Xbox One Mass Effect Series

I keep my Galactic Readiness about 80% by using the N7HQ Galaxy at War page
social.bioware.com/.../galaxy_at_war.

Get 2.8% an hour for spending 30 seconds. Do that a couple of times a day and it remains pretty stable. Not an ideal situation, I'd like a lock option like you suggest.

Mass Effect 3 I'm always conflicted about. On one hand I hate how the weight system pushes the combat balance even further in the favour of the gun based classes, yet it has brilliant moments like the Krogan arc and Rannoch.

So many things are worse in ME3. What on Earth happened to the journal, other than telling you a quest is active it is utterly useless in this game.

The Citadel feels so small. In the first game you could walk around the Presidium, down to the Wards and back again to the docks without ever seeing a loading screen. Yes I know they were hidden behind the elevators but even there you got dialogue and could
pick up quests, it really gave the station a sense of scale. While in ME3 it likely has the same, if not more actual space, that you have to go through actual loading screens to get there makes everything feel seperate, feel small.

I hate the passive conversations such as when you talk to Zaeed down in the docks after doing the Volus Ambassador quest. And don't get me started with all the eavesdropping Shepard does.

Got to restrain myself. People often say ME3 is 98% awesome, it's only the endings that let the game down. Rubbish. There is a lot more wrong with ME3 than just the endings.

They've got to be touched on I suppose. I didn't mind the ideas behind the ending choices, my problem was simply in their execution. Don't tell me my three choices are going to have dramatically different consequences and then show me three near identical
sets of ending cinematics. That's why I'm a big supporter of the Extended Cut. Sure it's not perfect, and has a few issues of its own, but it makes each ending its own entity, makes them unique while still leaving room for "lots of speculation for everyone."

 

I really like all 3 of them tbh. I played them all back to back a few months ago, I actually enjoyed playing them all again more than the first times I played them.

I'm not sure i get the hate for mass effect 3, I understand it wasn't like 1 & 2 but it was still a lot of fun to play through.

 

Not sure why having the Galactic Readiness at 50% should bother anyone. It has zero bearing on the single player campaign. No matter what the percentage you will always hear that you've lost half of Hammer in the assault on Earth, and the readiness doesn't
effect any endings either.

I love the entire trilogy. 100%'d all games on my other profile and was on the road to doing it on this one too but lost all my frickin' saves, so... I lost the will. But I will deffo do them again at some point. It's like my favourite novels, I read them
annually. With ME I've done male and female paragon runs, renegade runs, all companions live, all or most die... heh.

As to the topic, I was talking with peeps about this recently and I really can't see EA okaying ME2 and 3 for backwards compatibility. Maybe they like the idea of the games being available for sale digitally, exclusively in one place, over on Origin for
PC. At least... that's what pre-EA Access would do IMO. Who knows, now.

If you check the Xbox store you should notice a lot of EA games are not available for purchase. Hell if you compare games you'll notice a lot of your EA games don't show sometimes. The Sims 3, Dead Space 2, and 3. It's weird too because on the 360 dash they
do those promotions, like, Fantastic Horror, or whatever, and they'll include links to EA games [Dead Space 3] that aren't available via market place. lol

 

It has a lot to do with the single player campaign, it is what defines how many war assets you need to unlock all choices at the end.

 

No, it really doesn't dude. =)

 

No it absolutely does dude, that the point of the Galaxy at War system.

At 50% readiness every asset you collect is worth half its value. So you could have collected war assets worth 7000 points but at 50% readiness they are only going to give you 3500 effective military strength.

Your EMS defines for example what state Earth is left in after firing the Crucible, whether or not your crew survives, and if you get the breath scene at the end of the Destroy choice. You can even be locked out of Control or Synthesis if your EMS isn't
high enough.

 

The EMS is very important, yes, and it's also a cakewalk to meet the requirement for the best ending without ever touching multiplayer, and without ever increasing Galactic Readiness.

What that means is... 50% is more than enough+ to get the ending ye be wanting. There's no reason to touch multiplayer ever, or make more of a grind out of a game that is already pretty lengthy. lol

[+Unless somebody is playing with zer0 patches, and if they are... more fool... them.]

 

Vaynel is correct. The co op is completely integrated into the single player. It was done poorly. And I am not even goin to entertain ME3 and how many flaws and oversights, (intentional or not) are in the game. It was a solud RPG, just not the best of
the 3.

