Mass Effect LTD Thread

[Alessa Gillespie]

I was actually just saying this last night! Bioware, we love your romances, but please PELASE don't ignore those of us who just like to be bros with our crew. I couldn't talk to Jacob because the game seems to assume if you're talking with him, you want to flirt with him. Garrus barely said anything to me, and he's one of only two people who bothered to follow Shep into this mess, there has to be more to talk about.


and

liara/femshep is canon

liara/shep is just canon period, they push it the most.

BUT I do wish garrus would talk more, it doesn't make a whole bunch of sense for him to say next to nothing when Tali discusses her mission, the fleet's thoughts on her loyalty, how much she trusts shepard, and all of this is just with femshep. garrus gets pretty much jack squat compared to the other team mates and this is immensely disappointing.

 

[Splintered]

Why does Garrus have so little dialogue on the Normandy anyway? It's even worse because you get him as one of first characters.

we love your romances, but please PELASE don't ignore those of us who just like to be bros with our crew.

Jack is probably the worst out of them all. She doesn't give a shit unless you try to hit it. And if you do too early, she hates you anyway.

I kill her almost every time I play the game now

 

[Fighter]

I was actually just saying this last night! Bioware, we love your romances, but please PELASE don't ignore those of us who just like to be bros with our crew. I couldn't talk to Jacob because the game seems to assume if you're talking with him, you want to flirt with him. Garrus barely said anything to me, and he's one of only two people who bothered to follow Shep into this mess, there has to be more to talk about.

LOL. People have been asking this of Bioware since way back in KOTOR days and maybe earlier. I see it hasn't changed.

 

[null]

I dunno. I mean, I actually enjoyed the Mako sections. Sure, I hated the Mako itself to the bone, but the actual concept of going around and doing all this stuff - the reason I did it in the first place was because there was a bit of immersion into this Mass Effect universe. It gave the game a major element of exploration into this unknown fantastic place in the galaxy.
So I've heard the major driving segments have been taken out for this second game. I'm not entirely thrilled with that. There were bits here and there that were tedious to drive around, but all in all I would have just preferred them to improve the Mako rather than just do without the driving completely. That just seems like a step backwards/laziness.

What would I mean by improving the Mako? Having it drive like a believable vehicle. I know people might call excuse it on being the future, but I'd like to believe that futuristic vehicles don't have instant traction the moment they start accelerating on the ground and zoom off in a different direction in case you landed funny after a jump, or are hypersensitive to the driver's turning movements. And a vehicle as bouncy as that on relatively gentle bumpy terrain can't be good for exploration, I keep thinking how hard the Mako bucks every time it rolls over some hillock on an otherwise flat surface.

Grab the Firewalker DLC and give the Hammerhead a spin. The Mako has better firepower and armor, but the HH handles like a dream compared to the Mako and is a superior scout vehicle in every way. Only thing that sucks is, it only has a few missions and you can't explore planets with it.

And I don't mind the lack of planet exploration because there are far, far more story-related missions that are highly detailed and not repetitive. What I do mind is having to fucking pump gas, and the slow travel between systems. It ruins all the fun of space travel. At least the mineral mining was fixed to take one hour instead of several hours to get all the upgrade resources (I think it was patched with the LotSB DLC).

I kinda get the feeling that the devs were trying to simplify everything, but in all honesty if this is what they came up with, right now I'd much rather have it more complex.

It went from a little too cumbersome to a little too simple IMO. However, I for one do not miss wasting time omnigelling the endless crap in my inventory, constantly re-equipping my crew and having to switch ammo types (I think making ammo a skill was a vast improvement.) Healing the party was a chore and I'm glad they implemented a more modern system for health. Streamlining the skill points is a wash - yes, it does take the fun out of customizing, but I like the simplicity because I left a lot of powers unused in ME1. I like both systems but I suppose the old system felt a little more customizable and RPG-ish.

I do miss exploring planets, but the game has enough content (two discs worth for the Xbox) to mitigate that. And as for the interface, I think from the way you describe it that it's the PC interface only - but that's a major change, and from the way you describe it, I'd have to agree that it impacts player experience for the worse.

