Mass Effect Revisited

[PeZook]

You know...I've been thinking more on the Mako, and came to the conclusion that the saddest thing about it is that you could've vastly improved the experience by:

1) Making the compounds you attack not generic, and

2) Having them be properly defended

If the compounds you are to attack with the Mako actually have proper defenses, like lots of heavy troops entrenched in good firing positions, landmines around the most obvious approaches, snipers and properly shaped terrain, then attacking them would require work and full use of the large area of operations.

As it is, the defences are really pathetic, repetitive and placed in the most retarded ways possible (troops exposed to sniper fire, huge ass rocket towers etc.) - so you defeated them by driving in a circle and firing your main gun, rather than using any clever tactics. Really: in a universe with air-dropped heavy vehicles, you have infantry hiding behind paper-thin barriers you can snipe from kilometres, or standing on huge-ass towers. PLEASE.

This would be a huge improvement and not require complex mission scripting, voice actor work etc - just more time to set the bases up properly and some extra assets like landmines etc - so just cut the amount of side missions.

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Now for some wishful thinking. Warning, insanity might happen:

It would truly be fucking awesome if you also had things like air defences and artillery, and could use tactical support from the Normandy (like orbital photographs of the installation, fire support, etc.), but you'd have to cooperate closely - for example, insert your team through a narrow side path where you have a shot at their air defences, so that you can engage them and have the Normandy swoop in to destroy the artillery, so that the Mako can drive up and support you on the attack etc.

Then add basic reconeissance options like remote drones (perhaps a tech power?), roving drone/vehicle/infantry patrols and an alarm/reinforcements system (oh so you want to hit a facility on a Reaper-occupied world? Expect armored reinforcements within 15 minutes of your presence being discovered...so hurry the fuck up. Or draw them into an ambush in the overworld and buy yourself some time)

They could go FURTHER if we want to be insane: have war assets be useful during missions. Emplace Krogan commandos on the approach path to screen your attack from enemy reinforcements, or have Turian fighters cover your insertion in an area that would be otherwise inaccessible. Have a Geth dreadnaught open up a way for you to hit a target that was previously impossible for you to get at, by bombarding heavy Reaper emplacements from orbit. Stuff like that.

But that might be too much and impossible to pull off on limited dev time and resources.

EDIT: Double post expunged.

[Losonti Tokash]

It feels like Bioware wanted to do something along those lines (although not the extent, they're not imaginative enough) since you do support the tank advance to the conduit in London and clear out the reaper anti-armor position, but they just didn't have time due to a mixture of publisher interference and incompetent management. Maybe if they let someone else develop in the IP (and let them ignore that stupid stupid ending so there's still a universe to play around in), we'll actually get a phenomenal game out of the series.as it is I think we're stuck with "Alright," "Awesome," and "This game is both amazing and terrible what happened."

[Havok]

Christ Stofsk, can you split the commentary to a new thead. I don't need to know which ammo to use to be a machine gun god and I really don't care who likes the Mako vs the Hammerhead or man ME1 would have been BOSS if they had done this!!!
If people want to comment on my thoughts on the game they can do it in here, if they just want to get their own thoughts out, they can do it in the other thread.

[Stofsk]

I don't see the point of splitting anything. Nothing is off-topic, and the thread was about revisiting Mass Effect. You started a thread and people engaged with it. There is literally nothing stopping you from continuing to post your observations.

[Havok]

Yeah, but Im going to.