Mass Effect series.

[rusty_shackleford]

You had to be there to understand, this was prime "we want to expand our audience" years. Everything was idiot proofed where it could be.

[logincrash]

You had to be there to understand, this was prime "we want to expand our audience" years. Everything was idiot proofed where it could be.

I was there. I played ME2 and ME3 at release.
I'm just astonished how absolutely awful it is in hindsight, especially playing ME1 and ME2 back to back.

[rusty_shackleford]

You had to be there to understand, this was prime "we want to expand our audience" years. Everything was idiot proofed where it could be.

I was there. I played ME2 and ME3 at release.
I'm just astonished how absolutely awful it is in hindsight, especially playing ME1 and ME2 back to back.

I played them again some years ago and yes, ME2 was the worst. It's a complete slog. Crazy that it's often considered the best of the series.

[wndrbr]

I think it had more to do with the devs not wanting to cover their unique-looking snowflake characters with generic identity-less armor. Of course they could've came up with separate unique 'armored' designs, but in that case it would've made no sense for your squad members to wear their non-armored outfits outside of Normandy.

'Ahh we've spent so much effort designing Jack, giving her all these elaborate raped tattoes. How can you even consider covering her with armor???'

[J1M]

You had to be there to understand, this was prime "we want to expand our audience" years. Everything was idiot proofed where it could be.

I was there. I played ME2 and ME3 at release.
I'm just astonished how absolutely awful it is in hindsight, especially playing ME1 and ME2 back to back.

I played them again some years ago and yes, ME2 was the worst. It's a complete slog. Crazy that it's often considered the best of the series.

We have this discussion every 4 months so I won't go into detail because you know what I'm going to say, but for the new folks: people responded well to the structure of the game.

[wndrbr]

@logincrash the developers think you won't know who is talking if they have a helmet. They consider it a legitimate worry and had meetings about it.

simple solution - give everyone these retrofuturistic raygun gothic fishbowl helmet suits

[rusty_shackleford]

ME1 had transparent visors for the helmets, worked fine.

[Norfleet]

@logincrash the developers think you won't know who is talking if they have a helmet. They consider it a legitimate worry and had meetings about it.

Come on, man, this problem was solved a thousand years ago.

See how each man is identifiable even in full armor and helmet.

[logincrash]

@logincrash the developers think you won't know who is talking if they have a helmet. They consider it a legitimate worry and had meetings about it.

Come on, man, this problem was solved a thousand years ago.

See how each man is identifiable even in full armor and helmet.

I agree with the point you're making, but it would be stronger if 5/6 of the guys didn't have their faces visible.

[Oyster Sauce]

How do ammo types work when the bullets being fired are just microscopic grains of shaved metal?

[logincrash]

How do ammo types work when the bullets being fired are just microscopic grains of shaved metal?

In ME1 it's sorta explained in the ammo mods descriptions. You're not swapping ammo, but modifying the gun itself to do different things with the block of metal the gun shaves particles from. So, incendiary mods coat the block in thermal paste, polonium/toxic mods - in radioactive/toxic elements, freezing and proton mods do some technobabble ******** that make the gun fire energy particles or some such. High-ex ammo doesn't specify the process but it's easy to guess based on how guns work - it most likely removes the built-in safeties that prevent the gun from overheating which lets it accelerate the tiny particles fast enough to produce explosive energy on impact.

It should be the same in ME2 but it's a ******** "power" instead of equipment mods for some stupid reason.

[wndrbr]

It should be the same in ME2 but it's a ******** "power" instead of equipment mods for some stupid reason.

in ME2 all the guns have these custom ammo types built-in by default. Investing skillpoints into ammo powers teaches Shepard how to press the button to turn those ammo types on.

[logincrash]

Finished the Overlord DLC for ME2. It's all about an AI trying to escape containment by connecting to the Extranet.
You know, ME1 solved the "AI becomes unstoppable once it uploads itself onto the Internet" problem. How? They wrote it so AI isn't the programming. It's the hardware - a bluebox. You meet one in ME1 and it syphons money from a casino, planning to install itself (as in, the actual computer it's on) onto a starship to escape the Citadel.
But in ME2 BioWare decided to just **** on that to do a boring clichéd story about an AI going rogue and trying to spread via the world wide web. Twice. Once in a chain of side quests and another in the DLC.
What ******* hackfrauds.

[ThulsaDoomer]

Finished the Overlord DLC for ME2. It's all about an AI trying to escape containment by connecting to the Extranet.
You know, ME1 solved the "AI becomes unstoppable once it uploads itself onto the Internet" problem. How? They wrote it so AI isn't the programming. It's the hardware - a bluebox. You meet one in ME1 and it syphons money from a casino, planning to install itself (as in, the actual computer it's on) onto a starship to escape the Citadel.
But in ME2 BioWare decided to just **** on that to do a boring clichéd story about an AI going rogue and trying to spread via the world wide web. Twice. Once in a chain of side quests and another in the DLC.
What ******* hackfrauds.

Reminds me of Starsector's handling of AI, which are all stored on specialised cores that must connect into systems to do anything. So if an AI goes a bit crazy, as long as you can unplug it, you're fine, AI doomsday dilemma averted. A lot of sci-fi makes the mistake of creating incredibly ******** humans to push the problem they want to showcase. ME2/ME3 started tailoring the narrative beats for the drama and vibe, rather than providing rational decisions behind them.

Starsector actually took it a step further, where in some cases to avoid AI going rogue, they set up nuclear devices to the AI cores that would go off if their programming went against protocol.

