[Spoilers!] Choices in ME:A are not handled very well...

[CasperTheLich]

i can see the whole not rocking the boat thing, at first. however after spending a bit of time proving yourself, or rather having your character doing that... you should be able to tell off some of those annoying idiots from time to time. imho our character has been through that baptism by fire, several times by the end of the game. something has to give a bit.

[mcsupersport]

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@sirexodus84

To be fair, him/her not exactly being ready to be Pathfinder was emphasized greatly (although, how great it was emphasized depended on your choices). You're a guy/gal who's in that young adult stage where you want to still be a rebellious angsty teenager, but you know that you have to do some serious adulting soon. 

I don't know how much time it takes Ryder to beat the game (lore wise when I say that). Months? Even though he/she managed to repair an entire alien terraforming system, it doesn't mean he's/she's suddenly all kinds of confident in what he's/she's doing. This is like suddenly promoting the cashier into a District Manager. They'll do it, sure, but it'll be nerve wrecking the whole time.

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Yeah, but Ryder may be a bit young, but NOT a teenager....think of the backstory, was in Alliance military, either out digging up relics(female) and fighting off pirates, or guarding a relay(male), then they got out of it when their father's decisions blew up, and finally they joined the initiative.  On Habitat 7 He/She talks about being able to handle themselves due to facing pirates/combat before they got out of the military.  So they may be youngish early 20s maybe mid 20s, but they sure aren't teens and then after all the experiences of Andromeda...geesh, you would think they would cowboy up pretty fast.   The Ryder managed to get the Initiative back onto track, settle multiple worlds, good chance to have saved 3 Arcs, gotten 3 other pathfinders, kicked the heck out of all manner of Kett, proved Addison wrong, showed her up with the Krogan.....Tann too....and still can't tell them to shut up, sit down, and let the Pathfinders do their job......and NO I WASN'T ASKING FOR PERMISSION!!! 

Heck, it PMOff when I couldn't take guns into Kadara port and tell Solaone you want them take them from my dead cold hands, if you can find me for all the bodies of your troops......Like ME1 Shepard on the research world.....

[crzycespy]

"Suddenly promoting a cashier to District Manager"? C'mon. He is a 24-27 year old soldier. He's not green. He's 6-9 years into a military career, in a military family, during a heck of a Galactic time for humans. Show me 6 year vet who acts like that. He's not a bloody private anymore. Ready to be a general? No. But the dialogue he uses is akin to an episode of Power Rangers.

And the decisions from the poor dialogue make no difference anyway. Oh no, someone won't talk to you for an hour or so. Not like you just let something catastrophic happen. Or maybe a "Thank you" if you averted the catastrophe.

Patches will help the game, but I doubt many are on the horizon, as there is too much to fix. They would have to spend the kind of money they would to make a "Great" 20 hour campaign expansion (not dlc pack, a real life expansion with dlc fixes included). This is not a $500,000k fix. This is a $10 million dollar usd overhaul. With the $40 million for the entire game including marketing budget they had (far less than any AAA game of this genre I can think of; especially cross platform) the only way is a $29.99 expansion, as EA is notorious for cutting corners. Other than that, this game is what it is. I wish it was called something else, and marketed as a fun sci-fi action rpg.

It's also the only chance they have of an ME:A II (Which I hope there is, as this is not how I want to remember Mass Effect). What bugs me the most? They made all these concessions which took away from the story, the aesthetics, everything, to appease a very vocal minority, who don't buy their games anyway! Then, the ones who did shout "Inclusion" say "You did it wrong. We aren't like that". How do you know? You watched a YouTube video and never bought the game. Just be happy that none of the women are sexually attractive, in either looks or personality.

I made excuse after excuse during the beta, then for a couple weeks post release all over YouTube and Twitter, but after starting a replay of ME 2 (My least favorite of the trilogy, but the only one I have for PC), this game is worse in every way except some external non-sapient graphics (and even those have the light refractions wrong half the time). The combat would have been better if we could tell our companions what to do, but without that option it feels more like a solo run where I am trying to keep my friends from dying all the time. I wish I could just take a Deus Ex approach and do it alone most of the time.

Is it a bad game overall? 50/50? Is it worth $60 usd? I guess, but I'd recommend about 10 different $60 games over it that have come out during the last 3 years in a similar genre. Is it the worst in the Mass Effect Universe? Without a doubt. Is it Bioware's worst game? No! The Baldur's Gate game they released for the PS2 was the worst. That was, idk what that was. I'm not even sure if Bioware made it. If they did not make it, then yes, this is far and away their worst game ever. In my opinion, without that "Throne of Bhaal" quality expansion pack, this should win "Most disappointing of the year".

