Poll of the Day > The melee in Mass Effect 1 is really satisfying... for how lame it is

(+) Yeah! (+)

like, you melee someone and they just flop over... it's the saddest ragdolling ever, but because of it it's weirdly really satisfying

so youre saying its sadisfying

I think I only ever intentionally used the melee on Feros, but yeah it was pretty silly. Pretty funny helping the colonists by just decking 'em in the face hard enough to fully knock 'em out.

MICHALECOLE posted...

so youre saying its sadisfying

hehe! yeah!

AndyReklaw posted...

I think I only ever intentionally used the melee on Feros, but yeah it was pretty silly. Pretty funny helping the colonists by just decking 'em in the face hard enough to fully knock 'em out.

I didn't even know that was a thing. I always just order the rest of my squad to stay behind while I run forward and just go crazy stun grenading them all.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I didn't even know that was a thing. I always just order the rest of my squad to stay behind while I run forward and just go crazy stun grenading them all.

i never have enough grenades, but punching them does work

Lokarin posted...

i never have enough grenades

Put Feros off until after you've done one or two of the other main planets and some of the side missions. That'll give you time and credits to buy grenade capacity upgrades.

Aim things right and you can take out 2-3 colonists per grenade (they tend to cluster together a bit in most places), so you use less grenades overall.

And there are multiple ammo refill boxes on the map that will replenish grenades, so when you run out you can top off.

I think I've done it with a grenade capacity as low as 7. It just takes a bit of finesse.

Or you could just go Renegade and shoot them all.

Though I tend to do it Paragon even if I'm kind of doing a Paragade run and straddling both. Especially since I've usually exploited the infinite influence glitch on Noveria by that point, so I'm not hurting for Renegade points. Mainly because "Ehh, just gun them all down" doesn't really feel like a "win at all costs" Renegade mindset as much as it just feels like being lazy/bloodthirsty. Which isn't really "Renegade" as much as it is "Stupid Evil". Even a Renegade Shepard should probably be trying to minimize casualties there.

I at least like how in ME1 Renegade is more just "Pragmatic", compared to ME2's "Dickhead"

Also, ME1 is really short... only like 4 levels, maybe 5

ugh that fight on the elevator against the Krogan when you're leaving the excavation site (or something like that?) 1-shot Krogan melee, over and over...

Lokarin posted...

Also, ME1 is really short... only like 4 levels, maybe 5

a fair bit of side quests though, but yeah. (man that was a great game... stupid ME3...)

Any time I play Mass Effect 1 I can't not land on every uncharted planet and do every side quest available. I can't even imagine just going straight through the story planets.

AndyReklaw posted...

Any time I play Mass Effect 1 I can't not land on every uncharted planet and do every side quest available. I can't even imagine just going straight through the story planets.

thing is, I kinda did a fair number of side quests... I didn't hunt them down or anything, but I did all the ones I found via exploration alone which included everyone (erhhhh, everyone except dead Kaiden)'s loyalty mission

I feel like mass effect would have been better if it had a melee fighting engine like doa.

then again mass effect would have been better if it used doa characters.

Just how it is

is doa Dead or Alive or do you mean DA:O?

Lokarin posted...

I at least like how in ME1 Renegade is more just "Pragmatic", compared to ME2's "Dickhead"

It isn't, really.

The problem is they had a good idea when it came to making the alignment system "by the book" versus "win at all costs", but they were still hung up on good/evil choices because of their prior experience with Star Wars (where morality was very black and white) and D&D (ditto). So a majority of decisions still kind of turn into "pet the puppy/shoot the puppy" moments.

So Paragon became "by the book", but it also became the dumping ground for all the "good" choices (which is why Paragon Shepard feels less like a by-the-book officer and more like SPACE JESUS). And while there ARE "pragmatic" Renegade choices (Sacrifice the Council to save troops for a later attack? Kill the Queen to protect the galaxy? Sell out the smuggler on Noveria because it gets you a pass to leave much sooner and much easier?), there's a LOT of aggressive, sadistic, cruel, racist, or otherwise asshole Renegade options. Full-on Renegade Shepard isn't really pragmatic in ME1, they're a punch-first, then-shoot-a-bit, and-then-maybe-ask-questions-later, asshole.

(And that's not even getting into the fact that motivation can warp decisions even worse. What if you want to save the Queen to recruit her as an ally against your enemies? That would actually be a very "pragmatic" choice but the game can't process that. In the same vein, you might want to save the Council to take advantage of the political cred and influence it will net you - again, very pragmatic - but the game doesn't take that into account at all.)

