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edogawa rando posted:It kind of is, when all it takes is knowing your squad and paying attention to the details. Well, this is all based on knowing how the systems work ahead of time. There's no indication (for instance) that crew members have different scores for holding the line, or that if you send Grunt to escort the crew, then take Garrus and Zaeed to the final battle, Mordin will die. Choosing to send Mordin on a solo mission through the Collector base when he's the most fragile person on your team is, viewed from another perspective, not an obvious choice if you don't know ahead of time that sending anyone is an auto-success, and that their invisible "toughness" score matters for holding the line, but not for the crew escort. You also get two opportunities to pick fireteam leader, and not picking one of Miranda, Jacob or Garrus for both of them will result in a death. That means you have to guess right on a 3/12 both times. As mentioned, Miranda is widely hated by the other crew members, and Jacob isn't popular either - a bunch of his meet and greets with new squaddies involve them taking an instant dislike to him. Almost no-one on your crew trusts Cerberus, and plenty of them have specific beef with the Cerberus personnel on your ship. There's as much reason to think they're bad leaders as good ones.
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Sep 21, 2021 21:58
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I do think there's a decent amount of choices the community says is "obviously wrong" for reasons that really only work if you're reasoning backwards from the outcome. Miranda on the bubble is the biggest one, Zaeed as fireteam leader is another. You can sit down after the fact and say, "well, obviously Miranda's biotics aren't good enough" or "well Zaeed told you about all those times he was the only one who made it out alive" but without spoilers I don't think it's possible to logically deduce that Miranda works as a leader but not a biotic, or that Zaeed gets the team killed in one big fight but not the other.
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Sep 21, 2021 22:08
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Android Blues posted:Well, this is all based on knowing how the systems work ahead of time. There's no indication (for instance) that crew members have different scores for holding the line, or that if you send Grunt to escort the crew, then take Garrus and Zaeed to the final battle, Mordin will die. Choosing to send Mordin on a solo mission through the Collector base when he's the most fragile person on your team is, viewed from another perspective, not an obvious choice if you don't know ahead of time that sending anyone is an auto-success, and that their invisible "toughness" score matters for holding the line, but not for the crew escort. I don't see why you would assume it wouldn't matter, especially when the game made it clear the last few choices did matter. If I was hiring a bouncer (which is basically what your doing) I would hire Zaeed or Grunt any day of the week over Mordin or Tali and that's even knowing that Mordin and Tali are badasses in their own right. If I hear " want someone to "hold the line" Immediately my head goes to "I want someone wearing lots of armor shooting a big gun with lots of bullets" I don't think of the people wearing light armor or who have limited weapon proficiency.
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Sep 21, 2021 22:11
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Yeah the Zaeed thing feels like a trap because of the other choices: -Garrus also got his entire team killed -Miranda is basically a middle manager that no one else on the team likes -Jacob is just a former spec ops guy, there's nothing indicative of strong leadership qualities; hell, Mordin and Tali were also spec ops team leaders for that matter
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Sep 21, 2021 22:18
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TheGreySpectre posted:The only one that could fit in a leadership position that doesn't satisfy the role is Mordin but he is kind of a stretch compared to Miranda and Garrus. The common mis-steps are (a) sending Mordin through the vents. He's small and a techie. (b) Making Zaed a team leader. He's lead the Blue Suns after all - and I guess some people didn't listen to his stories. (c) Believing Miranda when she says she can manage the biotics. It's still possible to screw up the Hold The Line with everyone loyal. With everyone loyal then most of the characters are neutral, and Grunt, Zaed, and Garrus can each cover for two of Jack, Kasumi, Tali, and Mordin. You need one more character covered for for each disloyal squadmate. If you e.g. send Garrus back and bring Grunt and Zaed into the boss fight with you people will die. The people good at holding the line aren't the heaviest hitters, they are the ones best at taking a hit and keeping going. The Krogan because Krogan, Garrus has been through reconstruction, and Zaed's Zaed. quote:I think I go into the final battle With Legion and Tali a lot because I like both of them as characters, it's fun doing dueling M98s with Legion, and Tali kind of sucks at holding the line. I take Thane with me because he's murder on organic foes at long range and because he's the one who's already dying.
