Mass Effect 3

Kiith

FutureGuy wrote: »

I'm going to say this now. I do it quite regularly if I am doing gold runs. There is no place for a level 12 soldier with little experience (low N7 rating) or a vanguard in a gold run. The other three players are immediately handicapped by someone that is going to get killed again and again.

I would rather have a team of 3 who know what they are doing.

Oh i'd absolutely agree with kicking a lvl12 from a Gold. Just like i'd kick someone under lvl5 from a silver.

Kicking a lvl20 however, not so much.

BizzyC

How do so many people have X level weapons?

I'm finding it hard to get anything that advanced....i keep getting new shotguns, which I dont use

degrassinoel

time and patience.. and even more time and some impatience.. and bioware points!

seriously though, the easiest way to get the rank 10 stuff by yourself is to do silvers. The fact that we had access to premium spectre packs for the last 2 weeks was really helpful too. I got myself a bunch of rank 10's and some new classes out of those. Bit pricey at 99k creds. I think they've gone now too
Just the regular spectre packs for 60k

maximoose

Q: What is the importance of the N7 Rating? I've paid very little attention to it really, what is it calculated on? And does it affect anything?

degrassinoel

it improves by levelling each character up.
Again by promoting the same characters to single player
and again by gaining access to higher grade weapons and unlocking new characters and weapons.

It's pretty much just epeen, doesnt mean a whole lot. Just shows other players that although your character may be level whatever, you have played for x amount of time and probably have a decent weapon or the skill required to get through bronze/silver/gold easier than someone with a lower rating.

Gbear

Gbear wrote: »

Anyone else get their hands on the harpoon launcher?

It's been a bit frustrating to use so far - seems to lack the accuracy of a true sniper rifle, it isn't instant hit like most of them but I really do like the animation of the glowing red harpoon sticking out of people's faces when you shoot them.

Dunno has anyone else been using this, i've got mostly terrible sniper rifles but this gun has been a game changer for me.

The shot is a projectile rather than instant hit so it "falls" after about 50 meters.

I didn't realise initially that you can charge it to do more damage and fire more accurately.

Using it with infiltrator and if you're cloaked you get the bonus damage for sniper rifles. Thing is, once you start charging the shot you decloak. To get around that, you can charge the weapon up, then cloak, then release the shot with the bonus damage (i think) and you're still cloaked afterwards.

I can 2 shot brutes in silver with this method. Very handy. I can also 1 shot a phantom if I get a head-shot.

maximoose

Ah, I thought as much. I think mine's at 71 atm, I've only promoted one character and didn't see the point of doing any more after I'd completed SP!

Actually, does promoting give you credits?

wnolan1992

Just finished this last night. I imposed a complete blackout on this thread since I last posted here around a month ago so sorry if some these points have been done to death.

I didn't even know you could get X level weapons! I was using a Vindicator 1 for the entire game FFS! I never saw any shop selling it. Sickened!

Overall, the game was epic. As expected. I won't discuss the ending, just to say it disappointed me, but didn't ruin the game for me.

Banshees... Jesus I hate them. I remember on Earth as you're defending the Thanix Missile Battery, two of the hoors show up with a load of Marauders. I ended up taking out one, and then sprinting to the control panel to initiate the cutscene. :pac: :pac: They were the only enemy that I genuinely HATED to hear approaching because it took bloody aaages to kill them.

Brutes were fun! I remember the four on Tuchanka I just ran past, but the ones on Horizon and on Earth were so satisfying. When the last one fell and you just looked around at the carnage it was brilliant!

Some story elements disappointed me. Particularly

the decision between the Quarians and the Geth. I chose the Geth, because Legion was such a hero. Shed a few tears when he died. I just wonder would it have played out differently if Tali had survived ME2 or if I'd advised the Quarians not to go to war with the geth... guess I'll find out on my next playthroughs.

Also I felt they could have expanded a lot more on characters like Wrex as leader, or at least include him more in the game, but I guess this isn't a major issue.

The only major drawbacks for me in the game were:

a) The Journal: What the hell! Why did they change it? It made so much more sense in the previous games, but in this one you don't even know whether you have the item you need or not. No lie, I actually spent a week looking for a particular artifact, and only realised I had it because when I was walking past the guy that wanted it I had the option to interact!

b) The Dialogue Trees: Felt like they dumbed it down a lot compared to the previous two games. Felt to me as though there was no middle ground between renegade and paragon like before. And as well, a lot of the times when I chose the paragon option Shepard would still act like a dickhead and vice-versa.

