Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

I got an e-mail from Wrex after doing Grunt's mission after he was off the ship. According to the Wiki, you get emails from Victus after doing the Turian platoon missions after he is off the ship.

I was kinda surprised to find out that the mission where you have to find Victus' son doesn't expire until such a long time afterwards. You'd think with the way Victus worded it it'd be a timed mission like the bomb diffusal mission or Grissom.

That's what I thought too until just now.

I was also surprised by that. You can even bring Tali to that mission.

I still think 3 would have worked better if both Priority: Palaven and Priority: Perseus Veil opened at the same time, but only one out of Priorities Tuchanka and Rannoch could be active at the same time, and completing one would have triggered the Citadel II.

Quite cluttered War Room, tho, with the Primarch, Wrex, Legion and Admiral Raan. And Tali, Ashley and Kaidan would have to get plenty of lines.

Mo' lines, mo' fun. Plus it would have been entertaining to see Tali and Wrex interact in some way, what with him being the crazy headbutting uncle she's never had.

One of the reasons Citadel was great was getting Wrex back in the party (although he would have rocked if he got Biotic Charge instead of the generic Lift Grenades, specially with him having a grenade-based bonus power).

Having him react to getting a geth into the Normandy, and the like, would be great. And, after all, the quarians end up giving support to the turians after Rannoch, so some buildup to that would be also good.

I loved just how genuinely disappointed he is when you don't take him with you to assault the Archives.

Victus' mission has a timer of 3. If you want to bring Tali, I think it is better to rescue Victus after curing the genophage. You make it, then Citadel, then the Dreadnought, then you can go back to Tuchanka.

Actually, I think you can bring Tali on missions right after you make contact with the Quarians - you don't need to do the Dreadnought first.

Yeah, the mission right after saving Tarquin where you diffuse the bomb is the timed one, but the one where you save what's left of his platoon isn't, just that it needs to be finished before Priority:Thessia.

So, playing Mass Effect 1 again, Kohaku says that his men would never blunder into a Thresher Maw nest... and yet my Shepard does it 7 or 8 times!

To be honest, it's rather easy to spot Thresher Maw nests once you are used to it. It's just that Shepard doesn't bother, s/he blasts it with his/her big Mako cannon.

You don't see the big open plain if you're hurtling down a mountain.

Actually you see it, because a truly flat area looks bizarre on 1's randomly generated planets.

And for Shepard, one of the backgrounds you can choose involves one and eventually you can kill them en masse in the Mako. That's not even GETTING into Grunt's loyalty mission.

Unfortunately, the Thresher in ME 2 seems weaker than the ME 1 one. In ME 1, it can kill the Mako in 1-3 hits. In ME 2, it can't even Shep in 1 hit. I know that the shields in ME 2 and 3 will break any amount of damage before they fail and allow health to hit (for example. You have 100 shields and 100 health and are at max health. An attack hits you for 201 damage. In ME 2 and 3, instead of dying, only your shields will break for the attack. You will still have the full 100 health. You cannot take any health damage while your shields are up in ME 2 and 3, unlike 1.). I also know I've made some tweaks to make ME 2 and 3 easier. But the Thresher in ME 2 seems small game compared to the power of the ME 1 Thresher.

So I also went back to my forgotten ME 1 New Game Plus save file. This time I got Garrus first and Tali last. I also managed to get Michel's blackmailer off her back with all those Charm points I built up, so I didn't have to fire a shot. And I spared Fist too since if you had Wrex with you, Wrex would automatically kill Fist. So I took Garrus and Ashley instead. For New Game Plus Fem Shep I'm gonna spare Ash this time, just as I will in ME 1 Male Shep.

Looking back, holy shit is Tali's default suit design and general suit look different to how it is later. For example her head cloth looks like its pulled on far more taut compared to ME 2 and 3.

I think they did it to give her cowl a little more of a feminine appearance, sorta like voluminous hair, since after the first game, most of the quarians with their cowls pulled taut are male.

Thats a good point.

I even noticed it in the colours as wdll. Her default suit in 1 has darker colours whereas in 2 and 3, her suit uses much brighter shades of purple. IIRC Bioware changed it to make her look more innocent and less mature.

I think another reason might be because she's on her pilgrimage during the events of ME 1, and that might be a traditional look for quarians. You see another female quarian in ME 2 who's on her pilgrimage who wears her hood the same way.

All female quarians in ME 2 wear their hoods like Tali did in ME 1. She's unique.

edited 2nd Aug '15 7:49:39 PM by Mukora

Really? My bad.

Huh. I must have forgotten that. My bad.

Part of it's just a general artshift, I think. The second game on the whole is far more colourful than the first one, and is probably my favourite of the lot to just look at. (ME3 is probably going for this bleaker tone with its stuff, to be fair to it.) Part of it is, with a race of helmeted identically hooded aliens, just changing the hood is enough to sort of differentiate Tali from all the other random background sods.

Nah, the opposite, or at least that's the official line, according to the digital artbook that's apparently with my Mass Effect 2. Tali's outfit in the first game◊ is pretty much just clearly scrapped together, which makes a lot of sense. Tali in the second and third game looks like someone's who's actually dressing themself.

edited 2nd Aug '15 8:19:05 PM by Lavaeolus