Mass Effect 3: Blue Oyster Cult Was Wrong

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Mass Effect 3: Blue Oyster Cult Was Wrong

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

The Aberrant posted:

In my game, Kaiden blasted him instead.

Also on the war readiness/assets and the best ending, according to BioWare you don't need to do MP to get it. All MP does is allow you to get it with less overall assets.

Yeah, that's definitely bullshit. It's mathematically impossible, I gathered every asset and made virtually every correct decision and was still short of the absolute best ending even with 71% readiness.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 13:32

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:08

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

The Aberrant posted:

Well according to the guys who actually made the thing there's more than enough assets in the game to get the best ending. Chances are you missed something or made a bad decision somewhere.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mas...-9665384-1.html

Spoilered just in case people don't want to know exact numbers, but no plot info:
My total military strength was just over 7,000, you need 10,000 to get the best ending. No way did I miss 3,000 points worth of war assets, having done 100% runs of all three games and almost every correct decision. Unless someone can come up with a savegame to prove me wrong I'm sticking with bullshit.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 13:49

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

fivegears4reverse posted:

Who told you that you need 10k + Military Strength? The guide's ending chart (helpfully provided by Bioware) has the various endings max out at 5000. Meaning either you were lied to about this extra special best ending, or I was lied to about the guide I worked on.

Is the guide referring to total military strength, or effective military strength? If it's referring to effective (which is 50% of your total if you play no multiplayer), then you need 10k. I assumed it meant effective, but I'm re-running the final mission to see if I can (ending spoilers)destroy the Reapers and survive.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 13:57

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Ok, the ending guide is either incorrect or is talking about total strength and not effective strength. I just re-ran the ending with 7k total strength and 70% readiness for 4900 effective strength. Ending spoilers: I didn't save Anderson (no idea how to do this, I passed all paragon checks with TIM), I chose to destroy the Reapers and Shepard survived. According to the guide I needed 5k strength in order to do that, so maybe it only requires 2500 effective?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 14:26

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Wingless posted:

Nope, my Shepard died with 2700. Well, he seemed to die when I did the seize control option, maybe he'd survive if I did the destroy option. I wasn't able to do the final check with TIM though, if that matters. What happens when you pass the last one?.

Ending spoilers:Supposedly the only way for Shepard to live is to choose the "destroy" option, I haven't done the "control" one yet but he didn't survive when I did synthesis. If you succeed the last check with TIM he kills himself.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 14:44

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Frankston posted:

I just completed the game and apparently when you have to make the choice you can go to either the red or blue side? Only the red side had a path appear for it so I had to do that and got that bad ending. Was this a monumentally lovely bug or did I just do something wrong during the game? I was kinda bummed to see all my comrades on Earth disintegrate.

You had way too little military strength going into the final battle.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2012 03:19

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Romes128 posted:

From somewhat a few pages ago, but why are people saying that you can't get over 5,000 readiness without MP? I was at about 5,300 by the end of the game and I did maybe half the side missions.

5,000 effective readiness, not total. If you don't play multiplayer your effective readiness is 50% of your total, which would be 2,650 in your case.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2012 13:27

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

kevdude posted:

How many points should I be at before passing the point-of-no-return mission? I am at 3400 (5500? total, I've only done like 2 MP matches and would prefer to not do many more). I was told that renegade or paragon affects how many I'd need, any truth to that?

You will miss out on a 5-second easter egg cutscene if you can't get above 4k (or 5k, if you don't have a high enough reputation), but it only happens if you choose one particular ending and you can just youtube it if you really want.

edit:

Eejit posted:

Two things:

1: I wasn't aware Shep lived in all three choices. I thought he could only live with the renegade choice. The paragon choice explicitly states self-sacrifice and the synthesis choice seems to show him dying too. Can anyone confirm survival through the paragon and synthesis endings?

2: Regarding the renegade option: Even if you don't have the geth, you are literally committing genocide. The entirety of the reaper race is trying to wipe out all organics so killing them all makes sense. But exterminating the geth? Really, you think that was okay? Especially after Legion made it clear they were a race of sapient creatures? And what about EDI? Was it okay to sacrifice her too?

I can understand qualms with the synthesis ending forcing something on the races of the galaxy they may not want, but the paragon option is clearly exactly what it claims to be.

Ending spoilers:Shepard dies in all endings. You get a cutscene showing him breathing again if you choose the Destroy ending with 4k effective strength and have the final Anderson conversation or 5k effective strength regardless (but you must choose Destroy)

Gadzuko fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Mar 10, 2012

# ¿ Mar 10, 2012 03:01

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Ending: The reason for the Reapers existence doesn't even make sense. They're supposed to prevent synthetics from wiping out all organic life by wiping out organics before they become advanced enough to create synthetic life? Why not just wipe out the synthetics? What happens when they gently caress up, like they did in this cycle, and someone makes a synthetic like the quarians made the geth? They weren't going to kill the geth. What's to stop the geth from just taking over the place before the next cycle and annihilating all life?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2012 03:31

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Psyker posted:

For anyone curious about the Master and Commander Achievement:

In order to get this achievement, you need to do some multiplayer. I haven't quantified exactly how many Effective War Assets you need, but I'm assuming it's over 5000 (I did it with 7075, maxed). This achievement will trigger when you attack the Cerberus base/station, not at the ending sequence.

I got the achievement with 4900 effective war assets out of just over 7k total, 70 something readiness. It's not over 5000. Maybe 4000.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2012 08:59

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

DivisionPost posted:

Wait, I could DO that? I kind of just assumed that Shepard was boned either way, so I went with the "merge" option; I figured that was the true paragon option, since I didn't want to destroy the Geth (not to mention EDI), and I didn't want to control anything.

