Mass Effect 3

[Sjofn]

'let's jew them till they throw real cash into the packs'

wat

[caladein]

Ignoring that... awkardness, they are worth a nice chunk of XP, which may or may not be relevant to your play.  I can see why they maxed out Respec Cards as they take a Rare slot, but the 2-4 commons per pack are just that, commons.

Otherwise players would just max out the lower tiers which sort of defeats the purpose of random loot.

[rk47]

No. The Salarian or Asari Adepts are gold character cards. Those took up slots that could've gifted a better gun. At the very least, consumables give decent ammo power etc. But these cards don't do much beyond max level and fully unlocked cosmetic changes.

What is there to defend about this? Nobody relied on EXP packs to level their characters. When the Resurgence Pack is released, how many actually started the new unlock classes at lvl 1 anymore?

[caladein]

The defense is simple: random/CCG loot is random.

If you're allowed to cap out on Characters and Consumables in addition to Weapons, Mods, and Respecs you quickly reach a point where you just spam Recruit Packs for 2-3 Ultra Rares.

[rk47]

Except recruit packs don't have any chance of giving ultra rares.

[Jeff Kelly]

People would complain less if character customization gave you more and better options and if the majority of weapon choices weren't crap (all SMGs, all ARs except the N7s, Mattock and Revenant, most shotguns except Geth Plasma and Claymore).

I've maxed a lot of guns that are crap and that I'll never use, got nonsensical customization options for chars (face color on a Quarian? WTF!) and I'm still missing the Carnifex or the Paladin.

[caladein]

Except recruit packs don't have any chance of giving ultra rares.

Is it 0 or is it just very very small?

Edit: There are enough instances of Rares in Recruit Packs I'm reading (even accounting for false reports), that I don't think it's actually zero.  Source perhaps on Ultra Rares being different?

[Trippy]

People would complain less if character customization gave you more and better options and if the majority of weapon choices weren't crap (all SMGs, all ARs except the N7s, Mattock and Revenant, most shotguns except Geth Plasma and Claymore).

I've maxed a lot of guns that are crap and that I'll never use, got nonsensical customization options for chars (face color on a Quarian? WTF!) and I'm still missing the Carnifex or the Paladin.

Paladin is an ultra rare. Not having the Carnifex is unfortunate -- it's a very versatile weapon. I would agree that a lot of weapons are crap though by my count it's not a majority of them (not counting the ultra rares).

Most of my characters carry the Shuriken SMG as a backup weapon and I actually prefer using it against the fucking Banshees since most of my characters carry slow firing semi-auto weapons with scopes so I wouldn't say the SMGs are totally useless. The SMG stats will never be as good as other weapons types, though, because of the Ultralight Materials mod. The new Geth SMG is kind of interesting though I've only used it a few times on my Geth Engineer so I'm still figuring it out. The spin up time to max fire rate is a little too slow for my tastes but the lack of recoil makes it very handy especially with a scope. Unfortunately the low damage means you are exposed for long periods of time so it only seems to work well with classes that can draw attention away from themselves with turrets or decoys.

[kaid]

The new sniper rifle sucks. No wonder the Batarians lost.

It is an odd gun. I don't think many pure snipers would use it but given its damage and reasonable weight you may see some soldiers/sents packing it for longer ranged fights. It is just really annoying as hell to use it from cloak.

[Trippy]

The defense is simple: random/CCG loot is random.

If you're allowed to cap out on Characters and Consumables in addition to Weapons, Mods, and Respecs you quickly reach a point where you just spam Recruit Packs for 2-3 Ultra Rares.

CCG loot (of the physical kind) is not random.

[kaid]

People would complain less if character customization gave you more and better options and if the majority of weapon choices weren't crap (all SMGs, all ARs except the N7s, Mattock and Revenant, most shotguns except Geth Plasma and Claymore).

I've maxed a lot of guns that are crap and that I'll never use, got nonsensical customization options for chars (face color on a Quarian? WTF!) and I'm still missing the Carnifex or the Paladin.

Paladin is an ultra rare. Not having the Carnifex is unfortunate -- it's a very versatile weapon. I would agree that a lot of weapons are crap though by my count it's not a majority of them (not counting the ultra rares).

Most of my characters carry the Shuriken SMG as a backup weapon and I actually prefer using it against the fucking Banshees since most of my characters carry slow firing semi-auto weapons with scopes so I wouldn't say the SMGs are totally useless. The SMG stats will never be as good as other weapons types, though, because of the Ultralight Materials mod. The new Geth SMG is kind of interesting though I've only used it a few times on my Geth Engineer so I'm still figuring it out. The spin up time to max fire rate is a little too slow for my tastes but the lack of recoil makes it very handy especially with a scope. Unfortunately the low damage means you are exposed for long periods of time so it only seems to work well with classes that can draw attention away from themselves with turrets or decoys.

I would agree many of the weapons just don't seem to work with the game mechanics. I just got the paladin rare drop but my problem with a bunch of the rare weapons is that they are just too damn heavy. My carnifex 1 drops my cool downs to 160% which is a bit lower than I like but managable. The paladin drops it to 110 which is pretty much unusuable on classes who would actually want to run around with a pistol. I got my scorpion as well and it also is a bit to heavy to utilize for most of the classes who would want to use it.

