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Post by AnDromedary on Mar 30, 2017 18:49:29 GMT
That's just silly. After Eden Prime blew Saren and Benezia's cover Sovereign is committed to the Conduit route. Infiltration isn't an option anymore. (Well, technically, it still is an option. But he's likely have to wait decades or centuries to get operatives so highly-placed again) Anyway, remember that my position is that Bio simply forgot that Saren didn't need the Conduit until after he gets caught looking for it. So saying that the plot doesn't make sense is just a restatement. I don't see the contradiction you are trying to imply here. First Sovereign tries to activate the Citadel relay and fails but doesn't know what is going on Then Sovereign indoctrinates Dr. Qian and ultimately Saren and Benezia. He needs agents to interact with the current cycle of organics to figure out what's going on. At this point Sovereign has no idea what's wrong with the Citadel. He might realize that it's something prothean (since the base in Virmire seems fairly well established, I could imagine that they already used that beacon before Eden Prime and gathered as much from it) but that's it. Sure, Sovereign could now send Saren into the council chambers incognito but as soon as Saren would poke around the secret control console that no one ever saw before, people would ask questions and problems would ensue. Even if he sent Saren, Benezia and a bunch of indoctrinated commandos, they might be overwhelmed by C-Sec too early to do anything (especially since they don't know what is wrong exactly). In that case, it would set his plan back decades or even centuries, as you say. What they need is a clearer idea of what's going on and looky there, another prothean beacon shows up on Eden Prime. the perfect chance to gather more intel. Sovereign sends Saren and the Geth to attack the colony and get the info from that beacon. From the ED beacon, they don't find out what's wrong with the Citadel exactly (or maybe they do, who knows) but together with the Virmire beacon they figure out that there is a secret base with the conduit on Illos (which btw is a bit more than Liara and Shep could decipher from 2 beacons but maybe with the knowladge of the reapers, Sovi and Saren were better at it). Now remember, it was never Sovereign's plan to expose Saren on Eden Prime. If Shepard hadn't shown up so quickly, the Geth would have wiped out all the remaining witnesses like Ash, Powel and the others and would have blown up the space port with bombs. Eden Prime would have been a mysterious Geth attack (if even word of the Geth would have gotten out), not anything to do with Saren. That's why Saren/Sovereign throw a temper tantrum in that cutscene just after Eden Prime when Benezia tells them that some humans have escaped. At this point, they are of course committed to the conduit idea and the ME1 plot continues from there. I don't see the problem.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 30, 2017 18:54:02 GMT
i have seen her do it with my own eyes. The nomad is a freaking beat. ... ...right. OK. Not much more discussion to be had here then lol trust me running over kett is fun. The wild life is a bit nasty though.
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Post by projectpatdc on Mar 30, 2017 18:54:50 GMT
Well try it out before you try and refute it then. You'll be surprised. The Nomad doesn't kill everything. Whether you like killing on foot is irrelevant. So do I. The Nomad still could have used a weapons system. i have seen her do it with my own eyes. The nomad is a freaking beat. Just to jump in on this convo, after playing mass Effect Andromeda now, I will say that as it would be nice to have guns on the Nomad. I haven't really missed having an armed vehicle. If they do add some kind of armed vehicle, they need to have other land vehicle first. It's strange we never see raiders driving armed vehicles around Elaadin at least. Before adding an armed Nomad, we really need some more enemies that are about the size of the fiend or larger. Somewhere in between an architect and fiend that I can either fight on foot or in an armed Nomad. Before either of those, we need to be able hijack and drive mechs. I still to be to keep one. Customize it and have dropped via shuttle at your location. The new atlas mechanics are already animated to move faster and jump
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Post by admiralbonetopickmk2 on Mar 30, 2017 20:18:45 GMT
,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-(_MEA_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸
For a supposedly SCI-FI game, the Nomad is a piece of shite.
