Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

This channel does a series of Cliff Notes vids about game timelines. They made one about Mass Effect a few days ago, so I'll share it with you guys.

I just finished Mass Effect this evening. I'll admit, the game does have its flaws and I got frustrated at certain points, but overall I liked the game and I can't wait to get Mass Effect 2. 7-7.5/10

During the final part of the game, did you guys choose to save the council or let them die. I chose to focus on sovereign.

I usually save them because the Paragon ending is really uplifting and happy. I say that as someone who chuckles at most of the Renegade choices and don't like the council on principle.

I also try to trigger that one glitch where one of your squadmates disappears and the other argues with themselves over if the council should live or die.

Yes, I am paragon through and through. I think I can count the number of Renegade decisions my "default" Shep would take on one hand.
1. Stabbing Kai Lame
2. Punching Gerrel
3. Blowing the flammable tank during the krogan speech
4. Pushing the merc through the window
5. ...That's it I think

The worst I usually do to the council is hanging up on them for the lulz.

edited 8th Oct '16 1:44:56 PM by Julep

My Renegade decisions are usually

• "BIG STOOPID JELLYFISH"
• Roughing up that one Alliance guy so I can get Ms. Bhatia's body back to her husband.
• Blowing up that one Krogan spokesman mid speech because he's a fucking nob
• Headbutting Uvenk
• Telling TIM to suck my nuts when I just blew up the Collector base
• Shooting that one Eclipse asari pretending to be a noobie (although I wish I didn't have to say the whole YOU ARE A BIG MOUTH AND YOU ARE FAT TOO thing)
• Punching Gerrel because he's a bloodthirsty warmongering cuntface who nearly got Tali and FUCKING SHEPARD killed knowing full well they were on that Geth ship he was firing on the stupid bucket-headed shit
• Shanking Stupid Space Nightwing because he's a fucking nob.
• Shooting TIM when I fail to meet the requirements to have him blow his own brains out.

I did some Renegade decisions and interrupts - one that I don't think anybody's mentioned yet is shooting out the crane at the start of Miranda's loyalty mission (although that's more smart fighting than anything).

edited 8th Oct '16 2:28:54 PM by KarkatTheDalek

I also forgot to mention pushing that one guy out the window because he's a nob too.

It bothered me how Gerrel was derailed into a crazy warmongering jerk because otherwise the conflict might have subtlety to it or something.

Honestly abandoning the Council makes no sense Tactically or atleast the punishment it gives you doesn't

'lets not go into the whole Its not really Shepards call to make in the first place.. it Be Hacketts'

Its one of those weird backward logic things ME loves to pull

Cause Saving the Council effectively crushes the core of Sovereign's Geth Fleet support which would entail free up the rest of the Citadel security fleet to help you take on Sovereign.

Yes the stated reason is to save the Human Fleet to solely focus on Sovereign while leaving the Citadel Fleet to fend for itself against the sizable Geth Fleet...

Subtlety goes out the Window when you effectively have a mission called "FEEL SORRY FOR THE GETH DAMN YOU/THE GETH DID NOTHING WRONG" which ultimately ends with Legion/The VI revealing... He's deceived you... again.

edited 8th Oct '16 2:41:20 PM by FrozenWolf2

I'm also nearly-full paragon player. But, yeah, there are some renegade options that just beg to be taken. The ones listed above, of course + (if playing female Shepard) showing who has bigger (gun) to the Blue Sun's recruiter at the beginning of Archangel's recruitment mission.

Well, yeah, Destiny Ascension is being assaulted by a notable portion of the Geth fleet - which, once they are done, will attack 'your' ships while those are busy with Sovereign and whatever Geth ships are inside Citadel. So, true, unless you actually want to kill the Council, abandoning them makes little sense.

edited 8th Oct '16 3:00:22 PM by NHunter

x3 I don't think he was derailed - he was nice to us in 2 because he did wanted Tali to get off, but he was pretty gung-ho about the Geth.

Nothing contradictory, as far as I remember.

edited 8th Oct '16 6:37:39 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Its really more that ME 3 spends alot more time trying to paint the Geth's side of the arguement as justified and sympathetic.

That and Gerrel exists to be punched off the ship and the only other Quarian you get to talk too is Xen and Xen's Crazy... so essentially the Quarian sides you can talk to are the Neutral, Sympathetic toward the Geth and The Insane one.

