Mass Effect 3 (Seriously, Use Spoilers People!)

[Koa]

I can't disprove it, just like every other interpretation. I'm sure anyone can turn lots of stories upside down when they start throwing in wild assumptions. I think they're all a figments of denial and I choose to apply Occam's razor. There are many good stories that have endings that are deliberately open to interpretation, but none of those require wild assumptions. Usually the different interpretations follow the theme of the story, and have subtle evidence seeded throughout. ME3's ending is so fast, so terrible, so out of place and full of plot holes that the only explanation has to be something other than what we're presented. Is that evidence of intent to get the player to think of alternative interpretations, or evidence of godawful writing? I have to defer to the latter. If they wanted me to think about the story they've created, there are far better ways to do it than to throw this abortion on the player's lap.

[Gelsamel]

Of course it's terrible writing, we've already established that...

[Weeks]

Hey now, abortions are a good thing.

The more I read about the ending, the more intrigued I am about it.

[An Enraged Platypus]

Wiping to wave 10 of the Geth on Gold.

Your mortal minds cannot fathom my rage.

[SlyReaper]

Wave 10 is always where teams die. You know when you beat wave 5 and you hear a voice that says "the enemy is down to 50% capability"? It's a stinking lie because of how each wave is harder than the last. (And also because there's an 11th wave when you get extracted.)

[Koa]

Of course it's terrible writing, we've already established that...

I don't think everyone has, but if you admit that then I don't see a point in discussing different interpretations. The only thing I could say to yours is to point out all the wild assumptions that the game provides no evidence for, but you could always say that it doesn't need evidence.

[Gelsamel]

Of course it's terrible writing, we've already established that...

I don't think everyone has, but if you admit that then I don't see a point in discussing different interpretations. The only thing I could say to yours is to point out all the wild assumptions that the game provides no evidence for, but you could always say that it doesn't need evidence.

'Admit it'? I've only been talking about how and why it's terrible since I've been posting here.

[Koa]

Then you should have realised that I wasn't implying that it was with your reluctance, but I'm not going to argue semantics.

[skeptical scientist]

Wiping to wave 10 of the Geth on Gold.

Your mortal minds cannot fathom my rage.

You know what's worse? Beating wave 10, then having ME3 throw a fatal error before you can get the credit.

If you lose to the Geth, at least it was fair.

[Xeio]

I'm confused about the lore complaints related to the mass relays, in what cannon did they say that the only way a mass relay could be destroyed would result in a supernova that destroys anything nearby? Yes, colliding an asteroid into one will do that, why is it presumed that you can't destroy one without doing so or that the relays are not able to serve other purposes*?

*Particularly given the fact that the relay network would be the obvious choice for any sort of galaxy-wide dispersal of energy.

[Telchar]

Turian sentinal with a scoped Carnifex and overload maxed to hit 3 targets eats geth for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Maybe even elevenses and supper, but I'm not going that far. Multiplayer is surprisingly fun. I've gotten 3 of the gold maps completed but it's hard and you really need a good group. I've had a pro vanguard act as a tank of sorts on all 3 and it's soooooo much easier.

Edit:

I'm confused about the lore complaints related to the mass relays, in what cannon did they say that the only way a mass relay could be destroyed would result in a supernova that destroys anything nearby? Yes, colliding an asteroid into one will do that, why is it presumed that you can't destroy one without doing so or that the relays are not able to serve other purposes*?

*Particularly given the fact that the relay network would be the obvious choice for any sort of galaxy-wide dispersal of energy.

Even if we assume that the explosion wouldn't kill everyone, the fact that Quarians and Turians can't eat human food, and the fact that they have limited amounts of fuel, earth presumably has limited capability to manufacture it, nor the ability to extract element-0, and you have a ton of people who can't eat anything living in spaceships around earth. Even if they had enough fuel to get to a star like Alpha Centauri, there's no guaranteeing they'd be able to eat native food there, if there is any. In short, destroying the mass relays dooms a ton of people due to the lack of fuel and food.

[VectorZero]

Grrr.

Servers are down and I can't play single player, because I bought the collector's edition and have the DLC! This is BS, Bioware.

Few other points I wasn't too fond of:
The kid

Spoiler:

Enough with the dreams. For a developer that is so good at 'show, don't tell' and at stimulating player emotion towards characters (the brand new ones too - Esteban Cortez, Specialist Traynor, even Freddie Prinze Vega) they really dropped the ball here. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE KID. I'm far more emotionally invested in Mordin or Thane or Kaiden or whoever else I actually know.

