Mass Effect Difficulty

[kingcomrade]

I finished ME2 and thought it was good, so I decided to give ME1 a try. It still crashes because bioware sucks, but the problem I'm having is just that I die in about 3 hits and medi gels are rare, so spend every fight waiting for my shields to recharge before taking 1 seconds worth of fire then hiding again. There's not really any way to avoid getting hit when you peek out of cover and a single shot takes down my shields, and typically my two allies are dead within the first 10 seconds of a fight. I mean maybe I accidentally set the difficulty to retarded but I don't think so.

What's more obnoxious though is "quick save failed." Oh good, I have to do it all over again.

 

[commie]

That's why the Codex loves ME2. It's dumbed down...

 

[kingcomrade]

Nevermind this game is just crashing to much to be playable so it's not worth wondering about

That's why the Codex loves ME2. It's dumbed down...

Does dumbed down mean the same thing as better? Because otherwise I'm not sure you know how to use our language properly

 

[sgc_meltdown]

are you playing as soldier and using an automatic weapon and improving your damage resistance skills or whatever the hell they are I don't remember much

if not you should

that is the secret to saving the galaxy

seriously the only hard fight is the early one where you fight your first geth walker thing and even that is trivialised by knowing when it's going to shoot

also protip exit your mako and finish off turrets and whatever with your character whenever possible

 

[kingcomrade]

I was playing an Adept, which I guess means you get 1 free kill every 40 seconds and the ability to rambo for about 5 seconds every minute.

Anyways it seemed decent enough, and I would have stuck with it if it didn't crash half the time and not let me save. This is the same issue I had before with this game and the reason I never played it.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

if you are playing with a cracked exe for some reason last I checked the work on that was still iffy

still this can't hurt

http://www.tweakguides.com/ME_1.html

 

[Metro]

Use companions with electronics skills that can overheat/blow up weapons and most fights are pretty trivial regardless of difficulty.

 

[J1M]

I finished ME2 and thought it was good, so I decided to give ME1 a try. It still crashes because bioware sucks, but the problem I'm having is just that I die in about 3 hits and medi gels are rare, so spend every fight waiting for my shields to recharge before taking 1 seconds worth of fire then hiding again. There's not really any way to avoid getting hit when you peek out of cover and a single shot takes down my shields, and typically my two allies are dead within the first 10 seconds of a fight. I mean maybe I accidentally set the difficulty to retarded but I don't think so.

What's more obnoxious though is "quick save failed." Oh good, I have to do it all over again.

I played as the Infiltrator class. Ignore the sniper rifle. Get the pistol berserk and all of the rechargeable AOE grenade attacks.

You can literally run and gun by throwing grenades as you charge the enemy and then hit pistol berserk to finish off the stragglers. Points in electronics and certain armor types will give you exceptionally high shields.

 

[Jaesun]

It's a terrible game KC. Just stop playing and move on to Dragon Age II.

 

[sea]

What difficulty are you on? If you're on hard or insanity it can be pretty tough at certain points, especially as a soldier class. Biotics and tech skills take priority later in the game when disabling enemies is more useful than doing direct damage. You generally just have to be conservative throughout, though - enemies are sponges and the only thing you can really do is duck behind a wall and plink away.

Yeah, Mass Effect really does kind of suck in retrospect.

 

[racofer]

That's what the Genesis DLC is for.

 

[MetalCraze]

Does dumbed down mean the same thing as better? Because otherwise I'm not sure you know how to use our language properly

Codex considers a game with linear corridors and quest compass in it a hardcore RPG so who knows

 

[Serious_Business]

The game is pretty sucky. It's only somewhat of a challenge when you're low-levelled, when you'll get abilities and new shit it'll only be a question of standing around and waiting until the enemies' health bars drop. And I mean waiting. Waiting a whole fucking lot. Click and wait. On the higher difficulties, it doesn't change anything but that the enemies take ages to drop. I'm serious. It's fucking tedious. So enjoy the few moments of challenge when your character can't do jack shit

That's why the Codex loves ME2. It's dumbed down...

Yeah right. Sure. The Codex loves dumbed down linear shooters. I'm the Codex. You're not. How does that make you feel

 

[Multidirectional]

What's more obnoxious though is "quick save failed." Oh good, I have to do it all over again.

Either you use a bad crack or trying to save in the middle of combat.
Anyway, I played through both ME games on highest difficulty available and can't say I remember ME1 being harder than ME2. They just play a little bit differently, ammo and regen wise.

 

[Phage]

Start the game over and pick vanguard. Game is no longer difficult. (Actually it's pretty easy as a soldier too, and I hear adept is overpowered)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

If you start over, pick one of the hybrid classes so you don't have to rely on cooldowns like Engineer / Adept, or on sheer HP like the Soldier.

Infiltrator is a mix of Soldier + Engineer, which means it's resistant enough (you can buy the medium armor skill after a while) and tossing debuffs around is fun (mainly for getting rid of annoying shields, which reduce the popamole time).

Sentinel could be more interesting for variety. The pistol is the best weapon anyway, so it's not as gimped as the description makes it look like.

Vanguard can be a fun class to play with but it's kinda overpowered, and chances are you'll be taking Wrex with you everywhere anyway.

For reference, Kaidan is a sentinel and he takes care of himself, and Garrus is an infiltrator who gets constantly killed for going into the frontlines, and Wrex never dies.

 

[commie]

That's why the Codex loves ME2. It's dumbed down...

Does dumbed down mean the same thing as better? Because otherwise I'm not sure you know how to use our language properly

Well according to the Codex ME2 is better, and why is it better? It's because you don't have to worry about stuff like medi gels, long cooldowns or many paths in character upgrading among other things. Game is simpler, easier, DUMBED DOWN.

Codex rages about the decline but at the same time endorses it.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

dammit commie don't skyway your me2 lovin codex bros

 

[Topher]

The only difficult fight I remember from ME1 was rescuing Liara and even then I only remember it being really difficult when I took a brand new character through insanity mode (or whatever it was called).

 

[Elwro]

seriously the only hard fight is the early one where you fight your first geth walker thing and even that is trivialised by knowing when it's going to shoot

Trivialised? Goddamnit, with my Infiltrator I tried it like 15 times. (I blame the companions.)

Anyway, I also had to stop playing ME due to incessant crashing. Fortunately I only paid $5 for it during a Steam sale.

 

[Metro]

The hardest fight I had in ME1 was the matriarch... simply because I kept getting knocked off the 'predetermined linear movement track' by biotics and due to the wonders of no jumping I had to restart because I was stuck.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The only difficult fight I remember from ME1 was rescuing Liara and even then I only remember it being really difficult when I took a brand new character through insanity mode (or whatever it was called).

Everyone says that fight can be the hardest one because you can do it early in the game (if you choose to look there for Liara as soon as it is suggested). Even then, shouldn't be too hard as long as you focus on kilingl the geths first and use the walls to hide from the krogan's spells biotics.

There's a nice touch about the rescue; if you do other quests first, she'll be delirious when you meet her, since she was left there hanging for days.

The fight with the asari monarch (Liara's mother) was a bitch, though. So was the one against that geth tank, since I couldn't get close enough to debuff him and he usually charged another shot before I could reliably hit him with the sniper rifle.