What Did You Think Was Missing From Mass Effect 3?

OK, Citadel's come and gone, ostenatioiously the final ME3 DLC. But a lot of things that people were expecting from the game as a whole didn't appear to be there. So, with that in mind, and as a testing ground for expanding this discussion onto the BSN, what did YOU think Mass Effect 3 - as a whole, including all the DLC, and supposedly the grand finale to the series - was missing?

Bear in mind this is not solely relating to Indoctrination Theory, but the game as a whole.

What did you want to see? What did you expect to see? What were you shocked to see was not there?

Single Player Campaign:

Vehicle-Based Combat/Exploration: Planetary exploration, transport and combat in the Mako and Hammerhead were both almost MIA in ME3.

A Resolution to the Harbinger/Shepard Conflict: Harbinger had an established and vested interest in Shepard, and I was looking forward to if not an actual battle with the voice of the Reapers, then at least a verbal confrontation and an explanation for Harbinger's interest. But Harby - and with him almost any sense of the Reapers as an ancient, malevolent cosmic horror - was also all but completely missing in action.

Plot Twists: The IT is the obvious candidate, but there were few unexpected twists in the tale. I expected some degree of suspense and intrigue, but very little actually occurred.

A Betrayal: In a universe where people can be unwittingly manipulated into serving the enemy, I was expecting an internal conflict to arise at some point. Virmire survivor was the obvious candidate, but there were others. Very little sense of "who can you trust" was actually present.

A Sense of Jeopardy: Never once during the game did I feel that any of my squad mates or love interests were physically at risk. There were few analogues to the Virmire decision, or the Suicide Mission, where the death count could escalate ias a result of a tough (or bad) decision. If ME3 truly is the final part of the story, why shield everyone with impenetrable plot armour? If ME3 is the end, then the opportunity was there to make EVERYONE a potential casualty. But no, the majority of your team is invunerable.

Gameplay Mechanics: While the combat was improved on previous iterations, a lot of Mass Effect's traditional gameplay mechanics were dumbed down or dropped entirely for the finale. Vehicle combat and exploration has been touched on, but then we've also got the hacking/decryption mini games. ME2's hacking mini games were a huge improvement on ME1's, but ME3 dropped them entirely. It appears Shepard can unlock any almost door, hack any terminal or unlock any safe simply by standing next to it and waiting for a few seconds.

Unresolved Storylines & Forgotten Characters: Although ME3 did manage to tie up certain storylines with signature style and panache (Rannoch and Tuchanka being the prime examples), an unfortunately large number of characters and situations were never resolved or revisited. The weapon that knocked out the Derelict Reaper, the anomaly of Haestrom, the Ilos Conduit, Gianna Parsini, Shiala and of course poor Emily Wong could have had some major roles in the story. We may as well add the Rachnii in as well, for although they were present, the impact of the Rachnii Queen's fate was almost entirely negligible.

An Epic, Climatic Battle: Did Bioware peak to soon with the Suicide Mission? Apparently they created all kinds of writing issues for themselves when inviting ME2 players to save or kill off practically their entire squad in the closing mission of ME2, but there's no doubt that in terms of a grand finale, the Suicide Mission was EVERYTHING that the ME3 finale was not. It was bold, innovative, taking into account decisions made, reltaionships with squadmates, player decisions and providing a thoroughly end sequence. Where was the payoff, Bioware?

Mechs: ME2's staple enemies vanished from Galactic Society without a trace. Where did all the LOKI, FENRIS and YMIR mechs go?

Fauna: Shifty Looking Cows, Gas Bags, Pod Crabs, Pyjaks and Varren. 'Nuff said.

Carry on, peeps - I'll add more shortly!

a structure to the story for starters

An epic fight. I was expecting a really, really epic final battle against the reapers forces. In Earth, or space, or even inside Harbinger. Don't matter. Instead of that we have... Priority: Earth and Starchild. *ejem*

Don't know what you were smoking when you writte that, Bioware... But I want some

Veridiano02 wrote:An epic fight. I was expecting a really, really epic final battle against the reapers forces. In Earth, or space, or even inside Harbinger. Don't matter. Instead of that we have... Priority: Earth and Starchild. *ejem*

Don't know what you were smoking when you writte that, Bioware... But I want some

Added! :)

A lot.