That said, I got a good 70 hours gameplay out of my first playthrough, and that was without being connected to the internet at all (long story) so between now knowing I can get level X weapons somewhere and possible multiplayer my next few playthroughs should be fun.

Gbear

wnolan1992 wrote: »

a) The Journal: What the hell! Why did they change it? It made so much more sense in the previous games, but in this one you don't even know whether you have the item you need or not. No lie, I actually spent a week looking for a particular artifact, and only realised I had it because when I was walking past the guy that wanted it I had the option to interact!

Actually yes. I've been jumping around between the three mass effect games recently and for me the one that had it the best was ME. You had handy hotkeys - J for journal, O for Codex, I for inventory, U for the character skill screen.

Whenever you go to the citidel have a look on the map.
It'll tell you who you've got to see on each level.
So if you get, I dunno, the Rings of Asha, the Asari in the hospital will appear on the map. Once you give her the item, she disappears off it.

Also, a few times you can buy the thing you need from the spectre terminal (eg. cerberus cyphers) and if the person you're supposed to give it to is in the same area you have to leave the area and then come back before you're able to give it to them.

There's a few small bugs and bits of sloppiness in the game design like that but there's workarounds and after playing it a few times they become less annoying.

wnolan1992 wrote: »

That said, I got a good 70 hours gameplay out of my first playthrough, and that was without being connected to the internet at all (long story) so between now knowing I can get level X weapons somewhere and possible multiplayer my next few playthroughs should be fun.

How do people get 70 hours out of this game? I've played through twice and having done everything (don't have from ashes) they've both taken about 32 hours.
You can only get level X weapons if you import a ME3 save.
Otherwise you can only get up to V. You get them in the Shuttle bay. One of the consoles is for weapons upgrades.

maximoose

Gbear wrote: »

How do people get 70 hours out of this game? I've played through twice and having done everything (don't have from ashes) they've both taken about 32 hours.

I've been wondering this myself. My game took just over 31hrs IIRC and I did EVERYTHING I could, from ashes included.

wnolan1992

Gbear wrote: »

Actually yes. I've been jumping around between the three mass effect games recently and for me the one that had it the best was ME. You had handy hotkeys - J for journal, O for Codex, I for inventory, U for the character skill screen.

Whenever you go to the citidel have a look on the map.
It'll tell you who you've got to see on each level.
So if you get, I dunno, the Rings of Asha, the Asari in the hospital will appear on the map. Once you give her the item, she disappears off it.

Yeah, I found that out after a while. I only realised they appeared in the POI section late on in the game but once I found that it was grand to find them.

Also, a few times you can buy the thing you need from the spectre terminal (eg. cerberus cyphers) and if the person you're supposed to give it to is in the same area you have to leave the area and then come back before you're able to give it to them.

There's a few small bugs and bits of sloppiness in the game design like that but there's workarounds and after playing it a few times they become less annoying.

Yeah, one time I bought the Reaper Code Fragments (?) from the Spectre terminal to give to the Asari standing across from the elevator. I spent about ten minutes coming at her from different angles trying to get it to work! :pac: :pac:

It kinda disappointed me that they changed the side mission pattern so that you only had to interact with them and give them the item and it took away the conversation element. I suppose it sped things up, but still...

How do people get 70 hours out of this game? I've played through twice and having done everything (don't have from ashes) they've both taken about 32 hours.
You can only get level X weapons if you import a ME3 save.
Otherwise you can only get up to V. You get them in the Shuttle bay. One of the consoles is for weapons upgrades.

It depends on your play style. I tend to be very methodical and not rush into anything. About ten of those hours are probably just me wandering the Normandy chatting to the crew. :pac:

Zillah

maximoose wrote: »

Q: What is the importance of the N7 Rating? I've paid very little attention to it really, what is it calculated on? And does it affect anything?

It doesn't mean anything whatsoever. I don't promote characters into singleplayer because I have no desire to level them up again, so my N7 rating is capped.

If you ever see someone making a judgement, such as kicking someone from a game, based on N7, you feel absolutely free to call them a fu*king moron.

maximoose

Zillah wrote: »

It doesn't mean anything whatsoever. I don't promote characters into singleplayer because I have no desire to level them up again, so my N7 rating is capped.

If you ever see someone making a judgement, such as kicking someone from a game, based on N7, you feel absolutely free to call them a fu*king moron.

I see it regularly haha, have been kicked myself quite a few times.. tis the main reason I never bother trying to do gold!

Gbear

Zillah wrote: »

It doesn't mean anything whatsoever. I don't promote characters into singleplayer because I have no desire to level them up again, so my N7 rating is capped.

