Mass Effect 3

[x-president]

Seems like a handful of us have it, so I figured I would make a thread for it.  Post hints, tips, reviews, etc.  Just hide any spoilers if you can.


So far it's pretty solid like the rest of the series.  I just wish the group combat was better.  Controlling teammates is very limited and they seem to stand around and do stupid things.  At higher difficulties you really see the pain this can cause.  I just wish you could set their aggression level and simple things like that.  Possibly even basic formation, but unfortunately you can't and giving orders is extremely limited and not very useful at times. 

They like to flank you with enemies from new spawns after you've advanced in the battle field.  Unfortunately your squad doesn't know how to adjust to this and they just get raped.  Then they like to spam turrets and nades and those pita engineers just don't wanna go down.

I bumped the difficulty to hardcore.  Normal was just too easy imo.  Hardcore wouldn't be so bad if squad control was better, but it comes down to soloing it most of the time.  Although I didn't have any anti robotic squad members with me.  So that could have been my bad.  Most squad abilities were useless except mine.

But overall so far I'm digging it.



- If anyone has some suggestions on taking down guys who carry shields let me know.  I am early in the game and lacking abilities, but they give me some issues.  Probably more then others.  They take warp hits like a champ and singularity doesn't effect them when the shields are blocking. 

Oh and when do you get the dlc squad member? 

[baseball4ev]

Glad you're liking it

Ya, squad control isn't the greatest but I enjoyed being Commander Shepard "the greatest one man army".  Of course, normal difficulty is a lot different from hardcore haha.

Shield guys can be tough and there are several approaches you can take.  Tossing a grenade (James has them) at them usually makes them raise their shield in recoil and you can nail them then.  Flanking them is also a huge bonus as bioware did a great job with their enemy AI.  The enemy AI doesn't always know where you are (more realistic) so if they are distracted by your squadmates, flank around to the side and pop several shots into their side.  You can usually get them stunned or disoriented that way and finish them off.  The third option is to use  sniper rifle and aim at their exposed feet.  Usually a shot to the foot will make the shield carrier reel back allowing another quick finishing shot to the torso or head.

Make good use of the different kinds of ammo.  I played as a soldier so I had flame, disruptor, and armor piercing ammo which I used to their maximum potential.  If you have a squadmate that has a unique ammo type, be sure to upgrade it to allow squadmates access to it as well.  It comes in handy in all situations throughout the game.  Pretty self explanatory but here are some tips regarding the different types of ammo:
--flame is great for really anything.  I used that the majority of the game regardless of the situation and I was just steam rolling through guys.  If you get it maxed out then you can really burn through guys as they get constant burn damage as well as being stunned.
--disruptor ammo is great for taking down shields and will stun the enemy once his shields are gone.  Not a great multipurpose ammo type like flame but excellent at quickly depleting a tougher enemies shields.
--armor piercing ammo, I doubt you'll guess what this is for   Great against armored units but nothing else.

Basically, I always had the flaming ammo equiped and switched to armor piercing and disruptor as the situation demanded.

As for the DLC.  Not sure how far along in the story you are but you'll get a priority mission pretty early on telling you to go to Eden Prime.  That's where you get the new squad member, assuming you bought and installed the DLC

You mentioned to me that you had already met Garrus so I'm assuming that you've taken down the brute.  For those guys I found that a sniper rifle with armor piercing rounds worked the greatest.  I was able to lay waste to them in 2-3 shots, and as you get farther along they come in packs of 2-5 so it's important to take them down as quickly as possible.



I played some more multiplayer today and actually started to really enjoy it.  There is very little variance among the maps and objectives but it was fun to rank up the different classes and gamble with buying random supplies

I've played through the ending four times now lol (don't worry, no spoilers) and you can only get the two more common endings unless you import a character from ME2.  I found that out through trial and error as well as a little help from google   Regardless, the ending still sucked but it seems that there is a prevalent theory floating around that makes sense but has some holes in it.  I'm just really looking forward to bioware confirming or denying these rumors or by releasing the rumored "real" ending in a DLC.

[LLLL LOLLLLLo]

everyone's all about Mass Erection 3 ( ) lately.. guess i'll just go play ME2 seriously already, then consider ME3.

[baseball4ev]

everyone's all about Mass Erection 3 ( ) lately.. guess i'll just go play ME2 seriously already, then consider ME3.

Cause it's a great game...ME2 ranks easily in my top two games with ME3 coming in my top 7.