If we grade like we would in school, and I averaged Story Concept 8, Story Implementation 5, Writing 3, Character Models 4, Exterior/Interior Models 8, Fighting Mechanics/Multi-player 7 (Would be a 9 if we could control our squad a bit), voice acting 8 (Yes, 8. Deniro, Matt Damon, Patrick Stewart, Jessica Alba, Brie Larson, and Drew Barrymore could not have saved this writing; heck an entire Broadway cast from Hamlet could not have made this work), role playing 3, originality 4, immersion 4, inclusion 7, music 6,  Fun 5, exploration 6. Let's get an average. Yikes 5.285 . So, by school/university standards, it is a fail by 1.215 pts to get to a "D".

I was enjoying it so much more before I put it down, waiting for a third patch for the PC to help, and started playing ME:2 again (my least favorite in the trilogy, but the only one I have on PC, and I'd only played it once). It just made me realize how lacking this is compared to all the other games. 30 hours in, and I'm not touching it until another patch or expansion comes out. If that means I never play it again, so be it. I'll never purchase a Bioware game again until it is out for at least a month, and nothing from EA except Madden (Because it's my only choice for American football, and the only reason I have a console),

[VitesseLumiere]

I very much enjoy most of ME:A, but even I can't say much more to the title of this thread other than:

Well...  no sh!t...

[VladVonCastein]

LOL...    Looking back at my own life, think when I was in my 20s I was least tolerant, most opinionated(not always correct), I left my job after working there for a couple of months, cause I was treated unfairly.  When I finally have a family and settled down, that was when I was careful, not wanting to offend my superiors as that may cost me my career... Biting my tongue and tolerating incompetent management cause I cant afford to lose my job.  Ryder is young, he just saved everyones As*  the damn initiative owes him.  Why is he standing there with his little tail between his legs?  I just dont get it...     If I am still in my 20s and I am in his position, I would have milked it.  whoTF is addison?  Tann Who?  I would have put the 2 of them on trial for gross negligence, abuse of power and incompetence causing the deaths of many and for all the mess they brought to the initiative.  We already had a ton of evidence.  Spender, 3 Sabres, that pregnant woman...  

But no, the writer made him a wuss...  Think bioware lost touch with their real fans...  lets all huddle together with Liam and Jaal, form a circle, speak about our feelings, hug each other and cry together...  Wuss...  

[ViViD_Prime]

a lot of people are under the deillusion that you can act like a total * in a galaxy that was never yours and get away with it your people need you to be a polite erran girl for the sake of everyone there no room for a renegade douchbag shepard got away with it because she was the citadel council's maid "a joke ryder makes to rix"

[Nykara360]

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@ViViD_Prime wrote:

a lot of people are under the deillusion that you can act like a total * in a galaxy that was never yours and get away with it your people need you to be a polite erran girl for the sake of everyone there no room for a renegade douchbag shepard got away with it because she was the citadel council's maid "a joke ryder makes to rix"

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Also the difference here is the Ryders bg is already set for us - they have a personality before we take them over that is already pretty set.

With Shep you can choose from multiple, including being ruthless.

Shep was our character, the Ryders are someone else's character we get to control and make a few choices within the characters presets. I actually don't mind it this way but I usually play paragon anyways.

Anyone would think being the good guy was a bad thing the way some talk though..

Being good and knowing when to stay your tongue is not necessarily being a wuss, infact it takes a lot pf inner strength to not let your anger control your actions.

[VitesseLumiere]

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@VladVonCastein wrote:

LOL...    Looking back at my own life, think when I was in my 20s I was least tolerant, most opinionated(not always correct), I left my job after working there for a couple of months, cause I was treated unfairly.  When I finally have a family and settled down, that was when I was careful, not wanting to offend my superiors as that may cost me my career... Biting my tongue and tolerating incompetent management cause I cant afford to lose my job.  Ryder is young, he just saved everyones As*  the damn initiative owes him.  Why is he standing there with his little tail between his legs?  I just dont get it...     If I am still in my 20s and I am in his position, I would have milked it.  whoTF is addison?  Tann Who?  I would have put the 2 of them on trial for gross negligence, abuse of power and incompetence causing the deaths of many and for all the mess they brought to the initiative.  We already had a ton of evidence.  Spender, 3 Sabres, that pregnant woman...  

