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The Mass Effect Community Thread

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Patryn

Member
Did you save Wrex, maelons data, and cure the genophage using paragon resulting in a future for the krogan where they rebuild peacefully and co-exist with the rest of the galaxy? Or did you kill Wrex, destroy the data, and cure the genophage resulting in a disasterous renegade outcome where it is clearly shown that Wreav will exact war and revenge on everyone who wronged the Krogan? Extended cut shows these vastly different outcomes.

Meaningful and immediate post game consequences as a result of your decisions across 3 games: check.

Did you prevent Tali from being exiled, rewrite the heretics, and choose to save admiral Koris on rannoch? Then you'll get a distinctly choice driven ending in which the geth and Quarians are alive and cooperating. Alternatively your poor decisions force you to choose to genocide either race and get an ending where an entire race is very much dead.

Meaningful and immediate post game consequences as a result of your decisions spanning 2 games: check.

More choice and impact than Dragon Age has ever had.

This is strange considering that I prefer Mass Effect, but I honestly find the stuff with
Iron Bull in Trespasser
more impacting than the above stuff.

But that's because I'm a heartless bastard who never really liked the Geth or the Quarians.

The Krogan stuff mostly just plays out in the ending.
 
The thing with Wrex dying or Tali exiling can simply be avoided by picking the Red or Blue choice, which I assume most people choose. Getting the nice "ending" with the Krogans or the Quarians/Geths is too easy in my opinion.

Really wish these Red/Blue choices never existed in the first place. As the games are right now, you want to see bad things happen? Just press the non-colored options.

I'm hoping the colored options are just gone in Andromeda, i want some of my decisions to have an unexpected development. I don't want a situation where my choices are...

*Situation* : Mercenaries have captured a Turian camp, what will you do?
Choice Red : Shoot the tank gas to kill them all and save the hostages
Choice Blue : Negotiate, let the mercenaries go and save everybody
Neutral choice 1 : Shoot a few bad guys, but some hostage dies before all mercenaries are killed.
Neutral choice 2 : Negotiate(but not enough to convince the mercenaries), which ends up with them escaping and some hostage dies.

Make the 4 choices not clear enough on which one(s) is/are the best.

Except that by wanting Inquisition/Witcher Eqsue style dialogue and decision making all we'll be getting is:

Choice 1 (Sarcastic) \
Choice 2 (Angry) \
---------------------------------------All dialogue options are an illusion and the situation ends in the same or similarly unsatisfactory way.
Choice 3 (Sad) /
Choice 4 (Stoic) /

The singular conversation in the gameplay trailer shows us that A) The dialogue options are emotion based and B) There clearly is no outcome where the antagonist helps you outright through meaningful dialogue choices because you still have to go searching for the character you're looking for in the trailer anyway.
 

Yeul

Member
I think it's unwise to judge their system of dialogue based on a cut-down trailer preview. Besides, in Inquisition, critical path choices were not tone-based.
 

Lt-47

Member
Except that by wanting Inquisition/Witcher Eqsue style dialogue and decision making all we'll be getting is:

Choice 1 (Sarcastic) \
Choice 2 (Angry) \
---------------------------------------All dialogue options are an illusion and the situation ends in the same or similarly unsatisfactory way.
Choice 3 (Sad) /
Choice 4 (Stoic) /

The singular conversation in the gameplay trailer shows us that A) The dialogue options are emotion based and B) There clearly is no outcome where the antagonist helps you outright through meaningful dialogue choices because you still have to go searching for the character you're looking for in the trailer anyway.

That's not any different than regular ME dialogue. Paragon/Renegade/Neutral (which often says the same thing as paragon) are purely cosmetic. There's no consequence to choosing either of them 99% of the time aside from acquiring related moral points.