Obviously answers to questions: Where is Shepard in the breath scene? How did Shepard survive Harbinger's laser? Why did the transport cash? Why did TIM flee to the Citadel? How did Cerberus get the human reaper? How was Cerberus always a head of Shepard and the Alliance? Why did Cerberus try and seize the Citadel? Why was Cerberus on Sur'kesh? etc.

War assets...Why don't we see them in action?

Why no suicide type mission?

I was really expecting a confrontation of LI's, if you romanced different people, where you'd be forced to pick. Once you lock in your romance, the other potential romances aren't even bothered by it. I purposely lead Ashley on, expecting some huge fight between her and Miranda...never happened.

A sense of urgency was missing. In ME2, after the collectors take your crew, you have a certain amount of time to attack the collector base before most of your crew is reaperfied. There was none of that in ME3. I could fly around the galaxy pinging for random artifacts and not feel any pressure to continue the main story. Thessia just fell and Kia Leng is taking Vendetta to TIM's super secret base? All well, lets go to the Citadel and get drunk.

Why no patch to fix the journal?

Harbinger?

I'm sure there's more...but I'm too bitter to keep thinking of this series right now.

EDIT: This idea may seem farfetched...but why was the fact that the Citadel is a huge mass relay never expanded upon? What could be more dangerous than going through the Omega 4 relay? Going through a relay that takes you to dark space to the reapers "home". That would have made an excellent suicide mission in my opinion.

Harbinger and his crew.

They built up the Reapers.

Then, they cheapened them into Cerberus and the Starchild. Terrible, terrible storytelling.

Culmination, literally, of Shepard's actions until now. Still haven't seen that beyond possibly the symbolic.

And where the fuck are the Rachni burning the darkness clean?

symbowles wrote:Why no patch to fix the journal?

I have no clue why folks use the journal in ME3. Map points you to your objective more than adequately.

Anyway, I'll play ball...

~> Face-Importer.
~> Graphics.
~> War Assets M.I.A.
~> War Assets system = oversimplified, major decisions trivialized.
~> Reaper, Crucible irrelevance through much of the plot.
~> Too much Cerberus. (I'd have made them DLC villains).
~> Autodialogue (I'm mostly okay with it, but there's too much).
~> Underwhelming final mission.

HYR 2.1 wrote:

symbowles wrote:Why no patch to fix the journal?

I have no clue why folks use the journal in ME3. Map points you to your objective more than adequately.

Because, as with any rpg (and I use that term lightly with me3) a journal is supposed to update based on what you've accomplished in a mission. There should have been a fix for it, period.

symbowles wrote:

HYR 2.1 wrote:

symbowles wrote:Why no patch to fix the journal?

I have no clue why folks use the journal in ME3. Map points you to your objective more than adequately.

Because, as with any rpg (and I use that term lightly with me3) a journal is supposed to update based on what you've accomplished in a mission. There should have been a fix for it, period.

This was a real step backwards. ME1 - journal worked fine. ME2 - journal worked fine. ME3 - journal a broken mess.

Scanning side-quests are possibly the most underwhelming thing. Some short, ME2-style side-missions would have helped - a quick drop behind Reaper lines to recover The Pillars of Strength or The Book of Plenix? Hell even a little cutscene - airlifting some Elcor troops for example - would have made it feel like something more than the mindless tedium it ended up as. Or is there some contractual obligation that all ME games must have at least one unfun mechanic.

Ability to custom paint my weapons, fully customizing weapons similar to Ghost Recon: FS, seriously in FS you could change everything from the barrel size, grip, bullet type, and even the gas system to tailor weapons to your personal play style, and had about 30 different weapon paint jobs you could put on all weapons. Why can't a RPG have that kind of customization?

Here's a pic of the customization if you haven't played GR: FS

Oh, and every scanning mission should have had an actual mission to do with it. For example, the Elcor Extraction. We should have actually landed and fought our way to Elcor forces and then fight side by side with them and get out.

This could use a bump.

He.

ME3 was missing Harbinger and an epic final battle. Suicide mission 2.0. And a closure.

Most of the people were expecting this and i know that they will be happy to have it... But no. BioWare want other things. ART and