If you wanted Gerrel's side of the argument sympathetic... the best way to do it would have been to taken the stance of the US president in WWZ 'The book not the Movie'

In WWZ, The President argues that they need to fight and take back the lands from the Zombies, Not just wait for the Natural elements to kill them off, Waiting would damage the human spirit and ability to believe in themselves

Same principle... Gerrel believes the Quarians HAVE to and NEED to beat the Geth, Not only to retake their homeworld but to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Galaxy. Remember the Geth would still be considered the Reaper's Mooks due to Saren and the Geth's lousy job of dealing with the Heretics. So not only do the Quarians take out the Reaper's biggest ally but they took back their home... in a galaxy where people were losing their homes all the time.

and I guess they figured most people who picked the Quarians would pick them solely for Tali's sake anyway 'Hell RT pretty much admitted they really didn't give a **** about the whole conflict and really pick The Quarians cause A: Tali was one of the love interests for two of their playthroughs and B; You lose Tali if you pick the Geth

Actually according to stats Bioware put it out the rankings went Geth > Peace > Quarians. Probably just due to auto picking Paragon options.

Anyway, Gerrel is a warmonger, no two ways about it. But he's also a warmonger against a machine army that drove his people off their homeworld and turned them into the scum of the galaxy. It's cool for him to be an antagonist, but there's a difference between ideological conflict and literally trying to shoot down your best friend's daughter, whom you personally went to great effort to protect in the last game.

edited 8th Oct '16 7:54:16 PM by Mr.Badguy

I could kind of see it, actually— in Gerrel's mind, Rael would put the fleet and homeworld ahead of his own life, and he assumes Tali and Shepard would too. Which is completely ridiculous, but Gerrel is nothing if not a one-issue leader.

I do wish his responses changed depending on how he felt about you in ME 2, that he had more of a role in the Rannoch missions than that, seeing as he leaves whether you punch him or not. Missed opportunity, but that's par for the course given ME 3's truncated dev time. And Gerrel's portrayal wouldn't be my first priority in terms of things I wish had been in ME 3.

edited 8th Oct '16 8:01:41 PM by Unsung

Well, considering how Rael was experimenting on Geth in the middle of the fleet, I'm not sure if "putting the fleet" first is an accurate description of his priorities.

Of course, Gerrel probably wouldn't see it that way, but that's his problem.

Yeah, pretty much. I think Gerrel's view of Rael was skewed by his own perspective. Both are pretty warped, but in different ways. Seems like Rael was somewhere between Gerrel and Xen, which is...not a nice place to be, morally or rationally.

edited 8th Oct '16 10:18:55 PM by Unsung

So I completed my playthrough of Mass Effect. I livetweeted the whole thing, and collected it here. Fair warning: It's pretty long. And probably not worth reading. But hey, livetweets are fun to do.

I really do love ME 1. I recognize its flaws. But I love the game. Its strengths outweigh its flaws for me, so I enjoy playing it. Though, I think the fact that I spread my playthrough out across a couple months may have helped keep the sidequests from getting quite so frustrating.

Mass Effect 1 is and always will be the greatest of the original trilogy.

Might just be buying into pre-release hype, but Andromeda has me really excited for returning to the series' roots.

edited 11th Oct '16 3:12:35 PM by Mr.Badguy

I don't know about that. I can't stand the gameplay and the big ammounts of cardboard dialogue in that game.

No matter how many times you repeat it, your opinion will never be an objective truth.

yes it will so

Well being Renegade Guy, I'll do the reverse and say the Paragon Choices I make:

Saving the Council for one thing.

Saving Biotic God. Even Miranda is against letting him wander into the battle. Renegade there is just For the Evulz.

I took all the Paragon dialogue options for TIM in ME 3 because I like him and they were always sympathetic.

Having Jack let that crazy guy go. It's just an objective fact that letting her kill him makes her unhappy. Of course she gets over it by ME 3 but she should probably have gone crazy instead of becoming well-adjusted after crossing that final line.

Choosing Samara. Logically, it's the only choice.

And...that's all I can think of right now.

Honestly the problem with doing Renegade stuff is that it's usually pointless. Like if you just want to be a cool badass then sure, but is there any legit reason to letting Samara off herself, and then murdering her daughter for good measure?

Sometimes it just feels like a glorified asshole path. That can work; Mark Meer's hilariously douchey performance in 1 and 2 makes for some of the funniest moments in the series, like hanging up on the council, but it still ultimately came off as kind of a pointless addition.

I'm hoping that Andromeda allows for deeper morality choices than a binary goodguy/jerkbutt system.

PS Mass Effect 1 is the only good game haha lol i cannot be stopped

edited 11th Oct '16 8:02:58 PM by Mr.Badguy

Samara is boring and her daughter is annoying. Not saying I think that, but that is reasoning I've seen.

edited 11th Oct '16 8:08:36 PM by LordVatek