ME2 feels worse because pretty much every Renegade interrupt is kind of treated as the "be an asshole" button, but the normal dialogue options and persuades aren't really all that different from ME1. It can also feel worse because the game makes it much harder to make ambiguous choices (because now influence is tied to persuasion, so going Paragade is more of a sacrifice - if you're not pure Paragon or pure Renegade, you're going to have a harder time keeping teammates loyal or winning Tali's trial), meaning if you're going for a Renegade run, you're probably going to pick every Renegade choice and feel much darker.

ME3 kind of follows in ME2's shoes, but makes things even worse by doing away with neutral options entirely. So you literally cannot be anything other than Space Jesus or Captain Shithead (or a schizophrenic mix of the two who is going to have a hard time succeeding at any persuade attempts). And ME3 makes things even worse by forcing flashbacks and implied guilt/PTSD on a Shepard who has literally spent two straight games not giving a single fuck about how many soldiers they have to lose to get the job done. Which makes Renegade Shepard feel like even more of a muddled mess.

the problem with the Paragon/Renegade system is that it rewards you for focusing on one or the other... when the whole point of such a system (and the fact that it's an RPG) is to be able to choose one or the other as you see fit. forcing you into picking the same one every time is the opposite of how it should work. (I don't exactly have a great suggestion for how to improve it though, necessarily, if for example you want it to be hard to be able to make the late game checks...)

Ya, I just did the Zaeed loyalty mission... (a character who I forgot existed, lulz) and there's a part where you can punch him in the face, punitively... which should be a renegade action, but it's a paragon action just because you have the moral highground.

...

Also, 90% of the quests are people with bad fathers, it's like someone at bioware just got beat up by their dad every morning before work or something.

That aside, I think I WON'T kill Morinth this time

fun fact, the quest about the Hanar preaching without a license is (IMO) based on Artur Pawlowski who is a street preacher in Alberta (Bioware is from Edmonton) who gets in trouble with the police all the time (and has again recently from what I heard). (My family apparently knows him or at least other people who know him, not sure.)

just finished ME2... everyone even survived this time

Something about the design of ME2 compelled me to do more of it... I didn't do 100%, since I can't tell what all side quests there are, but I did 100% the galaxy map and only had 3 sidequests incomplete (I saved a Krogan Scout, but forgot to drop off the victory... stuff like that)

I like the hard sci-fi of ME1 more, but it also meant that since I already read everything the first time I played it I was able to burn through quite quickly and missed probably a lot of quests.

...

Just started ME3 - I know I was arrested for destroying a Batarian system (The Project), but I don't know if that was a mandatory mission or not so I'm curious why you are on Earth otherwise (probably for working with Cerberus at all)

I know the big critique of ME3 is the ending, but SO FAR the game play refinements and cinematography are the best yet... and it's only been like 10 minutes (currently on Mars trying to use a broken elevator)

which ones have you played before?

ME3 is ok/good (maybe not great) until the ending. there are updates and DLC that makes it better too but I never tried them.

Sahuagin posted...

which ones have you played before?

ME3 is ok/good (maybe not great) until the ending. there are updates and DLC that makes it better too but I never tried them.

I played ME1 before and vanilla ME2... so I was able to do the DLC this time around

Sahuagin posted...

the problem with the Paragon/Renegade system is that it rewards you for focusing on one or the other... when the whole point of such a system (and the fact that it's an RPG) is to be able to choose one or the other as you see fit.

That's part of why I loved how Dragon Age 2 handled things. It wasn't perfect, and it could definitely have been a bit more granular differentiating between who you were talking to in certain ways, but it mostly allowed you to pick whatever you saw as the most appropriate choice for a given situation, without forcing you into picking a specific persona and then only picking those choices. And then allowing personality to shift over time via a preponderance of options.

Which is why I mostly interacted with my family and the more innocent characters with the "polite" options, my friends and love interests with the sarcastic/charming/flirty options, and enemies who'd successfully pissed me off with the hostile/direct responses (which generally meant that I spent Act 1 as "nice", Act 2 as "smartass", and Act 3 as "pissed off engine of destruction").

Alpha Protocol handled it fairly well as well, but suffered from other issues that kept it from being trend-setting.



Sahuagin posted...

I don't exactly have a great suggestion for how to improve it though, necessarily, if for example you want it to be hard to be able to make the late game checks...

Arguably you shouldn't be tying your morality to your ability to succeed at persuasions at all. Other games don't (ie, Fallout just uses Charisma, Dragon Age has a separate Persuade skill, etc).

Mass Effect 3 actually handles it better by tying it at least partly to Reputation, but morality still plays into it, so you're still forced into mostly picking one and sticking to it forever (and again, no neutral options means most of your dialogue choices almost become meaningless by default).

