Just Landed: A Guide for New Arrivals to MP

The Valiant in MP is Ultra Rare, which means you must spend a very long period before getting it to a higher level.

It has moderate damage as a UR sniper rifle, and tries to cover the lack of firepower with low recoil and quick reload speed -- not a successful strategy.

Below Gold difficulty you need to make its every bullet a headshot to rival a Black Widow or Javelin user. On platinum, this simply does not work.

Valiant is very user friendly with low recoil and fast reload. If you can land more or less reliable headshots, it will serve you well. Another easy to handle weapon is widow with phasic ammo. There is no need for headshots in the case of mooks.

These are valuable tips, as you can see from this screenshot I'm brand new to MP

Good folks, does the MP module have any sort of the interactive interface, and how is it enabled, when etc? For example, if I get into the Lobby, before I press 'ready' is there a way to type something like "Good evening. Sorry, I am new" to the other 3 players?

Any sort of a chat window that I can say something between waves, like ask whom I can follow/is it okay to follow? There is a window that has a combat log, is it a chat interface?

Does a chat line appear if you click on it? Or is it all supposed to be done with a 3rd party VoiP via friending/grouping out of the game?

Is the 4M the only mode of play, i.e. there is no 8M or 16M etc?

Thank you!

^^

Here's the details of Discord stuff, copied from looking for group-thread.

Multiplayer Discord Server: discord.gg/hJBc6Sg (originally posted here by JGDD )

Yes, as they say this is "random", "RNG", "Troll shop", etc., pick one.
Point is you need to buy lotsa packs to progress, this is the fact driving the "best shop strategy" creating hobby.

Mods also arrive on silver and gold cards, so they queue up for luck the same as weapons. Slow progress means you are at a shallow part of the random probability curve, also known as "sucks".

Yep, the hate is not personal, the shop hates EVERYBODY.

It is really slow.

I've built three different accounts, and maxing Ultra Rares is the only thing that consistently takes longer than maxing mods.

When mods were originally released, they had a drop rate that corresponded to their rarity - common, uncommon, and rare. If you were lucky enough to be playing regularly at that time, you could max your common mods (and most of your uncommon ones) in a few weeks.

Unfortunately, for reasons they have never disclosed or explained, the drop rate was dramatically changed sometime in 2012. It's almost as though they bumped each one's rarity up a category (but not really.) From what I remember on my alt accounts, which were both started after the drop rate changed, I had long since maxed all of my common and uncommon weapons before I came anywhere close to maxing my common mods. I believe I maxed my mods out on PS 3 at around the same time I maxed my rare weapons, so that took many months.

The big ones are AP barrel mods, which make the early PuG life so much easier. Once you have those for each weapon, you're in a good position.

My advice would be that if you notice you don't get any more weapon upgrades, start buying the next priced pack, even if you haven't maxed the guns you can with said pack. When I started I remember I practically only bought the 5k pack and weapon upgrades stopped appearing before maxing the guns I wanted to (maybe uncommons? that I don't remember). Moving to the 20k one got me both the mods upgrades and the guns.

In my experience, weapon mods, particularly the armor penetration ones are far more important than a higher level gun.

I'll just shamelessly point you to a post I made three weeks ago on the buying packs subject - that should answer most of your store questions 

Optimal ME3MP Shop Use

Hi good folks, could anyone explain the Scions to me? I keep trying to see the animations, but I can't see the tell for that DoT of imminent Doom or whatever is it that they cast that kills you. Mostly interested in what to do with Scions on Adepts and Vanguards in Bronze Tier. Thank you!