Most of the SMG are just too low damage/erratic to be useful due to the way the armor mechanic works in the game. The new geth SMG though I have to say is amusing. The carnifex is probably a better choice but the geth SMG is super light amazingly accurate bullet hose. You throw the mod on that gives the chance to not use the ammo from that clip and you can fire it a ton. It fires so damn fast and controllably so that its even reasonably useful on big baddies like banshee and brutes because you can ramp it up into full bullethose mode. Each bullet is not doing much damage but fully ramped up the thing is a fucking laser beam of bullets.

It may not be the best weapon possible to use but its fun and effective for the classes who would like such a weapon like engineers/adepts/back up piece for an infiltrator.

So for bronze/silver geth SMG is a very usable weapon probably the best SMG I have tried. That said due to how gold armor mechanics work I would NOT recommend any low damage fast firing weapon on gold. The armor mechanic means they simply don't work unless you can get an armor piercing mod and I have never seen an armor pierce mode for SMG.

[Trippy]

So for bronze/silver geth SMG is a very usable weapon probably the best SMG I have tried. That said due to how gold armor mechanics work I would NOT recommend any low damage fast firing weapon on gold. The armor mechanic means they simply don't work unless you can get an armor piercing mod and I have never seen an armor pierce mode for SMG.

That's cause it doesn't exist.

[caladein]

The defense is simple: random/CCG loot is random.

If you're allowed to cap out on Characters and Consumables in addition to Weapons, Mods, and Respecs you quickly reach a point where you just spam Recruit Packs for 2-3 Ultra Rares.

CCG loot (of the physical kind) is not random.

You're right, I'm being sloppy with my usage of "random".  (Although the meme is "random loot is random" so that's what I was going for.  Which is also invoked incorrectly the vast majority of the time...)

[Shrike]

So for bronze/silver geth SMG is a very usable weapon probably the best SMG I have tried. That said due to how gold armor mechanics work I would NOT recommend any low damage fast firing weapon on gold. The armor mechanic means they simply don't work unless you can get an armor piercing mod and I have never seen an armor pierce mode for SMG.

I"ve been using the Geth SMG on my QE quite a bit. It's not meant (and doesn't) deal with armor well, but it's great for stripping shields/barriers. That's the main thing the QE lacks and the SMG helps out quite a bit on banshees and the like. Its light weight makes lugging it around the other 90% of the time tolerable.

I haven't tried an ArPenIII equip on it (and probably won't), but that might make it sorta OK on armor in silver. Still, it's role seems to be more of dealing with shields for characters that lack an organic (heh) way of dealing with them.

[kildorn]

The issue with the new SMG/AR and SMGs/ARs in general is that in order to deal damage you need time on target. Time on target means time not in cover. Time not in cover = loldead pretty often in gold, and decently often in silver. It's why banshees/husks are such a bitch to deal with: they force you out of cover so other things can snipe you. A lone banshee is pretty harmless even if it takes ages to kill. A banshee flushing you into ravager line of sight is death. That's why people like the mantis, the carnifex, and geth plasma shotgun. Pop out, deal damage, reload out of the line of fire. Plus a bit of the "armor works in a stupid manner in silver/gold" stuff, but it doesn't matter that much unless you're using a geth plasma rifle and dealing 7DPS in gold.

I finally sat down with some friends and did gold. And Firebase White + Salarian Engineer is just kind of stupid. Firebase Hydra + anything is also stupid, for different reasons. Dear lord the cover on that map sucks.

[kaid]

Yup on silver you can get away with the time on target needed to use a geth SMG but I would never use it on a Gold run. For gold runs you want hard hitting slow fire weapons. Pop out hit your target drop back into cover asap.

[Jeff Kelly]

Finally got the Carnifex. With barrel and scope that thing is above and beyond most other weapons. It's damn accurate even when you shoot from the hip and has quite a long range plus decent weight. Its actually better than most sniper rifles.

It was so good that I got the 50 headshots achivement on my Asari Adept. While melting faces!

That gun is so ridiculously good that it makes most other weapons look even worse by comparison.

[kaid]

The carnifex especially if you can get it leveled up seems to be one of the best all around weapons in the game that I have tried. Good amount of ammo, solid stopping power, Very good accuracy for mid/long range snipping reasonable weight.

For asari adepts with stasis or asari vanguards may as well call the thing the decapitator cause its head shots all day long.

[Rasix]

So, getting closer to finishing this on PC thanks to Trippy's ME2 save file (NO DLC? BOOOOO).  What overall readiness do I need for the "best ending"?  I'm assuming I need to play some multiplayer to get this. Anything else I should be aware for score?

[Ingmar]

I think a score of 4000 if you want the extra little bit. Took me about 5 multiplayer matches to get my multiplier up to 60% or so which was more than enough.

[Sjofn]

5k is the BE ABSOLUTELY SURE score to get the little easter egg thing, should you even make the choice to make that relevent. 

[Shrike]

If you do any sort of MP, 5k is pretty easy to reach.