The ideal balance is figuring out a way where your choices matter in terms of having an effect on you, but not necessarily becoming so important to gameplay that the effect forces you to make specific choices. ie, having characters comment about how you are noble or scary or a smartass or whatever, but not locking you out of choices or attempts to persuade people solely based on the sort of choices you've already made.

The other ideal way to handle persuade attempts is something along the lines of how Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex: Human Revolution handled it. Namely, that the person you're attempting to influence has very specific personality traits that require specific responses to trigger their best outcome. So, say, in Alpha Protocol (where you can respond to any dialogue with Professional/Sarcastic/Aggressive/Situational response) you meet someone who has a very serious personality. They will tend to react well to you if you use Professional options while speaking to them, while Sarcastic options may annoy them to the point of turning on you. In the same way, Human Revolution tends to have a few persuade conversations where each dialogue choice either improves or degrades the person's respect for you, and by the end of the conversation the overall number of points determines how well they respond to your persuasion.

That way, players can choose for themselves if they want to pursue a singular personality (say, all Sarcastic, or all Aggressive), choose more situationally (ie, being Professional with allies and Sarcastic with enemies), or just outright game the system (by being a "social chameleon" who deliberately acts in the way most likely to generate the optimal result from the target). Thus catering to both roleplayers and power gamers.

Lokarin posted...

That aside, I think I WON'T kill Morinth this time

You should totally sleep with her. I'm sure it will be fine.



Lokarin posted...

Just started ME3 - I know I was arrested for destroying a Batarian system (The Project), but I don't know if that was a mandatory mission or not so I'm curious why you are on Earth otherwise (probably for working with Cerberus at all)

It's optional DLC. Specifically, "Arrival".

Hackett will contact you and ask you to travel to Batarian space to break someone out of prison for him. It's a solo mission, and is more or less canonically the "last" thing you do in ME2 before the six month break that leads into ME3.

The reason you're on Earth is because, if you did that mission (and thus destroyed the system you mentioned), Hackett literally says you're eventually going to need to go to Earth to answer for it, because if you don't you'll basically destabilize galactic politics at the worst possible time (when you're trying to prepare for the Reapers), so you agree to go and basically take the fall so Earth doesn't have to deal with the blowback.

You don't need to do that DLC (though it, Overlord, and Lair of the Shadow Broker are pretty damned good - and Lair of the Shadow Broker is some of the best DLC in gaming period), but ME2 is one of the few games where I feel like most of the DLC is actually worth getting. The two optional crew, Overlord, Lair, and Arrival are great (and I feel like Lair is almost mandatory if you're romancing Liara), and Firewalker is okay (but can easily be passed on), but most of the extra weapon and appearance packs feel like kind of a waste (but you do you).

In fact, I think that if you don't do that DLC, the dialogue in the beginning of ME3 is actually vague about why you've been arrested, and it's implied it's just related to you working with Cerberus, and blowing up the system isn't mentioned (because, well, technically, you didn't actually do it). I think it also alters other dialogue options (ie, there's a Batarian or two who will hate you for blowing up the relay if you did it, and if not they'll dislike you just for being human). There's at least a few other incidences of that (a Batarian tied to if/how you completed the Bring Down the Sky DLC in ME1, a scientist from Project: Overlord who knows you if you played it but doesn't if you didn't, Liara will react to you differently in a lot of instances if you played Lair of the Shadow Broker versus if you didn't, etc).



Lokarin posted...

I know the big critique of ME3 is the ending, but SO FAR the game play refinements and cinematography are the best yet... and it's only been like 10 minutes (currently on Mars trying to use a broken elevator)

ME3 is fantastic - the problem is the ending, and some of the things that are hamfistedly inserted leading up to it to justify it.

It's hard to explain in more detail without spoiling, so I won't.

But a lot of the little moments and the overall arcs are great. It just looks kind of worse once you get to the end and look back on the way you've come to get there.

I personally just retcon a couple things in my head while playing and it's generally fine (specifically: I assume Vent Boy is just an insane and stupid AI who is stupid, ignore everything he says because it's stupid, blow him and the Reapers up for being stupid, survive because I'm an awesome badass who went out of their way to get the best possible EMS Destroy ending, and then pretend that the Citadel DLC actually takes place after the end of ME3, after everyone cleans up and rebuilds the Citadel, as a sort of celebration of victory and not just a stupid vacation break in the middle of the largest war in the history of the galaxy - it makes the ending WAAAAAY more palatable).

lulz, Joker just summed up the reputation system

https://i.imgur.com/9BfL9Oz.jpg

Dang, I don't know if the Save Omega mission is core or DLC, but if it's DLC it's practically a whole game unto itself

Lokarin posted...

Dang, I don't know if the Save Omega mission is core or DLC, but if it's DLC it's practically a whole game unto itself

DLC.

