The Mass Effect 3 Thread

[MFB]

Same thing happened to me, I did EVERY loyalty mission and my guys still died

[synrgy]

Ah. I stand corrected, then.

I just did what sounded the wisest to me. Let the robot - who is AI - deal with the AI. Tali, an AI specialist, also works. Let the squad leader (Garrus, or Miranda) lead the squad, etc.

I always send Thane to lead the survivors back to the ship, as he struck me as the most reliable who wasn't already assigned to something else. I haven't tried anyone else for that one.

As for the 'I need somebody to shoot/blow shit up' section, I've had success with both Zaeed and Jack. Haven't tried anybody else, but I would have to presume that Grunt could handle that task, also.

I've never seen anyone die, yet.

It's the game's own way of giving incentive to pay attention to the character details.

[Grand Moff Tim]

I just assumed "Welp, whoever crawls through the ducts is obviously going to die. See ya, Jacob!" and was right. I also thought whoever lead the other team might eventually die, so I said bye-bye to Legion, and was right. For choosing a biotic barrier, though, I just chose Thane so I could have Samara and Jack as my squadmates, and ....IN' JACK ....IN' DIED. I was not pleased . According to the walkthrough, though, if I'd have just chosen Samara or Jack to provide the barrier, noone would've died.

Lesson learned, I suppose.

[pink freud]

Suicide mission: Have Kasumi on your squad when you deal with Harbingers, as her grenade makes them your bitch. Also have Legion with the upgraded sniper rifle. Send Tali in the tube, as her abilities are useless for combat.

Legion is handy to have the entire mission, just because that rifle KILLS.

[Grand Moff Tim]

I don't have the DLC, so no Kasumi for me. It's actually kindof pissing me off, because Steam/EA/whoever is being wonky and not letting me into the Cerberus network to DL it.

I never got around to getting that sniper rifle for Legion, but that didn't bother me too much, since I have it for me.

[AxeHappy]

I had 1 person die my first play through (honestly can't remember who...maybe Zaeed or however his name is spelled. I need to finish my Biotic Bitch's ME1 play through!) and nobody since.

Most of the choices are pretty logical. There is no (as a quick look through the achievements should tell you ) auto die option. Do the loyalty missions and pick the right people and everybody can survive.

Legion is awesome, one of my favourite characters in the ME universe, but you don't really get much of a chance to do anything with him. If he's not in ME3 I will flip my shit.

[Black_Sheep]

You need to purchase one upgrade for the Normandy from each team member (ask them about "NORMANDY UPGRADES") or they die. Every member who you didn't use to get the ship upgrade, will die during the "suicide mission".

Also, you must choose the best possible member for the individual tasks during the mission. But that's quite obvious and not hard, really.

I completed the game with all characters alive. It was no effort really, when my aim was to complete the game 100%

[synrgy]

Originally Posted by Black_Sheep

You need to purchase one upgrade for the Normandy from each team member (ask them about "NORMANDY UPGRADES") or they die. Every member who you didn't use to get the ship upgrade, will die during the "suicide mission".

Also, you must choose the best possible member for the individual tasks during the mission. But that's quite obvious and not hard, really.

I completed the game with all characters alive. It was no effort really, when my aim was to complete the game 100%

That's not entirely accurate.

You can have all team members survive without purchasing the medical bay upgrade from Dr Sakwa. That upgrade's only use is to remove facial scars you collect when/if you make Renegade choices. Also, everyone can survive without purchasing the planet scanner upgrade from Miranda.

Not to mention, not all team members offer ship upgrades.

[ShadowFactoryX]

best advice:
use the mass effect wiki

its essentially a free strategy guide of awesome proportions

and grand moff tim, i find it hard to believe me2 was shorter
to me me1 dragged on

[synrgy]

Originally Posted by ShadowFactoryX

best advice:
use the mass effect wiki

its essentially a free strategy guide of awesome proportions

and grand moff tim, i find it hard to believe me2 was shorter
to me me1 dragged on

I think it depends on one's approach. ME1 can take a lot longer, but that's due to things like the slug's pace of driving the Mako, or exploring the crap ton of only-semi-relevant side quests. That said, ME1 can be a lot shorter than ME2 if one goes the fastest-possible route through the story parts without doing any of the side missions.

[Grand Moff Tim]

Originally Posted by ShadowFactoryX

and grand moff tim, i find it hard to believe me2 was shorter
to me me1 dragged on

So... you didn't do the side quests? There were a ton more side quests in 1 than in 2. They may have often felt like annoying fetch qiests or whatever, but in the end I think they were worth doing, because they have an effect on the NPCs you can meet and interact with in ME2. I can't help but wonder how they'll be able to add nice little subtleties like that in ME3, since there were so few side quests in 2.

[synrgy]

Originally Posted by Grand Moff Tim

So... you didn't do the side quests? There were a ton more side quests in 1 than in 2. They may have often felt like annoying fetch qiests or whatever, but in the end I think they were worth doing, because they have an effect on the NPCs you can meet and interact with in ME2. I can't help but wonder how they'll be able to add nice little subtleties like that in ME3, since there were so few side quests in 2.