PeeBee goes from the Tempest to the Vault via a shuttle but the Pathfinder has to navigate the terrain using an uncontrollable Model-T tech vehicle and exposing the crew and Nomad to Radiation (EOS).... how quaint on the former and stupid on the latter. An exploration vehicle navigating hazardous areas would be built to keep the crew and itself safe.. I guess Jien skimped on this tidbit ^So much this. Amen to all that!. I felt like i was the only one who realised, who thought this. Good to know im not. Preech it brother!. The Nomad really makes no sense and has no place in Mass Effect from a in-universe/lore pov. A shuttle makes so, so much more logical sense. But its not as if the Nomad is all that fun from a gameplay pov either.
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Post by jpcab on Mar 30, 2017 21:40:59 GMT
The nomad is for children.enough said.
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 30, 2017 21:42:49 GMT
That's just silly. After Eden Prime blew Saren and Benezia's cover Sovereign is committed to the Conduit route. Infiltration isn't an option anymore. (Well, technically, it still is an option. But he's likely have to wait decades or centuries to get operatives so highly-placed again) Anyway, remember that my position is that Bio simply forgot that Saren didn't need the Conduit until after he gets caught looking for it. So saying that the plot doesn't make sense is just a restatement. I don't see the contradiction you are trying to imply here. First Sovereign tries to activate the Citadel relay and fails but doesn't know what is going on Then Sovereign indoctrinates Dr. Qian and ultimately Saren and Benezia. He needs agents to interact with the current cycle of organics to figure out what's going on. Actually, Sovereign's first action after the Citadel Relay fails to activate is to launch the Rachni War. This isn't necessarily fatal for your hypothesis, though, since with the Citadel government defeated he could fix any problem at his leisure, whatever its nature. Remember how the operation works. Signal reaches keepers, keepers open relay. In the centuries that Sovereign's been aware of the problem, I don't see any way that Sovereign can fail to establish where the problem is. He can get a signal to the keepers, and have the keepers scanned, and note the total lack of relay-opening activity. If Shepard can scan keepers, so can any other operative. What are the possible hypotheses for what's gone wrong? Unless we're making up some kind of space magic that can suppress the activation of a relay from some other location, the problem is on the Citadel itself. Communication failure, keeper failure, mechanical failure. And it's not at all clear how you could have a mechanical failure or a communications failure without a keeper failure too, since the keepers are fully capable of repairing communications and mechanical failures. That's their job. What's your candidate for a possible state of affairs where seizing control of the Citadel won't solve Sovereign's problem?
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Post by Iakus on Mar 30, 2017 21:57:22 GMT
Remember how the operation works. Signal reaches keepers, keepers open relay. In the centuries that Sovereign's been aware of the problem, I don't see any way that Sovereign can fail to establish where the problem is. He can get a signal to the keepers, and have the keepers scanned, and note the total lack of relay-opening activity. If Shepard can scan keepers, so can any other operative. What are the possible hypotheses for what's gone wrong? Unless we're making up some kind of space magic that can suppress the activation of a relay from some other location, the problem is on the Citadel itself. Communication failure, keeper failure, mechanical failure. And it's not at all clear how you could have a mechanical failure or a communications failure without a keeper failure too, since the keepers are fully capable of repairing communications and mechanical failures. That's their job. What's your candidate for a possible state of affairs where seizing control of the Citadel won't solve Sovereign's problem? Actually no, mesing with the Keepers is illegal. Shepard can get away with it because Spectre. Saren can scan them too, of course. But how does one check for "is ignoring signal" and not, say "thinks turning the tv on is opening the dark space relay". Or even that the Protheans did more than mess with the Keepers? Who knows how long they managed to live on the Citadel, what else they might have done. The Citadel is a big place. And they can't hold the Citadel forever. Saren gets ONE shot to betray the Council. He had to make it count. Discovering that in addition to messing with the Keepers, the Protheans also turned the master control console into a confetti launcher would have been pretty embarrassing.
