Forum:Mass Effect 3 Wishlist: What Do You Want to See?

Mass Effect 3 is coming, and I'm sure every single person who has played the past two games is just waiting in anticipation. But I'm sure everyone had some problems with ME1 and ME2, and some hated the new things they incorporated into the second game, while others loved it. So my question to the community is this: If you were lead project designer, what would YOU put in ME3. What would YOU change? What would YOU keep? I'm talking gameplay elements, overall design, and whatever else you can think of that would make the final game the Mass Effect 3 of your dreams. NO STORYLINE ELEMENTS OR PLOT TWISTS though, since I'm sure each of us has their own opinion of how the ME story should play out, and any real fan of the ME series would probably have different characters who made different choices in order to see what happens anyway.

My personal wishlist is as follows:

1. UNLIMITED AND BETTER SAVES - For Christ's sake, let's not make the PC version a console port. I've got the disk space, lemme use it, Bioware. In that light, I would have also liked a save system which allowed me to change the NAME of a saved game, since half of my saves look like "Save (insert # here) - SR-2 Normandy".

2. BRING BACK UNLIMITED AMMUNITION - The thermal clip issue has been a long debate since the second game came out. I just thought the original system of overheating rather than an ammo system made Mass Effect unique. I've explained why I liked the system and why I don't like the new one on the forums, and I've even offered a sort of middle ground solution (adopting the overheating system like in ME1, but if the weapon overheats, it stays unusable until you insert a thermal clip - which would still stay true to the original ME1 system but also force you to think before simply firing like a crazed maniac). Nevertheless, some people will defend the ammo system with their own reasons, and I respect that. Like I said, this is a wishlist, and this one just happens to be mine.

3. SKIP CUTSCENES - Every Mass Effect cutscene is done beautifully. Art direction, voice acting, graphics and sound. That doesn't mean it a long cutscene should hijack my game and force me to watch it EVERY SINGLE TIME. Sometimes, you just need to kill something, right then and there, and you don't want to have to watch something you know by heart to get to it.

4. SKIP DIALOGUE - I don't have as much of an issue with the dialogue wheel choices not matching exactly what Shepard says (though it wouldn't hurt to have what he actually says and what the wheel says be a little closer to each other), but for the love of god, let us skip whatever dialogue we know inside and out without the risk of accidentally choosing a Paragon/Renegade choice. ME2 improved on this problem. In ME1 skipping ahead using SPACEBAR almost ensured you selected a choice from the wheel accidentally. ME2 reduced the problem by introducing a delay before the wheel came out, so you could skip ahead sooner without accidentally choosing, but the problem was still there nonetheless.

5. IMPROVED VEHICLE MECHANICS - The Mako handled like a beached whale, but was a tank that delivered a heavy punch. The Hammerhead felt like it was of tissue paper, but was extremely quick and nimble, but it lacked decent firepower and was incredibly inaccurate. Despite the fact that it fired homing missiles, it couldn't target airborne targets effectively. Overall, I liked the combat in the Mako better. The Hammerhead gets props only because handling it was a breeze (compared to the Mako, anyway). If I had a choice, put the armor and weapons of the Mako (along with its targeting) on the Hammerhead, and keep the Hammerhead's speed and maneuverability. Why? Because the Hammerhead forced you to fight a certain way---fire a few shots, move out of the way, fire a few shots, move out of the way, rinse and repeat. In the Mako, you could actually stand and bang, or adopt a similar hit-and-run tactic.

6. MINING/ECONOMY - Truth be told, I didn't mind the mining element of ME2. It was certainly a vast improvement over the UNC Collection missions in ME. But the way the economy was in ME2 (vanilla, sans DLC) it was difficult to collect necessary resources (including CREDITS) until nearing game's end. Would be nice to see a game where we can afford all the upgrades we want (not that it should be easy, but at least more easily attainable) without having to scrounge for it.

7. ARMOR/WEAPON UPGRADES/CUSTOMIZATION - One of my gripes about ME2 was the fact that Bioware decided to make ammunition types powers rather than actual ammunition types. An enjoyable aspect of ME1 was the ability to choose upgrades for armor and weapons at the drop of a hat. Going through an army of geth? Tungsten rounds. Husks? Antipersonnel. Trying to deal with asari commandos? Go for biotic defense. Shields weak? Slam in an upgrade. In ME2, the armor customization is quite nice to look at, but it would have been nice to include a few upgrades in there that allowed us to choose the kind of protection we want without having to change the look. As for weapons, who can forget the Scram Rail + Snowblind rounds. I can understand how Bioware wanted a more free-flowing game by removing these options and incorporating them as powers (as doing so removed the need to pause, go into your inventory, select your weapon, select upgrades, then do the same for your teammates, thus giving you more time to be in the heat of battle), but at least some weapon customization would be nice.

8. RANDOM MISSIONS - It would have been nice if we could play a few randomized missions, just for a nice change of pace. I know that seems awfully cliche, but it would be a welcome distraction if we could just plop down on a random planet, kill a bunch of pirates/mercenaries/geth or whatever, then rescue a hostage/blow up a building/retrieve critical data, etc. And if you're the type who doesn't want to do those sorts of things, then you could simply ignore them.

9. ZOMBIE WALK - Please bring back the original walk animation of Shepard. The ME2 walk animation looks exactly like what I said---zombie walk. Either that or it looks like Shepard was anally probed by a very long---well, I'll leave it to you to finish that sentence.

10. TALI'S FACE - Yes, I know I said I wouldn't include any story elements. In my defense, it's not really a story element--more like a personal demand. Every fan of hers wants to see what's under the helmet. If Bioware doesn't show it I will be royally PO'd.

That's about it for me. I'll add more I guess if I think of anything else. What about you guys out there? Whaddya think? 112.201.229.125 06:11, January 30, 2011 (UTC)