Mass Effect: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:41, 9 December 2022

General Advice

Check the options before starting the game, there are some useful settings such as allowing your allies to automatically use all their abilities as opposed to only defensive ones.

Save often as game-stopping bugs are not super uncommon. The Quicksave function on the PC version is very useful, but be mindful that trying to Quicksave while sprinting can cause the game to crash.

You find more loot than you'll know what to do with, so the only things really worth buying from stores are permanent Grenade/Medi-gel upgrades, better armor, and the powerful Spectre gear which first becomes available once you have 1 million credits on your person. Sell or make omnigel out of your extra items regularly to avoid getting completely swamped in junk.

Talk to your squadmates on the Normandy regularly for their personal quests, character development and potential romances.

Between the three main destinations you have available after leaving the Citadel, it's generally recommended to head for Liara's Dig Site first to unlock your last party member.

Generic explorable planets usually have more things to be found than your map lets on, though most are just collectable minerals. Exploring planets can get monotonous (and frustrating in the case of particularly mountainous ones) so don't feel obligated to comb through everything. Even if you're the completionist type, looking up maps will save a great deal of time.

Some planetary systems on the Galaxy Map have visible asteroid belts in them which sometimes contain one or two scannable asteroids, detectable by their glinting or by hovering over them.

Make sure to at least do Wrex's family armor sidequest. It'll help later.

Character Creation & Abilities

Any class can beat the game quite easily. Adepts have the most powerful abilities, Soldiers have the best weapon variety, Infiltrators are very flexible snipers, and Vanguards have a strong mix of both close-range firepower and biotic skill. Sentinels and Engineers lean more on the support side of things, somewhat less effective in direct combat but still perfectly viable.

You can switch classes between games when importing a character, so you won't be locked to your choice for the entire trilogy.

Both Electronics and Decryption are used to unlock objects, so you'll generally want to have each on someone in your party.

The Medi-Gel healing bonus provided by the First Aid skill is cumulative between all your party members who have points in it.

Higher Paragon or Renegade scores unlock more Charm or Intimidate skills respectively, meaning you'll want to focus on one or the other if you want to have access to as many dialogue choices as possible.

Aim for the various milestones when allocating Talent points, such as new skill unlocks and higher ranks of your abilities. The first point in each talent tends to give a fairly potent boost as well.

Once you reach level 20 and travel to any star system, you'll unlock an assignment in the Local Cluster called "UNC: Rogue VI". Completing this assignment unlocks a Specialization which provides unique bonuses for your chosen class.

Combat

Biotic abilities are very strong in ME1. Even the toughest of fights are often easily cleared with good use of Singularity, Lift and Throw.

Your allies are not very smart in combat, especially when it comes to line of sight, but they can generally handle themselves and micromanaging them is rarely necessary. Just make sure to use everyone's abilities if they're needed and not on cooldown.

If you're not sure which ammo to use, Anti-Personnel/Shredder Rounds and Armor Piercing/Tungsten rounds which deal extra damage to organics and synthetics respectively are always very effective. Mind that they stop dropping at high levels so don't sell your VII versions. Incendiary/Inferno Rounds are never a bad choice either as they provide steady damage and also disable health regeneration.

Enemies killed while driving the Mako vehicle yield 50% of their normal experience points. If you want to game the system a bit, it's possible to first weaken powerful enemies like Thresher Maws with the Mako and finish them off on foot.

Speaking of Thresher Maws, the best way to deal with one is to try and get into medium range where it won't either instagib you in melee nor submerge since you're too far away. Then just drive back and fort avoiding the slow acid spits while firing at it. If it does submerge, hold still to avoid being rammed when it resurfaces.

Achievements

Certain achievements award permanent bonuses for all created characters. For example killing 150 enemies with a given weapon type allows new characters to start with skill in that weapon, even if their class couldn't normally train in it.

