Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

Trout Leng is the best Renegade interrupt in the series. Fact.

Yes, I found it! Thank you Awesome Music Page.

The best song from ME 3 was the one that played during the final battle. At least IMO.

Couldn't find it on the official OST but here it is.

Man, having this playing when you hear the Banshees shriek or while you avoid the Reaper Beam of Death, it was amazingly atmospheric.

Hearing the Banshee's introductory scream was the most terrifying part.

edited 26th Mar '15 7:49:10 PM by Nikkolas

Man I don't like these dialogue options at all. All the Paragon choices are being really rude. TIM just brought me back from the dead and I'm all like "piss off"."

It's like in DA, I bet the "Paragon choice" would be to say "Die, demon!" when poor Torpor just came over and wanted to talk.

Heroes know no etiquette. It's why there is no Affably Good trope.

But seriously, I know my Shep has no reason to get on with Cerberus. What I'm curious about is, since I'm working from the ground up this time instead of importing a save. I will have enough points for the "critical moments", right? You know, like with Jack/Miranda, or Tali/Legion? I had some extra Renegade Points from ME 1 last time but here I'll need to gather up Paragon Points just from this game.

Looking at it, I didn't see a mission to recruit Samara or Thane yet... Maybe it only happens after Omega? I saved them for very late so I can't recall how early I could have recruited them. Right now I just went to the Citadel for some easy Paragon Points and I think I might actually start by recruiting Jack this time around.

Also it's still so awkward listening to Male Shep's voice. I don't dislike it but I'm pretty sure I'll always prefer Hale. What is everyone here's thought on this?

edited 27th Mar '15 5:13:30 AM by Nikkolas

Starting fresh in ME2 means you need to be absolutely consistent in your decisions. If I remember correctly, the Charm/Intimidate options in ME2 are fractionally based: i.e., you can take them if you have a certain percentage of possible Paragon/Renegade points up to that point.

Incidentally, this means the karma meter is absolutely worthless. For example, say it fills up at like 500 Paragon points—this isn't the actual amount—and you end up doing so about halfway through the game and decide to go full Renegade for the rest of the game. But even though your Paragon bar is full, because you stop taking the Paragon options, your fraction actually decreases with each missed decision: you still have 500, but when there are a total of 750 points possible, you start failing checks.

You can only recruit Thane, Tali and Samara after Horizon.

edited 27th Mar '15 5:22:06 AM by Mukora

I prefer Meer's voice for a Paragon, and Hale's voice for a Renegade.

Well I guess everything worked out well for me then. :)

And despite that, they have dialogue for most missions. Heck, even LEGION has some pre-Horizon dialogue.

Turn the Save Editor on, ME 2 is quite unforgiving if not importing stuff, or making a facsimile.

Am I the only one who managed to clear the Suicide Mission on the first go because I somehow thought that it would screw me over with a bad ending instead of merely letting me restart if I died at any point? I can't believe it either, would have been perfect but I ended up losing Grunt because I made the mistake of thinking he was ready for a leadership role.

I'm playing on PS 3. Save Editors are usually only for PC games. I know I've seen some save game editors for PS 3 games but most PS 3 games have things that won't let you download saves to USB Drives for some reason.

EDIT:

I do have to say, Meer's been very...flat so far. I don't even know if I'll be able to enjoy the romances if it's this one-sided.

Like, I just recruited Jack. He sounded like a robot while talking to her.

Jack: I'm gonna hunt down and kill all these Cerberus assholes!

Beep-boop, I am Shepard Version 2.0 and I cannot allow this. My programming says wanton murder is bad.

EMOTE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD EMOTE.

edited 27th Mar '15 8:24:17 AM by Nikkolas

Yeah, I always felt Meer was very monotone unless he is going full-Renegade. For me it's Hale all the way, baby.

So, what do you guys most want to see in the next Mass Effect Games?

I’d like for them to keep the combat system of ME3. It had the most fluid and responsive controls out of all of the games, in my opinion.

Likewise, the inventory and weight system from 3 should be kept but expanded upon. More upgrades, mods and weapons would be nice.

In terms of characters, I would like for them to go back to the second game’s recruitment-based approach. Let’s travel across the galaxy recruiting badasses after a suitable introductory mission for each. Maybe it would also be a nice twist to have the player forced to make a choice about which characters to recruit. Either have a squad cap and let the player choose who to recruit, or make certain recruitment missions result in two different characters depending on the choices made. This might add some replayability to the game. I feel that this is a better approach than locking recruitable characters behind DLC, but I won’t hold my breath on this one.

