Mass Effect 3 (no spoilers)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'll take your word for it, and hope you're right. There's one event in the game that effectively cancels a large number of uncompleted quests, denying a player bunch of war assets. I had to do quite a bit of backtracking, digging through old saves and replaying a couple of missions. Pretty frustrating at the time. Essentially, labeling the main story missions with "Priority" is deceptive. They're actually the last that ones that should be pursued.

Oh, you are right about that issue. But that's not directly a problem with the quest log, but a seperate issue. 3 missions on one planet did not suggest to me I need to head back to the Citadel before completing them all

 

[Kzach]

Essentially, labeling the main story missions with "Priority" is deceptive. They're actually the last that ones that should be pursued.

I'll agree with that as I had the same problem.

Ironically, in the previous iterations it was most beneficial to do all the major quests FIRST (up until a certain point, ie. the IFF in ME2 and Ilos in ME1) because of the way paragon/renegade is tied to level and the success of such options appearing in the dialogue wheel as available or greyed out.

Also, it's very, very difficult to get ALL the war assets you need (5,000... some people will say 4,000 but that's only for a particular set of choices which aren't conducive to most people's play-styles) without doing MP. I managed to get about 4,500 and I swear I did every little tiny thing on every mission plus I had the bonus Prothean missions. So without doing MP I wouldn't have gotten the best possible ending.

I see that as a punishment.

 

[Kzach]

Back in ME1, the infiltrator was a bit of a joke.

Although I agree about the enemies having pinpoint precision accuracy being annoying, I can't agree that the infiltrator was a joke. My main Shepard, whom I complete the first playthroughs with, was a soldier in ME1 and then became a vanguard in ME2&3 (Liara's influence combined with his cybernetic enhancements). But my secondary Shepard is a female infiltrator in ME1 and 2 and kicks ass. As much fun as the vanguard is, you often don't get to see the results of your awesomeness until after the blinding flash of your biotic charge has dissipated. But with a sniper, you get to see their heads exploding through an optical zoom scope

ME1 had stability mods for guns as well as the guns having an accuracy rating (which was tied to stability in ME1) as well as your skill level determining the level of waver (there's a power that makes you super steady for a few seconds and amps the power of your shot). So with those things combined, I never found it much of an issue. In ME2 the infiltrator's cloak made it almost guaranteed that I could get head-shots with every shot fired... on insanity.

Oh, btw, speaking of completionism, here's a tip some might not have caught: weapons, upgrades, armor, and even quest items that you miss during a mission will become available at the Citadel after you perform another mission. Weapons will be at the Kassa Fabrications kiosk, and the rest are available at the Spectre office terminal.

Yeah, that and having every shop at your fingertips was a nice addition. But what bugged me about that was that I swear I scoured every single little inch of every place I went to (which alone was annoying that I felt like I had to do that) and yet still I'd miss stuff and find it in the shop afterwards. I think on my next playthrough that, since I ended the first with 300,000 credits, I might just not bother to pick up anything other than what's right in front of me. Scouring every inch really detracts from my suspension of disbelief.

Also, spoiler incoming about picking things up as there's a certain location where if you DON'T scour every little tiny inch, you'll miss a major war asset:

Spoiler

On Eden Prime, you need to find all three Cerberus Intel locations to give to the Eden Prime Resistance before completing the mission there. If you don't, then you lose a major war asset (100 points) because you can never hand it in and you can't return to the planet.

 

[Agamon]

Oh, btw, speaking of completionism, here's a tip some might not have caught: weapons, upgrades, armor, and even quest items that you miss during a mission will become available at the Citadel after you perform another mission. Weapons will be at the Kassa Fabrications kiosk, and the rest are available at the Spectre office terminal.

Ah, that's where they come up with the upgrades there. That's cool, I guess I didn't look around hard enough in ME2 to get a fully upgraded weapon, that shouldn't be much trouble in ME3.

 

[Agamon]

Oh, you are right about that issue. But that's not directly a problem with the quest log, but a seperate issue. 3 missions on one planet did not suggest to me I need to head back to the Citadel before completing them all

Okay, I think I know what you're talking about, but I didn't have any missions aborted due to this...unless that's not what you're talking about....

 

[Agamon]

Also, spoiler incoming about picking things up as there's a certain location where if you DON'T scour every little tiny inch, you'll miss a major war asset:

Well, that's also a cheevo that's obviously missable, too. But if you don't care much about that, then yeah, it could get missed.

