually in it.
vodo40k wrote:Wait, wait people actually BUY the spectre packs with real world $£? I thought the entire point you would play a horde based online game for more than a few times was to actually earn the credits, its the ANTICIPATION that keeps you playing (its why all decent MMORPGs survive).
Yes, you can buy packs with Microsoft points. I've spent money on them for a better chance to unlock the weapons/classes I want, though ultimately it's still just a lottery. Even purchasing the packs doesn't yield guaranteed items, and usually after a few packs people stop spending money on them because they unlock a few extra things very quickly and start playing the harder difficulties to get credits more quickly.
vodo40k wrote:If you have a competent team play as salarian/quarian infiltrator/engineer on firebase white against geth, easy 70k credits. asari adept against cerberus on dagger works pretty well too. (i havnt had too much experience with the new classes)
You don't even need a competent team for that. It's the easiest mode in the game and yields the best reward, which is why everyone does it, but it can hardly be called fun. After the 10th or 15th time running the same map against the same enemy, it gets a little grating. Once you learn to play on Gold for real (IE random/random and still win) you only do FBW/G/G if you just need a safe means of buying a couple Jumbo Equipment Packs to re-stock your medi-gel supply.
Aldarionn wrote:Hell, it could be argued that depending on the level of his control, he could use them as a new galactic army/peacekeeping corps, doing what they did before except only when one race overextends itself and tries to subjugate other races, or he could use their considerable technology to help build new Mass Relays or ferry the races stranded in the Sol system back to their home sectors. If he actually has control, and his consciousness is in tact within their network, the things he could do are pretty much unlimited, which I suppose is why he makes a much better choice than The Illusive Man.
Exactly! The "galactic peacekeeping corps" idea is something that occurred to me as well in the course of this thread. Just have the Reapers retreat to the edges of space and go into hybernation - providing the Council and/or a few select species with a red button that summons him/her and the Reapers back if need be.
Shep-controlled Reapers rebuilding the Relay network is something that another fan scripted into his "closure generator"*, too.
In the end, Control wasn't what my Shep picked due to regarding it as still being too risky compared to simply destroying them, but this really is a matter of gut-feeling.
*: Some fan on the BioWare forums scripted a sort of "ending generator" where you could tick off various choices you made throughout the games and it would give you some "post-ending closure dialogue" such as what happens to the Normandy crew etc. Personally, I thought some of its results were too much of a happy end, but it was an interesting idea and certainly something that many people who didn't like the ending thought of as "nice". Unfortunately, I cannot find the link again right now.
So, for those having difficulty with Gold, perhaps give this build a try.
Here's a video of a guy using that build to solo Gold on Fire Base Reactor in 29:10.
A few things to note:
-He is using Medi-Gel canceling to shorten the reload time of the weapon, which is impossible to do on console (There are other ways which I will explain later).
-The Claymore has innate Penetration and is the only Shotgun that actually gets the advantage of it. Currently the Shredder Mod is broken and does not grant any Penetration to a shotgun using it. It only grants extra damage to armor, but the Claymore can fire right through walls. With a smart choke, high caliber barrel and armor piercing ammo, it can 1-shot anything but boss NPC's through cover up to about 2.5 meters thick.
-Unlike the Geth Plasma Shotgun, the Claymore can actually score headshots, making it the highest damage weapon in the game currently. If the GPS could get headshots it would be superior. Additionally, using the GPS can initiate a bug with Tactical Cloak where it will randomly cancel immediately after it is activated, leaving you with a cooldown and your ass hanging out in the wind.
Reload Canceling:
When you reload a weapon, there are several parts to the reload that happen in order.
-Run out of ammo
-Delay
-Play reload animation
-Ammo appears in the magazine counter
-Finish reload animation
On any weapon, the reload time is actually determined by the animation, not by when the ammo appears in the magazine counter. The ammo always appears right after the animation starts, and once the counter ticks from 0 to full, you can interrupt the process and cancel the entire ending portion of the animation, allowing you to fire again much quicker.
On PC this can be done by hitting the medi-gel button (which most people re-map to a convenient location on the keyboard that works for them). This doesn't actually consume a medi-gel because you are not bleeding out, but it does send a signal that an ability has been used to the server which cancels the reload animation. On a console, you can cancel reload animations by using a power the instant the ammo ticks into the counter, even if that power is on cooldown. Of course, if the power is NOT on cooldown and you didn't want to use it right then, you are SoL. You can also cancel using the sprint button ("A" on 360), though this is difficult because it can sometimes throw you into cover or have you activate an objective/revive a teammate when you didn't intend to do so.