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Sep 21, 2021 22:22
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Wolfsheim posted:Yeah the Zaeed thing feels like a trap because of the other choices: Garrus got betrayed rather than his people killed in combat. The combat part he succeeded against overwhelming odds. He's the obvious choice. Miranda's has a Cerberus Leader skill meaning she mechanically makes everyone around her better. No one disputes her competence - they just don't like her much. Jacob was a spaceship Captain with the corsairs. And was not, as far as we know, unsuccessful. It is admittedly more edge case than the other two. Mordin meanwhile is a research team leader. We don't know he's ever lead troops in combat. Tali's both young and her team died in combat. She does not have a successful track record of leading people in combat. Zaed always got his team killed in combat. He should not be leading a team you want to survive.
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Sep 21, 2021 22:38
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neonchameleon posted:Zaed always got his team killed in combat. He should not be leading a team you want to survive. See, this is the sort of conclusion that I don’t think anyone would draw if they weren’t starting with the fact he’s a bad fireteam leader and working backwards. Everybody on your team is highly competent, the best of the best in the galaxy. Zaeed specifically has multiple decades of experience, including founding a highly successful mercenary group only a couple years after first contact (somehow). The “only one who made it out alive” stuff gets played up a lot in these conversations but most people’s takeaway is going to be that he’s a grizzled veteran with tons of experience, not that he’s incompetent, just like a renegade Shepard who Got His Whole Squad Killed On Torfantm Especially because just a couple minutes later you have the hold the line part, where Zaeed is really good at keeping the other team members alive! If you logically concluded he’s bad as a fireteam leader, shouldn’t you also conclude he’s bad there too?
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Sep 21, 2021 22:51
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neonchameleon posted:The mission is team leader for a single fight. Not for long term loyalty, but a single fight. Betrayal is not an issue here - combat leadership competence is. Garrus comes across as about as reliable as Zaeed. Zaeed has a ton of stories about doing things on a team that never survives and Garrus is an ex-cop batman lone vigilante wannabe whose team are also dead. He doesn't come across like he has leadership potential, he's just a badass. Edit: Miranda volunteering for the biotic specialist because she's overconfident and thinks she's good at everything even next to more powerful biotics is great and a nice trap that I enjoy tbh. Danger - Octopus! fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Sep 21, 2021 |
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Sep 21, 2021 22:57
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zaeed is a huge douchebag who you should've been able to kill during his loyalty mission and thus should be either placed somewhere where he gets killed immediately or as far away from your team as possible
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Sep 21, 2021 23:07
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Back in the day I role played a Shepard who was romancing Jack and chose her for first fireteam leader to show how much confidence he has in her  Miranda is pissed when you do this and I also got Tali killed that way so it was a two-birds one-stone situation site posted:zaeed is a huge douchebag who you should've been able to kill during his loyalty mission and thus should be either placed somewhere where he gets killed immediately or as far away from your team as possible You can absolutely do this if you do his loyalty mission afterwards but counterpoint Zaeed owns, he's an excellent companion for a war crimes renegade Shepard run
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Sep 21, 2021 23:10
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TheGreySpectre posted:I don't see why you would assume it wouldn't matter, especially when the game made it clear the last few choices did matter. If I was hiring a bouncer (which is basically what your doing) I would hire Zaeed or Grunt any day of the week over Mordin or Tali and that's even knowing that Mordin and Tali are badasses in their own right. If I hear " want someone to "hold the line" Immediately my head goes to "I want someone wearing lots of armor shooting a big gun with lots of bullets" I don't think of the people wearing light armor or who have limited weapon proficiency. Right, so if you're working on that logic, why would you then assume that it doesn't matter who acts as a bodyguard for the crew escort? You can't assert "it's easy to figure out that you need Garrus, Zaeed and Grunt to hold the line because they're tough" (which in itself doesn't make a tonne of sense given Jack and Samara are demonstrably capable of erecting gigantic biotic barriers, which you'd think would be at least as useful at holding the line as a merc with a sniper rifle) without then running into a contradiction with "but it doesn't matter who escorts the crew, which is basically also being a bouncer, so I can send my most fragile characters to avoid them bringing down the Hold the Line score". The Suicide Mission isn't hard but by design it also isn't perfectly intuitive. Most players who went in blind (especially before Kasumi existed) lost someone, and while it's not that hard to avoid doing this, it does rely on a bit of luck, a few good guesses, or you just knowing how it works under the hood.
