Mass Effect 3

[TheGodBen]

Now see, I wouldn't mind there being no Garrus as a squadmate, though likewise I can appreciate that it would be unlikely. Honestly it wasn't until ME2 that the character even got interesting for me but even then I felt like his story had been told and if I had been reading a novel or watching a movie instead of playing a game then I would fully expect the author/director to give him a good hero's death in the suicide mission.

Heathen! Garrus is an awesome badass, they don't just die when things get tough (except in my upcoming 4th playthrough with my racist renegade manShep). If ME3 doesn't end with Garrus as the sole ruler of the galaxy, I will demand a refund!

Spoiler: ME3 Liara

The thing that surprised me is that Liara is listed as a squadmate. I had assumed that making her the new Shadow Broker meant she was destined for greater things. It seems odd to set her on that path only for her to return to Shepard's side shortly after.

 

[sonn]

In the ME1 my soldier used Ashley and Garrus with a bit of Wrex. As you can tell I didn't use much biotics in the first game. In ME2 I rotated between Grunt, Jacob, Miranda and Garrus.

Spoiler: Possible reason about Liara joining

Maybe the Reapers targeted the Shadow Broker ship? They knew about the Shadow Broker and his power from their previous dealings. But the page also says playable to 'some extent' so she may only be available for a single mission.

 

[LeadHead]

My ME1 squads would typically be Garrus and Ashley or Garrus and Tali. Of course I'd play with the others from time to time, but not on the Primary Missions.

In ME2, most of the time it would be Garrus and Tali, but given how much richer the field of potential squadmates was, I'd use different people more often. Garrus/Miranda, Garrus/Mordin and Garrus/Thane were common matchups. Miranda/Zaeed, Tali/Grunt, Thane/Tali would happen regularly too. Samara and Kasumi would pop up from time to time. Jacob and Jack had trouble finding their way onto missions. Jack moreso than Jacob. Lots of the time, I'd play Jacks Loyalty mission towards the end and realize upon starting it, I hadn't used her at all since recruitment, as she hadn't filled in any skill points at all.

I'm not sure when it happened, but Garrus somehow became my right hand man in the ME universe. Which is fine with me.

 

[Reverend]

Heathen! Garrus is an awesome badass, they don't just die when things get tough (except in my upcoming 4th playthrough with my racist renegade manShep). If ME3 doesn't end with Garrus as the sole ruler of the galaxy, I will demand a refund!

Spoiler: ME3 Liara

The thing that surprised me is that Liara is listed as a squadmate. I had assumed that making her the new Shadow Broker meant she was destined for greater things. It seems odd to set her on that path only for her to return to Shepard's side shortly after.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I liked Garrus a hell of a lot better in ME2 than I did in ME1, he's just not a favourite is all. Besides, Tali could totally kick his...uh...whatever turians have instead of an arse.

Spoiler: ME3 Liara

Yeah, that surprised me a bit too. Like many I had assumed that after LotSB she'd take up a role more akin to Anderson, Hackett and the Illusive Man; providing dossiers, intel and sending you on missions and whatnot. Of course it possible Feron is the one to stay behind and run the base while Liara relocates to the Normandy.

 

[-Brett-]

I normally don't bother with gaming magazines, but I might have to make an exception in this case. ME3 is easily the title I'm looking forward to most this year. Probably my most looked-forward-to title of the last several years, come to think of it.

 

[T.Geiger]

I have played through the first game eight or nine times now. After getting the achievements, I have always had Ashley as my tank and usually Garrus as my engineer. Wrex if I don't need one. Its nice to have both tanks backing you up.

Ash and Wrex can handle the Survival missions on Pinnacle Station all by themselves. After making the needed time, I figured I'd keep going until the Geth got me. Thirty minutes later, I just sat Shepard down and figured I'd wait until the Geth got my squad (and then me). Thirty minutes after that, I called it.

In ME2, I always take a tank and a support. The tank is usually Garrus or Grunt. The support is usually whoever I think fits best with the character concept I have for that Shepard. The middle characters, like Thane and Jacob, never see any playtime.

 

[Saquist]

I never found much of a use for Mordin. While hos powers are useful he had the distressing habit of dying rather often. Even on normal difficulty I'd often fine myself running out of medigel for the amount of times I had to revive him. Jack too for some odd reason I mean you'd think she'd be pretty tough but that girl really has a glass jaw.

