ME1 has one problematic spot and that is Liara's mission, tight space with Krogan at the very end
everything else gives you generous space even the rachni
ME2
has multiple DPS check levels
>oh you didn't kill Mechs fast enough in some warehouse, sprint across the room to the pillar that is not made out of styrofoam loser
>Mechs break styrofoam crates in nanoseconds if you don't nuke them
collectors have a few "fun" spots where you are forced to migrate or conserve ammo

>>4046242
>ME1 has one problematic spot and that is Liara's mission, tight space with Krogan at the very end
Because they reworked a bunch of little things so that ME1 isn't so janky, that Krogan battlemaster is nowhere near as dangerous in LE. That one fucking open room in Ilos is a bitch though.

>>4046270
Actually I redact that, Ilos was merely irritating.
Feros however was human suffering concentrated into a videogame level. Every fucking creeper will oneshot anyone that's not Wrex and ignores shields, and they have 50 million hitpoints. Yeah they only attack in melee, but they take so much to go down as they run to you, and I was using the Spectre pistol too.

>>4046225
Protip for higher difficutly Mass Effect 2: always bring Miranda. It doesn't matter what the mission is, bring her along. Unless your Shepard is a Sentinel, no other character has both Overload and Warp meaning she is your dedicated defenses stripper.

>>4046225
There's less bullshit deaths in ME2 than ME1 (no instakill bitchslaps or forgetting to turn on barrier when there's a sniper around). The Collector Ship will put hairs on your chest though.

>>4046283
> dedicated defenses stripper
Yeah, she looks like a stripper but what about her abilities? Hyuk hyuk hyuk

The Collectors are a pain in the ass on insanity. I don't even have specific advice to give you, they're just horse shit.
After all these years I have no idea how Scions work but I despise them.

But I did beat it without looking up guides for loadouts and abilities so you should be able to handle it

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>>4046419
>Yeah, she looks like a stripper but what about her abilities?

>>4046419
>either ME2 becomes some serious bullshit later
It does. Most of my deaths in the trilogy were in ME2, and most of those deaths in ME2 were because of specific sections in Collector missions (IYKYK).

>>4046225
I'm doing similar run, am currently on Feros and then i go to Virmire. in 1 gunfire is the least of your issues, in 2 it's the opposite.
>>4046431
I always try to take reave bonus power because it obliterates, barrier, armor, and has some cc

>>4046437
>I always try to take reave bonus power
Don't get me wrong, Reave is a good power, but there are other worthwhile powers to try out in subsequent playthroughs.
Plus, if you care about roleplaying, you wouldn't give non-biotic classes a biotic power, now would you?

Oh I should've said, I'm playing Sentinel in all 3 games. Sentinel was by far my favorite class in 3 and Tech Armor is imo the best ability in ME3 bar-none, and it's not AS good in 2 but it's really fucking good. Boy did I miss not having it in 1 though.
>>4046437
Yeah I did Feros last as well because I refused to fail that one speech check, you know the one. Also iirc Warp Ammo is the best thing to take because there isn't much else that strips barriers efficiently.

>>4046419
The thing is, the combination of her hair and dress makes her look like she stepped out of a random Star Trek TOS episode. That's not her character, but it's absolutely her look.

ME2 on Insanity to me was by far the most annoying because every enemy had like 2 different shields and my cooldowns were so long that it dragged every encounter out.

>>4046429
This is a consistent problem, even in ME3 multiplayer players fucking dread having to fight Collectors for that match.

>>4046996
No one ever selects Random Opponent unless they hate themselves, they set it to Geth every time because Geth have no bullshit enemies

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>>4046225
>challenge

>>4047062
But the particle rifle isn't until 3

is this game fun if you don't like the dating sim elements?

>>4047162
I'd argue they're extremely minimal in this game anyway. Even if you do everything right to bang a party member, it doesn't happen until right before the game's finale.

This thread is reminding me how fucking boring the combat in 2 was. I had almost repressed the lame "strip shield or armor while hiding behind cover, then blast their HP (repeat for the next 250 rooms in 30 missions)" gameplay. ME3 combat is more fun I guess, but you can't beat the arena shooter feel of 1, even if it's janky.

>>4047162
Yes, but also you don't know what dating sim elements are.

>>4047297
1 kinda stops being fun at higher difficulties because everything takes fucking forever to die. Say what you want about ME2 and 3's cover combat, at least fights end quickly even if you're more squishy and the hardest fights on Insanity tend to also be the hardest fights on Normal (end part of Mordin's recruitment mission, the Collector Ship, the Praetorian fight, etc). I will fully admit that ME3 plays way, WAY better than 2.
It's weird because DAO on Nightmare does not have this issue in the same way.

>>4047062
People kinda overrate this. Yes it has super high dps but

>>4047297
My problem with ME2 is it objectively does not matter. In a series about choices and consequences, you end exactly where you start. You were preparing for the Reapers in the prolouge, and that's where you are in the finale. Even with the dlc, all you did was delay the Reaper invasion by 6 months, of which the galaxy did nothing to prepare for them in that 6 months anyway. You could delete it from the timeline and go straight from 1 to 3 and aside from the Tuchanka stuff, almost nothing changes.

