JCC Anyone NOT playing Mass Effect 3?

Okay, I'll be nice and tell you. Electronic Arts has their own digital download service called Origin.

 

Dragon Age II was on Steam, but they pulled it. Sims 3 and all its expansions are still being released on Steam though. There are certain hoops on Steam that EA isn't prepared to jump through. If it was all about competition then surely they'd pull all of their games from Steam.

 

Figured I'd refloat this. Just started playing through the Leviathan combat missions ... just to ask, has anyone had a bug on the Namakli mission? Right after I get the odd folding bridge working (and annihilate a Banshee) I go up a ladder, cross a roof, and it looks like I'm supposed to go down a ladder on the other side ... except Shep just does the sliding-down animation without actually dropping off the roof. I've tried quitting and restarting from the autosave, same result.

 

I would just like to say that I have still not played Mass Effect 3. In fact, I haven't even finished playing Mass Effect 1.

 

Shelf of Shame is the only game video or otherwise that I have played in a decade or so.

 

I'm not playing it, but then I pretty much only play the Lego Games (except LSW3 and LIJ2, both of which sucked)

 

Actually, I just figured I'd refloat this as the general ME discussion thread (which it seems to have been prior to the move) rather than start a new one. Maybe DarthTunick can alter the name to reflect that ...

 

Since it doesn't reflect his main interests (whichever they may be) I doubt he'll do that.

At this point, it's really hard for me to recommend/urge you to finish 1 and 2 and then play 3 considering how poor that finale is. Yeah, six months later and the sour taste still lingers.

 

No.

 

See?

 

I'm still attempting to....."acquire" a copy of ME3 for PC that doesn't require me to get Origin.

 

Fair enough sir, fair enough.

Invid, speaking for myself I didn't start the series until a month after ME3 came out and I had a pretty good idea of what I was walking into. With that said, I still found the trilogy worth taking up. It depends on the person, I guess. I focus more on gameplay and plot progression than the final ending. Also, in a nod towards the overriding purpose of the forums, in a sense I liked that ME3 hung a "The End" sign on Shepard's story (how much of an end is open to debate, I suppose). After seeing the torturous slog our favorite Star Wars characters have been put through over the past decade of novels, you start to see the upside of a character and a series in their prime going out swinging.

 

I would prefer to die than to play Mass Effect 3.

 

Ditto. I keep hoping they fix it via dlc (even if I have to pay for it...) but, yeah... not counting on it.

 

I've never bothered with the Mass Effect series.

 

They "fixed" it with DLC, if you can call that a fix. But it's the fix they wanted, not the one we needed.

 

I'm glad they didn't cave in and change the ending just because fans wanted it, creators should stick to their version of their vision.

 

I have to admit - and again, for clarification, I only started playing the series back in April and got ME3 after the EC tweak - I'm not horrendously torqued about the ending. Having had the gumption to sift through some of the fan suggestions for why the ending stunk and how it would have been better (many of those ideas making far less sense than "BEAWare's" to me), I don't see why they should cave in and completely redo the game to the myriad opinions of the fan base.

Personal opinion? Yeah, there is no happy ending to the ME saga. You either destroy the enemy once and for all by doing extensive damage to the galactic infrastructure and wiping out an entire allied "species" (and after Leviathan, potentially leaving an "apex race" of giant mind-controlling shrimp run unchecked); control the enemy with all the shaky implications of being a benevolent dictator possessing powers beyond human comprehension (not to mention you spent much of the game arguing with TIM over how the Reapers are an enemy to be annihilated rather than a resource to dominate); or unilaterally alter every being in the galaxy right down to the molecular level for the la-la utopian future (which I personally loathed the most out of the three options). Option 1 MAYBE gives you the chance to live; 2 turns you into a Petey-esque super-AI god-being that, while it has your thoughts and memories, is still not you per se; and 3 just plain kills you.

With all that said, however - ME from the get-go has not been about easy or ideal choices. Who to save; who to sacrifice? Will this choice bite me in the rear down the road? So frankly, to me it works. It's not perfect, but it works. And in the meantime, I've enjoyed the journey - and figuring out how to reduce various freakish zombielike mutants to warped, smoldering ashes in record time.

 

If you guys want to discuss Mass Effect, then this thread needs to be locked & an actual Mass Effect discussion thread started in its place.

 

Ok.

 

Well, it is an ME discussion thread, even if the original intent was to discuss not discussing it

 

Just because this is something I get OCD over in ME3 - what are your favorite weapons? That for me was a big improvement over ME1 and to some extent ME2; you had a decent selection of guns that had clear strengths and weaknesses and allowed you to choose a loadout that suited your class and personal tactics. ME2 had 2 or at best 4 weapons per category (with one of those generally being clearly inferior), and your procurement strategy in ME1 basically boiled down to "use the best guns you salvage from the field until you can start shelling out for Spectre gear."

 

My first time through the game, I basically used nothing besides the Mattock and Raptor. I was playing a Vanguard, so I just found the weight of all those other crazy weapons to be so horrific that I never touched them. I'm about one-tenth of the way through my second playthrough, and this time I want to try out all those other weapons a bit.