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Post by AnDromedary on Mar 30, 2017 21:58:10 GMT
I don't see the contradiction you are trying to imply here. First Sovereign tries to activate the Citadel relay and fails but doesn't know what is going on Then Sovereign indoctrinates Dr. Qian and ultimately Saren and Benezia. He needs agents to interact with the current cycle of organics to figure out what's going on. Actually, Sovereign's first action after the Citadel Relay fails to activate is to launch the Rachni War. This isn't necessarily fatal for your hypothesis, though, since with the Citadel government defeated he could fix any problem at his leisure, whatever its nature. Yea, didn't mention them because the rachni are not that relevant in the ME1 plot really and because we don't definitevely know what exactly happened. That Sovereign did this is still speculation and e.g. Bryson thought it might have been the Leviathans instead. Indications that the rachni were forced at all were at least extremely speculative in ME1 and only based on the very cryptic descriptions of the queen, so we really don't know if Sovereign had centuries to figure things out. What are the possible hypotheses for what's gone wrong? They are endless. The protheans could have disrupted the signal, they could have destroyed some vial hardware, they could have programmed a virus, who knows, as long as we don't have a construction blueprint and a manual for the Citadel, it's a bit tough to say what Sovereign might have been able to deduct and what not. The point is, at this stage, you are the one making up problems as to why things shouldn't work by saying Sovereign should have known what Saren needed to do exactly and that he could have done it without C-Sec interference on the CItadel. In fact, when Saren and Sovereign are both present at the Citadel, it still takes them the entire time of the end game and Shepard's march up the tower to unlock the console (or rather not to unlock it because they can't do it in time). I'd say Sovereign was right not to just send Saren in there on his own but to try and gather further information on the prothean interference Eden Prime first. If you want to create problems for yourself, feel free but there really is no reason why that plot couldn't just work Discovering that in addition to messing with the Keepers, the Protheans also turned the master control console into a confetti launcher would have been pretty embarrassing. Ok, now that would have made for a great finale.
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Post by canuckgamer on Mar 30, 2017 22:31:33 GMT
There's a lot of valid and justified criticism against many aspects of Andromeda, however. It does NOT mean that you should take the same course as you did with ME2 in response to ME1 criticism. Mako got removed, explorable open maps got removed, entire economy was removed, inventory removed, customization removed etc. You took the feedback way WAY too far in ME2 and/or read it incorrectly, I really don't want this to happen in Andromeda 2/Mass Effect 5, whatever it is and whenever it comes out. 1. Clunky crafting User Interface/Menus criticism does NOT mean we want crafting gone or see it dumbed down. We want it to stay, with exactly as many great customization options as they're there. We simply want improved UI to utilize the crafting possibilites, not whole crafting gone completly or oversimplified and streamlined. Being able to turn weapons into grenade launchers, increase mod slots, add upgrades, classic heat sink is all tons of fun for those who got through the UI and managed to utilize the capabilites of the system. We do NOT want to see it gone from the sequel. 2. Open World busy-work critisicm does NOT mean we want to go back to brown, linear, claustrophobic corridors from ME2. We DO want big maps to stay. Andromeda strikes a perfect balance in the entire serie mixing large maps with smaller levels, all unique (unlike ME1) and fun to explore. Remove some of the pointless busy work like scanning specific plants/minerals. Focus on fewer but meatier large side-quest chains instead. Kadara for example has vastly better structure and side quests compared to Eos or Voeld. 3. Nomad is good, do NOT remove it because a few complained about handling, it was vastly better than Mako in ME1, it's part of the galactic exploration experience and you made it work. Continue to improve it along with improving quest structure and quality on bigger open maps instead of removing the whole thing like you did in ME2. 4. Slow galaxy map travelling and slow mining/scanning/minerals gathering does NOT mean we want to see the whole thing dumbed down or removed. Andromeda has a beautiful galaxy map, it simply needs to be turned up a bit to make the transitions faster. Scanning planets needs to yield better results than +120 Iron, same with scanning with Nomad. Don't remove either, it gives a lot of variety and freedom in ways to obtain resources, simply improve the results and fasten the whole experience (while keeping the economy balance in mind). 5. Economy criticism does NOT mean we want the economy gone compley, like you did in ME2. We want it better balanced and improved, not removed or dumbed down. ITERATE, IMPROVE, FIX. Don't recklessly remove whole systems, streamline the game beyond reason and dumb the whole experience because of some criticism. Also, tagging Tiberius ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!! I said in another post that I when they are scanning planets it would be nice if you came across small areas with pirate bases (if you destroy Andromeda Viability goes up because you made shipping safer) or Kett Base, or random ruins area. Hide some solid content among the planets.