But thou must

Spoiler:

Forcing Shepard to send James back to the shuttle after rescuing Liara so he could then crash into the assassin. Screw that, I want to send Ashley. If I'd taken Kaiden, I would've had Kaiden, Liara and Adept Shepard! Especially since at multiple points in the series, including in the very next mission, Shepard chooses how to split the team. But then they couldn't guarantee the Virmire survivor in the party to be taken out by the assassin. Which really confused me: the sequence didn't really indicate whether I'd done the right thing by shooting the assassin at the end of the chase, so I went back and tried a few times to get a different path without success.

Timed missions

Spoiler:

I like the idea of timed missions. But everything seems to be galaxy-threateningly critical; it's a bit out of left field when one or two missions become unavailable because I did other things first.

[Koa]

Spoiler:

I'm confused about the lore complaints related to the mass relays, in what cannon did they say that the only way a mass relay could be destroyed would result in a supernova that destroys anything nearby? Yes, colliding an asteroid into one will do that, why is it presumed that you can't destroy one without doing so or that the relays are not able to serve other purposes*?

*Particularly given the fact that the relay network would be the obvious choice for any sort of galaxy-wide dispersal of energy.

There's not even a brief lampshading of why it happens, the only information about them being destroyed that is given to us involves a lot of local destruction, and in the very next scene of them exploding we're presented a contradiction as to how destructive of a force it is.

[Dark567]

Casey Hudson statement. Revoltingly hollow words, fuel for the fire I think.

Spoiler:

Man he just doesn't fucking get it. The ending being "bittersweet" isn't what pisses me off. The lack of closure isn't even what pisses me off. What pisses me off is that it doesn't make any fucking sense.
A breakdown on why ME3 makes no fucking sense

My favorite quote:

It's inexcusable. Part of what drove me to write this analysis is that it is inconceivable to me that a professional writer could have produced this staggering degree of literary incompetence and I truly want to believe that it's all part of the plan - not necessarily for the sake of the Mass Effect story, but for the sake of my continued faith in human competence.

Spoiler:

Why would there be big clues that shephard is indoctrinated? The whole point of indoctrination is that it is slow, insidious and you dont even realize it is happening

Spoiler:

They're big clues in retrospect, I guess?

Spoiler:

I think like the Six Sense. There were tons of clues, but you don't necessarily pick up on them until you see it in retrospect. For indoctrination theory to be even considered mediocre writing, it would have to do something like that.(There is a reason why only one of M. Night Shyamalan's movies was good)

[An Enraged Platypus]

Wiping to wave 10 of the Geth on Gold.

Your mortal minds cannot fathom my rage.

You know what's worse? Beating wave 10, then having ME3 throw a fatal error before you can get the credit.

If you lose to the Geth, at least it was fair.

Ouch, you have my sympathy.

So, what does everyone make of the relative difficulty of the MP enemies? I think it goes like this (least to most difficult):

Cerberus < Geth < Reaper

Cerberus is a joke on bronze/silver and manageable on gold if you have either Stasis or a decent shield stripper/sniper combo for Phantoms. The Atlas isn't really a threat as all its attacks are telegraphed, Guardians are a relatively straightforward headshot to kill, and Nemesis often stand in the open with all but a big sign over their heads saying "shoot here".

The Geth are pretty gnarly on Silver because of the combination of Pyros, Rocket Troopers, and Hunters. Pyros will kill you in a heartbeat from close range, Hunters will deal huge damage if they get close and invalidate my Infiltrator cloak advantage by forcing me to shoot them *before* using powers, and Rocket Troopers can either do massive damage in a scrum as fire support or easily knock your shields out/do major health damage very quickly if you run around a corner and don't see them immediately. Geth Prime, with their turrets and semi-homing bullets, are also a nightmare.

The Reapers are the worst of the bunch because they have so much close range nastiness. Brutes must be shot in specific places to do more than ding them, and deal massive damage if you get close, forcing you to run away and potentially walk into other threats fire-and-frying pan style. Reavers do huge ranged damage AoE and release Swarmers, which if you're bogged down by vanilla mobs like Cannibals can get through in droves to cripple your shields. The Banshee has a vicious instant kill move that she uses 100% of the time you get in range, a very potent DoT, AoE, and the biotic charge makes it hard to get a bead on her for sniping. All three of these are resistant to Stasis.