>>4048103
But is that issue in large part due to game 3 or 2? I just completed playthrough of 1 and started playing 2, and what I noticed is that when introduced old characters are very sincere . Meeting Joker, Tali, Garrus, and from what i remember Wrex, Ashley and Liara further down the line, all feel much more connected compared to them being introduced in 3. I get the feeling 3 is much more of a forced reset in character and story terms if that makes sense. For example when you meet Ashley in 2nd game she's both happy, shocked, disappointed, angry and irrational at that moment. First moment you see her in 3rd game and you're hit with that "I used to" that gives barely any credence to previous games. Then on Mars there's an attempt at creating mistrust but what's funny is even Shepard comes out as exasperated by that. Liara is similar but because she was not a poster girl for 3 it's not as noticeable in intro.
It feels like 3 was first written like a standalone from first 2 games and only after that was done they started connecting backstory with player choices and tweaking everything.

>>4048227
>But is that issue in large part due to game 3 or 2?
2, because they chose to write a self-contained plot that doesn't matter. ME was not Dragon Age, it was always intended to be a trilogy from day 1, and they still chose to make a middle section that's mostly filler.

>It feels like 3 was first written like a standalone from first 2 games and only after that was done they started connecting backstory with player choices and tweaking everything.
That's more because of the EA mandate that it sell more than the first 2 games which is impossible unless it's people's very first game, which writing-wise is not a great idea (I still remember the marketing line of "Mass Effect 3 is the PERFECT time to get into Mass Effect!"). That's mainly why Buff Drinklots is in the game, while I do like him as a character, but he mainly asks questions a newbie to the series would ask.

>>4048103
>you end exactly where you start
Not exactly

>>4048845
I made an exception for the Tuchanka stuff because Mordin's plot actually has genuine consequences for 3's narrative.
People will bring up Legion but one, 3 ruined Legion's character by making him Pinocchio when the writer of 1/2 specifically said he did NOT want Legion to be Pinnochio so he might as well not have even existed in ME2, and 2, rewriting the heretics or not affects nothing other than "the Quarians have a harder time retaking Rannoch"

>>4048247
>because they chose to write a self-contained plot that doesn't matter.
Valid point, i forgot about that about the overall design.

>>4046225
in me 2 and 3 if you want to minmax on insanity then go sentinel shield build

>>4046876
this is why you have 2 other squadmates to do the stripping for you if you cannot.

>>4050760
It's less minmax and more that Tech Armor is the ultimate "oh shit" defensive button

>>4048247
It was less "intended" to be a trilogy than they just said that without doing any planning, writing, or any long term strategy for it. They dropped core ideas from ME2 like the reapers all being giant effigies of the race they were made from; they really should have just bitten the bullet and dropped the trilogy shit too.

>>4046225
>ME2 becomes serious bullshit later
A lot of the boss fights become bullshit and you have to conserve heavy ammo to fight them, but it's actually pretty consistently easy so long as you have the right class and a good build. The hardest class in 2 is vanguard because you're paper, followed up by engineer because lul no guns no biotics. It's somehow reversed in 3 because Engineer is super OP, Adept is a kek class because biotics need max CDR and can't combo with shields up outside of warp/reaver combos, and vanguard is the easiest class in the game because it deals enough damage to one shot bosses with no risk.

>>4052900
>It was less "intended" to be a trilogy than they just said that without doing any planning, writing, or any long term strategy for it.
No, Drew Karpyshyn has always said it was planned as a trilogy. If you want to read his stuff then he actually has a lot of neat insight written down about his thoughts on the writing process as well as what he thought about 3 (apparently he actually wrote 3's ending, but it was written in the context of the shit he set up in 1/2, not what 3 ended up being)

>>4053103
OP here, I just did Horizon, fired the Cain once at the Praetorian fight and it skipped all but his final "go invincible and gain barrier" phases so I only had to destroy his barrier once then shoot his sliver of hp

>>4053199
point me to what you're talking about

>>4053290
Right here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkRAnFNFkD4&t=782s
>We knew it was going to be a trilogy right from the start, t um we we're pretty sure that's the direction we want to go um, and the idea was in the first game we wanted to introduce the reapers and the second game we wanted to, you know, expand on what the reapers were doing um uh sort of build on that and then the third game you would finally get the ultimate victory or or you know find the ultimate ending to this reaper threat but we didn't have a lot of details fleshed out, you have to be flexible. So we did the first mass effect game um you know it's it's pretty much a standalone story on its own, it has a complete you know beginning middle end, um and then from that we then you know went to mass effect 2 to keep going on it, and we took things that we didn't know, like we didn't know people would kind of react to Cerberus the way they did, we thought they would just be the small little detail thing that you know comes up in a couple little side missions, but for some reason it resonated with people and it became a much bigger part of the universe than we initially expected, so when we went to mass effect 2 we were like "well we need to bring cerberus into this more, we need make this a more of a part of the story" um and i was there for the first two games

>>4053345
doesn't really inspire faith that they had a legitimate plan at any time

>>4053348
They had an outline, they always wanted it to be a trilogy, but it's not Babylon 5 where it was all written and planned out from the start how every episode was going to go. It was more like B5's contemporary Deep Space 9 where they had a rough idea, but mostly improvised as they went and whenever they looked back on episodes they had already written they went "ooh, that's a neat plot point, we should write a new episode that follows up on that".
I agree when he says that ME1 functions as a standalone game in the event it just totally flops and they don't get to make more. That was a smart decision, making it open-ended enough that you can continue it, but self-contained enough that you can stop there if you're forced to.