The "Ally" achievements require completing 45-50 Assignments (sidequests) with each given party member. Many of these are available very early in the Citadel, so if you're an achievement hunter you'll want to make sure not to do too many of them without the appropriate people in your party.

All achievements like "use skill X 75 times" or "kill 150 enemies with X weapon" have to be done by Shepard.

The achievements that require finishing the game on Hardcore and Insanity allow you to change difficulty freely up until the end of Eden Prime.

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-- Get Rich quick. No, really, get the "Rich" achievement as soon as possible, don't save anything as far as gear or drops, just sell it all, and sell it all to the doctor on the Citadel for max profit. There are exploits for infinite money, you don't have to use them, but the game is criminally easy as soon as you can get your hands on Spectre gear.
+==General Advice==
-- Dont worry about getting the Rich achievement, it will come with time. AS you level up, the equipment that enemies carry gets better and you can sell it and be swimming with money. Just keep playing. Besides, that stuff makes the game really easier.
+* Check the options before starting the game, there are some useful settings such as allowing your allies to automatically use all their abilities as opposed to only defensive ones.
-- As well, Wrex and Garrus are generally thought to have the best shore party dialogue lines.
+* Save often as game-stopping bugs are not super uncommon. The Quicksave function on the PC version is very useful, but be mindful that '''trying to Quicksave while sprinting can cause the game to crash'''.
-- Getting ally achievements gets you good stuff. Get your people early and keep them. Use a guide for Asari ally.
+* You find more loot than you'll know what to do with, so the only things really worth buying from stores are permanent Grenade/Medi-gel upgrades, better armor, and the powerful Spectre gear which first becomes available once you have 1 million credits on your person. Sell or make omnigel out of your extra items regularly to avoid getting completely swamped in junk.
-- Complete Wrex's armor quest before going to Virmire. You will not regret it.
+* Talk to your squadmates on the Normandy regularly for their personal quests, character development and potential romances.
-- Always keeping your Charm/Intimidate at its max is a good idea. Using Charm/Intimidate is the best way to get Paragon/Renegade points (opening up more ranks). However, if you're going to playthrough with a character a second time, don't waste the skillpoints, as you get Charm/Intimidate just by becoming more Paragon/Renegade.
+* Between the three main destinations you have available after leaving the Citadel, it's generally recommended to head for Liara's Dig Site first to unlock your last party member.
-- If you plan on playing a non-combat character, first create a soldier, equip him with an assault rifle, and get the Assault Rifle achievement as quickly as possible. Then give your non-combat person the Assault Rifle ability. It's far better than a pistol.
+* Generic explorable planets usually have more things to be found than your map lets on, though most are just collectable minerals. Exploring planets can get monotonous (and frustrating in the case of particularly mountainous ones) so don't feel obligated to comb through everything. Even if you're the completionist type, looking up maps will save a great deal of time.
-- The pistol is a fucking stellar weapon. Using marksman you can fire almost as rapidly as an Assault rifle with none of the spread and, if it's maxed with achievements and upgrades to your character you can use it constantly.
+* Some planetary systems on the Galaxy Map have visible asteroid belts in them which sometimes contain one or two scannable asteroids, detectable by their glinting or by hovering over them.
-- You need to have a biotic on your team. Life, and other disabling abilities, can save your team and turn long fights into 20 second excusions by using it right in the beginning of a fight before any enemies can do anything.
+* Make sure to at least do Wrex's family armor sidequest. It'll help later.
-- If you plan on playing through your game multiple times, say three or more times, then don't invest any points in either Persuade or Intimidate. You can gain up to 4 points in each skill per playthrough, reaching the max 12 on your third time through.
+==Character Creation & Abilities==
-- All classes are not created equal. The hardest difficulty is a joke as a soldier, but you will have to work hard for it if you play something like a pure engineer.