[LLLL LOLLLLLo]

I got ME2 from steam this xmas when it was just $5, i just played until the part you gotta go in some abandoned space station on some asteroid that has been taken over by some gangsters or smth, there was this dude stranded there cause his rival made him charge lots for his merch and he doesn't sell at all or smth like this. don't really know, gotta play again gg.

ps. I wouldn't mind hugging that Miranda chick for a while 

[x-president]

ps. I wouldn't mind hugging that Miranda chick for a while 

That's the actress form Chuck, if you've ever seen the the show.  Actually a lot of the voice overs are somewhat main actors. 

You should see EDI, lol.



@Baseball4ev:

I'll be heading for that dlc mission asap.  I had some Bioware pts from DO:  Origins so I grabbed it right away.  Brutes were those big Reaper creatures right?  If so Warp works pretty good on them.  It'll stun them and cause good dmg.  You can almost stun lock them if you have a fast enough recharge.

Right now I'm running SMG and Pistol only.  I get 0 carry weight penalty so I have around 200% recharge on powers.  Sense I'm going full Adept I need it for fast casting.  I'm about to get an upgrade that will increase my weight, so I might be able to use more weaponry.


Currently I have squad members powers "off".  This gives me full control when to use them, but they seem to stand around more doing nothing.  So I don't know.  I may have to switch it back.  Early game is always the toughest.  Powers and abilities are at their weakest so I'm sure combat will change as everyone levels up.

[x-president]

Yea combat pretty easy now even on Hardcore.  Actually that one section where you have to save the students is one of the hardest sections so far imo, but not in a fun way.  For some reason they designed it to spam gun turrets and nades like crazy.

Anyways warp/stasis dominates or even singularity/stasis.  Warp combined with anything does killer dmg.  The beauty of stasis/warp is it basically destroys the enemy's shield in one hit plus knocks down and stuns them.  It's basically game over for anyone who gets hit by it.  That Prothean squad member has some very nice abilities.  His lift grenades rock.  They'll 1 shot assassins with 1 upgrade.  His Dark Matter ability is ok.  I'm curious to see how it works maxed out. 


By far the end of the catacombs section where you fight the Brutes was one of the most, if not the most fun sections in the entire game so far.  It was awesome dodging them and blasting warp, just non stop enjoyment.  They are actually fairly easy to fight becasue you can dodge them easily.  But that entire sequence was pretty cool.  Walking through the dark and then the final ending, one of my favorite sections.

Most of the game I'm fighting on 1 health bar.  I'm glad for auto charge shield.    Basically I only use Liara and the Prothean now.  Even in the original Mass Effect, Liara was always my bread and butter.  Adept combos are just brutal.  I'm still rocking out pistols.  Liara and me both have pistols only.  Then I have the Prothean with his gun that shoots a green beam, forget name.  It disintegrates enemies sometimes. 

That dlc is a pretty important part of the back story. 

[baseball4ev]

By far the end of the catacombs section where you fight the Brutes was one of the most, if not the most fun sections in the entire game so far.  It was awesome dodging them and blasting warp, just non stop enjoyment.  They are actually fairly easy to fight becasue you can dodge them easily.  But that entire sequence was pretty cool.  Walking through the dark and then the final ending, one of my favorite sections.

Which catacombs section are you talking about?  The one with the krogan commando squad or the one on Tuchanka...Or maybe some different one, just not picturing it right now

That dlc is a pretty important part of the back story.

Ya, it plays a huge part in the whole mass effect series itself but I can see how someone who didn't play the previous ones wouldn't really care about it.  Awesome flashback scenes from the previous cycle though.  I tend to really enjoy the back stories to games so this was a huge nerdgasm for me

[x-president]

Which catacombs section are you talking about?  The one with the krogan commando squad or the one on Tuchanka...Or maybe some different one, just not picturing it right now

Tuchanka

Question?

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Can you save Mordin?  He mentions that you need EDI before you go on the mission.  I just wonder if you take EDI, will she take his place and if she does, will she survive?  Also I wonder how that would effect the relationship between Joker and EDI if you helped advance it.

Quick Tip:

For those of you who are searching hostile areas, it's not necessary to flee once you alert the Reapers.  Every time you entire an area it auto saves.  So don't worry if you get caught.  JUst scan the entire area like crazy until you find the locations and just hit "Resume" when you die.  It will re-load you back to first entering.  Then just scan where you know the items are.  I'm not sure if difficulty changes the amount of scans, but on Hardcore you only get 2 or 3 before they are on full alert. 