When you do make choice in ME you'r still stuck to that binary morality while DA:I use special icon. We loose nothing as far as choice go while we gain 4 easily distinguishable answers/tone for regular dialogue (instead of the 2 and a half of ME1/2)

How much branching there is in the story is unrelated to the type of dialogue wheel they use
 
And not only do you acquire a whole host of differently flavored dialogue (which is, again, a result of your choices...), you also open up the potential for better-hidden divergent paths than ME's default vs paragade. The roads may end at the same place, but the scenery is substantially different.
 

Patryn

Member
Maybe my english isn't as good as I thought it to be because I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean here.

Sorry.

I think it's less your explaining it as people simply disagreeing with your central idea, and are arguing that branching out offers more paths (even if you don't feel that Dragon Age does that effectively).
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
What's the best ambient occlusion solution for Mass Effect 3?

I normally like forcing at a driver level, but from memory the Mass Effect games have an issue where ambient occlusions will flicker through transparency maps (eg smoke).
 

diaspora

Member
What's the best ambient occlusion solution for Mass Effect 3?

I normally like forcing at a driver level, but from memory the Mass Effect games have an issue where ambient occlusions will flicker through transparency maps (eg smoke).

Can it even be forced at driver level? I usually have to get it working through reshade the same way I do for DOF.

FWIW, ME2 and 3 both have the issue where you see it through haze/smoke and it doesn't look pretty. Either way I prefer SSGI if you use anything.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Can it even be forced at driver level? I usually have to get it working through reshade the same way I do for DOF.

FWIW, ME2 and 3 both have the issue where you see it through haze/smoke and it doesn't look pretty. Either way I prefer SSGI if you use anything.

Yep, can definitely be forced. 0x00000020 bits have always worked on Nvidia hardware, but yeah, there's no culling through transparency surfaces.

What's SSGI? Screen space global illumination?

I'm actually really out of the loop with reshade stuff for Mass Effect. I'm gonna give Mass Effect 3 another playthrough, so do you have any pointers? I'd prefer to avoid stuff that adds sharpening and alters the colouring (I don't care for that in reshade), and aim for technical additions like improved DOF, ambient occlusions, and so on.
 

diaspora

Member
Yep, can definitely be forced. 0x00000020 bits have always worked on Nvidia hardware, but yeah, there's no culling through transparency surfaces.

What's SSGI? Screen space global illumination?

I'm actually really out of the loop with reshade stuff for Mass Effect. I'm gonna give Mass Effect 3 another playthrough, so do you have any pointers? I'd prefer to avoid stuff that adds sharpening and alters the colouring (I don't care for that in reshade), and aim for technical additions like improved DOF, ambient occlusions, and so on.

I have a few suggestions for non-colour grading stuff.

In order of my personal preferences:
  1. Downsampling. I usually step down from 8k to 4k in gedosato and use DSR (nvidia) or VSR (AMD) to step down from 4k to 1080p. Clean as fuck image. If 8k isn't your jam, downsampling from 4k to 1080p from gedosato works well too. I prefer this over DSR/VSR.
  2. If you choose to downsample one step via gedosato (4k-1080p or 8k-4k) then you'll be able to use depth-buffer effects in reshade. To this point the big ones are depth of field and ambient occlusion.
  3. The best depth of field effect IMO is mcfly's. The thing to note with this is that it's useful for screenshots only. Don't try to fight to get this working during gameplay because... it'll function but it's hard to play a game involving shooting when shit further away from you is out of focus. Use it for screengrabs/flycam exclusively.
  4. Ambient occlusion, SSGI is my favourite effect but it's also a lot more subtle than HBAO or SSAO. The latter two are different but frankly it's not THAT much different. I have yet to experiment with MXAO though I'll probably do it in my upcoming ME3 playthrough and I can illustrate my impressions at that time.
  5. Ambient light; I actually really like this effect in ME2 and 3 when used with Filmic Pass. I know you'd rather not use colour grading effects so I can't say what it'll look like without it but it's something to keep in mind/experiment with to see if you like how it looks.

If you want, I can also compile a list of ME3 mods I'd recommend as well as I'll be looking to start a new playthrough in a couple of weeks when my ME2 one is complete.
 