If you ever see someone making a judgement, such as kicking someone from a game, based on N7, you feel absolutely free to call them a fu*king moron.

You get war assets, for all the irrelevancy that entails.

Also, I like that there's a mechanic to bring characters back down to lvl 1.

You can take a fresh approach with a character. Maybe go from being a weapon-centered character to a power-centered one.

What I base wanting to play with other players is their Lvl and weapons.
Under lvl 12 I won't play with someone on Silver unless they've got serious armaments.
Conversely, I won't play on bronze with these muppets you constantly see with a widow-equipped lvl 20 infiltrator. They're going to steal all your kills. Same with Vanguards of any level.

Zillah

Gbear wrote: »

You get war assets, for all the irrelevancy that entails.

Also, I like that there's a mechanic to bring characters back down to lvl 1.

You can take a fresh approach with a character. Maybe go from being a weapon-centered character to a power-centered one.

None of this has anything to do with the N7 rating meaning anything. All of this could be the exact same while having no N7 rating counting it at all.

What I base wanting to play with other players is their Lvl and weapons.
Under lvl 12 I won't play with someone on Silver unless they've got serious armaments.
Conversely, I won't play on bronze with these muppets you constantly see with a widow-equipped lvl 20 infiltrator. They're going to steal all your kills. Same with Vanguards of any level.

Stealing your kills? lol

You know XP and money is shared equally by all team members, right?

Dave_The_Sheep

Zillah wrote: »

Stealing your kills? lol

You know XP and money is shared equally by all team members, right?

I was under the impression that team XP is shared by the team, but that individual achievements, such as 25 kills, or 50 assists, or 20 biotic kills, etc. get added on to individual scores. Isn't that the screen after a game with player rankings?

Or have I missed the point entirely?

degrassinoel

Zillah ye liar lol! your N7 rating is nowhere near capped, unless ye mean something else?

Dave,
team XP is shared by the team, if one guy is a rambo and one guy is afk for ten rounds, both players will recieve the same amount of credits at the end. The individual scores are purely epeen. How many medals you personally got means nothing, how many the team got has a slight increase in credits.

Overall its a proper co-op scoring system. The lone wolves and the teamplayers both get as much credits as each other. Where as the entire team gets a better payment if they work together.. but not by a staggering amount.

Dave_The_Sheep

You learn something new every day. At least now I don't have to give a sh*te about vanguards or snipers nicking kills, not that it bothered me wildly before.

degrassinoel

that still bugs the sh1t out of me! but yeah you're 100% right not to let it annoy ye, its all fair and square at the end

Gbear

Zillah wrote: »

None of this has anything to do with the N7 rating meaning anything. All of this could be the exact same while having no N7 rating counting it at all.

Your N7 rating goes up when you export a player to the campaign.
It also goes up for every level you go up.
Presumably, if all your characters are on lvl 20 then it'd stay on the same score, although, that'd be about 600.

Zillah wrote: »

Stealing your kills? lol

You know XP and money is shared equally by all team members, right?

Really? I knew money did but individual score can vary hugely. What's the point if it doesn't matter? Is it literally just a scoreboard?

And yes, steal my kills. If it takes my lvl 1 soldier quite a while to kill anything and you've got a high level sniper with a widow, they just hoover up everything. Even worse if you're just about to biotic combo them and then "LOL SHOT HIM IN THE HEAD".

Ostensibly, the point of multiplayer is to kill things. If you've got a lvl 20 krogan with a claymore killing absolutely everything on his own it gets tedious. It's only really a problem on bronze though.

Zillah

Gbear wrote: »

Your N7 rating goes up when you export a player to the campaign.
It also goes up for every level you go up.
Presumably, if all your characters are on lvl 20 then it'd stay on the same score, although, that'd be about 600.

So at best N7 is a measure of how often you promote characters, which is irrelevant, especially when morons use N7 as some sort of skill ranking system.

There are six character classes, at 20 levels each, so I think if you never promote anyone your maximum N7 is 120.

Really? I knew money did but individual score can vary hugely. What's the point if it doesn't matter? Is it literally just a scoreboard?

It is literally just a scoreboard that has no impact on XP or money. I really wish they made this more obvious so you'd get less people feeling petty and bitter about kills and classes etc. I want to win the map, I don't really care about my score.

Well, it's always fun to load up a vanguard and dominate... :pac:

degrassinoel wrote: »

Zillah ye liar lol! your N7 rating is nowhere near capped, unless ye mean something else?

I mean capped in that there is an upper limit. Not handicapped ye spaz.