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Sep 21, 2021 23:11
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I've brought this up before, but the meme that all of Zaeed's stories end with him being the only survivor isn't really true. He has one story that ends with that as a punchline ("made out like a bandit."), but that's it. Plenty of his other stories mention people who survived with him ("hear he's a governor now") or buddies that he's done multiple jobs with. Yeah, there are reasons that he wouldn't be a good team leader, but I'll always argue that he still makes more sense for the role than either Jacob or Miranda.
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Sep 21, 2021 23:32
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Wolfsheim posted:You can absolutely do this if you do his loyalty mission afterwards but counterpoint Zaeed owns, he's an excellent companion for a war crimes renegade Shepard run I really hope that if they stick wiht a morality system in ME4 then it can radically change your party composition. Nice guy Shepard gets a bunch of goody-two shoes nerds and people who want to help or whatever while Herr Shepard of the Space SS gets basically just five Zaeed clones in different hats
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Sep 21, 2021 23:33
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People also like to pretend miranda isn't a trap option on the biotic barrier because the dedicated biotic character whose backstory is being genetically engineered to be a badass biotic is actually clearly a terrible biotic and so weak compared to the other, cooler biotics. It's just so obvious she would fail!
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Sep 22, 2021 01:15
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FoolyCharged posted:People also like to pretend miranda isn't a trap option on the biotic barrier because the dedicated biotic character whose backstory is being genetically engineered to be a badass biotic is actually clearly a terrible biotic and so weak compared to the other, cooler biotics. It's just so obvious she would fail! I mean.... Jack is explicitly described as the most powerful living human biotic, and you see her pulling insane one-hits on YMIRs. Miranda only tells you how amazing she is.
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Sep 22, 2021 01:27
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I mean.... Jack is explicitly described as the most powerful living human biotic, and you see her pulling insane one-hits on YMIRs. Miranda only tells you how amazing she is. Yes, and nobody thinks its weird that Jack is a good choice. But Miranda has biotics, specifically volunteers, and none of the other biotics question or disagree with her claim to be capable of it, so she also seems like a good choice. If anything there’s more reason to believe Miranda would succeed at the bubble than as a fireteam leader.
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Sep 22, 2021 01:40
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The team leader thing is also funny because of ME2s "darker" tone everybody is a walking body count. Garrus is a good team leader but his entire team is dead. Miranda is a good team leader but her entire operations base is dead aside from Shepard and Jacob. Tali basically has 2 teams of Quarians wiped out between her missions. Zaeed's whole bit is he's a mercenary commander who's a sole survivor. Even Shepard can do a colonist/sole survivor background dating back to 1. Those are the ones with any "leadership" experience in the game lol.
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Sep 22, 2021 02:04
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My favorite part of the whole biotic bubble briefing is when Miranda goes, "In theory, any biotic can do it." Then, every single time, I remember all over again that Thane is a biotic. It's just one of those things that are both weird and inconsequential enough that I can never really retain that information because there is absolutely no point in it. And I like Thane!
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Sep 22, 2021 02:10
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Agaragon posted:My favorite part of the whole biotic bubble briefing is when Miranda goes, "In theory, any biotic can do it." And we see Samara using biotic powers in her introduction, and when you bring Jack along, she's blasting everyone left and right with Shockwave. Honestly, lol if you're not going with either of these two as your bubble buddy.
