Fight for the Lost - The Mass Effect 2 Thread

[Felon]

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.

If you're going to impugn Zaeed's leadership because he was betrayed by his merc buddy, then you can also toss out

Spoiler

Garrus who was similarly betrayed, similarly maimed, and who got his last squad slaughtered wholesale, thus resulting in nobody being around to attest to what a superlative leader he is

. And then there's our other "stellar" choice,

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Cerberus dog Miranda who is distrusted by many of her teammates (Jack points this out right before you are presented with a choice)

. Your knocks against picking Zaeed strike me as argumentative given that just about every character comes on board with baggage packed full of regrets and failures, and only Shepard can claim to have everyone's loyalty. Since the team covers the ideological spectrum from selfless saint to mass murderer, you can't pick a stellar leader that everyone's going to be inspired by, so just go for tactical experience, tenacity, and ideological neutrality. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

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.

There are not many variations at all. Not "many", not "several", or even a "few", if we're taking those terms literally. In the leadership role, you need to pick

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Garrus or Miranda if you don't want a corpse

. Then you're asked to pick another leader...but it's

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Garrus and Miranda again (with Jacob--who has never beend presented as a strong leader before--thrown is as a spare). So, you might as well just stick with what you picked before

.

Likewise, there are

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two correct choices for biotics expert (Jack and Samara) and two choices for tech expert (Legion and Tali). At least the latter choice is fairly cut-and-dried

. However, it's especially counter-intuitive that

Spoiler

Mordin isn't suitable for any of those roles. He has both squad leadership experience and he's a tech expert (and not just in an abstract sense: his powers are all tech powers).

.

Here's the matrix for suicide-mission survival. Hold on to your socks:

[sblock=Felon]1) Buy every upgrade that you got a from a character. 2) Do all loyalty missions. 3) After doing any kind of mission (even a five-minute quickie you got from a planet scan), talk to everyone you did a loyalty mission for. Repeat until they run out of things to say. 4) When presented with choosing someone for a role, don't overthink, just cross your fingers and try to pick one of the two choices that Bioware decided you must pick.[/sblock]

Pretty breathtaking in its complexity, eh? What I had hoped was that my choice would shape the parameters for the mission, like how much time I have to complete an objective, or the path I have to take to it. But you're not picking a teammate to be a mitigating factor, you're just picking a survivor or a corpse.

It seems to have a lot to do with having their loyalty and upgrades AND your paragon or renegade value. Specifically,

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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.

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If you're talking about the two scenes that I think you're talking about, that's

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not about succeeding in the suicide mission. That's about succeeding in romance (granted, both require loyalty)

.

 

[horacethegrey]

If you're going to impugn Zaeed's leadership because he was betrayed by his merc buddy, then you can also toss out

Spoiler

Garrus who was similarly betrayed, similarly maimed, and who got his last squad slaughtered wholesale, thus resulting in nobody being around to attest to what a superlative leader he is

.

Yeah Zaeed was betrayed just like

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Garrus

, but as WizarDru pointed out, he really isn't much of a leader. His stories of leading merc bands on missions with him emerging as the only survivor are a pretty clear indicator of this.

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Garrus on the other hand, led many successful raids on the merc bands of Omega for a number of months before Sidonis' betrayal did them in. And no one attests to Garrus leadership skill? The mercs on Omega were pretty glowing in their praise of how his squad would constatly f**k them over.

Likewise, there are

Spoiler

two correct choices for biotics expert (Jack and Samara) and two choices for tech expert (Legion and Tali). At least the latter choice is fairly cut-and-dried.

However, it's especially counter-intuitive that

Spoiler

Mordin isn't suitable for any of those roles. He has both squad leadership experience and he's a tech expert (and not just in an abstract sense: his powers are all tech powers).

.

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Mordin is a doctor, his specialty is biology. It was never mentioned anywhere within the game that he had the same level of technical expertise of Tali or Legion. And the tech powers are just a gameplay mechanic that wouldn't neccesarily translate into a story mechanic. As for leadership, while he was a member of the Salarian Special Tasks Group, Mordin never states that he led any of their operations. The only thing he could take credit for was leading the team of scientists that updated the Genophage.

 

[Felon]

Horace, while it's tempting to go down the line deconstructing point-by-point, like how what you say about

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Mordin's field experience also applies to Jacob, yet one is a right choice and one isn't

, the truth of the matter is that as I already told Wizardru, all hindsight-based rationalizations are argumentative. It's easy to play up one character's qualities over another, particularly when you actually have access to the textbook answers. The bottome line is,

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I went with Garrus for the first leadership role, and then when I was presented with the second leadership choice, I figured that was the game's way of intimating that my first pick needed to be relieved--after all, why tell me I need to pick a leader again if it wasn't important to switch up, right? Nope. Silly me, just tag him again!