My understanding is this:
Your N7 level goes up each time a character gains levels. If you get every character type up to level 20 then you stop gaining levels and therefore N7. The only way to have a very high N7 is by constantly promoting all of your characters and leveling up from 1 again. I have no interest in doing this. I promoted 2 or 3 during that event (for which I got nothing, damn you EA) and never intend to again unless I really want to respec a character and don't have one of the reset tokens.

degrassinoel

Zillah wrote: »

I mean capped in that there is an upper limit. Not handicapped ye spaz.

My understanding is this:
Your N7 level goes up each time a character gains levels. If you get every character type up to level 20 then you stop gaining levels and therefore N7. The only way to have a very high N7 is by constantly promoting all of your characters and leveling up from 1 again. I have no interest in doing this. I promoted 2 or 3 during that event (for which I got nothing, damn you EA) and never intend to again unless I really want to respec a character and don't have one of the reset tokens.

You're kind of right, but you're also kind of wrong.
120 would be the max for those characters without promoting and without unlocking any content such as characters or weapons. Therefore it's not a cap, except in your case where you have achieved max level and dont wish to promote those characters or unlock further content (guessing here).

It's possible to increase the N7 rating to well into the 1000's (seen one guy with a 4000+ rating in one game - which to others would suggest that the cap is far beyond 120.
To each their own though, and tbh i think we're just arguing symantics here about a really ridiculous rating that means absolutely sweet fa

Gbear

Zillah wrote: »

So at best N7 is a measure of how often you promote characters, which is irrelevant, especially when morons use N7 as some sort of skill ranking system.

There are six character classes, at 20 levels each, so I think if you never promote anyone your maximum N7 is 120.

Oh right yeah. Forgot when you promote a character it resets the entire class. A bit silly. I might want to restart a character but not an entire class.

Zillah wrote: »

It is literally just a scoreboard that has no impact on XP or money. I really wish they made this more obvious so you'd get less people feeling petty and bitter about kills and classes etc. I want to win the map, I don't really care about my score.

My main concern is having fun. That doesn't mean getting the most points necessarily but it usually means killing a minimum number of baddies.

I've had brilliant games where i've died on wave 10, or 11. Sometimes they seem even more epic when you die against a total onslaught. No shame in dieing to 14 phantoms.

Zillah wrote: »

Well, it's always fun to load up a vanguard and dominate... :pac:

DAMN YOUUU!!!
:P

FutureGuy

Once you have a character to L20, the xp you get isn't important and therefore there is no competition for XP at all.

We are farming gold, not xp, and the gold bonus for effective mission completion can be lost/reduced if you haven't a fully focused team.

I'm not wasting time trying to figure out how to revive a L.20 Vanguard/Krogan Soldier who felt he could take down a Geth Prime up close and personal, when I need to be taking 4 computers offline in under a minute.

In my experienced, a fully focused team can make an extra 3-4000 gold per gold geth run.

Zillah wrote: »

If you ever see someone making a judgement, such as kicking someone from a game, based on N7, you feel absolutely free to call them a fu*king moron.

Moron? I disagree. If I see a L.17 character with an N7 rating of 17 entering my team, they could get kicked. I'm not willing to waste 25 minutes only to have his inexperience get my team killed before wave 10 is completed. And the odds are stacked heavily towards this player being out of his depth on gold. Just because they are L.17 that doesn't mean they know how to use their character effectively. I played with a L20 Salarian Engineer with an N7 Rating of 35 who didn't use one decoy all game.

This isn't a game of "America's Next Top Mass Effect Friend". I'm not out to make "oooohhh...f*cking Mass Effect Friend!!!!!" friends. I'm out to make gold and buy packs.

If a player isn't up to the required level, they should go play Silver.

Simple.

degrassinoel

It is a bit harsh but I agree, certainly with low N7 ranked vanguards on gold. Good vanguards are hard enough to come by on gold. Am just using vanguards as an example here, plenty of other classes do it too.
A person who is playing a van and has a low N7 rating, it's probably their first run on gold and they will be in for a serious shock at the difficulty and the fact that unless you have lots of points in fitness - your shield even with biotic charge is pretty much gone in one hit from anything!

That said, i managed to 2man a geth gold run last night, two guys left in the middle of the first wave. Myself and my friend were both playing salarian engineers. Took over a half hour (34mins) to complete it and the credit reward was the usual 70+ k. Both of us exhausted our supplies of ammo, medi-gels, cobras, and emergency health&shieldsby the end, but we managed to even get extracted

Teamwork is literally everything on gold, having a low level rambo (let's face it, vanguards excell at this!) on a gold run means three people have to play a lot harder than they should to compensate for one person's lack of experiance. Again, from the rambo perspective, if you have a good experianced vanguard who doesnt get himself killed on every biotic charge, this can make gold's a whole lot easier too.