There's a *lot* going on, if we really stop to think about it. For starters, there were crap-tons of side quests from ME1 that only get referenced via the various text-based messages that Shepard receives in ME2, like the situation with Talitha (the crazy/suicidal refugee girl). There are other bits that I expect will ultimately appear, as well. I don't think we've seen the last of Conrad Verner, or Charles Saracino/Terra Firma, and so on. It's hard to imagine that after having a huge impact (one way or another) on the life of Samesh Bhatia, we would never hear from him again. There are a ton of seemingly minor characters who Shepard interacts with in one or both games that I think will make surprising appearances in ME3. I didn't expect to run into Helena Blake again after ME1, but there she was again in ME2.

That said, there are plenty I'm sure will just fall through the cracks for lack of any real relevancy. I'm sure we'll never know what ultimately became of that poor, misguided Hanar preacher.

Taking into consideration that some of the side quest bits/characters were specific to Shepards custom-back-story (some stories only available to 'spacer', some to 'war hero', etc) it gets even crazier. I'm really glad I'm not one of the employees at Bioware who's tasked with keeping track of all the various story branches.

This series sure does give me a raging nerd-on..

[Grand Moff Tim]

Yeah, I love that there are so many extra little things you'll only get depending on your background. It gives me more reasons to have multiple playthrough than the average "I NEEDZ MOAR ACHIEVMINTS HUR DUR."

[synrgy]

This just in from the ME2 page on FB:

We can officially confirm that there will be a multiplayer feature in Mass Effect 3. However, please reserve your appraisal until we are able to give more information. Our Executive Producer Casey Hudson says it best: "Yes, co-op MP missions for ME3: they're real, and they're spectacular. Rest assured it's nothing of what you've feared. More soon..."

[Grand Moff Tim]

Sigh.

[ShadowFactoryX]

i was just about to post that
uber awesome!

[pink freud]

Co-op: OK. Makes setting up warp-bombs even easier.
MP: No thank you.

[SirMyghin]

Damn you EA and your constant push for multiplayer stuff. Hopefully it is random challenge type stuff not attached to the main game (unfortunately sapping dev time from the game however).

[synrgy]

I'm intrigued by the prospect of co-op, but I also feel that a large part of the game's overall appeal in terms of gameplay is the easy-to-use squad command system, which would be basically be out-the-window in a co-op scenario, unless each player is controlling their own squad (IE, I've got me, Garrus and Grunt, player 2 has their self, Ashley and Liara, player 3 has their self, Thane and Tali, etc).

It's virtually impossible for a dude my age to find a group of people I know in 'real life' to play a game online, and playing with strangers inevitably leads to any number of undesirable outcomes, whether it's trash talking, somebody going Rambo, people quitting at the worst possible moments, or whatever. I can't seem to shake the feeling that adding any sort of multiplayer element to ME is going to take away from the immersive experience the game to date has done so well to provide.

Still, I'm reserving judgment until I see what, exactly, they have in mind.

[AxeHappy]

According to IGN the Co-op has nothing to do with the campagin (You don't play as Shepard) but can have an effect on it.

But you don't need to do it to get the 100% perfect ending...so I can't see what effect it can have on it.

And it was done by some other developer or something.

[SirMyghin]

That is good news, if not odd Axe, thanks for finding it.

[AxeHappy]

The news of Multi-player in Mass Effect made my heart hurt until I read that. Still think it's silly but oh well.

[SirMyghin]

I am just happy apparently Bioware wasn't forced to sacrifice their time to do it.

[ShadowFactoryX]

one thing that i forgot that bugged me
while exploring those colonized planets, THERE WAS NO VEGETATION OF ANY SORTS on the planets with breathable oxygen

sooo...

thats probly too anal of me to picking on that aspect

i just really hope that exploring, and the multiplayer DONT detract from the epicness

[Konfyouzd]

Originally Posted by synrgy

Ah. I stand corrected, then.

I just did what sounded the wisest to me. Let the robot - who is AI - deal with the AI. Tali, an AI specialist, also works. Let the squad leader (Garrus, or Miranda) lead the squad, etc.

I always send Thane to lead the survivors back to the ship, as he struck me as the most reliable who wasn't already assigned to something else. I haven't tried anyone else for that one.

As for the 'I need somebody to shoot/blow shit up' section, I've had success with both Zaeed and Jack. Haven't tried anybody else, but I would have to presume that Grunt could handle that task, also.

I've never seen anyone die, yet.

It's the game's own way of giving incentive to pay attention to the character details.

None of my ppl died either. But I think I used some slightly different ppl for some of the stuff. I let Jacob lead one of the squads, but I can't remember which one. I think it was whatever the very last decision was. And people DID die when I used anyone but him for it.

I think the one where you need someone to escort ppl back to the ship, it doesn't actually matter who you choose although Thane seems pretty much perfect for the job. I used him every time just to be safe.

Tali and/or the Geth dude always for the AI, of course...

And I don't remember what else needed to be done to be honest, but I'm playing through it again now so I guess we'll see.