Other ideas: A return of open-world/ free-roam environments like in ME1. I think that this element of the first game really added to the feeling of discovery and adventure. Being air-dropped into a hostile alien planet and discovering its secrets should have been cool but the controls and repetition in ME1 really worsened the experience. Tighten-up the Mako controls, put some more variety in the environments à la DA: Inquisition (without the MMO-y elements) and you should have yourself a good system.

edited 27th Mar '15 8:40:16 AM by GutstheBerserker

x2 Here's something that will blow your mind: Meer is Niftu Cal (the "Biotic God")

And most of the Vorcha.

And Blasto. Hale is Polyp though.

Meer's generally pretty good, but for Shepard he seems to try to go for "blank slate" and ends up with "bored robot". I find him a lot better in the third game, which is probably because there Shepard ends up a lot more defined.

I have to agree with the general consensus of Meer's portrayal of Male!Shep. For me, there have been very rare and oftentimes subtle hints of emotion that are slightly more common in ME 2 than 1 (especially in DLC). Not saying I'd want an overly emotive character, but there are times where I wish I could portray him as the kind of character who shifts from Stoic to Not So Stoic depending on the intensity of the situation.

On another note, I know this sounds like a stretch for a game series already pretty heavy with content and the time it takes to produce it, but I'd love for there to be at least a few alternate voices for the main character of the next game. I'm not saying it has to be anyone in particular, but there are times where I'd wish for example Male!Shep sounded more like Damon Baird.

edited 27th Mar '15 9:59:51 AM by ParadoxialStratagem

Well, they did it with Dragon Age Inquisition. I don't see any reason why they couldn't potentially have at least two voices for the next MC.

If there actually will be a Mass Effect 4, I would think the only thing they could do would be to set it in the past, maybe during the Human-Turian War. I believe I've read it was actually a rather small scale affair and mostly notable for being humans venturing out into space and meeting aliens but they could always retcon and expand it.

In any event, my point was that the new main character could have two voices - where you pick one during creation - since it wouldn't be Shepard.

Word of God is that "We haven't seen the last of Shepard", IIRC.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up pulling a "The Catalyst/Catalyst!Shepard came to the conclusion Shepard was a necesary element in the galaxy as it was at that point, and rebuilt them" for the Synthesis and Control endings.

Then again, all we have about a supposed Mass Effect 4 is smoke until 2 and a half months from now, at best. There is an expansive universe, but it is quite constrained if you want to work with humans there, not too much of a status quo that involves them.

Oooh. E3. Forgot I'll be there. Can't wait to sit in on EA's presser.

Hm...well, I guess we'll see. I honestly can't imagine how they could make a direct sequel to 3 but I'll keep my hopes up.

I wonder if they'd go so far as to try and retcon away all of 3's endings.

As long as they avoid Cutting Off the Branches, I'll be okay with it, in particular with love interest and ending choices.

The thing is, all 4 of them are game-changers. Control has the knowledge of every previous cycle there, and Shepard is the Citadel and the Reapers. Destroy has the Reapers, the Geth and most advanced A.I.s removed from the picture. Synthesis changes how every living being in the Galaxy works, and having that green shine on everybody would get annoying. And all of them have the Citadel in orbit around Earth.

And then there's the whole potential genocides having happened or not. A continuation of 3 would require both a common line that could apply to all endings, and enough flexibility to account for the changes of both the endings and the gameplay. And I'd be okay with that.

Refusal is more of a Non-Standard Game Over, but still, change of the Status Quo as well.

edited 27th Mar '15 10:33:49 AM by Eriorguez

I cannot possibly see any way they could accommodate for all of ME 3's endings.

Love Interests shouldn't be too much of a problem though.

Because the next game is crossing over into a different generation of consoles, I doubt Old Save Bonus can be used. As for avoiding the assignment of a "canon" Love Interest, a simple fix I'd imagine would be to either never mention it at all, or if they do have it be delivered in a deliberately vague way so that it doesn't assign one in particular, leaving room for whoever one decided on if they played the previous trilogy...maybe.

Reminder that Bioware is probably going to make a new Keep for future ME.

Not necessarily.

1. The Reapers (if they survived) and post-Shepard (if he didn't survive) vanish, and most of the lingering effects of whatever happened fade.
2. The Geth (if they survived) leave Rannoch due to some friction with the Quarians (if they survived). Otherwise, the Geth just leave the system due to friction with organics.
3. The systems that were not directly connected to the Mass Relays have remnants of things from before - Husks, Rachni, Geth, Quarians, etc etc.
4. Takes place 50-100 years later, and players can visit Shepard's love interest (or Kolyat in the case of Thane). There's a very brief moment if Shep is alive that he appears at their side and talks to them a little after the P Cs leave.