>>4053235
Pretty much, if you don't use those on the Praetorian's you just get melted though

>>4046225
Played on insanity and it's hindering gameplay. Some enemies or bosses like krogans are just too tanky. Playing on normal on my shepard dies in me2 playthrough and it's too easy as you are fighting storm troopers that never hit and get oneshotted by a sneeze.

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>>4053884
You either out damage the enemy(Soldier, Infiltrator)
or have get out of jail card (vanguard, sentinel)
Engineer and Adept need to rely on teammates and hope their specialized skillset works on enemies in that situation
Soldier is by far the easiest class to play with

>>4053908
In 3 yes, 2 you're too squishy even though Adrenaline is even stronger in 2

I wish i could play the Steam version without making an EA account

>>4056431
My trilogy playthrough was delayed by an hour sorting that shit out because the EA server was down.

>>4053935
Soldier isn't meant to survive anon, you're there to pop in and out of cover one shot one or two enemies and then sit like a bitch in cover. The ammo gimmick is great though, but frankly for the enemies where ammo matters you're better off just using heavy ammo. It might seem silly but you sort of have to plan your heavy weapons on ME2 insanity if you aren't willing to play like a bitch
>t. Beat 2 on Adept with Insanity, missions go between impossible to easy depending on how many enemies are packing barriers or armor in the level

>>4046225
I once attempted what you now set yourself to, anon.
I beat ME1, ME2, and stopped most of the way through ME3 because Kaiden died and I wanted to go back and stop that but I already fucked up my save by then so I just kinda got bored and gave up.
Be better than me.
Succeed where I failed.

>>4056431
>>4056471
It's even worse because back when it was Origin you could just skip the launcher but now that it's the EA App or whatever you're forced to use it

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OP here.
Ngl, after getting all the shield upgrades and the one that makes it so shields take 20% less damage, my Sentinel Shepard can take an absolutely ridiculous amount of punishment before the shields break, it has made this insanity playthrough much less stressful. Also I just did the Collector ship and honestly only really 2 rooms were an issue since I have Warp Ammo now and that just tears through barriers and armor, and I picked Assault Rifle training so I'm back to Ol' Reliable aka pic related.. The bigger problem is that Collectors are just unfun to fight.

>>4056834
That's p. cool, I started Insanity as Adept going to monoclass spesh wizzzarrrd it through all 3. Any tips since it's fresh on your mind?
I want to actually try to use Jack in the party in 2 instead of the usual bench but it may be the wrong choice for adept.

My original playthrough was Inf.

>>4057216
I've been bringing Miranda + whoever is useful for the mission (or has some lines for interaction like bringing Legion to Tali's missions) since Miranda strips every type of defense. But as a Sentinel I have the ultimate "oh shit" button, especially since Techn Armor does not have a duration, its duration is "until the enemy either breaks it or you manually turn it off", meaning if the cd refreshed I can just immediately reapply it when broken.

>>4057216
>>4057414
Oh forgot to say, Adepts are broken in 1 and 3 (less so in 3) but they got fucking kneecapped in 2 because of the fucking stupid mechanic where biotics don't work on enemies that have a form of protection up.

>>4046419
>Yeah, she looks like a stripper but what about her abilities?
settle down jack

>>4057216
>I started Insanity as Adept going to monoclass spesh wizzzarrrd it through all 3
2 is going to be rough, but not undoable. You'll definitely want team mates that can strip shields on almost every mission (the only ones I can think where you wont are ones where its purely collectors or blood pack mercs)
1 will be a breeze though

>>4047133
But incendiary is. Mattock assault rifle + incendiary means you don't have to worry about a single enemy in the entire game. Warp ammo trivializes encounters even more because you have a one size fits all solutions to health, armor, shields, you name it. Half the time, I don't even bother taking cover because what's the point? You activate adrenaline, then go "one two three" shots to the head = dead. Rinse and repeat. Soldier is so OP that there's literally just a single mission in the entire trilogy that can pose a problem, and that is saving Jack in ME3. When that mission triggers, you haven't unlocked the core features for soldier class in ME3 yet, so fighting in the atrium is a pain in the ass for soldiers. But the entire game before and after that is just ridiculous. Everything dies so fast it can't even be thought of as a game. But in ME2? What exactly is it that could possibly hurt you?

Man, that community patch and visual mod or whatever it's called sure improves the remaster.
It's still not perfect but at least it gets things way closer and actually makes it look like Mass Effect again. It's crazy to me that they screwed up the lighting and everything where it changes the entire mood, and just thought that it was fine to release it that way.