Speaking of Jack (and I may have brought this up before) but I was rather disappointed with her. I mean from the trail of destruction she leaves behind in her recruitment mission they make her out to be a neigh unstoppable biotic battering ram. Though I appreciate that any squadmate that really had that power level would totally break the game, perhaps they could have used some kind of sustained ability that for a short time (and with a long cool down) puts her normal abilities into overdrive. Indeed a lot of the characters could have done with something similar. Grunt's fortification and Legion's geth shield were a good start but I think Garrus could have used a "focus" ability that briefly increased his accuracy and rate of fire. Not so sure about the others but something to make squad selection a little more involved.

Frankly Samara is better.
That Reaving is the best thing since the singularity.

 

[Reverend]

^Uncontested. In my first playthrough I hardly ever used Jack once I'd recruited Samara.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I loved Jack the character, but Jack the squadmate was completely useless to me. Same with Mordin; loved him as a character, but I rarely used him on missions. Hopefully the squadmates in ME3 will be a little more balanced in terms of usefulness.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah I think the problem with a lot of the biotic abilities in ME2 is that they were rendered next to useless on the higher difficulty settings as most or all enemies had armour and/or shields. Speaking of which, while I can understand a kinetic barrier being able to protect someone from a biotic throw, how exactly does having armour help? Seriously, on hardcore, husks can just *walk* through a singularity with no trouble at all!

Mind you, biotics were a little overpowered in ME1, so they may have just over compensated. I remember on my Adept playthrough, just for fun I took Liara and Wrex with me and we were just throwing enemies all over the place with no trouble at all, hardly needing to fire a shot. It was hysterical!

 

[Skywalker]

The nerfing of biotics is a general symptom of ME2's problems overall. A lot of the changes they made went farther than they really needed to go. I kind of think BioWare overreacted to some of the responses they got from ME1, and instead of making everyone happy, they just ended up alienating a completely different group of people instead. Hopefully they pulled it back a bit and ME3 will be a better balance between both of its predecessors.

And yeah, it was crazy fun going through ME1 with three characters with at least some biotics.

 

[clint g]

The nerfing of biotics is a general symptom of ME2's problems overall. A lot of the changes they made went farther than they really needed to go. I kind of think BioWare overreacted to some of the responses they got from ME1, and instead of making everyone happy, they just ended up alienating a completely different group of people instead. Hopefully they pulled it back a bit and ME3 will be a better balance between both of its predecessors.

And yeah, it was crazy fun going through ME1 with three characters with at least some biotics.

yeah I agree. I would like them to bring back some equipment customization as well. It's not a must but I would still like it.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

instead of making everyone happy

They will never make everyone happy.

 

[Reverend]

The nerfing of biotics is a general symptom of ME2's problems overall. A lot of the changes they made went farther than they really needed to go. I kind of think BioWare overreacted to some of the responses they got from ME1, and instead of making everyone happy, they just ended up alienating a completely different group of people instead. Hopefully they pulled it back a bit and ME3 will be a better balance between both of its predecessors.

And yeah, it was crazy fun going through ME1 with three characters with at least some biotics.

yeah I agree. I would like them to bring back some equipment customization as well. It's not a must but I would still like it.

If reports are right they're doing exactly that. While I welcome it in principle, I hope it'll take a similar form as the armour upgrade and customisation system from ME2 rather than reverting to looting. One of the many things they got right with ME2 was just completely doing away with the inventory system.

Aside from the obvious that it's completely ridiculous to have one soldier carrying around enough weapons and armour to equip half the Bolivian army, the idea that you should be able to change armour mid-fire fight is just beyond ludicrous. The method of scanning/reverse engineering or buying tech upgrades and applying them between missions makes so much more sense and takes a lot of the drudgery and grind out of the RPG experience.

I know a lot of old school RPG gamers defend looting and grinding mechanics rather vehemently (though Dagon knows why) but for me, even in games I enjoyed like Fallout, the most tedious part was carting the mountains of useless weapons, armour and other items to the nearest merchant so you can afford to buy something half decent. Even in a fantasy RPG it makes little to no sense for someone to be able to walk around with so much crap.

I recently decided to give Oblivion another try but I'm barely past level 2 and I'm already bored and have little interest in continuing knowing what a slow grind it's going to be and frankly, the plot just isn't gripping me (don't even get me started on the scenery!)