Reload Canceling is an intended mechanic in the game (As stated by the developers, so by using it you are NOT committing a bannable offense. You are playing the game as intended.) and is intended to reward skill and high-risk play. If you mess up the timing you leave yourself wide open with an empty magazine, so it takes practice to use properly.
Anyway, if you use this build and find it impressive, pop over to the BioWare forums and give props to Sp3c7eR.
Aldarionn wrote:On PC this can be done by hitting the medi-gel button (which most people re-map to a convenient location on the keyboard that works for them).
Not 100% sure but I could swear this also works with the Overload power. Since that one is an "instant cast" you can continue shooting right away. I think I've subconsciously started to do this on my Geth Engineer, but I will pay more attention next time I play him to see if my memories are correct/incorrect.
Thanks for the guide - although I wouldn't dare try to solo anything above Bronze, it does contain some pretty cool advice for general improvement.
It can be done with ANY power, not just Overload. That part works on any platform. The dis-advantage is that if you don't want to use a power and it's not on cooldown, you cannot cancel. IE, if I have Tactical Cloak ready to be used, and I want to reload cancel in order to fire a shot, THEN cloak and run to a different location, I cannot do it. I either have to wait for the reload, or blow Tactical Cloak to cancel the reload, or potentially tap A to sprint which could end badly. On PC however, I could hit the button to use Medi-Gel, which would cancel the reload without using a power allowing me to fire the shot, then cloak and run.
There is another way to do it on Console if you are sitting behind low, horizontal cover (IE crouching behind a chest-high wall). If you press B while reloading behind cover and there is no enemy on the other side to grab, it will cancel the reload. It checks for the grab anyway, which has the same effect as trying to use a power on cooldown or using Medi-Gel while not bleeding out.
As for not soloing anything above bronze, why not? If you can do it efficiently it's better than waiting for a team of people that potentially suck. It does take practice, a good build capable of doing it properly, and a thorough knowledge of the enemy you are fighting as well as the map you are playing on and the spawn points, but it's not THAT difficult once you have a good feel for those things. I soloed Silver with a Quarian Infiltrator the other day in under half an hour because Sabotage is insane. Infiltrators are by far the easiest class to solo with but I've seen it done with Salarian/Geth Engineers, Asari/Drell Adepts, Krogan Vanguards, Turian Soldiers. Almost any race/class can do it. Give it a shot sometime, but definitely pick the map you are most familiar with.
Aldarionn wrote:It can be done with ANY power, not just Overload. That part works on any platform.
A-ha! Thanks for clarifying - that little guide made it sound as if it'd only work with medi-gel which I loathe to risk unless expressly needed. I did not know it isn't consumed when you activate it without being wounded, though.
I reckon the "grab-check" would work for PC as well? Handy for Infiltrators.
Aldarionn wrote:As for not soloing anything above bronze, why not? If you can do it efficiently it's better than waiting for a team of people that potentially suck. It does take practice, a good build capable of doing it properly, and a thorough knowledge of the enemy you are fighting as well as the map you are playing on and the spawn points, but it's not THAT difficult once you have a good feel for those things.
Ehh, I think I'm pretty good in a team, but I lack confidence in my abilities when I am without backup. I'm a very defensive/supportive player, meaning that I prefer fixed positions to running around the map, and depending on the class I play I tend to lose 360° awareness when I'm focusing too much on specific areas I'm expecting the enemy to come from. Needless to say, this can become deadly when there's no one covering the other flanks. My Asari Commando and the Turian Soldier are probably the only characters I play somewhat offensively, and even with them I prefer working as part of a squad.
I think that for me, the teamplay definitively is part of the fun. Occasionally you get a group that sucks ... but half the time, even then this only gives me the ability to shine by saving their asses. Also, I don't believe my builds are geared for 100% efficiency, as I'm very much a style over substance kind of player. Geth Engineer with geth plasma rifle, Asari Commando with Avenger AR, that sort of stuff. I play MP as if it'd be half a roleplaying game.
Respect for the people who can solo Silver and Gold, tho. I recognize the competitive spirit that goes with achieving such feats.
Lynata wrote:
I reckon the "grab-check" would work for PC as well? Handy for Infiltrators.
I don't see why not, though the medi-gel trick doesn't work on console, so it's possible there are things that work on console but not on PC. Give it a try and see.
Lynata wrote:Ehh, I think I'm pretty good in a team, but I lack confidence in my abilities when I am without backup.