I don't know who designed and approved the Kassa Fabrication Locust in Mass Effect 2 but they ended up introducing a gun with so much utility and power that it nullifies the need for any other weapon.

You're basically gimping yourself if you don't own Kasumi: Stolen memory.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
For an almost five year old, last generation game Mass Effect 3 holds up very well.

masseffect32017-01-15uhpcq.png
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
g3hj5nnj.om4.png


Just confirmed the Tempest is full time Scout and Research Vessel: no weaponry (I wasn't sure if they meant no guns, or just no main gun).

I'm ok with this, as long as some ships in the AI have weaponry, I can handle the jandel (Kiwi expression) ;)
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
For an almost five year old, last generation game Mass Effect 3 holds up very well.

masseffect32017-01-15uhpcq.png

A great mix of a good artistic design and high quality face models I guess, but I agree. I don't use any HD mods, and the faces(mostly the aliens though), still look pretty damn good.
 
No weapons is a little surprising, I'd have expected them to have some point defense guns if nothing else.

It's pretty clear that the AI does expect to do battle at some point (thus personal weapons and armor, and bringing along a large dedicated security contingent with Krogans and whatnot), but maybe they thought that there wouldn't be any high tech resistance? Or not any significant level of it, at least.
 
Not really that surprising to me. A "main gun" type thing would mean that it would stick around and fight, while what it should really be doing is getting back to the main fleet as fast as is possible.
 
Not really that surprising to me. A "main gun" type thing would mean that it would stick around and fight, while what it should really be doing is getting back to the main fleet as fast as is possible.

There is no main fleet, the second Andromeda Initiative video tells us there's just a small contingent of fighters to defend and escort the Nexus and Arks.

Maybe it's a part of the main story that you need to help build a fleet as well as the rest of the Nexus but the whole project seems super vulnerable at the start.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
There is no main fleet, the second Andromeda Initiative video tells us there's just a small contingent of fighters to defend and escort the Nexus and Arks.

Maybe it's a part of the main story that you need to help build a fleet as well as the rest of the Nexus but the whole project seems super vulnerable at the start.

Yeah, when you think about it... we're kinda invading another galaxy, so I'm sure the people over there aren't quite happy about it... just like "we" weren't when the Reapers came. Although they were a bit more agressive lol.
 

Big Nikus

Member
Not giving weapons to the Tempest allow them to deflect questions like "why no space combat BioWare ???"
"Well, the Tempest is a scout ship, so no weapons bruhs"

Clever :)

The main worry for me is the Nomad, I'm kinda bummed that it's only used for transport. Sure the Mako was flawed, but mowing down ennemies with the turret and the canon could be really satisfying.
BioWare : "Well the Nomad is an exploration vehicle only, so no weapons bruh"
Alright I get it ><
 

Garlador

Member
Not giving weapons to the Tempest allow them to deflect questions like "why no space combat BioWare ???"
"Well, the Tempest is a scout ship, so no weapons bruhs"

Clever :)

The main worry for me is the Nomad, I'm kinda bummed that it's only used for transport. Sure the Mako was flawed, but mowing down ennemies with the turret and the canon could be really satisfying.
BioWare : "Well the Nomad is an exploration vehicle only, so no weapons bruh"
Alright I get it ><

Maybe we can at least ram or goomba stomp some enemies at least...
 
There is no main fleet, the second Andromeda Initiative video tells us there's just a small contingent of fighters to defend and escort the Nexus and Arks.

Maybe it's a part of the main story that you need to help build a fleet as well as the rest of the Nexus but the whole project seems super vulnerable at the start.

When I say main fleet, I just mean "whatever they've got at the nexus", which would include that small contingent of fighters. And I don't see why they wouldn't take any ships with them, to be piloted by the people who would have already woken up by that point. Also, those final preparations they were talking about probably include some amount of stationary defenses at the very least, surely.

