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After getting over the slight unfamiliarity from ME1-ME2, I felt Thermal Clips were a much better system than the "Heat" system.

Sigh, it's just a gameplay change, not really a big deal.

johnscott10 wrote:I didn't find thermal clips to be that bad of a swap. It was based off of Geth weaponry iirc which you had contact with a gak load during ME1. At the start of ME2 you end up "dying" and being rebuilt over 2 years. This gives somewhat a decent amount of time to swap over the ammo system.

I don't mind so much how it was introduced - as you say there was ample time - but that it was introduced at all. Considering how often you run out of ammo in the games, I think it's obvious that a lot of troopers would prefer unlimited ammo over a fictional increase in RoF. Fictional because the difference is negligible, if you actually bother to compare "bullet output" between weapons in ME1 and ME2.

Thermal clips would have been awesome as an optional weapon modification that negates heat build-up but needs to be swapped every couple shots, but not as a basis for each and every gun in the galaxy. Do the weapons have absolutely no heat cooldown anymore? Why don't the clips cool down, allowing you to re-use them? The way it works feels like an intergalactic corporate scheme to rip-off people by replacing independent weaponry with stuff that requires you to regularly spend money on. Like car manufacturers holding back on fuel-efficient vehicles.

And with fluff inconsistencies I mean stuff like that you could already get geth weapons in ME1 and they worked just like the other guns - or that the entire galaxy has, in the course of just two years, swapped over to this controversial system with absolutely no exceptions. Even the people who were completely isolated, like Jacob's father and his crew who have been stranded on Aeia for 10 years.

Oh well, it's a matter of personal preferences. I thought the cooldown mechanism was somewhat novel, trading reliance on ammunition for a greater gun control requirement.

Amaya wrote:Sigh, it's just a gameplay change, not really a big deal.

It's not a big deal. It still bothers me, because it fits neatly into the "dumbed down" evolution that games are currently going through, and I dislike it just as much as I dislike the removal of the more RPG'ish point investment system. In the end, heat sinks are just an euphemism for the Mass Effect franchise taking a step back in favor of traditional, non-complex bullet resource mechanics because people are apparently unable to adapt to anything new.

I think the reason why they went with clips is cause of that permanent heating bug in the first game.

And it forces you to conserve ammo or at least reload which makes playing a Vanguard significantly more annoying. With the ME1 overheating system, you could have (in ME2 and 3) simply charged, shot, meleed. Now you're forced to reload with more powerful shotguns.

Im not even sure why the guns in the ME universe overheat at all. As i understand it they are a form of "railgun" which uses the mass effect instead of electromagnets to supper accelerate a tiny but "squashable" projectile. Where does the energy for the mass effect emitters come from? When i first played ME3 I assumed the "thermal clips" were mole like "charge clips".

Wasn't particularily a big fan of the new thermal clips. Reloading is always fun but running around the battle field looking for clips is stupid.
The RoF increase is definately just in the background. In ME1 I had an assault rifle that was all tricked out to the point where it would never overheat. I could fire it infinitely. I think that's why they changed it. It made it too easy. However, thermal clips made ME like very other shooter.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I think the reason why they went with clips is cause of that permanent heating bug in the first game.

A bug? Did I miss something?

Amaya wrote:And it forces you to conserve ammo or at least reload which makes playing a Vanguard significantly more annoying. With the ME1 overheating system, you could have (in ME2 and 3) simply charged, shot, meleed. Now you're forced to reload with more powerful shotguns.

Then again, the only difference between reloading and simply waiting a few seconds for the gun to cool down is that one of these options will see you unable to discharge your weapon completely once you've run out of ammo. A "time penalty" exists in both of these mechanics.

vodo40k wrote:Where does the energy for the mass effect emitters come from?

Huh, now that you mention it... If I had to guess, probably some space magic battery that has enough juice to last for days, so it'd only have to be recharged after a fight (i.e. off-screen)? Eezo is pretty much the one-for-all solution for a lot of technical difficulties. I imagine by making the "pellets" weightless, it wouldn't require a lot of energy to speed them up to lethal velocities.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I think that's why they changed it. It made it too easy. However, thermal clips made ME like every other shooter.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

Lynata wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I think the reason why they went with clips is cause of that permanent heating bug in the first game.