[TheEmptyRoad]

On the lack of proper armor in ME2: It's also really started bothering me in recent years, so, I found some mods to rectify this
Just gonna put these here for future reference and use, along with some example pics:
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2654
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2371
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2004
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1998
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2080
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1841
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1988
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2342








EDIT: Found some more
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1846

[Magick]

it most likely removes the built-in safeties that prevent the gun from overheating

heh one of my fave things to do in ME1 was to mod the sniper to essentially be a Mechwarrior PPC. One shot maxed out the heat meter straight away.

[logincrash]

On the lack of proper armor in ME2: It's also really started bothering me in recent years, so, I found some mods to rectify this
Just gonna put these here for future reference and use, along with some example pics:
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2654
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2371
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2004
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1998
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2080
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1841
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1988
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2342
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1846

But all of them are for the stinky-poo-poo remaster

it most likely removes the built-in safeties that prevent the gun from overheating

heh one of my fave things to do in ME1 was to mod the sniper to essentially be a Mechwarrior PPC. One shot maxed out the heat meter straight away.

That's the default sniper rifle behaviour in most cases anyway, so putting high-ex ammo into it is par for the course.
The shotgun works wonders too. Its weapon ability Carnage does like 400% damage and generates no heat at all, so you can do two shots: Carnage and a regular shot to clean up everything that somehow survived your opening.

[DrSneed]

If you don't like Zaeed you're gay.

[J1M]

HQ should do something cool for N7 day. Wouldn't be hard to do something more interesting than Bioware.

[logincrash]

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2654

Also, this is ******* horrific.
Whoever modeled this armor is a woman-hating (not a praise in this case) homosexual.

zesty.jpg

Zaeed has more of an hourglass figure with shapelier hips in this armor than Jack.

[DrSneed]

Posting anything by cleric of shadows should be an automatic ban

[logincrash]

I thought back to my younger days, reminisced about playing the trilogy over and over. Began to wonder why I disliked Liara so much.
Playing through Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC right now. I remember why I ******* HATE this dumb *****.
Casey Hudson deserved to be waterboarded for forcing this blue **** onto the player.
My ME1 Shepard left her to rot on Therum for as long as possible and then was rude to her at every turn. My ME2 Shepard is forced to give her friendly hugs and cannot be rude to her at all. The supposedly neutral "I will help you" middle option is actually "A friend of Liara's is my friend and will always get my help." What the **** is this?
Oh, and the DLC turns Shepard into a physically weak drooling ******. "What's this, miss villainous-sounding Spectre lady, you know where the sniper shot at Liara from, what kind of rifle it was, how she managed to avoid getting and how many minutes she stayed at the apartment? You must be here to help Liara and you're definitely not the sniper who tried to kill her!"
And then that Spectre manages to stun Shepard for like 15 seconds with a 5 foot fall. You know, the spec-ops marine rebuilt-by-Cerberus-30%-cyborg-with-enhanced-skin-muslces-and-skeleton Shepard. The kinda guy who can take a missile to the face and shrug it off before beating a Geth Colossus to death with his bare hands after biotically Charging across the entire map at it. All so that Liara could show off her lame biotic featherfall.

I don't just dislike ME2. I hate it. I hate it as much as I love ME1.
I haven't gotten this worked up in a while.

[logincrash]

Also, Liara's voice actress is ******* terrible. She cannot act to save her life.

[TKVNC]

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/2654

Also, this is ******* horrific.
Whoever modeled this armor is a woman-hating (not a praise in this case) homosexual.

Zaeed has more of an hourglass figure with shapelier hips in this armor than Jack.

For males too, ME1 had the best design by far. Certainly that's true for the female armour. Everything since was a downgrade.

[logincrash]

Finished the full immersion run. It made me hate ME2.
Let's hope ME3 will be better than this ****.

[rusty_shackleford]

Finished the full immersion run. It made me hate ME2.
Let's hope ME3 will be better than this ****.

I could be misremembering, but the only parts of ME3 I disliked were:
star kid stuff
some parts of the citadel DLC were very proto-redditor/millennial humor garbage
ending

combat is very fun, I suggest playing it on insanity

[logincrash]

Finished the full immersion run. It made me hate ME2.
Let's hope ME3 will be better than this ****.

I could be misremembering, but the only parts of ME3 I disliked were:
star kid stuff
some parts of the citadel DLC were very proto-redditor/millennial humor garbage
ending

combat is very fun, I suggest playing it on insanity

Remembering Kai Leng is enough to make me have a cow, man.

[rusty_shackleford]

Finished the full immersion run. It made me hate ME2.
Let's hope ME3 will be better than this ****.

I could be misremembering, but the only parts of ME3 I disliked were:
star kid stuff
some parts of the citadel DLC were very proto-redditor/millennial humor garbage
ending

combat is very fun, I suggest playing it on insanity

Remembering Kai Leng is enough to make me have a cow, man.

I forgot he exists

Wonder how much effort a mod that replaces him with a helmeted Shepard clone would be

[logincrash]

I could be misremembering, but the only parts of ME3 I disliked were:
star kid stuff
some parts of the citadel DLC were very proto-redditor/millennial humor garbage
ending

combat is very fun, I suggest playing it on insanity

Remembering Kai Leng is enough to make me have a cow, man.

I forgot he exists

Wonder how much effort a mod that replaces him with a helmeted Shepard clone would be

Not so much that it's impossible, considering that there's at least a couple of mods that replace him already.

[logincrash]

The part of playing ME3 I'm dreading the most is the 2-3 hours of installing mods to make it any good.
But I will play through the vanilla game for the first time in a decade with my ginger Shepard. I think I'll try the ******** movie mode that disables the choices in cutscenes. Never tried it before.