Plus, they said the Tempest is capable of 13 light years per day. That's like incomprehensibly fast. That's so fast that it would reach our closest in a matter of hours. It will take our current fastest spacecraft around 250.000-300.000 years by the way.

Like, I know that the impetus to not give the Tempest weapons was more than likely for it to fit the narrative better, but regardless of that, I find it to be completely plausible for them, in-universe, to think it would be better to just give the ship the ability to be basically invisible and faster than any other ship out there, along with giving it whatever research capabilities it has.

At any rate, I'm not really worrying about whether or not it'll be explained well enough. Given how they tend to handle codexes and stuff like that, I'm sure it'll all be there.
 

Big Nikus

Member
Maybe we can at least ram or goomba stomp some enemies at least...

I sure hope so.

I'm glad they're not opening up all of Andromeda at once. Take it slow and go through the cluster in depth.

It could be really interesting. If we stay in Andromeda for two or three games, expanding it a bit more episode after episode would add a great sense of discovery. And going back in Andromeda 2 to colonies that were just getting started in the first one, to see how it has grown and how the relationship with native andromedans are evolving... it could be really special.

Bioware said that they would debut the main theme in an event in December but I can't find it anywhere?

It was during a concert. No official recording afaik. Yeah I'm surprised nobody recorded it with a shitty phone.
 

diaspora

Member
I sure hope so.



It could be really interesting. If we stay in Andromeda for two or three games, expanding it a bit more episode after episode would add a great sense of discovery. And going back in Andromeda 2 to colonies that were just getting started in the first one, to see how it has grown and how the relationship with native andromedans are evolving... it could be really special.



It was during a concert. No official recording afaik. Yeah I'm surprised nobody recorded it with a shitty phone.
Especially if they choose to play with time and relativity. There's a lot to be explored when you take away the relays and force ships to travel via traditional means.
 

DevilDog

Member
Mass Relays didn't open up the Milky way a lot. Just opened up avenues for species to join the GC.

Less than 1% of the Milky Way has been explored.
 

Corsick

Member
Mass Relays didn't open up the Milky way a lot. Just opened up avenues for species to join the GC.

Less than 1% of the Milky Way has been explored.

Precisely why we're going to Andromeda! It's still the only thing I have a hard time suspending belief for, but oh well.
 

SliChillax

Member
What I don't want for Andromeda (as a galaxy) is for it to be a barren galaxy only with wild life. I hope we see planets with civilisation, amazing architecture and such. I hope Andromeda is filled with alien civilisation not just weirdo aliens living like cavemen.
 
What I don't want for Andromeda (as a galaxy) is for it to be a barren galaxy only with wild life. I hope we see planets with civilisation, amazing architecture and such. I hope Andromeda is filled with alien civilisation not just weirdo aliens living like cavemen.

Why not? Some of the coolest story potential we could get in Andromeda is if we encounter a civilization that's in some kind of medieval era fighting with swords and stuff or a race of aliens who haven't yet reached space-faring technology capable of FTL but have still left their planet and built a spacestation like our very own ISS.

Lots of unexplored themes and eras BioWare could run with that they didn't get the chance to with ME1-3.
 
Seeding another galaxy for preservation purposes instead of just doing the same old colonizing of different planets, whose progress won't be stopped by the Andromeda Project regardless, is a pretty sound idea. I don't understand why so many people find umbrage with that.

Plus, the project is spearheaded by one of the people in the first group of humans to go through a Mass Relay. I find it entirely plausible that he'd be interested in even further frontiers, and that he'd be able to rally a very tiny percentage of a very large galactic community to his cause.
 

Lenz44

Banned
I hope we never go back to the Milky Way and we start fresh. ME3 ending was so bad and destroyed everything I had done that I debated not buying any more ME games in the future. The premise of Andromeda intrigues me enough to maybe give it a chance.
 