In the core game Aria just hangs around the club/bar on the Citadel and gives you a minor mission to recruit three gangs for the war effort (you have to do a minor side mission for each gang).

In the Omega DLC, she recruits you to take back Omega, and you attack, fight through multiple areas and complete multiple quests, and eventually have a final confrontation. It's an interesting story, and maybe more importantly, it's worth a fair bit of EMS (thus making it easier to get the best Destroy ending).

Omega and Citadel are the two DLCs I generally recommend for ME3. From Ashes and Leviathan are actually way more plot-relevant, but I kind of find both of them stupid for different reasons, so I tend to avoid playing them in spite of having them downloaded.

awww, how sad... Thane has gone to the great toilet bowl in the sky

Something I REALLY like in ME3 is how much more passively you pick up hints and clues to side quests instead of making every quest a big to-do... even things like solving minor arguments is nice and simple and yet also done in a very organic way.

Why am I on a casino heist... with Wrex in a tuxedo?

Which, btw, looks amazing on him

Lokarin posted...

Why am I on a casino heist... with Wrex in a tuxedo?

Which, btw, looks amazing on him

Because you're playing the Citadel DLC, and because you chose to take Wrex with you instead of your theoretical love interest.

I usually take Liara there, because I like taking my hot alien girlfriend on a date. And because a hot Asari is going to blend in better than a Krogan.

On runs where I date other people (Kaidan, Garrus, etc), I usually take them instead.

Jacob is a furry, confirmed

https://i.imgur.com/8oRcNTT.jpg

OWO

There, I beat the trilogy.

I got the Medium-Destroy ending... although in all fairness I think the Refuse ending might be the "good" ending. Yes, this galaxy is destroyed by the reapers but all future cycles end with free will for everyone intact

No idea why I got the Medium ending since I had like 6700 military strength... I think there could be one or two artifacts I missed and that's about it.

Lokarin posted...

I got the Medium-Destroy ending... although in all fairness I think the Refuse ending might be the "good" ending. Yes, this galaxy is destroyed by the reapers but all future cycles end with free will for everyone intact

Nah. Destroy is better. Because you preserve this cycle without dooming the future galactic civilization to have to potentially fight their own desperate war with tons and tons of casualties before eventually winning. On top of preventing literally everyone you've ever known and every current culture being wiped out. And being able to survive yourself (the only ending where that's possible) if you got the best version of Destroy.

Plus, it makes your surrogate father figure Anderson happy. So it's clearly the best ending.



Lokarin posted...

No idea why I got the Medium ending since I had like 6700 military strength... I think there could be one or two artifacts I missed and that's about it.

You had 6700 military strength, but you need 7400 for the best ending (I'm assuming you're playing Legendary Edition). And you missed a lot more than one or two artifacts - there's something like 7500 war asset points in the main game, but the DLC adds up to 1100 or so more (depending on which ones you're willing to play).

The whole thing is an absolute mess because one of the major stupid decisions they made when developing the game (probably forced on them by EA) was essentially forcing players to play multiplayer, by linking "Galactic Readiness" to your military strength in the single-player game. Default Galactic Readiness is 50% - which means only half of the war assets you collect actually count as "Effective Military Strength" (which is the score that technically matters). In the original version of the game it was literally impossible to get the best ending (because you needed 4000 EMS, but there was only 7500 possible war assets available, so you literally couldn't have an EMS higher than 3750 without playing multiplayer).

The Extended Cut of the original game helped (it lowered the requirement for best ending down to 3100 EMS), and the extra war assets in the DLC could help you pass the threshold sooner, but it was mostly a jury-rigged solution, when what they should have done is just remove Galactic Readiness entirely. Because it was stupid in the first place and almost no one wanted it.

The Legendary Edition continues the half-assed jury-rig fixing of the problem by doing away with "Galactic Readiness" (because there's no multiplayer anymore) and removing EMS from the game (because there's no Galactic Readiness to base it on), but also rebalancing all of the ending thresholds (with the best ending requiring 7400 - which essentially would have been an EMS of 3700 in the original version of the game). So they've made it harder to get again for no good reason, likely based on the assumption that players will deliberately play ALL the DLC. Which sort of defeats the entire purpose of the DLC being fun extra content and instead forcing you to play it.

BioWare's basically a shit company now, and every decision they make at this point is generally wrong.

Still, ME3 was really good and I liked all the little denouement moments for so many characters... sometimes a short vignette is all that is needed and the War Asset system allowed that without bloating the game beyond the 110 gigs it already is...

I liked how the action scenes had lots of big moving parts (reapers, harvesters, shuttles, etc)... Halo ain't do that

Am aware of how bad Bioware has gotten - my cousin worked on Anthem