[MatthTheGeek]

Someone bringing low key sarcasm into debate, kinda dangerous and unnecessary, don't you think?

Perfectly necessary in this situation I'm afraid.

Despite your condescending sarcasm, I am well aware of Thanix cannons, and have long discussed them in other fora as well. That doesn't make a dent to my point though. The Citadel species were completely denying any Reaper threat whatsoever in ME2, not only in public but also to Shepard himself.

The politicians were denying it. Specters at least (as confirmed in the Kasumi side mission), and most likely other services like the STG, were perfectly aware of the threat.

That would bring me making a long post on why that part was completely atrociously written, since the Reapers were considered to be invincible (and how do you really manage to be "sustainable" if you lose more Reapers per cycle than you can build them - alledgedly one per cycle?).

Invincible ? Sovereign died. ME2 shows us a dead Reaper (the one where we find Legion), slain down by a harvested species though conventional means.

Reapers become sustainable by taking harvested species entirely by surprise, beheading the top of their leadership at the Citadel, and then pick off the remaining, scattered and disorganized hostile forces one by one before they have even time to react and regroup. The current cycle is a highly irregular one (confirmed by the devs), because that "beheading" never happened, as the Keepers were successfully reprogrammed by the Protheans, the one stick in the otherwise perfectly greased wheel. Everything went downhill from there, as each of their contingencies were stopped : Sovereign that tried to manually reactivate the Citadel relay, the Collectors that tried to build a Reaper, the Alpha Relay that was supposed to let the Reapers strike everywhere before we could react.

Because all those contingencies failed, the Reapers have to resort to cruder tactics, ie frontal assaults and mass firepower, against a prepared enemy. Of course they're going to sustain more casualties than usual. But they can absorb them, and then make sure such a situation never repeats again. They're counting on the future cycles to go back to normal and slowly regrow their losses.

The codex entry is inane. Despite the fact that the Turians didn't "know" the Reaper capabilities, they successfully retrieved enough data to pull a winning tactic against them.

Yup. Turians are awesome like that.

[Luis Dias]

Should we really discuss Sovereign? The one whose avatar had to be destroyed so its shields suddenly flicker, vanish and allow an entire fleet to bombard one single capital ship?

You keep bringing up details that allegedly "solve" the main problems of the narrative arc between ME2 and ME3. But they are details either hidden in the codex or by a slight reference to what the Specters thought by the middle of the game. That doesn't cut it. There's never a clear shout by the council or by other formal entities that the problem is taken seriously, not only by lone agents but by the war machinery throughout the galaxy.

I am talking about the larger arc that wasn't handled correctly. The initial mood in ME3 was desperation. The continuous mood throughout the game was "let's keep surviving, perhaps we'll think of something", iow, desperation. The building of the Crucible was desperate ("IDK what this thing does but it's what we have, the hell with it"). The ending was desperate, throwing everything we had against the Reapers, only to get a small contingent surviving in London and getting into the Citadel, betting everything on an unknown. The entire game is weary, and I really disagree with the notion that this constant desperate mood was desirable in the first place.

[The E]

I agree with Luis. If the game had been structured around a core of hope, even if it turns forlorn during the story, it might have been stronger.

[newman]

As long as we've veered far enough off the beaten path to discuss general ME plot flaws, I'd just like to state for the record that what disappointed me most in the end was the Reaper's motivation. In ME1 we were told they were so far above us, their reasons aren't even comprehensible to us. In ME3, it's all reduced to the same tired old premise of organics vs. synthetics. I was hoping for some grand cosmological reasoning that would in part justify what the reapers were doing, and leave us the hard choice of sacrificing ourselves to enable them to solve an even greater problem, or take them down and see if we can face the problem we're not equipped to face on our own. Something that felt grander and deeper than another iteration of the Cylon / Skynet / Geth / Whatever threat.

[MatthTheGeek]

Gotta agree with that. Explaining the Reapers was a big risk that didn't pay off. There's a reason Shivans in FS are interesting, and Bioware missed that point entirely.

[newman]

Exactly. Though a lot of players would probably complain if the Reaper's ultimate motivations and goals remained at least partly shrouded in mystery, I really think this would have been better, with some hints on some grand cosmologically - scaled problem they're trying to solve on a level that's far beyond the current race's ability of reasoning.

[MatthTheGeek]

Ya. If you're not capable to come up with an explanation that is better than the mystery, then keep the mystery. It's safer that way.

[Sandwich]

So at the risk of dragging this back on topic, I've been playing through he Citadel DLC. From my understanding, it's generally divided into 2 parts: an action-y part, and a dialog-heavy part. I just finished the action-y part, and have begun preparations for the party.

So far - totally worth it. The humor is top-notch nostalgia/sarcasm/friendly jabs stuff. It only makes me sincerely wish they had had that type of humor throughout the entire series... perhaps not at the same level of intensity, but something. It certainly helps develop the bonds of friendship between the crew better.