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Post by valkyriesr2 on Mar 30, 2017 23:10:23 GMT
1. Clunky crafting User Interface/Menus criticism does NOT mean we want crafting gone or see it dumbed down. 2. Open World busy-work critisicm does NOT mean we want to go back to brown, linear, claustrophobic corridors from ME2. 3. Nomad is good, do NOT remove it because a few complained about handling, 4. Slow galaxy map travelling and slow mining/scanning/minerals gathering does NOT mean we want to see the whole thing dumbed down or removed.5. Economy criticism does NOT mean we want the economy gone compley, like you did in ME2. 1. Honestly the smaller selection of weapons and armour in ME2/ME3 was a mile better than ME1/Andromeda's weapons & gear system. It gave each and every piece character and a place in the game. Now we have a bunch of items that feel exactly the same, feel horrendously pointless. Some crafting is nice, I agree, but what we have now is a jump backwards compareable to the journey from the Milky Way to Andromeda. 2. Open world. I'm torn on this one. Mass Effect benefits greatly from having an environment where the story is properly paced. I think combining the two can work, but I'd like to see things compartamentalized a bit more. Add zones and "dungeons" where the narrow hall way shooter plays out so we can properly experience the stories you're trying to tell. The status quo leaves us with a garbled mess which makes things very difficult to keep track of. I've more than once done parts of quests completely having forgotten what it's actually about because there was a mountain of things between the start of it and the place where thing actually happened. Planning out quests in terms of geography might help, so we'll gradually explore a zone instead of leaving us running around like headless chickens. TL:DR - Make room for smaller places and encounters to give storytelling some space, and plan zones better. 3. Nomad is... Acceptable. Handling is fine, but honestly I think a flying/hovering vehicle is just a plain better design for Mass Effect. The Nomad feels a bit stale because it's role beyond taking us from A to B is basically nonexistant. Having more game mechanics around it might help. 4. This is really a matter of quality of life changes. Don't force us to slowly fly to every planet to do a scan. Let me sit at range and use my scanner, and then make me fly in if there's something interesting detected for a closer look. 5. ME2 had an economy though. In fact it's probably the game where you felt the economic pressure the most. Andromeda in its current state has very little use for credits. I don't really have that strong feelings on this subject. It's not a game about being rich. Credits should just be a way to pace our power development.
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Post by Part Time Ninja on Mar 30, 2017 23:20:44 GMT
I think we need to consider the fact that Mass Effect 2 was not simply better received than its predecessor, but was also considered by many to be one of the greatest games of the last generation.
In light of this, I think it's probably more appropriate to consider Mass Effect 2 as one of the best examples of responding to fan criticism and improving on the original title. Whilst taste is subjective and everyone enjoys different aspects of the games to varying degrees, I think it's hard to deny the success and acclaim that Mass Effect 2 holds over the original amongst the wider audience.
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Post by SofNascimento on Mar 30, 2017 23:30:27 GMT
I think we need to consider the fact that Mass Effect 2 was not simply better received than its predecessor, but was also considered by many to be one of the greatest games of the last generation. In light of this, I think it's probably more appropriate to consider Mass Effect 2 as one of the best examples of responding to fan criticism and improving on the original title. Whilst taste is subjective and everyone enjoys different aspects of the games to varying degrees, I think it's hard to deny the success and acclaim that Mass Effect 2 holds over the original amongst the wider audience. This. It's hard for some people to understand, but ME2 did not "overreact". It nailed it. It understood what could and could not and made changes based on that. Yes, people complained they wanted the mako back, and an inventory, and open world planets. ME:Andromeda have all of those. Look at the result.