SliChillax

Member
Why not? Some of the coolest story potential we could get in Andromeda is if we encounter a civilization that's in some kind of medieval era fighting with swords and stuff or a race of aliens who haven't yet reached space-faring technology capable of FTL but have still left their planet and built a spacestation like our very own ISS.

Lots of unexplored themes and eras BioWare could run with that they didn't get the chance to with ME1-3.

Don't get me wrong, I love what you're saying and I hope we get that too, I just don't want it to be JUST that. I wanna see some advanced civilizations.
 
Seeding another galaxy for preservation purposes instead of just doing the same old colonizing of different planets, whose progress won't be stopped by the Andromeda Project regardless, is a pretty sound idea. I don't understand why so many people find umbrage with that.

Plus, the project is spearheaded by one of the people in the first group of humans to go through a Mass Relay. I find it entirely plausible that he'd be interested in even further frontiers, and that he'd be able to rally a very tiny percentage of a very large galactic community to his cause.


What are they preserving us from? A planetary scale calamity is common in nature, a galactic scale calamity is not. If you imagine this as a way to run from the reapers it makes sense, but this is apparently an independent venture not related to that, at least as far as I can tell. Putting large masses of people in crysotasis for 600 years and lobbing them at superluminal speeds with unknown technology to colonize something you've never been to and know nothing about doesn't feel wise. What if they arrived and the galaxy was already totally occupied and controlled by an existing power or powers? All it would take was civilization to develop a few thousand years sooner than it did on Earth for us to wind up in major trouble. That's something we know is plausible because Protheans did exactly that in our galaxy. It must have major financial backing too, since it's multiple large ships and a colonization effort being lobbed there. Then again these games have always played fast and loose with that stuff, lol cerberus. Basically, it feels like you've gone off to find new virgin lands to explore when you haven't even finished exploring your own back yard. 1% of the milky way figure always struck me as absurdly low, but it's canon.

P.S. how did they maintain the mass effect fields the whole time? 600 year transit time to Andromeda, a galaxy 2.5 million light years away puts the speed at 3,125 times the speed of light. That's maintaining 80% of the Normandy's top speed for 600 years straight.
 

Mindlog

Member
I think we'll get a little dry-wall sci-fi spackle on the issue.
The motivation for leaving the galaxy will be directly related to the Prothean discovery on Mars and the handful of individuals from the other races that are actually aware of the cycles and possibly even the Reapers. Bioware just doesn't want to tip their hat yet or maybe that plot point is still up in the air. Arrival and survival is the order of the day. The rest will crop up as those issues are solved.
 
If we really want to delve into the technical aspects of how the Arks are able to go that far for that long without stopping, the Arks and Nexus video gives us these details:

The “Mass Effect” represents the scientific principle and basis behind most technology in the known galaxy. Mass effect fields are created through the use of element zero, which can increase or decrease the mass of space-time when subjected to an electrical current via dark energy. In space, mass effect fields have implications in everything from faster-than-light travel, to the creation of shields used to protect starships, to cryo-stasis pods, allowing a person to survive in a suspended state for extended voyages.

With the Arks unable to refuel by traditional means in dark space, the journey to Andromeda is only made possible by the ODSY Drive System. The ODSY is a massive experimental drive core specifically designed for this trans-galactic voyage. It is capable of recycling static energy that would typically cause a starship to explode, instead storing it to power the Ark’s primary systems. Meanwhile, an electromagnetic ram-scoop will gather hydrogen from the Ark’s surroundings, converting it into fuel as needed.

Basically an experimental drive core that never saw the light of day in the Milky Way before the Reapers attacked.
 
Illusive Man dumped 4 billion credits on one person to have them fuck him in the ass.

4 billion to resurrect Shepard was chump change, the real cost was building Normandy 2. The Normandy 1 drive core cost 120 billion credits, and the Normandy 2 is twice the size with a proportionally larger drive core. Let's generously assume a mere 240 billion credits for the core and another 10 billion for the entire rest of the ship. Shepard cost 1.6% of what it cost to build is ship.