See, I find it interesting that you bring this up. I first got the notion that I might be able to solo Gold when I soloed several waves with a lackluster team on that difficulty, and only died in the end because having more people only made the AI less predictable.
I find that doing solo runs actually BOOSTS your confidence when playing with a team, since you know that if everything goes to hell you are capable of pulling it back on your own. You support your team for sure, but if they go down you don't panic. You just slip into survival mode and get to work.
Lynata wrote:I'm a very defensive/supportive player, meaning that I prefer fixed positions to running around the map....
That's not a bad thing. Most solo runs revolve around picking a spot on the map and defending it. In the video I linked, the guy spent most of his time in one area, branching out when necessary, or giving ground and falling back to a different position if he got overwhelmed. He only really went running around the map on objective waves. I tend to like Fire base Dagger for solo runs, and I spend 95% of my time in the tower.
Lynata wrote:....and depending on the class I play I tend to lose 360° awareness when I'm focusing too much on specific areas I'm expecting the enemy to come from.
The idea is to compensate for this by picking an area where you only have to limit your awareness to a 180° area of the map, or to specific entrances/exits of a room. On Reactor, the spot he picked had only two entrances with a nearby ammo box, and depending on the location of the enemy and how they were spawning (made easier to follow by Hunter Mode) he was able to fall back out of one entrance or the other, either to the top side of the Reactor, or to the Extraction point. This made it much easier to keep track of enemies and which direction they will be coming from.
Lynata wrote:Needless to say, this can become deadly when there's no one covering the other flanks. My Asari Commando and the Turian Soldier are probably the only characters I play somewhat offensively, and even with them I prefer working as part of a squad.
When there is noone to cover your flanks, limit your number of flanks .
Lynata wrote:I think that for me, the teamplay definitively is part of the fun. Occasionally you get a group that sucks ... but half the time, even then this only gives me the ability to shine by saving their asses. Also, I don't believe my builds are geared for 100% efficiency, as I'm very much a style over substance kind of player.
This, on the other hand, is a valid excuse. If you don't enjoy playing alone (I do, just for the challenge, but I definitely like the team aspect too) then you won't enjoy trying to do a solo run. It's a lot of hammering out mistakes and getting into a rhythm of play that would suffer from outside interference in the form of teammates getting killed and/or causing spawns in unfortunate locations. So if team play is what makes it a good experience for you, then fair enough!
Lynata wrote:Geth Engineer with geth plasma rifle, Asari Commando with Avenger AR, that sort of stuff. I play MP as if it'd be half a roleplaying game.
To be fair, I use the Geth Pulse Rifle on most of my Assault Rifle wielding characters these days. It's a strong weapon, with a very high rate of fire, excellent ammo capacity, and almost no kick, especially if fired from cover. I use the rate of fire combined with Disruptor Ammo to set up tech bursts on my Salarian Engineer, and detonate them with Energy Drain. I like to use the Geth Plasma Shotgun on my Geth Engineer though, because it still gives reasonable cooldowns and the burst damage is much higher. It's also very thematic that way and I find it useful at all ranges.
The Avenger is also a strong weapon, and if you have a rank X Avenger as your only weapon, in most cases you can easily get a 200% cooldown without even taking the bonus weight talents.
Aldarionn wrote:The Avenger is also a strong weapon, and if you have a rank X Avenger as your only weapon, in most cases you can easily get a 200% cooldown without even taking the bonus weight talents.
Yeah, my excuse for the Avenger is its low weight. Combined with the piercing mod and stability dampener, it makes for a surprisingly accurate auto-fire rifle that has no problems whatsoever taking down Guardians and stuff. My saving grace is probably my accuracy - as much as I gimp myself in terms of gear and talents, I'm consistently scoring golden headshot medals even with the Avenger. Three-round bursts ftw!
Of course, the "low weight" argument loses a bit of strength when you also bring along a heavy Carnifex as your sidearm because you love popping heads so much...
just finished ME3, I now understand all of the raging, the storry was pretty good, almost a tear-jerker in some places but damn Bioware, you've reallly gone downhill, compared to ME1, ME2 to an extent and KOTOR 1, well you can hang your head in shame.
I shouldn't need an extended cut DLC to find out what happens to the squad, as it stands the only people I know survived are joker, ashley and specalist Traylor.
Also, I think that background of the man talking to the boy is in my background folder, I think it's been there for about a year.
anyway, I'm away to re-write the 3rd game in my head, I've put too much time into the series to accept their ending.