Gbear

degrassinoel wrote: »

It is a bit harsh but I agree, certainly with low N7 ranked vanguards on gold. Good vanguards are hard enough to come by on gold.
A person who is playing a van and has a low N7 rating, it's probably their first run on gold and they will be in for a serious shock at the difficulty and the fact that unless you have lots of points in fitness - your shield even with biotic charge is pretty much gone in one hit from anything!

That said, i managed to 2man a geth gold run last night, two guys left in the middle of the first wave. Myself and my friend were both playing salarian engineers. Took over a half hour (34mins) to complete it and the credit reward was the usual 70+ k. Both of us exhausted our supplies of ammo, medi-gels, cobras, and emergency health&shieldsby the end, but we managed to even get extracted

Teamwork is literally everything on gold, having a low level rambo (let's face it, vanguards excell at this!) on a gold run means three people have to play a lot harder than they should to compensate for one person's lack of experiance. Again, from the rambo perspective, if you have a good experianced vanguard who doesnt get himself killed on every biotic charge, this can make gold's a whole lot easier too.

You said you need alot of fitness for gold - what'd be a good Salarian engineer build? I've just started up a new one so I can start grooming him for a few gold runs.

Haven't done any so far. I don't feel like i've got good enough weapons.

degrassinoel

you dont need a great weapon as an engineer. Just something strong and accurate. Heavy pistols are good, as are smg's and assault rifles. i've seen some salarians spec into sniper rifles and do some really decent damage too.
Personally, i use an assault rifle, and an smg
Revenent X - damage mod - extra ammo mod
Geth SMG V - heat sink mod - extra ammo mod

I use the SMG for everything except pyros and primes, and the revenent for those two.
Typically this is how i would begin a match:
Pop out the decoy, wait behind cover for anything to show up- power drain whatever shows up - start shooting with the smg - power drain again and repeat. Same thing with pyro's and primes but with the revenent and i basiclly stay up shooting until my shields are gone and power drain is on cooldown or i run out of ammo/need to reload the rev.

The main things I focus on for the salarian engineer are:
Fitness: spec this for shields and shield power, not melee (if you have to melee as an engineer on gold you're boned!)
Decoy: Spec this anyway you like, whatever suits your style of play.I chose extra shield and and it zaps anything in melee range of it, which is quite handy for geth/golds.
Power Drain: Dont bother with the radius, go for damage - you'll use this very often to boost your shield and steal an armour buff, very helpful!
Salarian racial: (cant remember the actual name) I used this to equally increase power damage and weapon damage. Half in half
Didnt bother with any points in incinerate at all.

So if you ommit one entire tree (incinerate for me) you can spec out the full 6 points in the rest. My spec probably isnt the best one you can possibly get, but it suits my style of play and compliments my usual teammates skills and abilities.

To be honest, if i were you i'd try a few golds, but when you're looking for one, look specificlly for firebase white as the location and geth as the enemy. - bring whatever weapon you enjoy the most and to hell with what anyone says about it. Engineers are great fun regardless of what weapon you use.

BizzyC

degrassinoel wrote: »

The main things I focus on for the salarian engineer are:
Fitness: spec this for shields and shield power, not melee (if you have to melee as an engineer on gold you're boned!)
Decoy: Spec this anyway you like, whatever suits your style of play.I chose extra shield and and it zaps anything in melee range of it, which is quite handy for geth/golds.
Power Drain: Dont bother with the radius, go for damage - you'll use this very often to boost your shield and steal an armour buff, very helpful!
Salarian racial: (cant remember the actual name) I used this to equally increase power damage and weapon damage. Half in half
Didnt bother with any points in incinerate at all.

Agree there.
I made he mistake of upgrading incinerate on my Guy cause it was useful early on in Bronze vs Reapers. Thinking of rebuilding and doing the above now cause I never use it.

Zillah

FutureGuy wrote: »

If a player isn't up to the required level, they should go play Silver.

Oh well obviously. I assumed we were talking in the context of people's elitist attitudes. "My N7 of 600 is far higher than that newbie with a mere 160, kick kick kick"...the "newbie" has all level 20 characters and has been playing the game since it came out.

degrassinoel

I got the N7 sabre mark I today from the new resurgence packs, anyone else tried thing out? It's a semi-automatic assault rifle but it's far more powerful than a Viper rank X even with mods!

Insane damage