Fight for the Lost - The Mass Effect 2 Thread

[wolff96]

I think your comment about the weapons and your comments about ammo are at odds. The very reason to not pick the latest-greatest sniper rifle is that it only has 12 shots. The starter assault rifle also offers much more ammo than the five-round-burst model.

The only sniper rifle that has more than 12 shot capacity does 1/4 the damage per shot... and conveniently holds 48 rounds. The rapid-fire versus single-shot is the argument there.

And I can't comment on assault rifles, the only time I used one was on my Normal playthrough, where ammo is NEVER a problem.

The intention behind the ammo is that since the heat sinks are usable by all weapons, the player is supposed swap back and forth between weapons frequently to avoid getting low on one.

The game is generous with ammo *between* fights. It is very lacking in ammo DURING fights. On Insanity, it takes 1.5 clips with the fully-upgraded pistol to drop the Armor of *one* husk. Keep in mind that they typically spawn in waves of 3 to 5. One particular fight (at the end of the IFF mission) has you killing 20-30 husks and abominations per 'round', THEN hammering at the core. To be fair, after each round of this, some ammo clips respawn... usually four or five.

I have literally emptied every single gun I carried in fights before. Thankfully, I could still fall back on Adept-powers. And your teammates, of course, never run out of ammo.

The final battle took all of my submachine gun ammo (725 rounds), all of my pistol ammo (24 rounds), all of my sniper rifle ammo (48 rounds), and *FOUR* shots from the Cain. (A certain enemy drops heavy weapon ammo when killed, trying to avoid spoilers here.) And all of my guns ran dry multiple times, as there is ammo you can collect from fallen enemies during that fight.

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I think the biggest problem in ammo discussions is difficulty setting. On Normal mode, as a soldier, I cruised through every fight I entered with plenty of spare clips and OCCASIONALLY switched to an assault rifle when I would have preferred a sniper or machine gun.

On Insanity, I was constantly out of ammunition for all of my guns -- and I'm a pretty practiced FPS player. Not every shot is a weak-point shot, obviously, but I rarely wasted shots on bulkheads. This was actually better for me, since it really forced me to learn my Adept powers to the max of their capability. I have no idea what a soldier would have done... meleed things to death?

I think there's a lot of room between "you have unlimited ammo" and "you get two clips". ME2, especially Hardcore and above, really felt like I had no ammunition, regardless of weaponry. YMMV, obviously.

 

[Felon]

The only sniper rifle that has more than 12 shot capacity does 1/4 the damage per shot... and conveniently holds 48 rounds. The rapid-fire versus single-shot is the argument there.

Is there some listing of damage ratings in the game somewhere? All I see are vague descriptions of what defense the weapon is good against. High capacity/rapid fire tends to trump low capacity/high damage, simply because any shot that misses is a waste. Video games sure don't make me envy a sniper's job.

The game is generous with ammo *between* fights. It is very lacking in ammo DURING fights. On Insanity, it takes 1.5 clips with the fully-upgraded pistol to drop the Armor of *one* husk. Keep in mind that they typically spawn in waves of 3 to 5. One particular fight (at the end of the IFF mission) has you killing 20-30 husks and abominations per 'round', THEN hammering at the core. To be fair, after each round of this, some ammo clips respawn... usually four or five.

I have literally emptied every single gun I carried in fights before. Thankfully, I could still fall back on Adept-powers. And your teammates, of course, never run out of ammo.

The final battle took all of my submachine gun ammo (725 rounds), all of my pistol ammo (24 rounds), all of my sniper rifle ammo (48 rounds), and *FOUR* shots from the Cain. (A certain enemy drops heavy weapon ammo when killed, trying to avoid spoilers here.) And all of my guns ran dry multiple times, as there is ammo you can collect from fallen enemies during that fight.

------------------------------------

I think the biggest problem in ammo discussions is difficulty setting. On Normal mode, as a soldier, I cruised through every fight I entered with plenty of spare clips and OCCASIONALLY switched to an assault rifle when I would have preferred a sniper or machine gun.

On Insanity, I was constantly out of ammunition for all of my guns -- and I'm a pretty practiced FPS player. Not every shot is a weak-point shot, obviously, but I rarely wasted shots on bulkheads. This was actually better for me, since it really forced me to learn my Adept powers to the max of their capability. I have no idea what a soldier would have done... meleed things to death?

