Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

The bit where he sends a fake email from Asari High Command to trashtalk you is pretty funny.

I completely understand why people don't like a major antagonist being so childish but honestly I find Kai "Broke into Anderson's house, pissed on his plants and ate his cereal" Leng to be too fucking hilarious to dislike.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Jul 31st 2019 at 12:17:09 PM

Kai Leng's sense of humor is probably his only redeeming quality to me. Everything else about him sucks; His Story-Driven Invulnerability and the Cutscene Incompetence he forces on everyone else does a poor job of making him look like a competent badass, his character design is out of place in the kind of setting Mass Effect is (and isn't that great to begin with), and his humor is the only characterization he gets in the game.

Edited by VeryMelon on Jul 31st 2019 at 8:31:37 AM

My problem with Kai Leng was that the humor didn't feel intentional. He didn't feel like the Joker, jumping from laughter to slaughter in a heartbeat. He felt like they were genuinely trying to make him badass, just in stupid ways.

The other problem is BW just doesn't write competent Antagonists very well

9 times out of 10 if a BW villain is charismatic and can hold their own against the player character

They are most likely gonna be a party member later

or will be brought particularly low by the player character later

BW is very much afraid to impede on the power fantasy they build for the player

I'm A Pervert not an Asshole!

Currently playing Regalia Of Men And Monarchs, which provides excellent contrast in the sense that you can get away with a lot more stuff if your work is meant to be comedic. In some ways, it feels more like an old Bioware RPG than either Mass Effect sequel.

Clearly, Kai Leng wasn't designed to be funny; somebody thought he was legit threatening. The Retrospective ponders about the theory that whoever designed him and the parts where you fight him were actually designed by someone trying to make a FPS antagonist rather than an RPG one, thus the action-schlock and the one-liners and the jarring design. Personally, the biggest issue for me beyond cutscene-mandated incompetency is how the one thing that lets him successfully defeat you on Thessia is...the gunship that you routinely blew up in ME 2.

It literally could have been anything else, but of all things, a singular gunship that at least Infiltrators with either Widow sniper rifle should have been able to kill because taking out light vehicles is literally what those rifles are for.

I'm sure you didn't quite intend it that way, and you just meant to point out that in the Mass Effect setting, ships depend on kinetic barriers much more than armor plating, such that once the barriers are gone the ship is basically living on borrowed time...but basically what I'm hearing is that Reaper super-science doesn't extend to materials science and structural engineering, thus so much for unbeatable machine gods, then?

Is that really the case though? I mean, Master Li and Saren come to mind as counterexamples to that. Malak...was kind of the point, in that he only has the Force powers and the Star Forge pumping out an endless stream of personnel, but he doesn't have Revan's actual leadership qualities. Not sure how you would count Loghain or the Archdemon from DAO; I found Loghain to just be poorly written in general, while the Darkspawn I found to be bordering on Villain Sues that no one can stop (every time you see them they're wrecking some sapient soldiers or other, no one seems to be able to defend against the old "darkspawn dug a tunnel under our noses" gambit, and individually they seem stronger than any of the elf/dwarf/humans too).

Edited by PRC4Eva on Jul 31st 2019 at 10:25:10 AM

The Arishok is the best BW Antagonist and I think he has all the positives with none of the negatives.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 31st 2019 at 6:10:10 AM

Well we knew they weren't unbeatable machine gods as early as Mass Effect 1 when we beat one. For me, I thought the point was that the Reapers had to depend on stealth, slave races, mind-control, and duplicity because they would LOSE a fight against a sufficiently prepared race.

They just threw that out in ME 3.

I thought what was going to happen was something akin to the Yuuzhan Vong in the New Jedi Order (ugh, I hate Bioware so much for making me remember that series). The Reapers would throw everything at the galaxy and it would look hopeless—only for Shepard to find out that they were actually completely lacking a strategic reserve.

If they DIDN'T beat the galaxy in its initial push, they were doomed.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 31st 2019 at 10:38:01 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

I think I sketched out notes for a fanfic a friend of mine was writing about how I'd make Kai Leng more threatening.