A bug? Did I miss something?

There was a bug that was present on some copies of the game (have have been PC exclusive) where the guns did not cool down until after you loaded a save. This was deadly, as it would generally happen in combat, and since you can't save during a combat you would have to spam grenades until the enemies died. If they sabotaged your weapons, then its game over as well.

They fixed it it seems, but it was still a problem for a while

http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mass-Effect/Mass-Effect-1-PC-amp-Xbox-360-Tech-Support/The-quotOverheat-Bugquot-and-how-to-fix-it-5000623-1.html

You could eventually mod your gun so it would never overheat as well. In addition to giving everyone in your squad AoE rounds.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:There was a bug that was present on some copies of the game (have have been PC exclusive) where the guns did not cool down until after you loaded a save. This was deadly, as it would generally happen in combat, and since you can't save during a combat you would have to spam grenades until the enemies died. If they sabotaged your weapons, then its game over as well.

Ouch! Glad this never happened on one of my playthroughs.

Amaya wrote:You could eventually mod your gun so it would never overheat as well. In addition to giving everyone in your squad AoE rounds.

Yup, my assault rifle had such modifications at the end of the game. I thought this was fitting, however. If it had occured earlier, I'd have called it broken, but not in the final stages.

I also had a sniper rifle which overheated on its first shot, but boy did she do some damage.

Just beat Mass Effect 3.

Went red, Joker, Garrus and Tali get off ship, I got the Surprise breath at the end.

Spent 2 games romancing Tali, got her a homeworld and peace with geth, promised to live with her and rebuild her home.

Ended up having to destory geth, and Tali is now stranded with 2 other guys........

this game series.

....yes, you seem to be posting the same post in multiple threads.

Alexzandvar wrote:

Plus I just liked to beat the crap out of people.

Once again, Tali is just so adorable and so deadly. I'm Commander Shepard, and This is my fav Woman of the ME series.

I played as a Paragon for the most part, except for that absolutely hilarious bit where the bad-guy henchman in the tower block says, "well, I'm not telling you anything, try and make me!" and then stands with his arms crossed next to the window with a massive drop the other side! At the same time the camera pans to show that window behind him, I just couldn't refuse the invitation!

Oh and when you interrupt the Krogan guy by headbutting him, I thought the Paragon/Renegade quick time events were so well done and very amusing at times.

On my play through the Geth guy sacrificed himself at the end, and I also inexplicably lost Liara - would I be correct in assuming that sometimes it is random, and you have to have someone die?

This thread definitely makes me want to play the game again, I thought it was really well done.

Pacific wrote:Oh and when you interrupt the Krogan guy by headbutting him, I thought the Paragon/Renegade quick time events were so well done and very amusing at times.

Pacific wrote:On my play through the Geth guy sacrificed himself at the end, and I also inexplicably lost Liara - would I be correct in assuming that sometimes it is random, and you have to have someone die?

No, you can actually have everyone survive, but to do so you need to have them all loyal and need to pick the correct specialists for each task. Otherwise they'll still do the job, but die in the process.

Also, I think you mean Samara and not Liara. You racist!

Ya, it's Legion not 'Geth guy" ....racist.

If Mass Effect 3 would have ended with making peace between the Quarians and the Geth after I destroyed that Reaper in an awesome battle it would have been game of the year.

Seems to be all down hill after that.

Alexzandvar wrote:If Mass Effect 3 would have ended with making peace between the Quarians and the Geth after I destroyed that Reaper in an awesome battle it would have been game of the year.

Seems to be all down hill after that.

Its just the last fifteen minutes.

The moment Harbinger's Laser hits you, the game turns to gak. Filled with random plotholes and enough bs to make people think there is some conspiracy to fix the game - that Bioware couldn't possibly be this incompetent.

We've learned EA had their grubby paw in the works to feth things up again, so blame them. They pretty much ruin everything they touch. From WAR to ME3, you can count on EA to feth it up.

Karon wrote:

Alexzandvar wrote:If Mass Effect 3 would have ended with making peace between the Quarians and the Geth after I destroyed that Reaper in an awesome battle it would have been game of the year.