Thanks for that link Vaynel. I will be putting it to use soon.

And the trilogy will definitely be part of the backwards compatibility on Xbox One. The big titles like Mass Effect are not the titles we need to worry about right away. They will no doubt come and be available soon. It is the cult classics i am worried
about.

Mercenaries 2

The Splinter Cells

The Saboteur

Etc

 

So you've gone from it having zero impact on the single player to being a cakewalk to get the assets/EMS you need for all content?

It doesn't bother me because I am a completionist, I'll always do everything, but some people are not. They can do enough to unlock all content but because of the 50% galactic readiness they won't.

Like it or not that is a pretty big impact on how people play.

 

@Doc~ I'm gonna assume you last played in 2012. Pre-patch era.

The multiplayer isn't required... at all. Galactic Readiness is an optional nag for completionists. You'll still have Anderson telling you how crap the forces are doing in the assault on Earth [I tested this because it annoyed me that I was apparently losing
half of Hammer every time], and you'll still get all the regular choices at the end.

You can't say with any authority that Mass Effect 2 and 3 are givens for BC either. I hope they will be. {=D But this is EA we're talking about. I can't see good reasons not to list the popular, best-selling games on the Xbox Market Place, games EA have
had de-listed, but EA must have their weird reasons. when Origin gained traction huge EA games started vanishing from the Xbox store. lol

 

@Vaynel~ I suppose I mispoke/typed then. =)

If you bring your Galactic Readiness up you'll have an abundance, a surplus in assets that has no bearing on the campaign. It's so easy to meet the requirements for good endings, 50% is MORE than enough, it's actually harder to do badly and get the worst
of the worst.

Ignore everything, skip everything, and cut right through the game, you'll still be cutting it close in terms of being below the required assets threshold for the goodly endingness. {XD Post-patch is absurdly easy.

 

The problem with 2 is that Shepard has become unbearably up himself and it's doesn't remotely resemble an rpg. How many times do you want to hear the PA blabbing about shepards favorite store? The story has become disney fluff, you no longer explore other
planets apart from "Scanning". The problem with 3 is that 2 made me sick and 3 is much of the same.

 

@Red~ It's so weird how much I love these games, but when I'm not near them, it's so weird how well I seem to have mentally deleted all scanning and probing gameplay... lol It must get instantly suppressed or something. I felt a nagging darkness as I read
your post...

"Scanning-ing-ing-ing."

The horror. Yes... I hate that element of 2 and 3. Gimme a MAKO and a planet any day. As much as people hated that in ME... it was more engaging than scanning and probing.

Since I'm talking things I hate about the series, as cool as the boss in 2 was at the end - to fight. I hated it from a lore POV. The Reapers suddenly break from countless millennia of tradition and they build a human-shaped Reaper... what? Okay. No. Imma
say no.

 

As tedious as I found the scanning in Mass Effect 2 at least it had a point in that game. What however is the point of the scanning in the third game.

I mean there is absolutely no effort to finding anything since you are directed to exactly where you need to probe. If you are going to show me exactly where the thing is why not just give me the *** item as in the first game.

You can just see one person going "well people didn't really like the scanning" and another going "but we can't admit we were wrong". And so then they came up with a compromise that was worse.

 

Yeah that whole mini-game is pretty much broken in Mass Effect 3. Not only was it rendered pointless with we the players constantly being told where to go, but there was no risk involved in it either. If you over-scan and the Reapers are alerted, you take
note of the arrows indicating which sides they'll enter the system, then you leave, and re-enter it from a side without an arrow.

You could fly your daft mini-Normandy to the resources and when you entered planet-scans all the Reapers in the system would politely wait for you to leave the planet screen before resuming the chase of the mini-Normandy. lol Zer0 risk!

Also, does anything feel less Commander-esque than flying a miniature ship around a Galaxy Map? Are we the player being Joker at that point? Just let the Commander pick a planet on the map, and let's hit the Relay, and go FFS. Bzzz'ing around in a little
Normandy... pffteh ha.

What I should have added to my last post too, that human Reaper thing I hate. When Mordin gives that amazing speech about why the Reapers have to be fought, challenged, destroyed. "No art, no creativity..." My Shepard would have seen that giant T100 and
have immediately radioed Mordin. "You seeing this? How creative is that!? S'a giant Terminator Mord! The Reaps are all about innovation, it's iReaper Human Edition, s'running IOS."