I wrote a fake biography for him. It had the following points:

• Participated in the Battle of Torfan, was acquitted of war crimes against the Batarian forces there.
• Kai Leng was the original Specter candidate (or 2nd technically after Anderson) before Commander Shepard. He was rejected because of his strong anti-alien biases.
• Kai Leng defected to Cerberus after being rejected for Specter status.
• Kai Leng blew up the sister ship of the Destiny's Ascension, killing 30,000 Asari.
• Kai Leng assassinated the U.N. Secretary General. [Recent evidence proves his guilt]
• Kai Leng stole samples of the Genophage redesigned to lethality against Krogan from the Salarian government.
• Destroyed Reaper "Shiver" by blowing up Mass Effect relay and destroying Star System 6210.
• Kai Leng has killed 3 Specters have been charged with his extermination.
• Acquired information on Geth Dyson Sphere, passed it to Quarian fleet at Cerberus command.
• Was heavily subject to Reaper-related cybernetics upgraded from Commander Shepard's DNA [Recent].
• Leads hand-picked team of human-only mercenaries called the Purifiers.

For the actual fight I suggested that Kai Leng be completely redesigned as a fight and more like Victor Freeze.

You can't beat Kai Leng conventionally.

I'd also have him be a presence throughout the game.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

He needs to be less of a poseur and more like, as you say, Mr Freeze - implacable, more resilient to your attacks. And if he became more inhuman as the game went along (Like Saren did.)

As for the Reapers - the codex states that in space their barriers are tough as anything BUT they have to drop them to manouevre as aggressively - so, if you get into a Reaper's blindspot, then they're more vulnerable. Also, when landed, they have to shift their energy from barriers to basically weight-support, so them landing and trying to recreate war of the worlds was dumb AF - they're MORE vulnerable.

But Bioware ignores the codex there in favour of cinematics. And I think that is part of why people got more irritated - they were ignoring their own established canon for a more action-movie feel.

That could work for mass market, but for nerds, well, we pay attention to that shit :D

Er, are we referencing some other game that I'm not familiar with?

As I believe I've been saying, Sovereign's actions point to this, too.

Also want to ponder on this thought from a while back:

So basically, instead of the Crucible being this mystery object that is our only hope at stopping the Reapers and we can only do this by trying to build it even though we don't know what it does..."Project Crucible" should just be the effort at gathering scientific minds to actually understand the Citadel relay. Perhaps we climax 2 at finally understanding the mystery of how the mass relays actually work, but our poking and prodding sends the Signal, and as Reapers come filing in, the only option is to blow up the Citadel while attempting to get as many evacuated as possible. Perhaps you can still have your "pick the specialists" part as you fight your way to the control room or something. Not sure what your ending choice should be though, albeit I'm getting a little comedy out of the idea that "blow up the Council" is just as repeatable as "punch Khalisah al-Jilani" even though I know that undercuts the drama of the scene something awful.

Hd another thought that for all that EA is blamed for the ending (unfairly, IMO, since I have great doubt they were much involved in it), they might actually be responsible for the gameplay in 3 being the best for all games. Was discussing with a friend and he pointed out that one of the reasons there were so many unique guns is because you have to have weapon variety and balance for multiplayer, because no one is going to enjoy playing multiplayer PVE shooter where your only choice of weapons are "slow firing, higher damage" and "fast firing, lower damage" with one or two extra weapons thrown in.

Did anyone find the pre-order bonus guns to be much use at all?

Edited by PRC4Eva on Aug 1st 2019 at 10:22:17 AM

"Er, are we referencing some other game that I'm not familiar with?"

Victor "Mr. Freeze" Fries from Batman: Arkham City. You're locked in a closed arena with a dude using Power Armor and a Freeze Ray who can't be harmed through normal attacks - you have to use the various "takedown" abilities you've earned up to that point.

However, every time you use a takedown ability, he uses his gadgets to prevent you from using that type of takedown again - sneak attack him from behind, and he sets up a rear-facing motion detector, hit him from the vents, and he fills them with ice, etc. Thus the fight serves as a test to make sure you've mastered all the skills you've learned throughout the game.

It's widely considered the best boss fight in the series, and one of the best in recent gaming history.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Aug 1st 2019 at 9:44:16 AM

My primary issue with Kai Leng was a lack of introduction to him, they left all his backstory and build up to a tie-in comic, which I didn't know about before the game (and has been an issue with some other franchises lately including Halo and Star Wars). Good storytelling gives a strong introduction regardless if they are a known character. Leng just shows up as a named enforcer, and there is almost no interaction between him and Shepard besides the isolated encounters in the game. That said there is a real satisfying kill, and I still love the line "The assassin should be embarrassed, he lost his mark due to a terminally ill Drell."