FM Ninja 048 wrote:I shouldn't need an extended cut DLC to find out what happens to the squad, as it stands the only people I know survived are joker, ashley and specalist Traylor.
That's what I don't get - isn't there any allure in the prospect of coming up with your own closure for these details - do we really need to have other writers dictate everything for us now?
As far as I'm aware, BioWare intentionally did not explain every little detail because it's not just the end of an adventure but the end of an entire era. It's a lesson in creativity. There is no "canon ending" and everything left unexplained is open for the players to determine for themselves and how they'd like to see it go on. Granted, I wouldn't complain about being shown additional details either, but I see the absence of it being forced upon us as potential rather than something amiss. Worst case, whatever you get presented by the writers is something you don't like - feels a bit like a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation, maybe?
I'm not sure if the upcoming DLC actually deals with anything that happens after the cinematic; I thought (and had hoped) it'd rather focus on the big battle and the unleashing of the Crucible, differentiating the various endings a little more.
Perhaps we should start exchanging ideas how we imagine "our" ending, wouldn't that be more fun?
FM Ninja 048 wrote:Also, I think that background of the man talking to the boy is in my background folder, I think it's been there for about a year.
Hmm, possible - though the background looks sort of generic, so it could be coincidence that it evokes this feeling. But they've also been somewhat lazy when it comes to Tali's supposed "real" face*, so who knows.
(*: I think that for the time being I will override this lame pseudo-human beauty queen appearance with the more alien Quarian looks in the art book)
Aldarionn wrote:The Avenger is also a strong weapon, and if you have a rank X Avenger as your only weapon, in most cases you can easily get a 200% cooldown without even taking the bonus weight talents.
Yeah, my excuse for the Avenger is its low weight. Combined with the piercing mod and stability dampener, it makes for a surprisingly accurate auto-fire rifle that has no problems whatsoever taking down Guardians and stuff. My saving grace is probably my accuracy - as much as I gimp myself in terms of gear and talents, I'm consistently scoring golden headshot medals even with the Avenger. Three-round bursts ftw!
Of course, the "low weight" argument loses a bit of strength when you also bring along a heavy Carnifex as your sidearm because you love popping heads so much...
The Avenger is the basic assault rifle. The one you start with. The 3 round burst gun is the Vindicator, which I actually don't like all that much because of the kick. On a Turian it's fine because they have added stability but on anything else it's very hard to get a headshot with all three rounds. Either you get one headshot and the other two miss high, or you aim low and still only get one headshot. Also, the three bullets don't do as much combined as a single shot from a Carnifex or a Phalanx which make them the better choice if you are trying for a Stasis/Headshot combo with an Asari Adept. Since you mentioned you are already take a Carnifex, I would just leave the Vindicator at home and instead take a Tempest with Ultra Light Materials and an Extended Barrel as your secondary weapon. I bring this as a secondary on almost every character I run these days, because at rank VI it's only a 5% increase to my cooldowns. If fired from cover it's pretty stable on any character, and it has a reasonable rate of fire and ammo supply, which I find is very helpful for taking out shields on things like Atlases and Primes.
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Lynata wrote:That's what I don't get - isn't there any allure in the prospect of coming up with your own closure for these details - do we really need to have other writers dictate everything for us now?
See, that's the definition of lazy. If a writer cannot finish their own story and leaves it up to the reader/player/viewer to finish the story in their head, it's because they are too afraid to take a stance on anything. I find absolutely NO allure in coming up with my own ending to an open ended story because it means the story is unfinished, but sold as a finished product.
I think what the other poster is getting at here is that they cut off without showing you the results of your actions. The final scene was short and just showed you that your team survived somehow and is in some unknown location, then the Stargazer showed that life went on, but there was no individuality to that scene. If we go with the three possible endings we could choose from, it would have been nice to see A) The controlled Reapers doing Shepards bidding followed by galactic recovery, B) A society of combined synthetics/organics adjusting to their new....traits, and at least some sort of vision of what that would even look like (They came up with the concept, then visualized it by giving Joker the Fortification effect and having him cuddle with EDI......lazy......), or C) The galaxy cleaning up the pile of dead Reapers and reeling from the loss of all the synthetics that control their day-to-day. It's not much, just some indicator of how life goes on based on your decision, but of course they probably left this out on purpose so they could set a game after the Reapers and do the creative work during development for that game rather than having to tie themselves down with canon at the end of this one.
