Mass Effect 2 and what bioware needs to do better in ME3.

[Jandau]

- Remove or VASTLY improve planet scanning. It shouldn't take 15 minutes to scan a planet. It should take maybe 5 minutes, and less would be better.

While I agree that planet scanning is the weakest link of the game, it doesn't take that long. Just scan planets above Moderate and only drop probes on large scanner spikes. Also, get the scanner upgrade as soon as possible. This will allow you to sweep a planet in about a minute or two. Finally, you don't need to scan that many planets. I only scanned about half the planets in the game (the rest I just visited to check for missions) and I had enough resources for all the resource projects and over 200k of each resource (except element zero) in stock just in case.

 

[Agayek]

- Remove these silly mini games for hacking and bypassing security. I have no idea why these are here. No one enjoys them, they're just tedious and unnecessary.

No. They actually introduce a small level of challenge to get through certain areas. Not to mention the hacking in ME2 is vastly superior to the original's. The only thing that needs changing there is possibly making the hacking actually difficult in some places instead of all of them able to be completed before the timer is less than 1/4 down.

- Remove or VASTLY improve planet scanning. It shouldn't take 15 minutes to scan a planet. It should take maybe 5 minutes, and less would be better.

Meh. Planet scanning was fine to me. The best way to improve that IMO is to either put a fuel depot in every system or remove the limit on probes. It was ridiculous to scan the first of 5 planets in a system, run out of probes halfway through, then have to run back to another system, stock up on probes and gas and then go back. It was a load of useless busywork for no reason than to waste time. At least the actual scanning, while time consuming, is actually worth the time usually (though after I had fully depleted about 30 planets I stopped doing it entirely and ended the game with >100,000 of every resource save element 0, which was around 40k).

- More loyalty missions! These were by far the best parts of the game. I loved all of them.

100% agree. oyalty missions were amazing, hopefully they continue this in the finale.

- More new weapons! ME1 had way too many items dropping. ME2 is the exact opposite. You upgrade your weapon once or twice through 30 hours of gameplay. That's kinda terrible if you ask me. I don't want the god awful inventory from ME1 making a comeback, but getting at least 5 new weapons per weapons class throughout the game would be great.

Agree here too. For the vast majority of weapons, I had 2 possibilities, including the default, and heavy weapons were the only one that got over 5 (which was just silly because the Black Hole Cannon is the only heavy weapon worth carrying, as a Soldier anyway). It really would have been nice if they had put a wider variety of weapons in the game. I liked the complete lack of inventory management and picking loadouts at the start of missions, but more variety in the options would have been fantastic.

- Make biotic powers affect targets regardless of shields or armor. This severely weakens several classes, especially in higher difficulties. There's a reason Soldiers, Infiltrators, and Sentinels are the best classes for hardcore and insanity: they don't rely on any biotic control to win.

Depends on the power. Some powers would make the game stupidly easy if it went through barriers and the like.


The game is probably one of my favorite RPGs in a long while. I'd put it slightly ahead of the original, and a bit behind Baldur's Gate and KOTOR on my scale (which is probably skewed because Bioware has just about every top spot on it). It was an experience, and quite an addicting one I must say. I got it on Tuesday at ~3:30pm and beat it Friday at ~3:30am with a total game time of just shy of 30 hours (not including the one somewhat lengthy reload due to Windows Update auto-restart and a number of deaths), or I've basically been playing the game for about 50% of real-time between installing and beating it.

 

[Adanos]

The only thing I would want from mass effect 2 is moar armors. And guns. And toggle helm for the set armors. And some moar key binds.

 

[Ravendir]

More weapons been said eneough already.

Tali's Face and Body during the Romance scene please, I mean in Mass Effect 1 we got a shot of bare ass, in ME2 I didn't even get to see Tali's face, I was rather dissapointed.

I didn't mind the Planet scaning, it was okay, I mean better than driving around the zone with no clue of where the minerals may be. Also it eventually got to the stage where I didn't need the minerals anymore, and I still had like 27 more rich planets I just Shruged at and moved on becuase I didn't need anything more.

The Upgrade system was okay, sometimes you had too many reasources or not enough, never in between.

The new Ship navigating system was... Different, why you couldn't just click once and goto your destination is beyond me, I mean it's not like you have to dodge things in space.

More Loyality Mish's, already been said.

The perv in me wants to say "More than one partner" but I can see how that would get Bioware in even more trouble with religious and Family orientated groups.

The new Heavy weapons were good, only really used 2-3 though, really just one would do the trick as the "Oh fuck it's that big guy" weapon. But it was kinda cool shooting a Spartan las- I mean The Cain and just watching everyone die.