Regarding killing husks, the Dominate power (gained through loyalty) is an AoE isntant-death power for them. I think knowing when to swap out loyalty powers is pretty important. Also important is having the right kind of ammo for the enemies you're fighting, and if you're not a soldier it's very worthwhile to plan ahead so that squad members with ammo powers will be able to get the 4 ranks they need for the "squad ammo" option (it's a pity that no squad members have cryo ammo). Thane's shredder ammo is really nice, and his biotic powers rock as well. He's been my go-to guy for a lot of missions.

Never did find a heavy weapon I really liked. The Cain was a death sentence for my infiltrator, since it takes forever to "warm up" and the cloaking field shuts off as soon as you start using it.

 

[wolff96]

Is there some listing of damage ratings in the game somewhere? All I see are vague descriptions of what defense the weapon is good against. High capacity/rapid fire tends to trump low capacity/high damage, simply because any shot that misses is a waste. Video games sure don't make me envy a sniper's job.

One of the wiki pages devoted to ME2 has the numeric listings for the PC version of the game -- some devoted fan pulled them all out of the game files. I doubt they're much different for the console versions of the game.

Regarding killing husks, the Dominate power (gained through loyalty) is an AoE isntant-death power for them.

So is Push, or any other power that makes them lose contact with the ground... *provided* their defenses are down. On Hardcore and Insanity (possibly on Veteran, too, I haven't tried that one) Husks and Abominations have an Armor Bar. Dominate -- or any other one-hit power -- won't kill them until that Armor is down.

NOTE: Have to qualify that statement... I can guarantee it won't kill them through their armor on Insanity. I never tried it on them with their Armor up in Hardcore.

I think knowing when to swap out loyalty powers is pretty important. Also important is having the right kind of ammo for the enemies you're fighting, and if you're not a soldier it's very worthwhile to plan ahead so that squad members with ammo powers will be able to get the 4 ranks they need for the "squad ammo" option (it's a pity that no squad members have cryo ammo). Thane's shredder ammo is really nice, and his biotic powers rock as well. He's been my go-to guy for a lot of missions.

We definitely agree on Thane, he's my go-to guy for nearly every mission in the game. Our mileage does vary, though -- I never found much use for his Shredder Ammo, because enemies were typically dead as soon as I got their defenses stripped. (Again, I was playing an Adept. Once your defenses are gone, I have six different ways to kill you! )I just liked him for his unlimited ammo sniper-rifle and Warp.

Never did find a heavy weapon I really liked. The Cain was a death sentence for my infiltrator, since it takes forever to "warm up" and the cloaking field shuts off as soon as you start using it.

The Cain is handy against a few of the slower moving, heavy attack creatures -- like that last boss. You have plenty of time to charge it up and fire a shot before his attack animation turns deadly.

About the only other one I ever used was the Collector Beam -- playing it back and forth over a crowd of charging Husks was a good way to drop their Armor, setting them up for a good old-fashioned Shockwave. LOVED to send those guys flying, especially because they were death for my Adept more than any other enemy in the game combined. I'd rather face a whole spawn of Harbingers than a big wave of Husks...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Collector Beam was my favorite heavy weapon. Simple to use, effective.

 

[ST]

Veteran has armorless Husks, and I still found them pretty nasty because I'd let them flank me. I found manually placing party members to keep them from doing that helped a lot.

As far as stripping the armor, Mordin's AOE Incinerate is a beautiful power and would probably do the trick. (Every time I brought Mordin on a mission against organics, I was glad I did.) But yeah, that's totally a place where they "change the rules" in that Husks and Aboms are much more of a threat if you have to soften them up first.

 

[SolitonMan]

I'm in the midst of my second playthrough now, started on Hardcore I think it was, but I was getting too frustrated with the dying, and went back to casual for some fights, upping the difficulty in some areas and lowering it back in others. I can tell you right now it's unlikely I'll ever play on Insanity in this game (although it's all I used after my second playthrough in ME1).

RE: Ammo - I've seen people talking about unlimited ammo as if it's a bad thing, but you have to remember that it wasn't a default in ME1, it was a configurable option. If you didn't want unlimited ammo, you didn't use Frictionless Materials to upgrade your weapon. If you wanted to be REALLY hardcore, you'd use High Explosive Ammo in every weapon.

I'm not a person who looks for "realism" in my video games. If I want realism, I PUT DOWN the video games, step away from the computer, and get out of the house. When playing a video game - especially a single-player only title like ME or Morrowind or whatever - I like to have the option to be all-powerful if that's what I'm in the mood for. I had so much fun playing in GTA:San Andreas when I felt the need to destroy things - turn on god cheat, load up on heavy weapons, and run rampant through the streets for a while. Who cares if that's what I enjoy?