Also if they 100% alerted and are coming after you, you can still enter Orbit.  It basically pauses the action and you won't get caught.  But when you leave get ready to move, becasue they will be in the same position before you entered orbit.  If you keep moving you can stay away from them for fairly long. 

One time they were right on top of me and I actually escaped.  I don't think I even saw my ship.  That's how close they were.    You can pull away from them, but they will eventually catch you. 


If you run out of fuel, don't worry.  You will just get sent back to the Mass Effect Relay.

[Darkflame]

Glad you're liking it

Ya, squad control isn't the greatest but I enjoyed being Commander Shepard "the greatest one man army".

I think the Master-chief would whoop Sheppard's ass for that title

[x-president]

I wish the armor was more customizable.  The special sets you can buy can't be changed in color or parts can't be swapped.  I can understand part swapping, but you should be able to adjust the color.

The reaper armor is pretty cool looking and the Blood Dragon has some nice boosts for Adept.  Unfortunately I never wear them because they don't really benefit me enough.  The standard suit you can tweak and adjust every piece to boost what you want.  Plus have full color control over the entire suit.

I'm rocking Dead Space colored lights on my suit atm.  



For sure on my next run, I'll be playing on Insanity.  I'm really interested to see how good melee is.  I'm thinking about making a character dedicated to that.  Just charge through the battlefield and beat on enemies.   

[baseball4ev]

Tuchanka

Question?

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Can you save Mordin?  He mentions that you need EDI before you go on the mission.  I just wonder if you take EDI, will she take his place and if she does, will she survive?  Also I wonder how that would effect the relationship between Joker and EDI if you helped advance it.

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If you want to cure the genophage then mordin will always die if you didn't import a character from ME2.  I took EDI with me on the mission and Mordin still died.  However, if you imported a character from ME2 and had done his loyalty mission and have a high enough paragon rating (I think you have to have a high rating), then you can convince him not to go up and the genophage will still be cured.  On the other hand, you can choose to not cure the genophage in which case he will live as well.

Quick Tip:

For those of you who are searching hostile areas, it's not necessary to flee once you alert the Reapers.  Every time you entire an area it auto saves.  So don't worry if you get caught.  JUst scan the entire area like crazy until you find the locations and just hit "Resume" when you die.  It will re-load you back to first entering.  Then just scan where you know the items are.  I'm not sure if difficulty changes the amount of scans, but on Hardcore you only get 2 or 3 before they are on full alert. 

It's about 2-3 scans on normal difficulty as well.  Usually I would continue scanning even once they entered the system like you said but then I'd quickly exit once they got too close and then just reenter a second later.  If you reenter then the reapers start on the fringes again and give you time to run through.

I never knew that running out of fuel would take you back to the mass relay.  I was always too scared to try

[Snake0567]

For sure on my next run, I'll be playing on Insanity.  I'm really interested to see how good melee is.  I'm thinking about making a character dedicated to that.  Just charge through the battlefield and beat on enemies. 

The elbow is always overpowered in every game.

I walk in... elbow, elbow, elbow and then death, death, death for them.

[nr3cithm39hti]

I just found out what happens at 5000 EMS

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Mass Effect 3 Perfect Ending (Shepard Survives)

a lot of people said it had the worst ending ever but i think this ending is actually quite good.

but personally i would have gone with the synthetic life ending

[baseball4ev]

I just found out what happens at 5000 EMS

Show content

Mass Effect 3 Perfect Ending (Shepard Survives)

a lot of people said it had the worst ending ever but i think this ending is actually quite good.

but personally i would have gone with the synthetic life ending

Show content

Ya, I've seen that one before and that's where a lot of the controversy has come into play.  We aren't sure whether that is shepard in the rubble after the citadel is destroyed or whether the whole ending is the reaper's trying to indoctrinate shepard and by "killing" the reapers shepard breaks out of their hold and he wakes back up right after being blasted on his way to the citadel.  The community is waiting on the official word from bioware and there is rumor going around about the legit ending being a DLC.

The three endings represent the three different character's choices.  Destruction is Anderson's choice (the "right" choice), control is the illusive man's choice, and synthesis is saren's choice (Saren from ME1).  You can only get the shepard lives ending by choosing the destruction option btw.

I personally think it's an awesome ending in terms of making me emotional   But in terms of ending this series it left way too many plot holes and the choices throughout the games have no bearing on what happens as all three endings are virtually the same (very un-bioware/un-mass effect like).