 

[Dragonwriter]

Fun for the player, annoying for everyone else. My main Shep in the SP is a vanguard so I know the class well and enjoy it, but in MP it's a different ball-game and without being able to pause the action a vanguard is a liability both to himself and the other players. For one thing, he gets into trouble that he can't get out of and for another, he sends all the enemies sprawling throughout the map instead of concentrated in one kill-zone that ranged players can pick-off.

Whenever I get a vanguard in MP I groan because it means my infiltrator will constantly have to run around in order just to find targets and even when he does find them, the vanguard will be forcing them to move around so much that they're hard to target. Whenever I'm in a an MP without a vanguard, I do very well and often top at least 25 head shots and either manage middle to highest depending on the skill level of the players I'm with (I don't put myself at the top of the skill list, just middling). With vanguard I generally manage only about five and almost always get the lowest score.

What's worse is that the very vanguard that's spoiling everyone else's shots not only gets flat-lined during at least half the waves, but they also generally only get slightly better a score than I do, meaning all that chaos they're causing results in jack contribution to the success of the mission.

Vanguards and Infiltrators do not get along.

What difficulty have you been playing?

I have to say it sounds like the people playing Vanguards weren't doing a good job of it. I've played each class in the MP and Vanguard is without doubt my favorite, followed by Engineer and (Krogan) Sentinel. My Vanguard (either Asari or Human; haven't unlocked Drell yet) consistently scores 40K+ in a completed Bronze challenge, usually taking first or second rank. And I rarely lose shields, let alone get dropped. I've gone solo up against Brutes and Geth Primes and come away none the worse for wear (played a MP mission on my own against Geth, got to wave 10 using only 1 Survival Pack, lost only because of a 4-point objective).
It's possible the people you've played with had not maxed Charge (or picked the instant-cooldown rather than 100% shield) or used Nova in really bad places... like in front of a Brute. You still have to play smart, after all.

 

[Felon]

Yeah, that and having every shop at your fingertips was a nice addition. But what bugged me about that was that I swear I scoured every single little inch of every place I went to (which alone was annoying that I felt like I had to do that) and yet still I'd miss stuff and find it in the shop afterwards. I think on my next playthrough that, since I ended the first with 300,000 credits, I might just not bother to pick up anything other than what's right in front of me. Scouring every inch really detracts from my suspension of disbelief.

Especially when you're constantly having voices shout at you "not that way" and "hurry up, Shep, we're dying out here".

One problem is that some stuff actually spawns on corpses, as a kind of loot. That's real easy to miss, depending on where you killed them. Second is that the red reticules don't appear except at very close range.

Spoiler

On Eden Prime, you need to find all three Cerberus Intel locations to give to the Eden Prime Resistance before completing the mission there. If you don't, then you lose a major war asset (100 points) because you can never hand it in and you can't return to the planet.

Yeah, if that's from the DLC mission, I totally blew that.

 

[Kzach]

What difficulty have you been playing?

Bronze. I played gold once but only because I didn't realise at the time that the metals equated to difficulty.

You still have to play smart, after all.

Yeah, and I'll admit that I've probably just grouped with dumb players mostly. But having said that, I have grouped with a good vanguard and most of what I said still applies. As an infiltrator you need sniping opportunities and your enemies to remain still for half a second. Vanguards are the epitome of chaos which destroys all your sniping opportunities and has the enemies running all over the map.

Regardless, the only reason I played MP at all was to get galactic readiness up for the ending of the SP.

 

[Dog Moon]

I'll take your word for it, and hope you're right. There's one event in the game that effectively cancels a large number of uncompleted quests, denying a player bunch of war assets. I had to do quite a bit of backtracking, digging through old saves and replaying a couple of missions. Pretty frustrating at the time. Essentially, labeling the main story missions with "Priority" is deceptive. They're actually the last that ones that should be pursued.

I tended to play the 'must do all side quests before main quest' route. Which actually TERRIBLY hurt me in the 2nd game. Worst timing to start doing DL stuff in ME2: After your crew gets taken and before you go to rescue them. Everything else in the game seemed time sensitive but wasn't. How am I supposed to know this one thing that seems time sensitive actually is? I went through the DLC in order to get money to buy upgrades to prepare myself for the final area. Apparently that was a terrible idea and my crew died for that. Glad that didn't happen in ME3.