Just randomly Adding that I cannot wait for the Zero Punc. review of ME2 *Braces for stoning for going off topic again*

 

[atol]

The hacking minigames are the best I've seen in any game. Simple enough, but still makes you feel like you're actually hacking a system.

Planet scanning is just boring, not much better than driving around in the Mako if you ask me.

I'd like more obvious dialogue choices. They said they were going to do that for ME2, but apparently not. I can't think of any specific examples, but I just don't like it when I end up pulling a gun on someone when I object. Or when you get superfluous options, like when the 'neutral' response is identical to the 'paragon' response. The very first dialogue choice you're presented with has basically identical options.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

I love Mass Effect 2, it is one of the greatest games that I have ever played. I literally spent hours just wandering around the ship, without actually completing a mission. That said, I have some suggestions for Mass Effect 3.
-Give me more weapons
-I want more dialogue, I felt I hit the dialogue cap way too soon.
-Give those who were loyal to their love interests in ME a reward, thought I'm not in that group
-Allow me to continue my ME2 romances(Tali, thanks for asking)
-better system for getting materials, not the Mako or scanning
-Let me keep my team. If I lose Garrus, Tali, Grunt, or anyone else to some stupid bullshit, I will be so pissed

 

[Kelbear]

I like loot and levels. Streamlining everything in ME2 went a bit too far in my opinion.

NO NEW CHARACTERS.

There are /plenty/ of characters in the cast now. Elaborate on them and flesh them out fully. Don't throw in new people in the last game.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

-I would like them to return more towards the RPG end of the spectrum of gaming rather then going TPS as they did in ME2. I mean I liked how your team mates weren't just each of the player classes and had their own unique combination of abilities, but they only had four things to upgrade, and only once you had gained their loyalty. Even Shepard's class trees were rather limited. They don't have to make ME3 pure RPG, but I would rather have more RPG elements than shooter elements.
-More selection within each class of gun rather then: "the starter gun", "the better gun", and "the uber gun that makes you never want to use the other two". They don't have to make it so that you're constantly checking the weapons you just picked up to see if they're better than the ones you have equiped; but more than just two/three guns per class. Same goes for armour.
-I didn't mind the hacking/bypass system and it was better then the last one
-The planet scanning was better than the Mako parts (at least on the random planets with nothing on them) but I would like to see them not take as long. Scanning one planet should take about one minute. On some rich planets I spent 5 or 6 minutes mining it for that last little bit of o-so-rare element zero.
-I hope they actually make your relationships in the last two games actually mean something rather then just the characters say something a little different. And that goes for love interests and loyal/not loyal people.
-Although the loyalty mission were fun, I see no need to put them in ME3 because you either have the loyalty of you team members or you don't. And they really don't need to put in any new team members because it would seem a little ridiculous. There are plenty of characters from ME1 and 2 who the player can choose from. Though I definately hope for loyalty-missionesque side quests that will help you with the end game or even somewhere along the way rather than the ME1 "go off to the middle of nowhere to help out this random planet" side missions.
-Finally I would like for your previous choices to have a bigger role in the final game. I know it would make the game take up so much more data if Bioware were to make EVERY decision you made have huge effects. Some of your smaller decisions should only be like a little mention in the diolouge here or there. I loved picking up little references of my previous game. But some of the bigger choices should have bigger impacts that make certain sequences easier or harder depending on how your story has run thus far.

 

[Paulie92]

Change planet scanning that was just boring regardless of how long it may or may not have taken people. More variation was needed with evolving powers/classes and weapon types I feel like I'm the only one who noticed this but when you evolved a power it was either high damage or area of effect. Whenever you evolved a class it was health or damage and the two weapons for each weapon type where high damage/slow fire/low ammo or low damage/fast fire/lots of ammo. Another thing that bugged the crap out of me was the continuous and needless recycling of ME1 characters e.g. Harkin and the Asari from Virmire and my final complaint would be the main way to find side missions was through randomly heading to planets and lucking out (apart from loyalty missions which were fun) and even then they were only about 5 minutes long

Despite the massive rant I absolutely loved the game and couldn't put it down for a couple of weeks after I bought it though it could've been so much better!

 

[Fappy]

Honestly I hope Bioware decides to take the best parts about both games and combine them. For example: you scan a planet for necessary resources. Once a resource is located you launch a probe and go to a loading screen depicting the probe landing on the planet. Once on the planet you take control of a mini Mako and have to locate the resource on the map in a little square patch of the planet you get to explore. You get to do this for every single resource found on the planet (usually around 20) for every planet in the game. That would make the game awesome a shut the whiners up.