 

Really? Vanguards are born for shotguns, given their powers revolve around getting right in the enemy's face. A good mix for my vanguard was a Disciple, an N7 Valiant or M-13 Raptor, and maybe a lightweight SMG. I think I still had well over +80% power recharge times with that. I was never too crazy about the Mattock, largely because my opinion is that if I want a powerful, semi-auto rifle that relies more on precision than spraying bullets I'll pack a sniper rifle. The Raptor has most of the benefits of the Mattock plus the ability to add a scope mod for potting Cerberus troops behind smokescreens. In any case, if you have the Firefight Pack weapons the Mattock is more or less rendered obsolete by the Cerberus Harrier.

Here's my list - granted, a lot of it is personal opinion rather than an in-depth crunching of stats, and it only covers SP weapons (including the Firefight Pack DLC). In general I prefer guns that might not be the best performers stat-wise, but can reliably land shots and have a decent amount of reserve ammunition.

Pistols: Overall, I didn't use them much. Then again, I haven't played as an engineer or adept yet. Ergo, I tend to pick the special-use ones. The Scorpion is a sometime pick and typically my default sidearm for Liara - come on, it's a spy gun that fires sticky grenades. The M-358 Talon, if you have the Leviathan DLC with the ultralight materials mods, is a great lightweight shotgun until you get your hands on the Disciple and I typically assign it to EDI and Kaidan. The M-6 Carnifex likewise is your mini-sniper weapon; fit it with scope and barrel mods and free up some weight capacity to carry a heavy beast like the Claymore or Revenant. I'll also sometimes upgrade the N7 Eagle and M-5 Phalanx as general-purpose pistol choices, and I usually upgrade the Arc Pistol mainly for Tali. The M-77 Paladin seems like a beast, although as yet I haven't felt like spending nearly 200,000 credits on what amounts to a backup weapon.

SMGs: Again, not the biggest fan - mainly because most of them either don't pack much punch or turn into an anti-aircraft gun after about ten rounds. On the plus side, if you fit the ultralight materials mod they don't take up much weight, although it's incompatible with the recoil damper. The N7 Hurricane and M-25 Hornet can spit death at an alarming rate, although the Hurricane is hard to control even with the recoil damper. I tend to reserve those for Liara and EDI, respectively - Liara turns into an insane buzzsaw with the Hurricane and leveled-up warp ammo. A Hornet with a stability mod was a sometime choice. The Geth Plasma SMG is stable with a high rate of fire, but I don't much like the delay it needs to "spin up" to full speed. Overall I'd say my favorite is the M-12 Locust - not much punch, but reliably stable and accurate. Last time around my sentinel used one to fight through basic enemies on Priority: Earth; that saved the punchier Harrier and Valiant for Brutes and Banshees.

Shotguns: I'd have to say the Disciple is my hands-down favorite, just because it's light and accurate but packs a good punch. The M-22 Eviscerator is a decent interim choice; the M-11 Wraith isn't bad if you don't mind having only two shots in the magazine and spending over 200,000 credits on a shotgun. I'll usually upgrade the Geth Plasma Shotgun for Tali as well as the Graal Spike Thrower and Claymore for James; those can be good picks if you can get away with carrying only a lightweight SMG and/or pistol for backup.

Assault Rifles: The Phaeston tends to be my bread-and-butter choice as well as Garrus's weapon - light, lots of ammo, and it's pretty accurate with little recoil. You can fit barrel and piercing mods to bring the damage up a bit. The Cerberus Harrier is a new favorite - it rips even tough targets apart quickly, although the low ammo reserve means you can run empty in an extended fight. The Harrier pretty much renders the Mattock obsolete and I usually assign it to James and Kaidan. The Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle likewise tends to rip apart targets fast, especially geth, but ammo is also an issue. The Particle Rifle is Javik's default gun for verisimilitude; I usually only carry it for one mission of bug-hunting with Grunt because it can replace the flamethrower. The self-replenishing ammo supply is nice; I just don't like having to wait until the clip is 1/3rd expended before it kicks into high gear. For me, the "ultimate" AR is the M-76 Revenant; if you're a soldier adrenaline rush helps with the inaccuracy and recoil and the weight isn't as much of an issue. As far as squadmates go, Ash mows down enemies with it given her marksman ability and weapon damage boosts. Alternately a stability damper makes it pretty easy to control for any class; add a scope and it becomes very accurate, almost a sniping machine gun.

Sniper Rifles: I tend to upgrade a wider variety of SRs than any other gun, although it's hard to beat the N7 Valiant. It has decent damage and a good ammo reserve, but the low recoil and high rate of fire are really what makes it shine - you can snap off three shots, reload, and repeat in a couple of heartbeats. That's pretty much my go-to weapon for tough missions. The Black Widow packs a big punch, but the recoil slows down the firing rate and it's heavy. The innate armor-piercing is nice for certain targets. The Krysae is fun because you can quickly wipe out enemy peons; one shot into the troop bay of a Cerberus shuttle gets rid of the whole squad. The M-97 Viper is the lightest sniper rifle in the game, even though it's far less effective than it was in ME2. I tend to use the M-13 Raptor and M-90 Indra more as scoped assault rifles for Cerberus missions, given how much Centurions love to pop off smoke grenades and that allows me to carry one relatively light rifle for mid-to-long range and a shotgun for close quarters. Those guns are also good selections for Ash, given how her marksman skill jacks up the firing rate. In general I've never been crazy about single-shot rifles, although I typically upgrade the Javelin. I don't like the delay on the shot, but the heavy damage and innate armor piercing make it a good thing to have in the arsenal. I've seen Garrus do some serious damage with that gun.