 

[clint g]

Indeed. I think the best way to do it would actually copy call of duty's load out system. Let you customize your weapons and armour when you are on the ship. This way you can still customize your character without micromanaging your inventory

 

[Saquist]

The nerfing of biotics is a general symptom of ME2's problems overall. A lot of the changes they made went farther than they really needed to go. I kind of think BioWare overreacted to some of the responses they got from ME1, and instead of making everyone happy, they just ended up alienating a completely different group of people instead. Hopefully they pulled it back a bit and ME3 will be a better balance between both of its predecessors.

And yeah, it was crazy fun going through ME1 with three characters with at least some biotics.

yeah I agree. I would like them to bring back some equipment customization as well. It's not a must but I would still like it.

If reports are right they're doing exactly that. While I welcome it in principle, I hope it'll take a similar form as the armour upgrade and customisation system from ME2 rather than reverting to looting. One of the many things they got right with ME2 was just completely doing away with the inventory system.

Aside from the obvious that it's completely ridiculous to have one soldier carrying around enough weapons and armour to equip half the Bolivian army, the idea that you should be able to change armour mid-fire fight is just beyond ludicrous. The method of scanning/reverse engineering or buying tech upgrades and applying them between missions makes so much more sense and takes a lot of the drudgery and grind out of the RPG experience.

I know a lot of old school RPG gamers defend looting and grinding mechanics rather vehemently (though Dagon knows why) but for me, even in games I enjoyed like Fallout, the most tedious part was carting the mountains of useless weapons, armour and other items to the nearest merchant so you can afford to buy something half decent. Even in a fantasy RPG it makes little to no sense for someone to be able to walk around with so much crap.

I recently decided to give Oblivion another try but I'm barely past level 2 and I'm already bored and have little interest in continuing knowing what a slow grind it's going to be and frankly, the plot just isn't gripping me (don't even get me started on the scenery!)

I rather liked the looting aspect. It reminded me of the second game of X Men Legends and I like both the Original ME and X Men's legend of GRADUALLY adding abilities and seeing the improvement in your combat. The whole Omni Gell thing made enough sense that That it was clear there was some sort of matter producer but that does sound far fetched the tech is not that far and away over our heads.

What I really would like it the SAME variety of Armors they had in the original (that seemed realistic) and then mix that with equipping on board ship and not on the ground.

 

[T.Geiger]

Personally, I would kind of like to see them go to an upgrade system like Resident Evil 4. That is, you upgrade the various statistics of a weapon with monies.

I would also like to see them eject the entire "find an upgrade" system they had in ME2. Find a weapon/armor (blueprint), sure. But I'm not scouring the known universe to find a 10% increase that my brilliant scientist should have been able to research if I'd have given him a little more coffee.

 

[Reverend]

^I'd hardly call it scouring the universe since those kind of upgrade scans are just an extension of the experience points. A little extra reward for completing a mission or for exploring the map a little. Since most of them are right there in the story missions it's not exactly easy to miss them.

Unless you're referring to the resource scanning/probing required to actually research the tech, in which case I agree, that needs to go away.

Actually, based on comments made by developers it looks like they're going to change resource back to more or less what it was in ME1. That is actual deposits you find while roaming in your vehicle. The up side to that is that I suspect the open planetary environments will be a lot less "open" and more multi-path affairs like Overlord.

 

[Skywalker]

I'm more interested in getting back a deeper skill system. I'd love to see something like DA2's skill tree. I thought that was a very nice compromise between the typical RPG skill system and the more casual-friendly, scaled-down system we got in ME2.

 

[Reverend]

While I agree it worked great for DA2, I don't know if that'd work so well for ME. I mean, for all it's RPG elements, a good portion of Mass Effect's game-play has always been third person shooting, which is still mostly player skill based. The only way to make the kind of incremental stats increase seen in fantasy RPGs meaningful is to start out as a brain dead, blind cripple who couldn't hit the broad side of a budong...and that really wouldn't be a lot of fun to play. Conversely, a fully min-maxed character would feel like playing with a one-shot-kill aimbot. Equally lacking in appeal as it takes away from the skill factor. I suppose something similar to the talent trees could be used on a much smaller scale, but it's not far off the current method of binary evolving powers.

What did feel odd to me was the universal cool downs. I understand the individual cool downs made biotic characters damn near unstoppable, but to makes little sense for say an sentinel unable to use 'overload' because they just used 'throw'. Perhaps grouping the overloads into power types would make more sense? As in you use a biotic power and all biotic powers go into cooldown, but any tech or combat powers remain available. That should stop specialist classes having too much of an edge while still allowing the hybrid classes some more flexibility.