My second PC playthrough, I was sitting at about 7500 when I hit Cronos Base.

[Lantyssa]

Without multiplayer, a score of 6900 was not sufficient.

[Ceryse]

Yeah, in my play though I had done zero multiplayer and I ended up with a war asset score of around 3700-3900 effective score. One of the things that annoyed me. They should of included a modifier to the war readiness to some of the side missions or something so you could bump the 50% up to 55%-60% via single player.Or something. Dumb mechanic, in my opinion, as someone with no inclination towards multiplayer outside of MMOs.

[kildorn]

The whole war readiness thing is silly even with Multi, but meh.

I finally got my Raptor commendation pack (but no victory pack? wth. :( ), and a Paladin. Which is a silly gun that I cannot find a reason to use. And a geth SMG, which is trollishly fun on bronze/silver. It's completely useless against any form of armor, but hilarious.

[caladein]

I know a number of players that prefer the Paladin to the Carnifex if the levels are not really far apart.  They're not fundamentally different guns, although they were split up a bit a few weeks ago when the damage and weight on the Paladin were increased.

[kaid]

The whole war readiness thing is silly even with Multi, but meh.

I finally got my Raptor commendation pack (but no victory pack? wth. :( ), and a Paladin. Which is a silly gun that I cannot find a reason to use. And a geth SMG, which is trollishly fun on bronze/silver. It's completely useless against any form of armor, but hilarious.

The geth SMG is probably my favorite SMG which is not saying much but is amusing as hell on bronze and silver. I am guessing on gold which I have not tried it on would just be suicidal to use it. You would have to stay exposed to long and the armor reductions on gold would mean it would do almost no damage.

Got my raptor pack finally and got a valiant. Have to say I did not realize how good it was. Seems similar to black widow multiple shots in a clip high damage and super fast reload allow for some serious rain of death from an infiltrator.

[kaid]

I know a number of players that prefer the Paladin to the Carnifex if the levels are not really far apart.  They're not fundamentally different guns, although they were split up a bit a few weeks ago when the damage and weight on the Paladin were increased.

If you could get the paladin ranked up it may be usable but on my engineer my level one carnifex drops my cool downs to 160% which is reasonable on a geth due to hunter mode. The rank one paladin drops my cool downs to 110% which is just WAY to low for any active power using class. And most of the non power spammers are going to be sporting something bigger than a pistol. If you could get the paladin ranked up enough to get that weight under control it fills the same niche as the carnifex but with more damage.

[kildorn]

The whole war readiness thing is silly even with Multi, but meh.

I finally got my Raptor commendation pack (but no victory pack? wth. :( ), and a Paladin. Which is a silly gun that I cannot find a reason to use. And a geth SMG, which is trollishly fun on bronze/silver. It's completely useless against any form of armor, but hilarious.

The geth SMG is probably my favorite SMG which is not saying much but is amusing as hell on bronze and silver. I am guessing on gold which I have not tried it on would just be suicidal to use it. You would have to stay exposed to long and the armor reductions on gold would mean it would do almost no damage.

Got my raptor pack finally and got a valiant. Have to say I did not realize how good it was. Seems similar to black widow multiple shots in a clip high damage and super fast reload allow for some serious rain of death from an infiltrator.

Even on silver, the Geth SMG is in a world of hurt on armor. 80ish rounds to mostly kill an unshielded pyro and the like. It's just hilarious to fire. whiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*empty*

[Ingmar]

Without multiplayer, a score of 6900 was not sufficient.

You don't have a score of 6900 in that case, you have a score of 3450.

[Lantyssa]

That's kind of my gripe.  I missed finishing one quest and only got 2/3 of another done in the first 'Act' because I advanced the plot.

I did everything else.  Mostly with good or great outcomes.  I had a game imported from ME1 and 2.  And I only got 50% credit because I didn't do a couple rounds of multiplayer.  Okay, I probably lost some points for telling Chobot to walk.

I know what their calculation says, but I friggin' earned that 6900, and it wasn't enough.

[Merusk]

So much for the earlier "You don't have to do multiplayer/ social to get the best outcome" then, right?

[Sjofn]

Depends on what you think the best outcome is. Frankly, the teeny tiny difference on a choice that they apparently think is the lame-o choice is so not worth the huge amounts of wangst people have attached to the stupid thing.


REALLY the multiplayer thing seems to exist so you can do another playthrough without having to do the side quest shit you don't feel like doing again, which I am totally fine with.

[Merusk]

But wait, did you not read the handwaving "Oh it's not that bad" interview?  See, the whole galaxy isn't fucked because FTL travel is still out there it just takes a lot longer than the gates.  What would have taken a few hours now takes a few months/ years. See, everything's ok.  things are fine, no mass Quarian survivor deaths (because not every Quarian was on the fleet) or Krogen over-breeding and booting native populations off their homeworlds out of boredom.  Nothing to see here, you all just don't get it mang!

[caladein]

The short of it is, MP can function as an ameliorating mechanic for the 100% clear.  You can still get the 100% completion without it.

I have a hard time seeing anyone looking at MP as more than as something other than just spoiling for a fight or a heavy proponent of tin foil hats.