But nobody seemed ideal. Miranda and Jacob were the other correct choices, but the distrust of the Cerberus agents has been pretty openly mentioned (And Jacob? How does he rise to the top?). Zaeed's dossier says he's recruited for his tactical skills, so he seemed like a reasonable choice relative to what was left over. Since this is the dirty dozen of outer space, disqualifying someone for their status as a loner or misfit at the time of recruitment doesn't really work

. By design, there's really only one ideal leader, and that's Shepard.

 

[Vigilance]

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Since this is the dirty dozen of outer space, disqualifying someone for their status as a loner or misfit at the time of recruitment doesn't really work

. By design, there's really only one ideal leader, and that's Shepard.

See, and this might just be me, but I felt the game did a great job of giving you enough information to make informed choices.

For example:

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Zaeed isn't just a loner at recruitment. This often pointed to as a flaw in his design, but you never bond with him. You bond with him less than Jack, and I don't think they made that choice because it was easier, I think it was an artistic choice.

I considered Zaeed as a fire team leader, and then remembered that little surveillance set-up he has on a laptop in his quarters- this is NOT a man who trusts anyone else on that team.

For me there was also the little matter of how completely insane he was in his loyalty mission, to the point that I put a gun to his crazy-ass head. Again- he didn't consider anyone's lives- not mine, not civilians- this is not a man you want leading others, if your goal is bringing them back alive.

On the other hand, since you mentioned Miranda, I felt like I grew to trust her during her loyalty mission. See, at the end of that mission, its a good vibe, you're giving her advice about her sister, helping her bond, she says she owes you, you see some rare tears from her, etc.

Holding a gun to Zaeed's head? Basically telling him I'll smoke his crusty ass if he steps out of line again? Not so much on the trust thing.

The thing I love most about the endgame is how it rewards you having learned your team and actually spent time thinking of them as people. Maybe I was on the same wavelength as the devs, but I went into the end without a single spoiler, and every choice seemed easy to make to me.

 

[Felon]

See, and this might just be me, but I felt the game did a great job of giving you enough information to make informed choices.

The thing I love most about the endgame is how it rewards you having learned your team and actually spent time thinking of them as people. Maybe I was on the same wavelength as the devs, but I went into the end without a single spoiler, and every choice seemed easy to make to me.[/spoiler]

I don't think it's just you, but it certainly sounds to me like if you didn't get burned, there's an inclination to commend Bioware for "rewarding you for having learned your team". You'll cite a surveillance camera as a significant clue in the decision-making process, but dismiss the open animosity expressed towards Cerberus and Miranda in particular as a factor weighing against her?

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You have to break up a fight between her and Jack, and Jack even openly fusses about Miranda right before the leader choice comes up. But these aren't clues to not to pick Miranda

.

And I'll freely admit that, conversely, I'm not inclined to emphasize the incongruities specifically because I did get burned. Both views are self-servingly subjective.

You say that you felt you grew to trust Miranda during her loyalty mission. The outcome of my loyalty mission with Zaeed is that he had a nice little catharsis and then got his mind focused on the mission. "Not so much on the trust thing"? Did you earn his loyalty? If so, then he's loyal. If not, then he's not.

FWIW, we don't get full-blown dialogue scenes with Zaeed because he is an add-on character (mechanically, he's just a modded Archangel). The same will go for the next downloadable party member that's on the way, Kazumi.

 

[Vigilance]

You'll cite a surveillance camera as a significant clue in the decision-making process, but dismiss the open animosity expressed towards Cerberus and Miranda in particular as a factor weighing against her?

No, I considered that animosity, which is why I had Miranda lead the fire team, while I brought Garrus and Jack with me. Problem solved- I had my second best leader running the fire team and the complainers got to work with me.

As it turns out, their protests don't seem to matter, but I took them into account.

You say that you felt you grew to trust Miranda during her loyalty mission. The outcome of my loyalty mission with Zaeed is that he had a nice little catharsis and then got his mind focused on the mission. "Not so much on the trust thing"? Did you earn his loyalty? If so, then he's loyal. If not, then he's not.

I guess it depends on whether you help him or not. I got his "loyalty" but by sticking a gun in his face and telling him he'd get shot in the face if he stepped out of line.

And again, he's clearly a loner.

FWIW, we don't get full-blown dialogue scenes with Zaeed because he is an add-on character (mechanically, he's just a modded Archangel). The same will go for the next downloadable party member that's on the way, Kazumi.

