MASS EFFECT FRANCHISE CATCH-ALL THREAD

[odessasteps]

She's more xenophobic, yes? 

[Casey]

16 minutes ago, Eivion said:

This is like the first thing anyone brings up when talking about her.

That's cool. I just discovered this. So... I don't know what you're trying to get at here. I'm sorry I don't remember shit from a game I last played 13 years ago?

 

[Eivion]

3 hours ago, Casey said:

That's cool. I just discovered this. So... I don't know what you're trying to get at here. I'm sorry I don't remember shit from a game I last played 13 years ago?

I'm just surprised you didn't notice. It seems to be the big reason some hate her.

[J.T.]

Ashley simmers down the more you talk to her.  She's also got your back.  If you somehow go retarded and forget to put enough points in Intimidate or Charm to talk Wrex down during the stand-off on Virmire, (which shouldn't happen if you are running your game in Classic Mode and have skill points for days...) Ashley's the one that saves your ass before Wrex can maul you to death.

Besides, there are worse people than Ashley in this game from My Body / My Choice guy that tries to bully his brother's wife into submitting her unborn child to in utero gene therapy to fucking Ethan Jeong, ExoGeni corporate ass kisser.

I think I have enough Charm to get him to stand down thanks to rapid leveling Classic Mode, but I may just shoot him anyway for old time's sake.

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

However, you do "lose" Ashley as a romance interest in the first game if you yell at her for being a Xenophobe.  (at least for the remainder of the first game.)

 

[Craig H]

I think I finished up nearly everything there was to do at the Citadel and jesus, that felt like it took forever. I was happy to finally get on the ship and start going places. I decided that instead of immediately tackling an assignment or mission that I would just hit up a random spot and so I traveled to an asteroid. I definitely don't ever remember doing this mission when I played ME1 before. Some of the 4-eyed aliens, I forget their name now, have hijacked the asteroid and are going to crash it into a planet, but you can go from base to base on there, shutting down the thrusters. It ends with a decision to fight the main bad guy, Balak, which would let the hostages die or let Balak go and let the hostages live. All in all, is was a pretty nice distraction and an upgrade from the Citadel stuff. 

It was also the first time on that asteroid, particularly the final part of that side quest I stumbled into, where I got my ass kicked repeatedly. First of all, doing damage to flying drones is fucked. They all do entirely too much damage, they move too fast, and it takes a fuckton to destroy them. I'm hitting them repeatedly with sniper fire while Wrex blasts away with an assault rifle and the drones just keep doing their thing. Secondly, the enemies I had to fight behaved...strangely. Some, like you guys said above, wouldn't even come out of cover, others would pop out and just fucking stand out in the open. If it wasn't that, then sometimes you'd get an enemy that would run at your squad and run through your squad until they were facing an obstacle behind you. Again, this was another thing I don't remember from ME1, but it did make me remember that combat in ME1 wasn't always the best. This just felt extra weird.

[RIPPA]

The asteroid took you to the Bringing Down the Sky DLC so that might explain why you never did it before.

[RIPPA]

Which also means I will start gearing up for JT's anti-Batarian rant

[Gonzo]

1 hour ago, J.T. said:

Ashley simmers down the more you talk to her.  She's also got your back.  If you somehow go retarded and forget to put enough points in Intimidate or Charm to talk Wrex down during the stand-off on Virmire, (which shouldn't happen if you are running your game in Classic Mode and have skill points for days...) Ashley's the one that saves your ass before Wrex can maul you to death.

Besides, there are worse people than Ashley in this game from My Body / My Choice guy that tries to bully his brother's wife into submitting her unborn child to in utero gene therapy to fucking Ethan Jeong, ExoGeni corporate ass kisser.

I think I have enough Charm to get him to stand down thanks to rapid leveling Classic Mode, but I may just shoot him anyway for old time's sake.

 

Why on earth would you shoot Wrex on purpose?

[J.T.]

Bah.  My Charm is only up to 10 and it takes at least 12 to get Jeong to stand down.  I guess I shoulda went to Noveria first to get the character level bump.

Oh, well.  Time to put a bullet in this douchebag's skull sponge.

20 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

Why on earth would you shoot Wrex on purpose?

I won't spoil it if you haven't gotten to that part yet and I have already spilled enough already.  Suffice to say that Wrex draws a line in the sand and if you can't de-escalate the situation, you have to kill him.

29 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Which also means I will start gearing up for JT's anti-Batarian rant

I mostly did that to annoy Fresh.  Batarians in general are pretty shit, though.  The misinformation campaign about Klensal and the whole deal with the Leviathan of Dis on planet Jartar are on the tip of the iceberg.