As for ME4... I'd love to see something set before/during the First Contact War. For any of those who have read them, think Timothy Zahn's Conqueror trilogy.

[MP-Ryan]

I just want ME4 multiplayer to get rid of the bull**** sync kill mechanics.  ME3 multiplayer is surprisingly fun and fresh, but it has three major flaws:

1.  BioWare doesn't know how to support a multiplayer game.  Valve, Activision, etc all do.  BioWare's support is abysmal.  There are still game-breaking bugs in multiplayer.
2.  The store is completely random (gambling) and the end-game aspect of it is such a slog that it's not a compelling reason in-and-of-itself to play.  Honestly, the only reason I still play multi is because it's generally fun and I have a number of friends that still do as well.  If I wasn't playing with people I know, I would've shelved multi a long time ago.
3.  Sync kills are abysmal.  Several of them are buggy (Hello, banshee, you were 10 feet away yet you're still picking me up?  Hello Phantom, I was actually in the middle of Nova or Charge, but by all means, totally ignore their stunning effects and put a sword through me anyway... oh yes, and Mr. Atlas, I'm thrilled that my shields didn't regen when I charged you, but it's even better that you didn't actually melee before syncing me either), all of them are situational, and simply playing "smart" is not a way to avoid them.  An entire class is dedicated to CQC/melee combat, and yet sync kills are entirely predicated on proximity to the enemy (supposedly).

As long as the next Mass Effect installment has SP/MP I'll probably buy it, but if its MP-only, BioWare is going to have to prove they can actually build and support a multiplayer title.  I know patching on consoles is expensive, but that's why every other MP publisher maintains separate codebases so they can patch the PC version at their whim, then role out to consoles after they've let them test out on PC.

[Fury]

Rumor is that next-gen consoles allow publishers/developers to patch their own games without having to go through MS/Sony validation process.

[Sandwich]

Rumor is that next-gen consoles allow publishers/developers to patch their own games without having to go through MS/Sony validation process.

Really? That would certainly make developing games for consoles much more attractive an option for developers.

[TrashMan]

1) Who sez reapers only build 1 each cycle?

2) Desperation is kinda what makes more sense. Of course, it's hard to argue mood, since different people have different preferences and ideas.

[The E]

Rumor is that next-gen consoles allow publishers/developers to patch their own games without having to go through MS/Sony validation process.

Really? That would certainly make developing games for consoles much more attractive an option for developers.

The console makers want to get in on that sweet Indie action, charging thousands of dollars for updates is not a good idea for that crowd, as they are used to releasing in-development versions of their products. In this console cycle, only Mojang managed to negotiate an exemption for the X360 version of Minecraft, and that's rather unsatisfying.

[MatthTheGeek]

1) Who sez reapers only build 1 each cycle?

IIRC, the Codex speculates that Reapers build one capital ship from the main target species of the cycle, and destroyers from the secondary species.

[Dark Hunter]

Still, that is only speculation.

[newman]

Restricting themselves to one big reaper when there's enough.. raw materials to build more would be silly. The codex may have speculated that in most cycles there's one dominant species and a bunch of smaller ones (like in the Prothean cycle), so that makes for one giant Reaper and a bunch of destroyers per cycle - on average. This wouldn't make much sense in the "current" cycle, though, as the Asari, Turians, Salarians, Humans and possibly the Krogan might all make for the big reapers. Not that sure about the Krogan, but they were one of the more represented races in the series so maybe. But each of the council species would make for a large reaper, imo. I think that they do end up with one big reaper per cycle on average, but I doubt they have a rule against making more of the cycle allows for it.

[NGTM-1R]

This wouldn't make much sense in the "current" cycle, though

Except if you listen to Harbinger's commentary on the people you bring along for missions in ME2 where he insults most of your nonhuman squad as unsuitable for ascending.

EDIT: Also Leviathan outright says there's one per cycle and he's got some inside knowledge on the subject.

[newman]

That doesn't make much sense to me. The Asari, at least, are way ahead of humans in pretty much anything. Just because humans have The One doesn't negate thousands of years of civilization achievements made by other races. I took Harbinger's comments as general bad guy monologuing where the bad guy just has to insult his enemies, and Leviathan could have very well meant that on average there's one (admittedly, I don't recall the actual conversation, only went through it once). Not saying you're wrong, but if you're right that was just silly on the writer's part.

[CommanderDJ]

That doesn't make much sense to me. The Asari, at least, are way ahead of humans in pretty much anything.

Asari. Reliance upon alien species for reproduction shows genetic weakness.

I took Harbinger's comments as general bad guy monologuing where the bad guy just has to insult his enemies

Except he goes on to praise humans as viable possibilities for ascension. So he's not just insulting every species he fights.

[newman]

True. I guess I just find that part silly so I ignored it. Then again, the entire premise of making large crab like ships by turning civilizations into goo is silly