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Post by n7vakarian on Mar 30, 2017 23:42:47 GMT
I would much rather have a Mass Effect like 1 than the corridor ridden thing we got in Mass Effect 2.
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Post by Petroshenko on Mar 30, 2017 23:48:40 GMT
I think we need to consider the fact that Mass Effect 2 was not simply better received than its predecessor, but was also considered by many to be one of the greatest games of the last generation. In light of this, I think it's probably more appropriate to consider Mass Effect 2 as one of the best examples of responding to fan criticism and improving on the original title. Whilst taste is subjective and everyone enjoys different aspects of the games to varying degrees, I think it's hard to deny the success and acclaim that Mass Effect 2 holds over the original amongst the wider audience. This. It's hard for some people to understand, but ME2 did not "overreact". It nailed it. It understood what could and could not and made changes based on that. Yes, people complained they wanted the mako back, and an inventory, and open world planets. ME:Andromeda have all of those. Look at the result. Games become 'games of the generation' for different reasons. Just because a game becomes one doesn't mean it's perfect in every aspect and should be emulated in every aspect and has no room for improvement. As revered & polished ME2 is, the controversial ME3 is almsot universally seen as better in terms of gameplay/combat than ME2
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Post by Shinobu on Mar 31, 2017 0:03:08 GMT
I would love the Nomad if I could drive it the way I control Ryder. Mouse steering, please! For now I just put up with having to use A and D keys, but tabogganing down mountains on Voeld (where I didn't have to steer) was fun! Right now I feel the Nomad on PC is like the ship in the Restaurant and the End of the Universe: "Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow."
Making travel between planets take 30-50% less time would be great. I like the animation (although the trajectory is a little weird) and it probably hides a loading screen.
Crafting would be better if it didn't take so many clicks to navigate and if guns had only one blueprint listed instead of one for each level. I'd like an option to access my equipped guns from the development station so I don't have to run to the other end of the ship to swap mods.
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Post by smudgedhorizon on Mar 31, 2017 1:10:19 GMT
Very simply speaking Mass Effect has two separate fan bases really. The RPG crowd and the shooter crowd.
RPG fans followed Bioware for years and played most/all their back catalogue - BG, NWN, KOTOR, JE - then of course - Mass Effect. They loved it and it sold well to critical acclaim. Very few shooter fans seemed to like Mass Effect 1 much, mostly because of the RPG mechanics and the combat. They considered it boring, clunky and slow.
But then with ME2 Bioware took out the majority of the RPG mechanics and exploration, turned it into a stripped down shell of what it started - leaving it an RPG in name only. This time the combat was good enough to appeal to the shooter crowd, and they LOVED it. It was groundbreaking in many ways for them - the depth of story and character building, not typical shooter game fare back then. ME2 got rave reviews from shooter fans and maintained generous reviews from disappointed RPG fans who still bought and played because they loved Bioware and the Mass Effect universe, yet disliked the actual game itself! However a very large percentage of their original RPG fanbase did view ME2 as a huge disappointment.
We still now have this big divide - predominantly shooter fans who quite like linear corridors and not dealing with inventory and little to no exploration, and then predominantly old school RPG fans who want the masses of quests and inventory and exploration - with a big centre of gamers in the middle who overlap both genres a little. It's very hard to balance both of these quite drastically different gameplay styles/preferences, and I can't honestly think of a game that has successfully done it with another third-person-shooter +RPG hybrid. I honestly think Bioware do a great job with compromising for both sides. Side quests are all optional. Inventory can be ignored. Crafting can be ignored. Romances can be ignored. Multiplayer is completely optional. They let each gamer experience the parts of Mass Effect they love, without leaving anyone out.
Soooo, I just really hope they don't turn their backs on either genre. I think we all should keep in mind that just because you don't personally like loads of little filler side quests or driving the Nomad or crafting or scanning, or maybe jet packs or codex entries or too much combat or multiplayer - lots of gamers do, so removing any of those mechanics then takes something away from those gamers, and the game is lesser for it.