And the switch to ammo? I don't know if I like that either. Pistols sure fire a lot less at the moment. And that's never good for an Infiltrator.

No, no, it's thermal clips. See, they made these super awesome weapons, so awesome that they never cool down even if you leave the game running all day. Isn't that cool? Way better than your badass Spectre gear that you can't just re-buy because Shepard somehow forgot the directions to C-Sec.

I don't know. Aside from the technobabble, the ammo system grew on me.

As I'm sure you've probably noticed, the pistol is now highly specialized and not nearly as useful as before. I don't use it unless I run out of heavy ammo, otherwise not at all. As the Infiltrator you can get better results by using the submachine gun (the new all-purpose goto weapon) and spamming Incinerate. I highly recommend getting Kasumi's DLC for the Locust. You'll never want for a smg after that.

I'd totally support a ME dlc that's exclusively more dialogue options.

I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but... a while back in a Kotaku interview, they talked seriously about doing exactly that for ME and DA:

Kotaku had asked if there could be more sex or romance added to the game, partially as a lark, riffing off of Zeshuck's comments that the studio would consider making more missions involving the new Hammerhead vehicle being added to Mass Effect 2, if fans say they enjoy using it. Some fans have complained that Mass Effect 2 was more restrained in its depiction of romance and sex than its predecessor, which had taken heat for a sex scene it included in a widely-publicized segment on Fox News.

While the suggestion that BioWare could accede to such requests to just add more sex via downloadable content was made tongue-in-cheek, Zeschuk said that the idea of adding more dating and love to the game after the fact is an idea he likes. He thinks of such possible content as, in his words, "a romance pack," something that has nothing to do with combat and everything to do with relationships. "You know, It's possible," he said. Mentioning a character from Dragon Age, he suggested there could be a "Take Leliana on a date pack."

 

[Splintered]

I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but... a while back in a Kotaku interview, they talked seriously about doing exactly that for ME and DA:

I never heard of it, I was speaking in general terms of being disappointed in the the lack of character interaction. I'm also really sad that my crew mates don't interact with each other often, other than the occasional breaking up of fights, and that weird tension between Miranda and Jacob

(SPEAKING OF WHICH, Jacob tells your Shepard that Miranda needs a better man than him, but then is willing to "priiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzeee" you, which makes me think, "hey :/")

I wouldn't mind a romance dlc. As long as they remember to put in a brofist dlc too.

 

[Joker]

Sounds like someone didn't buy the Spectre gear license from C-Sec

It was expensive as hell, but SO WORTH IT. My squad was BALLIN' OUTTA CONTROL with Spectre gear, although Akishep never got the Predator H light Armor (best human light armor), so I went with the swish looking Colossus red and black light armor. Goddamn she was awesome looking. >:3

 

[null]

I never heard of it, I was speaking in general terms of being disappointed in the the lack of character interaction. I'm also really sad that my crew mates don't interact with each other often, other than the occasional breaking up of fights, and that weird tension between Miranda and Jacob

They interact and stuff, you just don't see them Like when Garrus talks about how the crew is treating him.

Oh, you meant teammates talking to each other in cutscenes. Well, they're kinda a bunch of loners, aren't they?

Miranda: buries herself in work, spends all day doing reports alone
Jacob: cleans weapons, does situps and gets pissy if you talk to him too much
Samara: does her Justicar meditating stuff alone
Morinth: sits around being sexy alone
Thane: sits around reliving memories alone
Grunt: listens to Hemmingway books and headbutts stuff alone
Jack: fuck off!
Tali: does engineering stuff off to the side (but can still hear everything)
Zaeed: stands around watching the trash eject alone
Legion: actually he talks to EDI once in a while
Joker: pilots the ship, listens to porn, talks to EDI
Garrus: does calibrations alone
Kasumi: stalks Jacob, observes everyone, does Japanese stuff, gets hammered alone
Mordin: buries himself in work

(SPEAKING OF WHICH, Jacob tells your Shepard that Miranda needs a better man than him, but then is willing to "priiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzeee" you, which makes me think, "hey :/")

He also gets catty with maleshep if you romance Miranda. Pretty funny.