I had a little under 6K in assets at 99% readiness, and I got the choice. How do I know that I've unlocked the "Shepard lives" ending? Do I just go to the blue side and take it on faith?

Destroy is the red choice, not the blue. There's no indication that you unlock it until you get the cutscene, and it's only a few seconds long. You need 5k effective assets if you didn't have the final conversation with Anderson, 4k if you did.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2012 09:25

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Myopic posted:

Are there any spoilers in multiplayer missions or are they totally standalone and safe to play at any point during the game? I'm just finishing sidequests before I go to Tuchanka for the record.

Multiplayer is completely standalone, no story elements.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2012 10:15

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Deviantfish posted:

Unfortunately, all I see during that sequence is about three or four opportunities to stop/let Legion continue. Can't find any paragon/renegade options to call off the fleet. Do I just need a crazy high paragon score or something?

If the issue was your reputation, the option would show up but it would be grayed out. Are you sure you didn't get Tali exiled during ME2 or something?

edit: you said you did the Admiral's mission, did you save the admiral? That's a requirement unless you destroyed the geth heretics.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2012 10:57

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Moola posted:

Ok I'll give you interrupting the reaper with an orbital strike, that was pretty good. But beating up Gerrel wasn't anywhere near as satisfying or brutal as Thane's loyalty mission can be.

Breaking Kai Leng's sword and shanking him, telling him that was for Thane? Shooting Udina? Some of the highlights of the game are Renegade interrupts.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2012 20:21

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Darko posted:

They're all against total assholes, for the most part, in this game.

In ME2, the situations you interrupted with shooting people down, etc. were far more grey.

ME1 and 2 were more obviously inspired by dark side/light side choices in the KOTOR games, whereas this one pretty much keeps Shep "good"; and just allows you to be a little meanner.

Even the dialogue choices are completely different. In ME1/2 when you Renegaded and told someone to gently caress off, Shep told them to gently caress off. Now you pick "gently caress off," and Shep says, "I understand what you're going through, and we should all stick together - I'll always be there for you, but we have to fight right now!" There was a huge shift between the last game and this one.

That's true. Regarding the interrupts, at least, I don't know about the dialogue because I've only done a Paragon run so far. From what I've seen I definitely think Renegades got shortchanged this time around, too many Renegade decisions are objectively bad compared to the Paragon options.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2012 20:40

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Wolfsheim posted:

Most of the Renegade choices in ME1 and ME2 are objectively bad as well, actually, except for the interrupts in part two. I can't think of even one that has any kind of real benefit down the road (though I haven't played ME3 yet).

The ME1 and ME2 Renegade decisions don't really have any negative effects in their respective games. It's not bad until ME3 when all that stuff comes back and Renegades get screwed.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2012 21:00

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Banjodark posted:

I'm going to jump in here, because as a gay man I'm on the other end of this situation all the time. Mass effect 1 I had to literally beat liara off me with a stick and repeatedly say 'not interested'. In Mass effect 2 I had Tali wanting to sync suits, jack wanting to jump me in the engineering bay and Miranda coming onto me immediately after rescuing her sister.

It's annoying - I hear you, but the Kaidan romance conversation you got can be avoided pretty easily by someone wanting to play a scared of gay people commander shepard. Commit to another person before you have that 'cafe' scene and he'll never bring it up and toast to your friendship instead. There's plenty of time to start a relationship with liara, cortez, allers (ew - jesus why) or restart your one with jack, miranda or tali before that scene.

all the romances kick in when you get your virmire survivor back, it's just up to you to decide which one you talk to first and set into stone.

Also is it really that bad that a character told you they loved you? It sure as hell was awkward when Tali started going there in mass effect 2, but you can shoot it down immediately and move on unlike the last game which locks you out of further conversation dialogues with them.

All of the crew member conversations (throughout the entire series, not just ME3) would have really benefited from having neutral options. I never understood why in so many conversations there was no middle ground between being flirty or telling them to get lost. I want to learn about all the character's backgrounds but I don't want to waste time going through all the romance plots to do it.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2012 00:36

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

ACanofPepsi posted:

I really miss my Geth Shield Boost from ME2. I thought it would transfer over, or give me it as a bonus for importing my ME2 character.

I expected to have this bonus from the get-go. I've become addicted to running out of cover, getting my shields taken out, boosting them back up, THEN taking cover again. It's really screwing up my flow.

I tried starting a new game as a Sentinel thinking they had it but their extra shield is not what I was expecting at all. Is there an equivalent in this game that I can equip from the start?

Pretty sure the only thing in ME3 that you can press to restore shields is Adrenaline Rush for the Soldier, assuming you spec into that option. The chance to insta-restore shields when they go down is gone, and Tech Armor provides flat damage resistance instead of shield restore.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2012 19:15

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

She's not there in person. You should be able to use the leftmost terminal, next to the ones for information and purchasing, to contact her.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2012 20:58

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Android Blues posted:

Okay, that's pretty lame. Having only seen the synthesis ending I guess I figured the other two were different.

I still liked what I saw though!

Out of curiosity, did you start with ME1 and carry forward a save through the whole series, or come in at a later point?

# ¿ Mar 15, 2012 18:37

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:08

Gadzuko: Feb 14, 2005

Ah. Everyone I know who finished the game dislikes the ending for the lack of any kind of epilogue about the characters and choices you made, and I was curious if that might not bother someone who was late to the party quite so much.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2012 18:49

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