Lynata wrote:As far as I'm aware, BioWare intentionally did not explain every little detail because it's not just the end of an adventure but the end of an entire era. It's a lesson in creativity. There is no "canon ending" and everything left unexplained is open for the players to determine for themselves and how they'd like to see it go on. Granted, I wouldn't complain about being shown additional details either, but I see the absence of it being forced upon us as potential rather than something amiss. Worst case, whatever you get presented by the writers is something you don't like - feels a bit like a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation, maybe?
If they intend to set any game after the Reapers, they have to come up with a Cannon ending. This means they have to fully show the repercussions of Shepards actions eventually, and it could be that the ending was left vague to give them more creative room to develop that game.
Lynata wrote:Perhaps we should start exchanging ideas how we imagine "our" ending, wouldn't that be more fun?
Well, my Paragon Shepard chose Destruction, and my Renegade chose Control (IE my Paragon stuck to his convictions and my Renegade took a leaf out of The Illusive Man's book). For my Paragon, I imagine the Galaxy is reeling from the loss of synthetics which they use to run their daily lives, and each sector of space is cut off from the rest as travel between clusters will take a very long time even with FTL, and that's assuming most people can pilot their vessels without the VI's that ran all of the automated process. Of course an Engineer could create new VI's, but at that point exactly what the Crucible said would happen starts happening almost immediately.
For my Renegade playthrough I think Shepard would use the Reapers as a galactic beatstick, putting down species that attempt to assert too much control over the galaxy (The Krogan, possibly, depending on how well Wrex is able to hold it together without Bakara around). Depending on his level of control he might have them re-build some of the relays, or send the blueprints to the various races so they can do it. Basically, life goes on as it was, without fear that the Reapers are going to kill EVERYONE, and Shepards consciousness prunes the galaxy only when someone really deserves it.
FM Ninja 048 wrote:I shouldn't need an extended cut DLC to find out what happens to the squad, as it stands the only people I know survived are joker, ashley and specalist Traylor.
That's what I don't get - isn't there any allure in the prospect of coming up with your own closure for these details - do we really need to have other writers dictate everything for us now?
Did you really just suggest that there is no problem with a company selling a story that requires you to use your imagination to finish it?
I mean, I'm not against using your imagination. I could have just skipped picking up ME3, saved myself $60, and made up an epic ending all by myself using nothing but my custom Avenger X (a stylish stick from the backyard) and the awesome power of imagination!.
Of course, I'm not sure how an ending that requires imagination to make it good is any different than the multitude of bad endings found all over the various story-telling genres. Perhaps critics have had it all wrong this whole time! /sarcasm
At any rate, at least the multiplayer is good. For those of you clinging to the hope that the DLC will somehow give you the ending you want, you might want to start "managing your expectations" right now. Me, I don't care what the ending is, I just want them to finish it.
Aldarionn wrote:The Avenger is the basic assault rifle. The one you start with.
I know. And it's the one I'm using. I'm "manually" controlling my burst fire so that I'm shooting 3 rounds, wait a moment for the aim to stabilize, and then open up again. It works quite well! Sorry if I was confusing there.
My favourite setups:
Asari Adept Avenger X w/ Stability Damper, Piercing Mod
Carnifex III w/ Heavy Barrel, Extended Clip
Geth Engineer Geth Plasma Rifle V w/ Stability Damper, Piercing Mod
Geth Plasma VI SMG w/ Heat Sink, Ultralight Materials
Human Infiltrator N7 Valiant I w/ Extended Barrel, Piercing Mod
Carnifex III w/ Heavy Barrel, Extended Clip
Never tried the Vindicator, but doesn't sound as if I had missed something.
Aldarionn wrote:I think what the other poster is getting at here is that they cut off without showing you the results of your actions. The final scene was short and just showed you that your team survived somehow and is in some unknown location, then the Stargazer showed that life went on, but there was no individuality to that scene. If we go with the three possible endings we could choose from, it would have been nice to see A) The controlled Reapers doing Shepards bidding followed by galactic recovery, B) A society of combined synthetics/organics adjusting to their new....traits, and at least some sort of vision of what that would even look like (They came up with the concept, then visualized it by giving Joker the Fortification effect and having him cuddle with EDI......lazy......), or C) The galaxy cleaning up the pile of dead Reapers and reeling from the loss of all the synthetics that control their day-to-day.
More individuality would have been nice, and I do agree that simply recolouring the beam/pulse was lazy. This is what I actually hope the DLC will change. I don't need fixed closure for my crew, I just want a better representation of my choices. The ending works when you've played the game only once, but as soon as you notice that the other options are 90% identical it's quite a bit "meh".