Edited by KJMackley on Aug 1st 2019 at 1:38:11 AM

Weirdly, I thought Mass Effect 3 would end with something like Arrival.

Shepard blows up the Reaper's Mass Relay while they're inside it, destroying half of them and trapping the others in-between space.

No one will ever know that Shepard saved the universe.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Jeeeeezus PRC, you went searching that post of mine pretty far on that thread.

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

Ah, I see. Speaking of greatest X in recent gaming history, are there any other game series that do the "carry your save files across games and watch your character's story develop depending on your choices"?

Yes, that was a problem too. ME, Star Wars, Halo, and I'm sure a bunch of other franchises also do this sometimes, to varying levels of annoyance. Halo: Fall of Reach worked very well in synchrony with Halo 1, for example. As I recall (from like 15 or so years ago), Shadows of the Empire was also a good bridging entry between ESB and ROTJ. Do you think it is the case that game studios just haven't found that sweet spot for how much content to put in tie-ins and DLC? I did find it an issue that too many plot developments are found in the DLC.

Well...while cinematic kills are inherently satisfying, I'm not sure that it's particularly more satisfying than any of the cool stuff you can do in gameplay. Meanwhile, I think that line just has the opposite problem of undercutting Kai Leng's threat. There's a fine line you can walk where the antagonist is threatening even as our heroes defeat him, and Leng fell off that line long before the final fight with him.

While Shepard as unsung hero has its appeal, I think the sensibility of the story requires that Shep gets positive recognition for his/her actions. Much like protheans as a galactic power that tragically never knew they were living on borrowed time and used their last moments to do the galaxy a solid and gave the next cycle the ability to prepare is far superior to protheans as actually jerks who kind of deserved a punch in the nose, even if getting Reaped is somewhat disproportionate.

It's what I do sometimes.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead.

I agree. I also think the sudden shift of the series tone was jarring - ME 1 and ME 2 had an overarching feeling of "Against all the odds, we win" and an uplifting feeling. ME 3 was just GRINDING YOU DOWN. Yes, war film and a weird sense of "Reality ensues" but it was a bit forced and, as with most of its "twists" a feeling of But Thou Must! from the plot (Kai Leng always winning, never being able to stop certain events etc)

I reckon having the Reapers arrive, cutting off the various Relays, and then the Normandy's job is essentially "gathering the allies" like before, but enabling them to link up, and that shows that the Reapers rely on divide and conquer and proxies... so actually, the conventional method works.

And, as Charles said, the Crucible project is about reclaiming the Citadel and then shutting it down to stop the REST of the Reapers coming through (As the lot that invade the galaxy isn't the bulk of their forces)

But Bioware made the third game really human-centric and "Saving the Earth" as the core plot, which I don't think, weirdly, worked to actually get people pumped up.

Well my distinct memory of ME 3 is one of world weariness. I don't think that's avoidable given ME 3 as we know it. Shepard has done so much to try and save the galaxy from these bastards - my Shepard sold her soul to do it - but it was for nothing. They're here now and nobody can stop them. I really hated ME 3's insistence on a forced character for Shepard because it generally did not line up at all with my impressions of my Shepard from the last two games. There were moments of brilliance though like talking to Kaidan about if The Illusive Man was ever a good person. That I think was in line with my Shepard.

Kaidan is far and away the MVP of ME 3 as he is so much better written than he was in ME 1. It's been so long I can't recall for certain but I'm very, very confident I brought him along for the final mission. I never would have done that if he hadn't gotten better. I think Garrus was my other Squadmate. Gotta represent the OG ya know? We started this struggle together and we're ending it together. Garrus was another character who improved massively in the sequels.

Most everything else in ME 3 can go die in a fire but that final mission on Earth is a highlight of the whole trilogy for me.

Saving the Earth is confusing when I'm not sure why Earth isn't toast within minutes.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

The Reapers suddenly changing their entire MO and ignoring the Citadel for ages... and instead going after Earth. That felt a bit too forced and the writers getting a bit lazy.

But Arrival as a whole felt lazy too - come on it was an opportunity to essentially do Bring Down The Sky but this time as the antagonists and genuinely showing the lengths a SPECTRE has to go to at times.

