Why BioWare Moved Away From ME2 Style "Assignments"

These missions defined what it means to be N7

The assignments were pretty meh, I thought. The worst one is chasing down the trail of faulty Hahne-Kedar mechs in ME2. Mechs are easily the most obnoxious enemies in the entire franchise. ME3 carried that terrible tradition, but at least the combat was better. ME1 had better minor missions, like Major Kyle and The Negotiation.

If youre talking about the optional non loyalty or hiring missions of ME2, those were some of the worst ive seen.

Go to this planet, face 3 ymir mechs and pick up as many packages as you can before they blow them.

Go to this ship, fight some random mercs and read a few datapads.

And the worst ones:

Go to this planet, pick up batteries so a mech can walk over and blow up a boulder, for a few hundred minerals.

Go tot his planet and click a few buttons to put up a solar barrier.

FUN! EXCITING??!! Right...?


Seriously these are some of the most boring tripe ive seen in any game, rpg or not.

Comparing to actually discovering something like in Star Control 2, the optional content was actually good and tied to the overall discovery and mystery of it all, and offered some moments of excitement. Like discovering what happened to the androsynths, or finding the homeworld of the burvixese. As primitive as it was, it was better than anything we got in this game as optional sidecontent. That whole game was such a great journey of freedom and discovery. That completely lacked in ME, cause everything had already pretty much been discovered. Even MEA that was supposed to be all about discovery squandered this potential by making the first contact a handwave, playing it all aroudn too safe and by locking us inside one boring cluster, probably the most boring one in the whole Andromeda Galaxy.

I would have scrapped all the"discovery" missions of ME2 for a couple of more story mission planets where we catually got to see collectors more. Like Ferris Fields or some other place.

I like them in context of the ME2 story, particularly the one about tracking down the rogue VI (AI?). Still, as N7 missions they made sense for Shepard but N7's aren't really anything in the MEA story other than, well, history.

Still, there was tracking down the sick colonist in Contagion. It could have been lifted straight from one of the ME2 side quests.

And that's why Contagion is one of the worst side quests in MEA

The best? Are you kidding me,

Those were among the shittiest side quest I had ever seen in a bioware game, it had no story whatsoever. When you have your mission explained in a text box, and the mission consists of coming there, kill the ennemies and press a button, and you know the consequences of the mission in an other text box, not my definition of fun.

Side quest in the first mass effect might have been bad, but at least some of them, had a story reward at the end, you had a cinematic conversation for some of them like toombs threatening the cerberus guy. These assignments barely had any story or conversations whatsoever, no these side quest were certainly not good. In ME 2 the second you leave a main planet and don't try a loyalty or recruitment mission, it was freaking boring.

Story was cool. The mechanics behind it were meh. But honestly I don't know why I compared it to ME2. There was no linear shooting involved. At least it was different with the galaxy map scanning.

I love you. Finally someone who acknowledges ME2 for why it was so good. The stars and moon alligned when that game was being made. Great core design like these admittedly "arcady" assignments with good buildup, dialogue that explained what was going to happen clearly. It wasn't ME3 where every mission started with something completely vague like "I'm sorry but I can't fly you in you'll have to land!!!" and then arbitrary combat because there's war and that's an excuse to make every level another part of Gears of War. ME2 had levels that felt like action levels but it had a clear start point that felt like a warm up to set the mood and atmosphere, sometimes it was pure segments of dialogue, leading into great encounters with good enemy placements and tactically designed levels.

Then on top of that ME2 had quality audio design to the point where Shepard's armor makes little squeaks when he rubs his neck during a cutsene, and the way ME123 move seamlessly from gameplay to cutscene unlike Dragon Age Inquisition and MEA that do fade to black, then cut to black, then load etc... ME2 always made it extra clear how the cinematic cuts from gameplay to cinema transitioned. You walk into a room with Garrus, you press talk and the camera cuts like the gameplay itself was just one angle in a long movie to another angle where Shepard and Garrus stand so you don't notice they're repositioned. ME3 had NPCs disappearing after the end of a cutscene, bad camera angles ad nauseum, ME1 was also unpolished cinematically. ME2 had fantastic levels and then it also had high attention ot detail in music and cinematic design.

Also, say what you will about the plot and how contrived it can be, but TIM at least knows like he knows what he's talking about in the game. It actually feels cunning as a player to talk to him when he introduces the next big mission and you believe he has an ulterior overview of a bigger picture until ME3 when everything you love and cherish crashes and burns from the introduction to the ending of the game (except a lot of gullible fanboys that aren't me )

I liked them too. Sure they were light on story but they were nice and relaxing to do, games like ME2 and DAO had such a nice balance of content that I actually looked forward to the "mindless" quests.

Lets not forget finding another beacon and not recording the data for the council this time.

Dammit Shep we could have saved a few million lives leaking that one to the media.

There is no way you can tell me that acvidentally discovering this stuff and playing it out was actually worse than driving around scanning data pads and there is no way ME1s style of side quest delivery even comes close to some of the stuff you get in ME2, sone the ones in ME2 involve multiple locations and have stories that stretch across multiple mission lications so that leaves us with what exactly?

What are you saying is the better version of side quests in Mass Effect?

It's the quest that makes me want to play Colonist Shepard even though my canon Shepard is Earthborn.