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Sep 22, 2021 02:14
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I’m late but just beat Mass Effect 1 as an Adept Paragon Femshep play through. First on a technical aspect the game looks really good. I’m impressed with the visual upgrade without going overboard. I played on a base PS4 with “favor frame rate” and outside of the Citadel performance was also pretty good. The gameplay improvements are also nice. Mako no longer feels floaty, and I like how I can actually use the Sniper rifle without needing to be trained in it - sure made Virmire much easier. I never played Bringing Down The Sky before. It was OK? It was nice to have a proper side quest. That said, other aspects just haven’t aged well. The side quests are all a chore, all the ships/bases look the exact same. Some of the dialogue is cringy, and the game has some really awkward transitions. The less said about the romance the better but I saved not-Carth because I like him on a paragon play through. I also forgot how long it takes for the story to get going. ME1 really has a slow build especially at first when you are stuck on the Citadel. With all that said the last 1/3 of the game is still brilliant. When I do my maleshep renegade play though I’ll just skip most (all?) of the side content. But for now, on to ME2!
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Sep 22, 2021 02:18
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Agaragon posted:My favorite part of the whole biotic bubble briefing is when Miranda goes, "In theory, any biotic can do it." I mean any Biotic is able to do it. Its just Jack and Samara/Morinth who don't die in the process of doing it. The others will all succeed at the mission!
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Sep 22, 2021 02:22
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exquisite tea posted:Mordin was high risk before Kasumi was added, but since the Hold the Line calculation takes all living squad members into account I think it's impossible for him to die now as long as all your other squadmates are still alive by that point. Kasumi doesn't decrease Mordin's death chance, she increases it - she's a glass cannon class character that is a penalty against Hold the Line strength even when loyal It's the escort and final boss squad that determines it, it's still possible to have a death even with all 12 characters loyal if you pick a wrong combo.
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Sep 22, 2021 03:25
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edogawa rando posted:And we see Samara using biotic powers in her introduction, and when you bring Jack along, she's blasting everyone left and right with Shockwave. Honestly, lol if you're not going with either of these two as your bubble buddy. And you see Jacob strut his biotic stuff by pulling that one robot over the railing. I should have picked him! He's perfect with that kind of mad power!
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Sep 22, 2021 05:22
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im certain i got miranda merked as my one and only casualty on my first playthrough, but i have no recollection why i'd pick her over jack or samara
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Sep 22, 2021 06:08
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Eau de MacGowan posted:im certain i got miranda merked as my one and only casualty on my first playthrough, but i have no recollection why i'd pick her over jack or samara I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually die if you pick her for the bubble, one of your squad members dies instead. Because she has the lead role in some of the Suicide Mission cutscenes, the game goes out of its way to help her survive - unlike Jacob and Garrus, she can lead a fireteam while non-loyal, and I think there are other things. I think the easiest way to kill her is to take her to the final boss without her loyalty? She might also be able to die while holding the line.
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Sep 22, 2021 06:16
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FoolyCharged posted:And you see Jacob strut his biotic stuff by pulling that one robot over the railing. I should have picked him! He's perfect with that kind of mad power! Dude, it's just Pull, which is like babby's first biotics. I'm sorry your bad decisions got your squadmates killed.
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Sep 22, 2021 06:41
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The only trap is Thane in the vents. Come on, he loves vents!
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Sep 22, 2021 06:45
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You would think more people would be admitting it can have unintuitive videogame logic at times because that would make them sound smarter for getting the moon logic puzzle right on the first try than "Oh no it is super obvious, so it isn't a big deal I got it right while someone else got it wrong." Like how the game goes out of it's way to present Jack as a near unstoppable badass in cutscene land, but then it turns out she is also one of the most likely to die according to badass points calculations barely above (tied with?) Tali and Mordin for hold the line value. Granted, I blame blind luck for nobody dying for me on launch considering all the horror stories about it. Mr. Prokosch posted:The only trap is Thane in the vents. Come on, he loves vents! EDIT: Wait, wait. Apparently thane has a higher hold the line value than Jack? Yes, clearly you want the sneaky assassin with a terminal illness to hold the line more than the Biotic with a shotgun and warp ammo. Section Z fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 06:46
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combat value is calculated via 90s comic book logic: big dudes > busty ladies > small dudes > non busty ladies
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Sep 22, 2021 07:50
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Android Blues posted:I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually die if you pick her for the bubble, one of your squad members dies instead. Yes, I think it's always a companion who's in the bubble with you (but not the bubble-maker) who dies, and there's an ordered list of most vulnerable characters, with Thane at the top. So if you have Thane with you and Miranda making the bubble, Thane will die; if you have Jack with you but Thane making the bubble, Jack will die.