I wouldn't mind a romance dlc. As long as they remember to put in a brofist dlc too.

Jacob does the bro hug with (male) Shepard when he talks about spilling drinks, does that count?

Sounds like someone didn't buy the Spectre gear license from C-Sec

I did but

Spoiler

my Fred Durst arms dealer guy died on the Normandy. :-(

 

[Joker]

LOL DURST

He doesn't die. xD

 

[Hisako]

Grab the Firewalker DLC and give the Hammerhead a spin. The Mako has better firepower and armor, but the HH handles like a dream compared to the Mako and is a superior scout vehicle in every way. Only thing that sucks is, it only has a few missions and you can't explore planets with it.

Looking forward to it.

fucking pump gas, and the slow travel between systems

I think they did have a nice thought by actually putting a movable ship icon on the Galaxy map, but yes, the thing moved so damn slow and transitions were tedious in comparison to the first one.

(I think making ammo a skill was a vast improvement.) Healing the party was a chore and I'm glad they implemented a more modern system for health. Streamlining the skill points is a wash - yes, it does take the fun out of customizing, but I like the simplicity because I left a lot of powers unused in ME1. I like both systems but I suppose the old system felt a little more customizable and RPG-ish.

The ammo functions in ME2 are actually a pretty neat idea, and I'm kinda okay with that. To be honest, the only issue I had with the new system was the idea that most weapon/armour upgrades were turned into levelling stats in a way, and that most of them applied across the entire team. It does take the hassle out of the system, but I was just surprised that ME2 took the system in such a different direction,


Oh, just a question: How do I actually heal my teammates? I have Unity in my skillset, but that only heals/revives teammates once they're fallen.

And as for the interface, I think from the way you describe it that it's the PC interface only - but that's a major change, and from the way you describe it, I'd have to agree that it impacts player experience for the worse.

I just had a nice stay overnight at a friend's birthday party, and I took the opportunity to roughly go through ME1 and ME2 on the 360. I do have to say that the PC interface is imo superior to that of the console version, but that said I think the 360 version used what peripherals it had much, much better than what ME2 did with the keyboard and mouse. The weapons and skills wheel and use of the D-pad for personal skill usages feels natural enough to use

One of the things that I thought was pointing towards the simplification was the fact that they'd merged the sprint, use, and cover function into one single button on the keyboard, with no way to separate the two. Okay, so I could live with that, but I really don't know why they made the change in the first place.

Something that I couldn't help noticing was how the constant hints and tips for key usages didn't change their tips in accordance with the way I'd changed my key binding for the keyboard. I switched my Command HUD hotkey to spacebar like from the original game, but there's been a whole bunch of windows and pop-ups in-game that keep telling me to use shift or something. I thought people would have the capacity to code for this sort of thing, but this is just nitpicking, in the end


But for god's sake, Mass Effect 2 for PC took out key bindings for shortcuts to Journal, Codex, and Squad. I have to go to the pause game menu to check everything nowadays (something which ME1 PC had and which made things very, very easy to browse in comparison to console versions). I see absolutely no reason why ME1 took the advantage of the keyboard and ME2 didn't. Mass Effect 2 for PC almost feels like a console port.

As I'm sure you've probably noticed, the pistol is now highly specialized and not nearly as useful as before. I don't use it unless I run out of heavy ammo, otherwise not at all.

At the moment I'm actually mainly using my sniper rifle. It's vastly superior to anything else I'm using so far. Complete role reversal.



As for the romancing on topic, I'm actually very intrigued as to the femshep/garrus option, but I'm downloading Lair of the Shadow Broker as I type this and I still rike Liara alot.

ALOT ;-;

But, y'know, I was actually thinking that a Garrus/femshep romance could at least be hinted at a little more strongly than his awkward "I wanna fank yu for everyfingk" and the "aww yor welcom" dialogue by the endgame.

Jack is an absolute dick. By which I mean I have absolutely no sympathy for her or her backstory at the moment, but let's see if anything changes.