[An Enraged Platypus]

Also, this is a great read about the ending:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4 ... 1&sle=true

[VectorZero]

AEP: I've been running a Vanguard (lvl 15 currently) easily against cerberus and geth; can't stand up against reapers - CCQ with Brute or Banshee? No thanks. Makes the bonus mission this weekend downright impossible (for me, YMMV.)

Been having some problems using biotic charge in MP: cooldown expired and ready to go, enemy targeted and in some cases directly in front of me, can't charge. Maybe lag?

[skeptical scientist]

AEP: I've been running a Vanguard (lvl 15 currently) easily against cerberus and geth; can't stand up against reapers - CCQ with Brute or Banshee? No thanks. Makes the bonus mission this weekend downright impossible (for me, YMMV.)

Been having some problems using biotic charge in MP: cooldown expired and ready to go, enemy targeted and in some cases directly in front of me, can't charge. Maybe lag?

It should be fine if you just play more defensively against banshees and brutes, no? (Or just give them a missile launcher to the face.) That's what I do, although my vanguard's an asari, so she might be a bit happier sitting back and dropping stasis bubbles and lift grenades than a human vanguard would.

So, what does everyone make of the relative difficulty of the MP enemies? I think it goes like this (least to most difficult): Cerberus < Geth < Reaper

I think it's a tossup between reapers and geth. IMO brutes aren't so bad, so banshees are the only reaper enemy that I'm really scared of. But usually you encounter few enough of them that whenever you're in a tight spot and a banshee shows up, you can just missile it. Geth don't have any individual enemies as bad as banshees, but by putting lots of smaller threats on the field at once, they negate the rocket launcher solution, and can swarm you with more threats than you can deal with.

[SlyReaper]

I've found that Vanguard is pretty good if you biotic charge without following up with a nova. For some reason, biotic charge will make your shields go to maximum, whereas nova will deplete the shields. Just charge, and blast away with a shotgun, nova if you think you can finish off all nearby threats with it. It's great because I can just charge right up to a brute with full shields, blast away with the shotgun, and repeat the charge once the power has cooled down, thus replenishing my shields. It's wonderful.

I got a quarian infiltrator last week, and that's pretty fun too. Especially against geth, where the sabotage power reigns supreme. Get a geth prime or pyro to fight for you, and you're laughing. The only problem there are my own team mates continuing to attack the geth I've hacked. It's also not as good for getting kill points as a vanguard (what do those kill points do anyway?).

[Telchar]

AEP: I've been running a Vanguard (lvl 15 currently) easily against cerberus and geth; can't stand up against reapers - CCQ with Brute or Banshee? No thanks. Makes the bonus mission this weekend downright impossible (for me, YMMV.)

Been having some problems using biotic charge in MP: cooldown expired and ready to go, enemy targeted and in some cases directly in front of me, can't charge. Maybe lag?

Banshee's are the real killer in the game. Brutes are fairly easy to snipe after the charge and stand there with head exposed long enough for a cloak+headshot and that takes out a ton of their life with maxed cloak(+40% SR damage) and the Widowmaker. Banshee's with their instakill and heavy biotic abilities, in addition to being tough to snipe make for hard times. I think Geth Gold ideal team would be 1 Vangaurd, 2 Adepts, and 1 Infiltrator. Maybe replace one Adept with a Sentinel for Overload for marauders and keep the warp for biotic detonations.

edit:

I've found that Vanguard is pretty good if you biotic charge without following up with a nova. For some reason, biotic charge will make your shields go to maximum, whereas nova will deplete the shields. Just charge, and blast away with a shotgun, nova if you think you can finish off all nearby threats with it. It's great because I can just charge right up to a brute with full shields, blast away with the shotgun, and repeat the charge once the power has cooled down, thus replenishing my shields. It's wonderful.

It's really awesome to run in and Nova, then Charge, then Nova again. Especially if you have Biotic Charge increased to give you back 100% more barrier.

[An Enraged Platypus]

I've been messing around with Adept a bit. I've just unlocked the Drell and Asari, and the flavour for some of the pull/grenade/singularity/warp evolutions is interesting. There are variants for all of them that give bonuses to the damage done (and radius of) combo explosions. If you could get two likeminded Adepts specialised into maxing combo damage at both ends, that would really be something to see. Shame it's unlikely to happen in a PUG.

[VectorZero]

I also like charge:melee:charge as a combo, and there are some skills to boost melee damage too.