Aldarionn wrote:If they intend to set any game after the Reapers, they have to come up with a Cannon ending.
I don't think they do - at least for now. In the latest interviews, they said that new ME titles will be set in the timeframe between ME2 and ME3.
Not sure what to think about that. On one hand, that makes me able to revisit a setting I've grown to love. On the other, I'd like to explore new stuff as well, and ME games set during the First Contact War or in the "Post-Crucible Era" sound interesting as well. But I guess it's a win-win situation for me; I'd certainly be interested in either product. Here's hoping we're allowed to play an alien species in one of the next games, though. Something like the origins from Dragon Age would be cool.
Even if they'd ever do a game set after ME3, however, I think they could just let it take place so long in the future that none of your choices, right up to the big one at the end, really matter. If it takes place after the Stargazer cutscene, Shepard has become a myth and people will provide 10 different answers for any question you have about him/her. Even Synthesis ... how would that look, anyways? It could well be pulled off that people don't appear any different from the outside, simply taking the form of a bunch of nanites and handy abilities that let them interface with technology directly. And if you did not have the Synthesis ending, then all of this will still be present, but has been introduced later on as a new invention. Anything can be brought into line.
Also, here's my personal ending - an amalgamation of the cutscenes I got and my own creativity:
For my playthrough (only did one so far), Shep chose Destroy - in her mind, it was the only way to make sure the Reapers would never be a threat again. Control might have enabled her to achieve the same result, yet there was that lingering suspicion that the merger could end up with her being altered by the Reapers instead of assuming complete control. In the meantime, Joker dodged Reaper fighters to move the Normandy closer to the extraction point, where the few survivors of the ground forces awaited pickup by shuttle. Given their fighting spirit and aggression, I don't think any of the krogans made it. Same as Vega, Ash or Javik, although I'll admit that I'm merely adding them to the bodycount because deaths make it feel more realistic, these three are the sacrificing types, and I don't care about them too much. I think Vega died providing covering fire for a squad of retreating Alliance Marines; that would fit him well. Cortez didn't survive the Hammer drop-off; it was only later that I learned he can actually survive depending on an earlier dialogue option.
As the Crucible fired its beam, Normandy was already back in the air and approaching the Relay, together with a portion of those ships that had survived so far. In an eery replay of the Alliance's first retreat only months earlier, a portion of the fleet stayed behind to keep the Reapers busy and allow the others to escape. The turians in particular proved their honour once more as they insisted that their forces would provide the bulk of the sacrifice, whereas the Quarian Flotilla reluctantly pulled back first, intending to save as much of its civilian ships as possible. The Destiny Ascension remained at Earth as well, with Matriarch Lidanya adding the awesome power of its impressive main gun to the turian dreadnoughts. The Citadel flagship's kinetic barriers began to buckle under the onslaught, but just before the Normandy made the jump, it managed to cripple another Reaper by blasting through its vulnerable weapons port just as the enemy ship prepared to fire.
The Crucible's blast hit the Normandy in mid-transit, crippling half its electronic control systems and frying its AI. With all servers and backup blades being hit simultaneously, EDI simply ceased to exist. Thrown out of the Relay slipstream and stranded in a star system with no knowledge of their exact position, Joker confirmed the existence of a habitable planetoid in their vicinity. As FTL jumps without VI support were deemed too risky and the ship was already in a bad enough shape, it was decided to land on the planet and use it as a base until repairs could be completed. Controlling the ship's descent without a flight computer was a nigh-impossible feat, but Joker managed to pull it off and set down the SR-2 in a relatively safe way. As shown in the cinematic, Joker, Garrus and Liara leave the ship, but other survivors like Traynor would follow them soon. The group begins to set up a basecamp at the foot of the ship and, realizing that they are cut off from the rest of the galaxy in terms of communication, prepare for a longer stay.
Over the course of the next 10.000 years (which is when the post-credits Stargazer scene takes place), this small community becomes an independent colony, first turning into a village, then a city-state, with remote outposts set up for resource gathering slowly growing into larger communes as well. Liara, having been pregnant from "embracing eternity" with Shepard, gave birth to twins, who in turn became the origin of a now-sizable asari subset of the otherwise human-dominated population. Guided by the wisdom of a Matron-turned-Matriarch Liara, the people adopt the asari model of e-democracy and manage to avoid conflict. Even as its people grow apart, they remain united in their spirit. The mother of Shepard's kids manages to live for another 997 years before dying in her sleep, a strangely content smile on her lips.