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Post by RageUnderFire on Mar 31, 2017 1:18:25 GMT
This. It's hard for some people to understand, but ME2 did not "overreact". It nailed it. It understood what could and could not and made changes based on that. Yes, people complained they wanted the mako back, and an inventory, and open world planets. ME:Andromeda have all of those. Look at the result. Games become 'games of the generation' for different reasons. Just because a game becomes one doesn't mean it's perfect in every aspect and should be emulated in every aspect and has no room for improvement. As revered & polished ME2 is, the controversial ME3 is almsot universally seen as better in terms of gameplay/combat than ME2 ME3 got clowned on for its story. What did Bioware do in response. Make a lame story for Andromeda.
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Post by RoboticWater on Mar 31, 2017 1:50:27 GMT
This. It's hard for some people to understand, but ME2 did not "overreact". It nailed it. It understood what could and could not and made changes based on that. Yes, people complained they wanted the mako back, and an inventory, and open world planets. ME:Andromeda have all of those. Look at the result. Games become 'games of the generation' for different reasons. Just because a game becomes one doesn't mean it's perfect in every aspect and should be emulated in every aspect and has no room for improvement. As revered & polished ME2 is, the controversial ME3 is almsot universally seen as better in terms of gameplay/combat than ME2 Yes, but ME3 could only have that level of polished gameplay because ME2 understood that there was no way to realize the entirety of ME1's ambition with the amount of polish that ultimately made the sequel so appealing. Had ME3's narrative not been a train wreck, it probably would have replaced ME2 as "game of the generation." Of course, like the original, ME3 fell victim to scope as well, but this time it was choice and consequence rather than sheer scale, so maybe not. BioWare may eventually be able to craft a polished game with the scope of Andromeda, but not yet. Optimistically speaking, this could happen with the next Mass Effect if, indeed, Andromeda's problems are the result of managerial confusion and mid-development directional shifts. Realistically though, stuff will need to get cut. You don't get quality by just "focusing." Focusing requires cutting, and not just the small stuff. A lame fetch quest requires a journal entry, a bit of code, and some dialog; you'd need to scrap a ton of them to convert that energy into a half-decent quest. And quantity, by its very nature, takes away from quality. Longer games need lots of little progression systems to keep players invested throughout all that time, so big, impressive milestones are spread thin. Larger environments need repetitive and respawning enemy encounters, so realism and identity are forsaken for replayability. The very scaffolding of large scale games actively detracts from the design which made ME2 so compelling.
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 31, 2017 3:47:34 GMT
Very simply speaking Mass Effect has two separate fan bases really. The RPG crowd and the shooter crowd. RPG fans followed Bioware for years and played most/all their back catalogue - BG, NWN, KOTOR, JE - then of course - Mass Effect. They loved it and it sold well to critical acclaim. Very few shooter fans seemed to like Mass Effect 1 much, mostly because of the RPG mechanics and the combat. They considered it boring, clunky and slow. But then with ME2 Bioware took out the majority of the RPG mechanics and exploration, turned it into a stripped down shell of what it started - leaving it an RPG in name only. This time the combat was good enough to appeal to the shooter crowd, and they LOVED it. It was groundbreaking in many ways for them - the depth of story and character building, not typical shooter game fare back then. ME2 got rave reviews from shooter fans and maintained generous reviews from disappointed RPG fans who still bought and played because they loved Bioware and the Mass Effect universe, yet disliked the actual game itself! However a very large percentage of their original RPG fanbase did view ME2 as a huge disappointment. It's not a bad taxonomy. A fair number of the original Bio fans were never all that committed to traditional CRPG mechanics, of course, and so weren't disappointed by ME2. Or by ME2 combat, anyway. The horrible P/R implementation is another matter I'm going to quibble with the way you're using "RPG" there, FWIW. Many CRPG traditions don't have anything to do with role-playing or PnP RPGs. Exploration, for instance, and even loot. ME2 losing inventory and exploration didn't stop it from being an RPG for me. (Losing dialogue skills was a much more serious matter.) If anything, ME1's exploration made it a worse RPG, since almost all of the UNC missions made no RP sense.
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