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Sep 22, 2021 08:38
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Best Friends posted:combat value is calculated via 90s comic book logic: big dudes > busty ladies > small dudes > non busty ladies Is this why a bunch of the women in the ME trilogy all have the same bodies, because there's safety in all being the same shape?
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Sep 22, 2021 08:45
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CPFortest posted:There's an ME2 (classic not legendary) mod that modifies the suicide mission as a whole. Whenever I replay the trilogy, I've always let different characters die to spice things up and to see how it changes Mass Effect 3. I think the most interesting changes happen with Mordin, Tali, and Jack not being present. Mordin gets replaced by Padock Wiks, who only appears briefly in the Salarian homeworld mission, and he ends up being a fun character who looks at things from a much more spiritual side than Mordin does. With Tali dead, Xen accompanies you onto the Geth Dreadnaught, which I think it's the only time in the trilogy a non-squadmate does that. It also forces you to choose between the Geth & Quarians at the end. With Jack dead, the tone of the Grissom academy changes in a way that none of the other missions involving the ME2 squadmate missions do. It's much more bleak, and even ends with one of the students getting gunned down on the final run to the shuttles. Makes it feel more like a desperate rescue mission for a bunch of scared kids instead of the origin story of a badass biotic squad. Most of the others don't really change too much by being dead, it just feels like stuff is missing. I think the only character that I've never seen die is Garrus. Might have to finally try that the next time I decide to do a playthrough, although I can't imagine that changes much, it seems like there'd just be a bunch of missing dialogue without anything to replace it.
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Sep 22, 2021 09:07
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Jokymi posted:Mordin gets replaced by Padock Wiks, who only appears briefly in the Salarian homeworld mission, and he ends up being a fun character who looks at things from a much more spiritual side than Mordin does. Warning: Padok Wiks is a standard Bioware scientist character, by which I mean he says 'why shouldn't scientists believe in god? I see divine purpose in creation'. Worse, he says the theory of evolution is cool but he wishes to find its purpose, as though the whole point of the Darwinian revolution was that purpose isn't required. He has no other conversation and is essentially a punishment for killing off Mordin, you monsters. E: killing off Garrus is good, however. In ME3 Liara comes with you to get the Primarch, and you don't have to listen to Garrus's sentimental speeches or have that awful final conversation about the afterlife. Oh dear me fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 10:08
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I can't believe (well I can, because this is the ME games we're talking about, but you know) we're still having a discussion about whether it is easy or not to avoid any deaths in the Suicide Mission. The truth is that if you're a completionist, so you actually bother to get all the ship upgrades and everyone's loyalty, and you actually pay attention to what your teammates are saying and the descriptions on the selection screen (nobody seems to be talking about that, but they contain some very important clues as well), it's at best slightly tricky. If you've got everyone there and everyone's loyal, there's always multiple "correct" options for each stage, and the game stresses which qualities are important. The most difficult decision is probably who to send off to bodyguard duty, but I'm not sure whether picking the "wrong" crew member there will typically lead to deaths anyway. In any event, you'd have to be mad to pick Zaeed to be leading any team after seeing him blow up half a refinery without a thought and happily consign civilians to a fiery death simply to get what he wants. Also the fact that his own men joined with his business partner to murder him - seemingly for no real reason - does not speak to his leadership qualities. Sorry, but the game makes it painfully clear that Zaeed is not fit for any real position of command and if that wasn't obvious to you, you evidently weren't giving it much thought beyond "he is an elderly mercenary and still shoots gun good". Also good lord why did anyone think "slowly suffocating assassin" would be a better pick for hacking systems than "techno-crazy engineer girl" or "black-ops AI". Danger - Octopus! posted:Is this why a bunch of the women in the ME trilogy all have the same bodies, because there's safety in all being the same shape?