Unfortunately, with Garrus and Tali being the only members of their respective species on this world, there are no turians and quarians around, although they have spent their final days as a pair of lovers. Both of them continue to be revered for their part in the legend of the Shepard.
After many generations of hardship and rebuilding, the scientists of this world - dubbed "Hope" by it original settlers - have come close to a breakthrough in drive technology that will finally present a veritable alternative to traditional FTL engines, enabling travel to faraway worlds outside the local cluster, whose barren planetoids are already being visited by small mining vessels searching for deposits of element zero. The colony's ultimate plan is the construction of a spaceship as large as the legendary Normandy, whose ancient wreck remains preserved in a temple. Estimated construction time: 20 years. On the local extranet, human and asari philosophers publicly debate the prospect of re-establishing contact with their distant genetical relatives, with historians and sociologists suggesting their theories of what may have become of them, or the possible difficulties renewed diplomatic contact might pose. A number of conservatives oppose the project, argueing that nobody knows what they might find out there and that it could put every human and asari on this world at risk.
Cut to the Stargazer scene again. A young kid listens to the legend of the Shepard, his or her favourite story. Looking up at the night sky, the child inquires about the many stars and what is to be found up there. Once more the child asks his/her grandfather for a story of the Shepard. The old man begins to talk, but the camera zooms out of the scene and his voice fades away. The image briefly switches to a large construction hall where a crude metal skeleton is being assembled. A close view on a section of the structure, lasting merely for a single second, shows a small plate affixed to one of the gleaming metal beams. It reads: "Project Phoenix - Normandy III - Forward Section 17A"
PS: my Shep actually got the "breather" cutscene, but I choose to ignore it - imho, having her die right there makes for a more dramatic and thus ultimately better exit for this character than any of the alternatives.
Lynata wrote:I know. And it's the one I'm using. I'm "manually" controlling my burst fire so that I'm shooting 3 rounds, wait a moment for the aim to stabilize, and then open up again. It works quite well! Sorry if I was confusing there.
Ahhhh I see what you mean. I tend to fire from cover or use the Geth Pulse Rifle which has no kick, so I go full auto and fire it like a water gun.
Lynata wrote:Asari Adept Avenger X w/ Stability Damper, Piercing Mod
Carnifex III w/ Heavy Barrel, Extended Clip
I use the same setup, except with a Tempest instead of an Avenger. The lighter weapon makes for faster cooldowns and I primarily only use it if I'm out of ammo with the Carnifex, or firing at an Atlas/Prime with shields still active. Recently I've started switching out the Carnifex for a Phalanx. I like the faster fire rate and the extra ammo, and it's better against atlases.
Lynata wrote:Geth Engineer Geth Plasma Rifle V w/ Stability Damper, Piercing Mod
Geth Plasma VI SMG w/ Heat Sink, Ultralight Materials
I run a Geth Plasma Shotgun X on my Engineer. It still gives reasonable cooldowns for spamming Overload, but it just does SO much damage with Networked AI that I cannot justify using anything else. I don't even take a sidearm.
Lynata wrote:Human Infiltrator N7 Valiant I w/ Extended Barrel, Piercing Mod
Carnifex III w/ Heavy Barrel, Extended Clip
You bastard with your Valiant! I have participated in every event and every single Commendation Pack I have opened has had a Crusader in it. Such a useless pile of crap! I want my Valiant!
Granted, I DO have a Black Widow II right now, so there is that, but I like to use multi-shot sniper rifles on more than just Infiltrators, and the Valiant is MUCH lighter than the Black Widow.
I'm still stuck with my noob sniper rifle X and I use the N7 Eagle II for backup. I have a few rare guns, but other than the eagle they're all level 1 and suckier than the noob versions at X.
But, I'm mostly working on getting all the veteran pack guns up to X before I start blowing more cash on spectre packs
Aldarionn wrote:Recently I've started switching out the Carnifex for a Phalanx. I like the faster fire rate and the extra ammo, and it's better against atlases.
But the styyyle!
I recently got the Paladin (in an ordinary Spectre pack even) and tried her out for the extra damage. Modded her with Heavy Barrel and Piercing. That damn beast only has three shots, but she's kicks like a Widow! Still ... Carnifex ftw.
Aldarionn wrote:
I run a Geth Plasma Shotgun X on my Engineer. It still gives reasonable cooldowns for spamming Overload, but it just does SO much damage with Networked AI that I cannot justify using anything else. I don't even take a sidearm.