Why do the ships need the mass effect fields?

Without the ME fields running, the mass of the ship would return to its normal state and they would be incapable of exceeding the speed of light. When operating in FTL travel, ships need to run their drive core continuously, and that's why they need to discharge their drive cores periodically on long voyages (into the atmosphere of gas giants or by landing in a space dock or on a planet).

I'm sure they'll come up with some new fandangled technology to explain it all away, but it's honestly just inelegant. Based on the ME trilogy, they didn't have the technology necessary to pull this off, certainly not some random private venture. That's why I was so surprised when they said it took place around the time of ME2.
 

DevilDog

Member
Illusive Man dumped 4 billion credits on one person to have them fuck him in the ass.
Inb4 the Andromeda crew becomes Reapers 2.0 and return to the Milky way.

I'm sure they'll come up with some new fandangled technology to explain it all away, but it's honestly just inelegant. Based on the ME trilogy, they didn't have the technology necessary to pull this off, certainly not some random private venture. That's why I was so surprised when they said it took place around the time of ME2.

I see, I would say that everything is inelegant about this, but for once I'm willing to let the writing take a backseat. Just rip the band-aid and let's move on.
 

Daemul

Member
I mean yeah, the notion that some people would fund a trip to Andromeda for what basically amounts to YOLO level of reasoning before the Milky Way has actually been properly explored and mapped, as well as before the 15+ satellite galaxy's tied to the Milky Way, which are far closer than fucking Andromeda is, have also been explored and mapped, is absolutely laughable, unless it involves the Reapers, it's literally the only way the whole thing makes sense. With the Reapers being the primary/secret motivation I could buy the idea that travelling to satellite galaxies to get away from the Reapers wouldn't be good enough, since the Reapers may station themselves around those galaxies due to them being tied to the Milky Way, and thus Andromeda was the best option, but otherwise, nah.

I do chuckle though when I remember that people were shit scared to fund a trip to chart a path to the legendary planet of Ilos due to the long distance ( the trip could last decades) and the possible dangers of travelling through dozens of uncharted systems, but peeps fund a trip to fucking Andromeda, despite the even longer distance and bigger dangers involved. Bioware please.

Ah well, hopefully the combat is good enough to distract me from the questionable writing.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
In a series already loaded with laughably contrived nonsense I can accept the Andromeda Initiative. I can buy the premise of baseline exploration; while yes only 1% of the Milky Way has been mapped there's always people who wish to push beyond. Alec Ryder is a bastion of exploration, having been one of the first people through the Charon Relay. I can comfortably buy that even with the Milky Way ocean mostly undiscovered there would be some people staring off into galaxies beyond and longing to push those boundaries of exploration and discovery. So much of our own ocean hasn't been mapped, and great wildernesses hide mysteries. We have the ability to essentially travel anywhere in the world. But even so I bet many of us would jump at the chance of pushing even further beyond.

So yeah, I can totally, comfortably buy that even with the Milky Way a buffet of discover some people just wouldn't be content with what they haven't but could, and instead long for what they're not even sure they can accomplish.

The confliction comes from the logistics of the project itself; scope of funding and scope and reasoning. Exploration is one thing, but this kind of tip-of-the-spear stuff is niche and dangerous. Nobody is going to fund a project of this scope even to "find a new home" when that objective isn't paramount when you can do so in your current system.

But again I can accept that as a best-we've-got solution to the current problem. It's not elegant, but Mass Effect as a series isn't elegant either. I've suffered through the deus ex machine of Cerberus, and genetic level special snowflake humanity, along with the bewildering nonsense of the Catalyst and Reapers. It doesn't excuse the reasoning, but in the grand scheme of things I can accept the scope of the project and its funding as simply a means to get the crew into a fresh new environment where storytelling baggage is cast aside.

And who knows. Maybe we'll learn through subtext and mystery implications that the initiative was in fact influenced from behind the scenes by the Reaper invasion.
 
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