[Vaniver]

Re: Hudson post.

Spoiler:

It looks to me like "we know you're upset, and we want you to not be upset" but not "we know why you're upset." He has the same interpretation as Tycho from PA- essentially, you don't need a slideshow at the end because the game was the slideshow- but I think that interpretation is strained and they should have realized it was strained.

I put less than 50% chance that they're going to make DLC that radically redoes the ending. I think it's more likely that you get more missions and things that you do with people before the end.

Belial: I'm biased, but my revision of the backstory and end at the end of this page is probably worth reading, but most of my other ending spoilers probably aren't.

[Yakk]

Ending:

Spoiler:

In particular, possible better ways.

We built up this entire galactic readiness system. If they had balls, they'd have used it. Play a risk-like game against the Reapers, where there is no possible way you could actually save everyone (logistically).

This would require your galaxy at war map to have more details (ie, where your troops are). You are given decisions during the game saying where you should transfer troops, or direct control, or it automatically determines it (depending on how you set up the game).

Intermingle this with missions (like the N7 ones -- maybe defer the N7 ones until the end of the game).

As worlds fall, you get told about what happens to them. Entire civilizations are snuffed out, even as you save others and bring them online.

This would require adding an optional wargame to the ME3 game.

Spoiler:

Destroying the mass effect relays, and every life form in a system that contains them, would have been an interesting choice. Ideally with some warning, so people could flee on refugee ships.

Ie, an attack that destroys every Reaper in the galaxy, together with every system containing a mass effect relay, would have been pretty brutal to make.

Another better approach would have been to push the decision out of the very end of the game, so it was less crappy.

For a very simple change, change the nightmares to ones where the catalyst is talking to you.

Give you earlier decisions about destroying or controlling Reapers, where a controlled Reaper gives you a huge advantage. Make going with Cerebus or against Cerebus a real choice.

Destroy reapers: most collateral damage. You lose entire civilizations. Ie, Turian ships save Asari homeworld, but then their world is consumed. Etc.
Control reapers: less collateral damage.
++ Anti-Cerebus: You sacrifice your allies to do this. Some fragment of them lives on in the Reaper, which then fights for your side. You are given choices to save humans, or aliens.
++ Pro-Cerebus: Other races turn against you, as you are part of a human supremist force. If you save aliens instead of humans, Cerebus turns against you.
Pro-Cerebus, merge with reapers: You, personally, start merging with Reaper technology. And you start exercising control. You go mad.

You'll note that this is a 2-pronged choice, which each prong having two sub-prongs.

Over the course of the game, you do build the Crucible, and are searching for the Catalyst. When you find out it is the Citadel, you can choose to evacuate the station or not (buying time to evacuate the station has costs). Once you do so, the choice you have made over the game determine what the completed Crucible is used for. A final chance to betray the side you are on is offered. But doing so has even more additional costs (ie, to betray Cerebus at the last moment, you might have to sacrifice Earth, etc).

How much time you have to hook up the Crucible to the Catalyst depends on your readiness, and hence how much time you have to debug problems. For most cases, a method that involves killing yourself is easier. For control/merge, becoming a reaper makes it easier. In most cases, letting the reapers flee makes it easier. Destroying every relay makes it easier, as does having that destruction be fatal to all life forms in the system. Warning races to flee systems with mass effect relays makes it harder.

As you approach the end of the game, you are given choices, and told that they will take up valuable time/give the reapers knowledge/risk everything. If you make such costly choices early on, you lose the ability to make such choices later on. If you fail to amass enough force, you also lose the ability to make meaningful choices.

There is a estimated reaper threat level on the galaxy at war map. Every time you make a choice that gives the reapers time or information, it goes up. This, to me, is better than treating them as a constant... Your force is measured as a percentage of the reaper force (generally, it is around 1% to 10%).

[Belial]

Also, this is a great read about the ending:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4 ... 1&sle=true

Sold.

[Vaniver]

Yakk:

Spoiler:

I do think it would have been nice to have you spend war assets at the end- choosing what's allocated where, and the amount you lose depends on the amount you have.

Even if you don't go the strategy game route, you could have a number of fights along the final path, where you have a ton of bot allies and a ton of bot enemies- if you don't have enough assets, you might die (and get a "Earth Destroyed" ending), or Shepard and friends will be the only ones left standing, entire units wiped out around her (which has happened before, for at least one of the origin stories). With too few assets, you essentially lose bit by bit until there's nothing left; with lots of assets, you can stream through with low losses, though before/after fights there are units that you can devote to suicide missions that'll make the fights easier / possible.