*nods* I had the shotgun at first, too - quite a nasty little beast with its semi-homing projectiles. I feel tempted to try out a close-range Geth Infiltrator with this one...
The sidearm I only took because the geth plasma rifle runs out of ammo surprisingly quick for its 500+ shots - and with ultralight materials, this tiny SMG has next to no effect on my cooldowns.
Aldarionn wrote:
N)#KLJAS&#$DBF*N$*#JASD_)(@U#JJ*!@fkIEMN(!KGFk@INQ(!_@(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!11111111!ONE
You bastard with your Valiant! I have participated in every event and every single Commendation Pack I have opened has had a Crusader in it. Such a useless pile of crap! I want my Valiant!
And here I thought *I* had bad luck. You should see the team I'm playing in - one has the Valiant II and a Carnifex VI. *jealous*
Not to mention how long I had to farm to get the Asari Adept, or even just a single customization for the Human Infiltrator. At times it really felt as if the game was trolling me.
But hey, the Black Widow is a gun I don't have at all yet, so that's something at least. Anyways - maybe you will get a Valiant from Operation Silencer now? Fingers crossed!
It is a pretty rifle. For me it was a very tough choice between the Widow and this one; they both work very well in their specialized roles.
Lynata wrote:*nods* I had the shotgun at first, too - quite a nasty little beast with its semi-homing projectiles. I feel tempted to try out a close-range Geth Infiltrator with this one...
The sidearm I only took because the geth plasma rifle runs out of ammo surprisingly quick for its 500+ shots - and with ultralight materials, this tiny SMG has next to no effect on my cooldowns.
My preferred Geth Infiltrator build uses a Geth Plasma Shotgun X. I've posted the build here before. Basically set it up to fire Proximity Mine from Tactical Cloak, then unload on the weakened target with the GPS. If you get good with Proximity Mine you can use it to flush enemies from cover, and peg Brutes/Banshees/Atlases/Primes for 20% more damage, then fire a charged shot, followed by 3 more shots from Cloak. If you do it fast enough everything will get the Cloak damage bonus except for the initial charged shot. This combo will kill Brutes and Ravagers on Gold in 2 hits, and Banshees take 2 clips, max. It's a strong build.
Recently I switched my build to full melee. Melee boost from Tactical Cloak, melee from Advanced Hardware, radius and the 20% expose on Proximity Mine. Cloak, fire proxy mine, heavy melee into a crowd, and watch everyone die. So far, from my testing, it will kill anything but boss enemies in 1 hit. Brutes die in 2 pulses, Ravagers in 1 if you hit with the proxy mine or 2 if you don't, and Banshees take....finessem but can be killed off in a few hit-and-run pulses. Atlases are slow and easy to avoid though, and the heavy melee staggers them. I haven't had the chance to hit a Phantom with it yet though.
Ugh, the Phaeston is just SO heavy compared to the Avenger and the Geth Pulse Rifle. I don't feel the damage really warrants the weight, to be honest. Perhaps with decreased weight on Assault Rifles it's better, or on a character that doesn't care about weight like a Krogan Sentinel, but on anything that uses powers you can't beat the Geth Pulse Rifle.
Phalanx+Phaeston, ignoring the "Increase Weight Capacity by 25%" perk for the Weapon Damage one and then taking the Assault Rifle weight reduction ends up with 195% recharge rate when both are at X.
At X, the Phaeston with Disruptor or Incendiary Ammo wrecks faces.
The Phaeston is nice - have it on the Turian Soldier I don't play very often (but still enjoy due to him being quite badass and having a sexy voice). Not only is it a true turian gun, you can really mow down whole squads of enemies if you trigger the Marksman power!
Lynata wrote:The Phaeston is nice - have it on the Turian Soldier I don't play very often (but still enjoy due to him being quite badass and having a sexy voice). Not only is it a true turian gun, you can really mow down whole squads of enemies if you trigger the Marksman power!
I run it with the magazine and barrel, it is silly how many rounds I can put out.
Plus it has a great noise, which has been dubbed in my group as the "Popcorn Maker".
Kanluwen wrote:I run it with the magazine and barrel, it is silly how many rounds I can put out.
Magazine and piercing mod here. Though this choice is also influenced by my weakness for appearance - fortunately, this works just as well.
Speaking of appearance, does anyone else think that the Barrel V modification for SMGs and pistols looks incredibly stupid? Like the barrel of a drum revolver. I wish I could switch back to the IV or III version. :(
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this game