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Sep 22, 2021 11:18
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The men all have the same body too and even the same skin. Look for the mole on every mans neck on the right side. Once you spot it, you’ll always be aware of it.
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Sep 22, 2021 11:37
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Sombrerotron posted:I'm pretty sure that, with the exception of Miranda and sexbot EDI, they all have the same body. Liara has a unique body, too. Someone on the official forums went into the game files and confirmed that Liara not only has a unique body, she has by far the most detailed body of any character in the series in ME3, and - uniquely - a completely separate full model for when she's naked in the sex scene.
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Sep 22, 2021 12:15
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It's like Darmok: "Thane in the vents, Mordin died holding the line."
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Sep 22, 2021 12:32
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Finally finished up ME2 and imported into ME3 and immediately scowled at the hideous botch job the facial import does compared from ME to ME2. Still, at least it lets you tweak your custom face instead of immediately reverting to the default custom face, something ME2 really needed. I finally realised that the angry ME3 mouth I always assumed was some kind of engine /animation screw up is just because said angry mouth model is in the 'wrong' place on the slider - the one I used in ME/ME2 is offset to the right by one in ME3 for some reason. Overall though, ME custom Sheps seem to look nicer to me now than either of the ME2/ME3 ones. Also, FFS at my para interrupt not working on Kalisa despite pressing immediately, and the last autosave being 25 minutes prior. Pah. Re: Suicide Mission chat On my first ever run back in the day, I did get Mordin killed mostly because I worried whoever went in would snuff it regardless. Kasumi was still months from release so all I had were Tali and Legion. I didn't want to risk Tali getting killed, and Legion joins so late on I really wanted to hang out with my cool new Geth buddy for the remaining squad runs in the Collector Base. Mordin was literally a genius, worked with STG on covert ops, and had a super new Omni tool, it'd be fine, right? Whoops.
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Sep 22, 2021 13:07
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I can respect the decision some people made to send thane into the vents given that he came out of a vent. I admit I forgot that miranda tells you she could do the biotics (doesn't change the fact that the bashes you repeatedly with how strong the biotics of jack and samara are and I still think it would be silly to choose her though). I just finished this playthrough of ME2. I don't think I'd ever done the arrival or lair of the shadow broker DLCs before. Lair of the Shadowbroker was great, I loved the dialogue with liara. The writing on arrival seemed a bit subpar though. As always every time I finish ME2 I'm blown away by how silly the end is and how little it relates to the other two games. If all the reapers are built off different species then why does every reaper we see everywhere else (including ME2) look like a leviathan. Why aren't the collectors building Asari and turian reapers. IMO ME2 should have had a plot revolving around finding a way to stop the reapers that culminates at the end with finding plans to the crucible (or something similar) and then the reapers show up, and ME3 would then unite everyone and build the crucible
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Sep 22, 2021 15:52
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TheGreySpectre posted:As always every time I finish ME2 I'm blown away by how silly the end is and how little it relates to the other two games. If all the reapers are built off different species then why does every reaper we see everywhere else (including ME2) look like a leviathan. Why aren't the collectors building Asari and turian reapers. They have one ship, it's laughable enough that they might have tried to harvest Earth. The Collectors are a funny little backup cell serving as an 8th in line redundancy measure. ME2 only ends up looking unrelated because ME3 walks back on or ignores most of what it sets up about the Reapers. The idea that the reaping is their method of reproduction and societal development is thrown away so that they can become beep boop robots just following orders. Thwarting the Collectors means nothing because Harbinger & co. were six months away. Capturing the base (the option to destroy it isn't supported by the story) just leads to more idiots getting indoctrinated rather than anything Shepard can celebrate.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:20
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