[Dark567]

Yakk:

Spoiler:

I do think it would have been nice to have you spend war assets at the end- choosing what's allocated where, and the amount you lose depends on the amount you have.

Even if you don't go the strategy game route, you could have a number of fights along the final path, where you have a ton of bot allies and a ton of bot enemies- if you don't have enough assets, you might die (and get a "Earth Destroyed" ending), or Shepard and friends will be the only ones left standing, entire units wiped out around her (which has happened before, for at least one of the origin stories). With too few assets, you essentially lose bit by bit until there's nothing left; with lots of assets, you can stream through with low losses, though before/after fights there are units that you can devote to suicide missions that'll make the fights easier / possible.

About the war assets :

Spoiler:

I have to imagine they had something more along those lines planned. They had the galaxy map with different sectors displaying different readiness ratings, one assumes that they had some plan for it, but scrapped it due to time.

[ArgonV]

About the war assets :

Spoiler:

I have to imagine they had something more along those lines planned. They had the galaxy map with different sectors displaying different readiness ratings, one assumes that they had some plan for it, but scrapped it due to time.

I doubt it. If you play random, readiness increases for all sectors, if you play fixed map, readiness only increases for that sector. For me anyway.

[SlyReaper]

Except even when I specify a map I want to play, I usually end up playing some random map that isn't the one I specified.

[Dark567]

About the war assets :

Spoiler:

I have to imagine they had something more along those lines planned. They had the galaxy map with different sectors displaying different readiness ratings, one assumes that they had some plan for it, but scrapped it due to time.

I doubt it. If you play random, readiness increases for all sectors, if you play fixed map, readiness only increases for that sector. For me anyway.

Well, sure but it doesn't mean anything. Why would you prioritize certain sectors over others, when they don't have any effect? It seems like to me they had some other intention with it.

[SlyReaper]

When I first saw the segmented galaxy map, with reaper symbols over some nodes, I was expecting there to be some sort of RTS mini-game where you could spend military strength points to reclaim a sector from the reapers or something. That was probably never the intention, but it does look like an artefact from an unfinished feature.

[Ghostbear]

Regarding war assets:

Spoiler:

I was expectant that during the London sequences that my war assets were actually determining what was happening. Like when you're told that 50% of Hammer was destroyed, or that the tanks were being torn apart or whatever. I thought "Hey, maybe if I had had a higher readiness, more of hammer would be intact and the mission would work our differently". I don't get why the war assets never truly played a part in the game.

[Belial]

Spoiler:

All they affected was the options the catalyst gave you. Which, incidentally, makes no sense.

[Ghostbear]

Spoiler:

All they affected was the options the catalyst gave you. Which, incidentally, makes no sense.

Spoiler:

I know, I guess I stated that poorly. I was showing an example of where it initially seemed so obvious that they were going to play a part, but then.. didn't. I was truly disappointed when I realized just how unimportant they were. You spend the whole game accumulating this resource, then realize it doesn't matter in the least.

As much criticism as I have for ME2, you can look at how the ending sequences play out so very differently. You accumulate your resources (upgrades, crew members, crew member focus), and those resources play a very direct role in how it plays out. The basic ending is still the same, but you can get a much "happier" ending by doing everything perfectly. With ME3, none of those resources or anything matter. It's strange that they were both created by the same developer.

[Dauric]

EA has a reputation for putting a lot of external control on their subcontractors, threatening to cut funds if the subcontractor refuses, shit like that.

This talk of artifacts of a sort of RTS game in the galaxy map makes me wonder if EA told Bioware they had to include some sort of multiplayer, and the RTS aspects got cut.

I mean, no other ME game has multiplayer. The first one was done under Microsoft, the second one was done under EA, and on te second one you get some critical mass of players posting to boards being watched by EA marketing research pollsters saying "Man, it would be so much cooler if it had Multiplayer", then EA takes this information to the marketing guys (which marketing is really all EA does these days) and the marketing team says " Yes, Absolutely, Massive Affect 3* Has to have multiplayer. It's a shooter game, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare is a shooter game, it has multiplayer and it was the biggest seller of 2011, Massive Affect 3 must have multiplayer or it won't make us any** money!"