But no, the writer made him a wuss...  Think bioware lost touch with their real fans...  lets all huddle together with Liam and Jaal, form a circle, speak about our feelings, hug each other and cry together...  Wuss...  

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Vlad, do you need a hug and some talky time?  Ryder's there for you... when he/she isn't babysitting Cora...  

[jpcerutti1]

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@VitesseLumiere wrote:

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@VladVonCastein wrote:

LOL...    Looking back at my own life, think when I was in my 20s I was least tolerant, most opinionated(not always correct), I left my job after working there for a couple of months, cause I was treated unfairly.  When I finally have a family and settled down, that was when I was careful, not wanting to offend my superiors as that may cost me my career... Biting my tongue and tolerating incompetent management cause I cant afford to lose my job.  Ryder is young, he just saved everyones As*  the damn initiative owes him.  Why is he standing there with his little tail between his legs?  I just dont get it...     If I am still in my 20s and I am in his position, I would have milked it.  whoTF is addison?  Tann Who?  I would have put the 2 of them on trial for gross negligence, abuse of power and incompetence causing the deaths of many and for all the mess they brought to the initiative.  We already had a ton of evidence.  Spender, 3 Sabres, that pregnant woman...  

But no, the writer made him a wuss...  Think bioware lost touch with their real fans...  lets all huddle together with Liam and Jaal, form a circle, speak about our feelings, hug each other and cry together...  Wuss...  

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Vlad, do you need a hug and some talky time?  Ryder's there for you... when he/she isn't babysitting Cora...  

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It did feel good though when I finally got to tell Liam at the end of his loyalty mission enough is enough. Not escalating it even further when he ratchets it up though was probably the smart thing to do - but I would not be making wise, long term outlook decisions at that particular point.

You also don't have to be nice to Sloane from the get go, which seemed really out of character from the rest of the lines they had me reading.

Maybe those two years of Pathfinder training had quite a few classes on "understanding other people's feelings".

[VladVonCastein]

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@jpcerutti1 wrote:

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@VitesseLumiere wrote:

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@VladVonCastein wrote:

LOL...    Looking back at my own life, think when I was in my 20s I was least tolerant, most opinionated(not always correct), I left my job after working there for a couple of months, cause I was treated unfairly.  When I finally have a family and settled down, that was when I was careful, not wanting to offend my superiors as that may cost me my career... Biting my tongue and tolerating incompetent management cause I cant afford to lose my job.  Ryder is young, he just saved everyones As*  the damn initiative owes him.  Why is he standing there with his little tail between his legs?  I just dont get it...     If I am still in my 20s and I am in his position, I would have milked it.  whoTF is addison?  Tann Who?  I would have put the 2 of them on trial for gross negligence, abuse of power and incompetence causing the deaths of many and for all the mess they brought to the initiative.  We already had a ton of evidence.  Spender, 3 Sabres, that pregnant woman...  

But no, the writer made him a wuss...  Think bioware lost touch with their real fans...  lets all huddle together with Liam and Jaal, form a circle, speak about our feelings, hug each other and cry together...  Wuss...  

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Vlad, do you need a hug and some talky time?  Ryder's there for you... when he/she isn't babysitting Cora...  

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It did feel good though when I finally got to tell Liam at the end of his loyalty mission enough is enough. Not escalating it even further when he ratchets it up though was probably the smart thing to do - but I would not be making wise, long term outlook decisions at that particular point.

You also don't have to be nice to Sloane from the get go, which seemed really out of character from the rest of the lines they had me reading.

Maybe those two years of Pathfinder training had quite a few classes on "understanding other people's feelings".

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LOL I was actually nice to Liam, I have this thing about being nice to people who are nice to me and helped me, even when they are absolute idiots.  As for Slonne, in my 4 playthroughs, my first one was nice all the way, politically correct, then realised all the * she was into, the drugs, the tyranny...  Second playthrough onwards I was just mean to her, grabbed the gun and all, but at the end of the day she's still calling me a lapdog and I still need to "Watch her back"...  

Anyway am done with the huggie feelie Ryder stuff, Old Vlad the Vampire Lord needs some blood... (Vlad Von Castein is a vampire lord from the Warhammer fantasy world btw)   Am off to being Geralt of Rivia - Butcher of Blaviken