Maybe- I assumed he was really like that, especially with the surveillance cameras watching the rest of the ship. Either way, he's clearly a loner.

And part of the reason why complaints about the end puzzle me is that they seem to be people bitching that they couldn't get a perfect ending. If you want everyone to live, you can go back to a save before the endgame and make different choices.

If you want to do it "your way" you can, and pretty much every scenario ends with you winning (assuming you prepared properly), you just have to roll with some casualties.

The only ways to avoid something like this happening would be if A) the devs could read your mind and B) if your decisions prior to the endgame meant nothing and it all came down to your preparations.

I *liked* the fact that both what I did during the game at large and decisions I made at the end mattered, and I liked how the entire team was involved.

I think I would have liked these things just as much if I'd lost a few crewmembers. Hell, I was *expecting* to, based on what I'd heard.

 

[WizarDru]

If you're going to impugn Zaeed's leadership because he was betrayed by his merc buddy

Well, I'm impugning his leadership because the rest of his mercs helped and after 20 years, Zaeed not only hasn't got his revenge but is still a loner. Maybe his introduction colored my thoughts on the matter: "You may know the name; Zaeed has been involved in some of the best known (and some utterly unknown) military operations in the Terminus Systems, and is feared as a ruthless and relentless bounty hunter." The Illusive Man calls him a bounty hunter and 'involved' in operations, but not leading them. Combine that with how I took his personal mission and his tales in the hold of being a lone survivor more than once...and I didn't take away 'leader'. YMMV.

Garrus serves in C-Sec for years and with only 12 guys manages to hold out against three mercenary companies for weeks...only losing his loyal men when he gets lured away by a single traitor on his team. A traitor who lives with regret every day for betraying his leader and team. I can see how you thought Zaeed was a leader, but I just didn't get that from him, while Garrus (over the course of two games) seemed exactly the type to me.

I understand that the crux of your discontent is that you assumed you'd use all the characters and when presented with a choice, figured that they must want you to mix it up and use all the characters, not just the same ones. That's not an unreasonable assumption to make, but most folks didn't seem to do that. I think you've got a legitimate complaint that it's simply not as granular a choice as it could be and maybe they'll make it a more compelling and diverse choice in the next game.

If you're talking about the two scenes that I think you're talking about, that's

Spoiler

not about succeeding in the suicide mission. That's about succeeding in romance (granted, both require loyalty)

.

Actually, they are important to the mission because if you're renegade or paragon scores aren't high enough, then you'll lose the loyalty of one or both for the final mission...and that has a direct bearing on their survivability.

 

[Felon]

Garrus serves in C-Sec for years and with only 12 guys manages to hold out against three mercenary companies for weeks...only losing his loyal men when he gets lured away by a single traitor on his team. A traitor who lives with regret every day for betraying his leader and team.

Oh, does he? He didn't get much of a chance to chat in my mission. I guess that underscores something else worth mentioning: Zaeed probably doesn't stand out as being all that bad if you're pursuing a renegade-heavy path, where Shepard himself is acting like a ham-fisted, self-important loose cannon (and succeeding nonetheless). Since I imported my old paragon Shepard, the actual net effect was that I topped-off my paragon meter fairly easily and thus wound up choosing renegade options afterwards.

Actually, they are important to the mission because if you're renegade or paragon scores aren't high enough, then you'll lose the loyalty of one or both for the final mission...and that has a direct bearing on their survivability.

Ah. Check.

 

[Felon]

No, I considered that animosity, which is why I had Miranda lead the fire team, while I brought Garrus and Jack with me. Problem solved- I had my second best leader running the fire team and the complainers got to work with me.

I employed similar reasoning, but did the reverse, keeping her with me and altnernating and Thane (whose just too handy against the collectors not to bring along). Miranda's the only squad member whose class ability buffs the whole squad, not just herself. Plus, she can warp those biotic shields away. Then they presented a restructuring, at which point I re-picked needlessly.

The only ways to avoid something like this happening would be if A) the devs could read your mind and B) if your decisions prior to the endgame meant nothing and it all came down to your preparations.

Not sure what you mean when you parse out decisions from preparations, however, I'd say there is an option C, which as I mentioned is for there to be a little more complexity to it than just picking a survivor or a corpse. Also, I'd suggest to Bioware not faking players out by asking them to re-pick their leader when the correct choices remain the same.

On the whole, however, I'm quite satisfied with how the story ended.

 

[Truth Seeker]

First play through...level 28 (58 hours+). On second play through, got the 30 lvl achievement.

Completed the final story mission three times now, and done every sidequest I could find. My save file shows total playing time at 61 hours, and still didn't manage to make it to level 30.