*Yes, I did that intentionally. EA frequently doesn't actually understand properties that don't conform exactly to a critical mass of previously released games.
** read: "enough"


And then EA takes that marketing garbage to Bioware and tells Bioware to include a multiplayer game, or else the marketing guys predict it won't make it's budget targets and EA will have to reduce the budget because the projections won't cover the costs with 'acceptable' profit margins. Meanwhile Bioware has the beginnings of an RTS that shows the larger scope of things (because that actually would have been appropriate for ME3), but now they have to redirect funds to engineer a multiplayer game, server connections, lag handling, account stats and security...

[skeptical scientist]

This talk of artifacts of a sort of RTS game in the galaxy map makes me wonder if EA told Bioware they had to include some sort of multiplayer, and the RTS aspects got cut.

Except that multiplayer doesn't feel like an afterthought. It is integrated well with the single player, the way each N7 mission introduces a multiplayer map. (Not the galactic readiness thing, that was just a lame gimmick.) The multiplayer characters feel fairly polished, and are a lot of fun to play, even using skills that don't exist in SP and are designed solely for MP. If an RTS game was cut, my guess is the reason was not because multiplayer was added. It feels like the multiplayer was planned from early on.

Personally, when I saw the galaxy map, readiness ratings, and effective military strength, I was expecting some sort of strategy minigame, and expected it to suck (like the planet scanning minigame). I was glad when there wasn't one.

[SurgicalSteel]

IIRC there was an article in Game Informer way back when ME3 was first announced, and BioWare mentioned they wanted to have a solid multiplayer game in there. I think they even mentioned that there was talk of multiplayer in ME2, but it came up so late in development they scrapped it because they didn't want it to seem like an afterthought (which it would have been for ME2) and decided to save it for ME3.

[Gelsamel]

It makes sense for at least the last game in the trilogy to be multiplayer, from an economic and efficiency point of view.

[Chen]

Been playing my renegade playthrough now and some thoughts

Spoiler:

Its interesting to see that some decisions from previous games that I THOUGHT were the correct ones were in fact not.

Quarians and Geth: If you re-write the heretics, you need to succeed at all the Rannoch missions and have helped Tali/Legion resolve their differences to get the best result (ending the war). If you kill the heretics you need less to make the success possible. Re-writing the heretics adds 150 assets to the Geth fleet but subtracts 50 assets from each of the 3 quarian fleets. Destroying them does the opposite, so there's no difference in war assets it seems. So here it seems destroying the geth was the "better" solution, which is not what I expected.

Rachni: Here the solution I thought would be best, saving the queen, is in fact the best. If you deal with the "fake" queen she turns on you before you go to the cerberus base and kills off some of your engineer assets. There's no email or exposition of this, just an update to war assets called something like "breeder queen betrayal" or the like.

Genophage: This one is interesting. On my paragon playthrough I had saved Wrex in ME1 and saved the data and ME 2. This resulted in Mordin dying and the genophage being cured. On my renegade one I had killed Wrex in ME 1 and destroyed the data in ME 2. This resulted in me being able to convince Mordin to sabotage the genophage, gaining Salarian support and still gaining Krogan support and managing to get Mordin as an engineer on the Citadel. When I counted it out, it seems this got me more resources than the full paragon method. I read that if Wrex is alive and you try the renegade way you get FUCKED on war assets since he figures it out so you lose him and clan Urdnot assets which is a pretty big blow.

Miranda: I'm not sure what causes it but she died on my renegade playthrough but didn't on my paragon one. All my interactions with her seemed the same (though I chose more renegade options when talking) so this one has me a bit confused.

As for multiplayer I didn't really expect much from it, but its actually a lot of fun. Just been playing on Bronze so far, but its a pretty good challenge. It really seems people don't know much about biotic combos though which means I tend to have to set my own up. Its also annoying that I warp a guy in the middle of a bunch of others and then people kill him instead of letting me blow them all up. Don't have many weapons unlocked so I'm still using the Avenger on my sentinel and my soldier. It works pretty well though so I can't really complain about that. Completing even a bronze mission gets a TON of exp. I mean my level 1 sentinel is level 7 now and I completed one mission and failed another on Wave 10 (arg!!). Are the silver/gold missions just much tougher enemies earlier on, or is it like a difficulty increase where they all do more damage and such too?

[Belial]

Spoiler:

The survival of some of your old ME2 squadmates seems to depend on whether they were loyal in ME2. Grunt, for example, basically always dies in the Rachni den unless he was loyal in ME2, at which point he always survives.