I don't understand why companies don't recognize that they can appeal to a wide swath of gamers' preferences and still make money. In ME2, they could have easily included an "ammoless" option that would let us use the mechanic of the ME1 weapons so that we'd not have to deal with looking for "thermal clips". And would have avoided the RIDICULOUS retcon to an otherwise great setting.

I can understand the need for balance in a multiplayer game, if one person can cheat or completely overpower everyone then no one has fun. Choosing to play in a shared sandbox necessarily means limitations. But why in the name of all that's holy would you NOT give gamers MORE options, MORE power, MORE control over their personal experience of the game? It just doesn't make any sense to me. It's not as if stifling my desires for the experience is going to make me more likely to buy DLC (and what a scam that is...), it'll make me less likely to have anything to do with the game, or with the game's developer if I feel that they're deliberately screwing me over just to make an extra buck.

This is the first time I can ever say that I've been disappointed with a title from Bioware. They're stuff is usually among my favorite games. I was hoping that the changes from ME1 would be along the lines of what Lionhead did with Fable - improve the things that worked, making them even better, get rid of the things that sucked, and add a few new features. With ME2 I feel Bioware basically created a brand new game that shares only it's wrapper with the previous one.

Not that any of this blathering on my part means diddly. I'll move on, Bioware will put out more stuff that I DO like, and eventually this will be just another forgotten disappointment in life, heaped on the pile like so many others...

 

[WizarDru]

Finished it this past weekend. Outstanding game from beginning to end. Yeah, the scanning got dull...but if I'd realized I was better served just by one mining rich planets, generally, I would have been better served (and much of the text indicated when you found stuff, like the 'eezo trio', for example).

I missed the Mako missions...so I'm happy that the DLC is adding the Hammerhead in it's place. And maybe I'll get 30th level, too.

For the final mission:

Spoiler

I didn't lose anyone. I found a collected matrix that indicated who were the best choices (collecting the results of a lot of people) and suggesting which upgrades were the most relevant towards party survival in the final battle. The final tests weren't at all random, from what I can tell...many of the discussion leading up to the tests indicated who'd be the best choice each time. Choosing Zaeed, the loner mercenary, to lead one of the teams...probably not the best choice.

What I particularly liked was the multiple and numerous call-outs to the events of ME1, such as

Spoiler

the asari on Ilium who was mentally channeling the Rakni queen I'd spared

or

Spoiler

getting sweet, sweet revenge on that video reporter who tried to exploit me

. The character interactions were fantastic and the NPCs were so well crafted it made me actually kind of sad to finish it.

My favorite gun? The Black Hole generator. Husks and Collectors go WHEEEEE!

 

[Felon]

Spoiler

Choosing Zaeed, the loner mercenary, to lead one of the teams...probably not the best choice.

"Loner"? Guy led plenty of people. Suffice to say, I figured that if squad choices really mattered, they wouldn't limit the player to keep tagging the same person as the "right" choice. Why even ask for a re-pick if you are supposed to just stick with the previous choice? That was disappointing.

 

[WizarDru]

"Loner"? Guy led plenty of people. Suffice to say, I figured that if squad choices really mattered, they wouldn't limit the player to keep tagging the same person as the "right" choice. Why even ask for a re-pick if you are supposed to just stick with the previous choice? That was disappointing.

He led them so well that they shot in the face and left him for dead and after a couple of years, no one even remembered he was one of the two guys to start the organization. Not what I'd call a stellar leader.

I'm not sure what you mean about 'tagging the same person for the right choice'? There were several correct choices for each turning point...but part of it was dependent on making things like loyalty and equipment upgrades. (Jack isn't as powerful as Samara without implants, for example...which matters during the shield sequence). But checking over some of the collected data, there were quite a few variations that would prove successful.

Every choice had at least two excellent choices and some that would still work. It seems to have a lot to do with having their loyalty and upgrades AND your paragon or renegade value. Specifically,

Spoiler

If you're paragon value or renegade value is below 80% or so when a couple of the characters come into conflict (as happens twice) or one of them will no longer remain loyal. The only way to get them loyal again is to max out your bar.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I am too good at this game. Naturally I worked to ensure everyone was loyal, that I picked most of the paragon choices, and that I could acquire all upgrades. Nothing could go wrong.

(Obviously, I am not good, it's just because I am a completist. No thread can be left dangling...)