I find Shepard get's a horrid role - he's given SPECTRE status BUT unlike the other SPECTRES, he's also beholden to Alliance military doctrine so he's actually FAR more restricted - and ultimately beholden to their chain of command. Which means someone like Hackett can COUNTERMAND the Council over one of the Council's own assets.

Yep, and that would even tie into ME 2's plot by having it so that the reason you can do this is because you have a stealth ship with a Reaper IFF that can get in and out before they realize you're not a real Reaper. You still have to do something to justify Sovereign waiting hundreds of years rather than just telling everyone to wake up already, but that's easily fixed by having the Collectors be trying an alternate means of sending the Signal.

I think this is one of the things that 3 does pretty well. For me, at least, it was far easier to accept playing through this entry that has "desperate galactic war" as the background than "but thou must work with the terrorist group that we're going to be wishy-washy as to whether they're completely bad guys or not", and 3 did convey that desperate war for existence feeling effectively.

Yeah, I think the writing team just didn't know how to handle so many potential branching paths for the player character, combined with someone at the top's insistence on "cinematic gritty war film" over classic Bioware RPG as the tone and sensibility. Only explanation why all Shepards, even the most renegade Sole Survivor Butcher of Torfan, can crawl out of so many piles of bodies (some of them self-caused) and yet get hit in the feels so hard by Vent Kid. On a side note, you know how lots of people refer to him as Space Joffery? In keeping with that, I referred to him by Joffery's Chinese nickname 二逼乔 ("Dumb Cunt Joe") when he first showed up during Waifu Effect, and that stuck.

Doesn't Hackett tell you all the time that you're a Council Spectre now, so while he'll tell you about trouble spots that require your skills to solve, you have the freedom to refuse (which of course we don't for those delicious xp and credits, but that's just the nature of an RPG)? At the same time, yes, I can see how Mass Effect 1 could have benefitted from more Council-given sidequest, too.

Well, it worked to get me pumped up, but at the same time now I can see that yeah, it makes no sense. I actually just picked up Garrus again, and he has this line of dialogue that points out that Victus is so important to the war effort you take him away to make him Primarch, they'll probably lose that moon and with it Palaven, and you just kind of brush it aside with a "we'll lose everywhere if we don't get Victus", and then Garrus just kind of agrees that that's that. As much as I rag on the Interrupt system, I think sticking one there would have helped immensely to not break my verisimilitude.

You know what else was annoying? After you get Victus and patch a call through to the Council, both asari and salarian councilors refuse the war meeting you've been trying to get together, and most unforgivably, they hang up on you! Writers, this is literally the part where you bring back a classic part of 1 for the culmination of your trilogy, and you dropped the ball!

In my head, I rewrote the scene where the Turian Councilman arrives.

Shepherd: Ah, yes, Reapers. [air quotes]

Turian Councilman: How long have you been saving that?

Shepherd: Not long enough.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

I think Kai Leng would've benefited from a clean win. If you make the right decisions, he never gets a clean win. He fails to kill the salarian ambassador. The Thessia fight just makes him look weak and pathetic, and he only gets away because of the gunship. He fails to kill Miranda on Sanctuary. At no point does he actually come across as all that dangerous an individul.

I would've bought him as more of a threat if you didn't actually fight him on Thessia. If he instead lured you into a trap, he would've looked better. And then Shepard tries to delay him by telling him to fight like a man, and Leng just shrugs and says he has what he needs and doesn't need to prove himself. Or something.

Instead, the most dangerous thing about Kai Leng is his backup.

Another option would've been a mission on Ilos, retrieving some tech there as Leng does the same, and we see him slaughtering Reaper enemies as effectively as Shepard. Let us see Kai Leng kill a Banshee.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.

Played a little more over the weekend.

I believe I've complained before about Interrupts, especially ME 3's hokey toying with the Interrupt system to make you feel things like "OMG not even the interrupt can save us!" for moments like Tali dying if you side with the geth over the quarians. Well, it actually happens earlier, with the hanar diplomat sidequest on the Citadel.

I'm willing to bet I wasn't the only player who hit the interrupt button expecting something cool to happen (because ME 2 has trained us to treat the Interrupts as "push this button to make Shepard do something cool"), only to find out that this sames Jondam Bau but costs us the hanar homeworld.

It was a case where I told waifu what happens so she could actually make a choice.