Seems to be all down hill after that.

Its just the last fifteen minutes.

The moment Harbinger's Laser hits you, the game turns to gak. Filled with random plotholes and enough bs to make people think there is some conspiracy to fix the game - that Bioware couldn't possibly be this incompetent.

We've learned EA had their grubby paw in the works to feth things up again, so blame them. They pretty much ruin everything they touch. From WAR to ME3, you can count on EA to feth it up.

And C&C
Poor Westwood...they had their Red Alert franchise screwed over something bad by EA.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Karon wrote:

Alexzandvar wrote:If Mass Effect 3 would have ended with making peace between the Quarians and the Geth after I destroyed that Reaper in an awesome battle it would have been game of the year.

Seems to be all down hill after that.

Its just the last fifteen minutes.

The moment Harbinger's Laser hits you, the game turns to gak. Filled with random plotholes and enough bs to make people think there is some conspiracy to fix the game - that Bioware couldn't possibly be this incompetent.

We've learned EA had their grubby paw in the works to feth things up again, so blame them. They pretty much ruin everything they touch. From WAR to ME3, you can count on EA to feth it up.

And C&C
Poor Westwood...they had their Red Alert franchise screwed over something bad by EA.

Forget that, I seem to be the only person in the world who played C&C GENERALS. Tiberium twilight is also the worst RTS i have ever played.

vodo40k wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Karon wrote:

Alexzandvar wrote:If Mass Effect 3 would have ended with making peace between the Quarians and the Geth after I destroyed that Reaper in an awesome battle it would have been game of the year.

Seems to be all down hill after that.

Its just the last fifteen minutes.

The moment Harbinger's Laser hits you, the game turns to gak. Filled with random plotholes and enough bs to make people think there is some conspiracy to fix the game - that Bioware couldn't possibly be this incompetent.

We've learned EA had their grubby paw in the works to feth things up again, so blame them. They pretty much ruin everything they touch. From WAR to ME3, you can count on EA to feth it up.

And C&C
Poor Westwood...they had their Red Alert franchise screwed over something bad by EA.

Forget that, I seem to be the only person in the world who played C&C GENERALS. Tiberium twilight is also the worst RTS i have ever played.

Yeah, so boring.
But I think C&C:RA got hit pretty hard though, from a story point of view.
RA3 had that stupid time travel plot point, which pretty much undid everything that happened in RA2, making RA2 absolutely redundant.
Not only does this effectively insult everyone who has worked on it, it makes a superior game no longer canon.
I suspect that it's a case of EA trying to assert their control over the franchise.

Its a conspiracy I tells ya!

vodo40k wrote:Forget that, I seem to be the only person in the world who played C&C GENERALS.

Not at all, I loved Generals! <3

Mixed feelings about Generals 2, tho. Graphics look nice, of course, but I'm not sure if I like how "sci-fi" it's gotten.

Lynata wrote:

vodo40k wrote:Forget that, I seem to be the only person in the world who played C&C GENERALS.

Not at all, I loved Generals! <3

Mixed feelings about Generals 2, tho. Graphics look nice, of course, but I'm not sure if I like how "sci-fi" it's gotten.

It was already "early future" in the first one, it just seems they want to make it more "obvious". I just wish they will actually have some sort of plot in generals 2, rather than some loosely constructed campaign around the GLA whose "cause" is never explained.

vodo40k wrote:It was already "early future" in the first one, it just seems they want to make it more "obvious".

Yeah, I guess in the first one it was still "within my threshold". Humvee-mounted anti missile laser defence? I can buy that, this sort of stuff should be around in 5-10 years from now. VTOL hover helos replacing helicopter gunships? Nah, this belongs into the realm of walking tanks and gauss rifle infantry.

vodo40k wrote:I just wish they will actually have some sort of plot in generals 2, rather than some loosely constructed campaign around the GLA whose "cause" is never explained.

I thought the GLA's cause was simply a cliché Jihad with the aim of establishing an Islamic empire and beating back the hated US? Basically, what Al-Qaida would do if they had even more money and a lot of public support amongst the citizens even in Europe. That horror scenario various right-wing politicians keep warning us about.