Oh and all the planets should be populated by Thresher Maws that can insta-kill you.

 

[Bonkekook]

***SPOILERS(Although if the title didnt tell you that, I'm kind of diappointed in you)***

I'm greatly disappointed by Mass Effect 2 for one reason. Space.

No, not the infinite expanse kind, the "size of the game" kind. The so-called Space RPG with very little SPACE. Same as the first game, you visit few populated areas, and the ones you do fill up about 3 blocks worth of real estate. I'm supposed to be under the impression that space is huge, and the races are diverse, etc, but I never get that feeling because I'm constantly being confined to spaces where everyone is packed in tight. The "ship exploration from planet-to-planet" is okay, but it lacks the appeal that many RPGs do, in that you never start out small. In the old FF games, you start out walking, then get a boat, then a flying machine, and the flying machine gives you an idea of how big the area you are in was. There's no exploration progression in ME 2. It says, "Hey, here's a ship right away, go pretend to fly around space".

I will say, I just completed it today, and if you judge it by itself, its not a bad game by any means. But I feel we're too lenient when doling out "Perfection" ratings.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Oh for Pete's sake, another one of these threads. Critics need to stop giving games perfect 10s so these kinds of discussions are curbed a bit.

 

[Altorin]

find some way that I don't have to change discs. that's the only thing that bugged me about mass effect 2. I know it's a tall order, but it would be nice if installing the game onto my hard drive allowed me to play the game without disc changing... I can see the problems with that..

maybe, if a game's installed, disc 1 will read both disc 2 and disc 3 off the hard drive, but disc 2 and disc 3 will not read any other discs... sort of like having a play disc and several install discs if you choose to install it.

definitely need to think of something though >.>

 

[Weaver]

I want loot management back! ME2 was basically just a shooter, I want my obsessive compulsive RPGs back.

 

[CuddlyCombine]

First off I loved Mass Effect 2 but for one thing your choices that you made in the first game didnt really impact anything in the second. Sure you could meet a couple different people and such and people reacted to you differently but for the most part they didnt effect anything major in the story.

You get the chance to kill off entire species. To end the lives of thousands of Alliance soldiers. To kill your squadmates. To make humans the supreme rulers of the galaxy. I don't know how much more influence you want. I think you'll get what you want if you pretend that Shephard discovers an ancient Sith temple, then load Knights of the Old Republic into your CD drive and play that.

 

[mornal]

I would be interested in not having pre-arranged dialogue choices. Currently it's set up for paragon on the top of the circle, renegade on the bottom and neutral in the center. What'd I'm talking about is mixing those up so it's not just "Well I want my Shepard to be paragon so I'll always take the top one" kind of thing. Make it so that the player has to actually read the choices and decide on what they would do in that situation.

 

[Vrex360]

1. Let's get rid of the resource mining or if it must stay at least make it a quicker process and have all the essential upgrades not be ridiculously expensive.

2. Ashley had really better be returning, she was easily my favourite love interest and I remained faithful, hence I demand to see her come back, possibly even recruitable. This relationship must have a good conclusion point.

3. This goes for Wrex too.... except for the romance part obviously, as you know.. he is waaaay to good for me.

4. Hopefully I get to recruit all of the old crew and keep a large percent of the new crew and not have to make a new team a third time, because really this should feel like the conclusion so by this point no more adding things on and more winding things up.

5. Preferably to return to being a Spectre and working with the Council once more, I wouldn't mind seeing Shepard work with other Spectres.

This is all I can think of right now, but if I remember more I shall come back to it.

 

[Daedalus1942]

I just want more to be added in ME3...like more of everything! Make ME3 on 3-disks and that would fit in perfectly (1 disk ME1, 2 disks ME2, 3 Disks ME3 )

If there is something missing from Mass Effect its a decent 'gambling' mini-game. ME1 had Quasar which was piss-poor and I havnt come across any form of 'gambling' in ME2. I was so addicted to Pazaak in KOTOR...sometimes id lose like all my creds in that game purely from playing Pazaak.

Also: there is an alliance member, on the citadel I think,near an entrance (yes, vague I know), yelling at two recruits. He starts off talking about a warship bullet, then proceeds to yell at them. It's one of the funniest things in the game.

I prefer the argument between the human and turian opposite those guys...the argument is hilarious and always end with the turian saying "you humans are all racist!" LOL

You can actually gamble on Wrex's planet, but it takes forever to earn money and you literally have a 50/50 chance your Varren will win.