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

However, you do "lose" Ashley as a romance interest in the first game if you yell at her for being a Xenophobe.  (at least for the remainder of the first game.)

I can't remember, but I also think you lose her as a romantic interest if you insult her faith.  I play my Shep as spiritual but agnostic so I just give her the line about the regs saying whatever it is, is what it is instead of building to, "Oh, you're judgmental church girl.  That explains your xenophobia."

Edited May 17, 2021 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

Update just dropped

Quote

The following are fixes and improvements we’ve made across all platforms in this update.

General

Fixed the main issue where the launcher would crash or become unresponsive on Xbox Series X when using a wireless headset
Known issue: This can still happen if you enable/disable a headset in the launcher. A future fix will resolve this issue.
Improved iris shaders for better interaction with light and ambient occlusion
Minor calibrations, fixes, and stability improvements
Mass Effect

Improved terrain textures
Fixed an issue where kills for achievements/trophies weren’t tracking correctly
Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2

Resolved an issue where the character code would sometimes not display in the squad menu
Improvements to pre-rendered cutscenes to reduce occasional artifacts
Mass Effect 2

Improved lighting and shadows in some cinematics
Minor visual, rendering, and VFX improvements on some levels
Resolved minor text issues with achievements
Mass Effect 3

Fixed an issue where kills for achievements/trophies weren’t tracking correctly

 

[Craig H]

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

The asteroid took you to the Bringing Down the Sky DLC so that might explain why you never did it before.

That explains everything. To be honest, it's a pretty cool mission that I feel like I just stumbled onto with a couple hard decisions to make. There's one near the end of that mission where you can kill one of the Batarian dudes working for Balak or convince him to leave, you'll take out Balak yourself, and then that guy can take Balak's place. That Batarian went for the bait, but I also let Balak go, so............? I'm hoping this blows up in my face because that would be pretty cool to see what I thought was a Paragon decision go totally wrong in the long run, but I'm also not counting on it.

[RIPPA]

The choice does have implications much later on in ME3

[Craig H]

Niiiiice.

[Craig H]

And now I'm trying to remember how I saved that one alien species...I don't think that happens until a little later on in the game, but I do remember there being a choice of letting the aliens live or killing them and I chose to save them thinking that they would be peaceful and then it turned out they were peaceful.

[RIPPA]

If you mean the Rachni (the space faring bugs) - yeah, it all depends on when you decide to go to Noveria

[Gonzo]

4 hours ago, J.T. said:

I won't spoil it if you haven't gotten to that part yet and I have already spilled enough already.  Suffice to say that Wrex draws a line in the sand and if you can't de-escalate the situation, you have to kill him.

Oh, I know that you can shoot Wrex. I just don't know why you would.

But then I'm a Krogan apologist so I try to crank out enough Paragon points before Virmire where I don't have to worry about anyone shooting him.

[RIPPA]

Ironically - fired up the game this afternoon (after installing the almost 7 GB update... God Bless) and immediately did the "Ashley wants the dammed aliens off the ship" conversation

[RIPPA]

Holy fuck - I forgot how fucking annoying the MSV Ontario can be if you aren't prepared to fight biotics

And the planet Trebin can fuck right off

[Raziel]

4 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Holy fuck - I forgot how fucking annoying the MSV Ontario can be if you aren't prepared to fight biotics

 

You know how I said I was fucking off before going to pick up Liara and got rolled pretty handedly...

[RIPPA]

Part of my issue is I realized that I had left all of my squadmates really squishy because I had been dumping my points into all their powers

[odessasteps]

Got some time tonight thanks to having a cold and being made to stay home.

that memory core puzzle is a pain in the ass. 

i know years ago i spared/made a deal with the Rachni Queen. This time? Unsure

[J.T.]

The terrain on planet Nodacrux can fuck right off.

Edited May 17, 2021 by J.T.

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, Gonzo said:

Oh, I know that you can shoot Wrex. I just don't know why you would.

It's not like he gives you any say in the matter.  He opposes your plan initially and if you don't talk him down, he plans to rip your face off right then and there.

Calm him down or put him down.  Those are your options.

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Holy fuck - I forgot how fucking annoying the MSV Ontario can be if you aren't prepared to fight biotics.

This is why you have Damping or you bring along friends who have Damping.  I think I spam Damping almost as often as I spam Sabotage and Overload.  Damping also saves your ass when you are fighting the million Asari clones that the Thorian pukes up to fight you.

Edited May 17, 2021 by J.T.

[Casey]

is it normal for Veteran difficulty to be so… easy? At first the enemies were bullet sponges but now I have a good assault rifle with a nice ammo/weapon upgrade combo and it’s a piece of cake now.