+* Any class can beat the game quite easily. Adepts have the most powerful abilities, Soldiers have the best weapon variety, Infiltrators are very flexible snipers, and Vanguards have a strong mix of both close-range firepower and biotic skill. Sentinels and Engineers lean more on the support side of things, somewhat less effective in direct combat but still perfectly viable.
-- Same goes for your party members, though I guess it makes sense that a hardened mercenary like Wrex would be more skilled than most of your crew. They don't all work with the same class structure as PCs either. Wrex is a "Krogan Battlemaster" and Liara is an "Asari Scientist" (or something like that) which allows them different bonuses / skill combinations.
+* You can switch classes between games when importing a character, so you won't be locked to your choice for the entire trilogy.
-- The ally achievements are weird. The hardest one to get will be Liara's since you get her last (don't do any citadel side quests before leaving) but the other characters seemingly have uneven requirements and you may not get them at the times you'd expect.
+* Both Electronics and Decryption are used to unlock objects, so you'll generally want to have each on someone in your party.
-- When you first set off in your ship to tackle some planets, do them in this order. Dig Site, Feros and Noveria. The reason is Noveria is ridiculously difficult if you leap into it right away, especially the final boss who will massacre you if you didn't grind beforehand. Completing Dig Site and Feros first will level you up enough to tackle Noveria easy. Keep in mind once you play a planet to a certain point, you cannot leave until you complete the planet.
+* The Medi-Gel healing bonus provided by the First Aid skill is cumulative between all your party members who have points in it.
-- Grind some sidequests in between those planets, by the way. Even if you do some medium-level grinding, that's enough XP for you to plow over the rest of the game. I completed a handful of side-quests on my play-through and I really just steamrolled over the rest of the bosses in the game. Mass Effect is kinda easy like that.
+* Higher Paragon or Renegade scores unlock more Charm or Intimidate skills respectively, meaning you'll want to focus on one or the other if you want to have access to as many dialogue choices as possible.
-- Its your choice whether you go paragon, renegage, or a mixture of both. It doesn't matter which way you go and the game is made for that. You do get charm or intimidate points based off of how many paragon and renegade points you have though. Also, I would keep a adept in your party. You get one soon enough. Also, you should keep someone in your party that can either decrypt or knows electronics so you can open stuff.
+* Aim for the various milestones when allocating Talent points, such as new skill unlocks and higher ranks of your abilities. The first point in each talent tends to give a fairly potent boost as well.
-- Be a Soldier or Vanguard. Soldiers can become invincible with the armor-buffing abilities they are given. Vanguards, in combination with Liara, create a paradox enemies cannot solve called the infinite-lift. This paradox is created by your character using lift on the enemies, shooting them while in the air, and then as soon as they drop having Liara cast lift. This cycle can, and will, go on indefinitely.
+* Once you reach level 20 and travel to any star system, you'll unlock an assignment in the Local Cluster called "UNC: Rogue VI". Completing this assignment unlocks a Specialization which provides unique bonuses for your chosen class.
-- Max Wrex's melee damage and 'invincibility' skill. Kill.
+== Combat ==
-- The achievements that aren't story progression give you awesome in-game bonuses. Make sure to get them. All achievements like "use skill X 75 times" or "kill 150 enemies with X weapon" have to be done by Shepard. The "ally" achievements will require you to use the desired party members for almost the whole game; don't do any side quests ("assignments") until you have the two you want. Then keep them both in your active group at all times.
+* Biotic abilities are very strong in ME1. Even the toughest of fights are often easily cleared with good use of Singularity, Lift and Throw.
-- 99% of the things you can buy in stores are useless. You get so many items just by exploring that you will never need to buy normal things. The exceptions are (1) the permanent upgrades to your healing item and grenade capacity; and (2) "Spectre" class weapons, which you can begin buying once you've amassed one million credits.
+* Your allies are not very smart in combat, especially when it comes to line of sight, but they can generally handle themselves and micromanaging them is rarely necessary. Just make sure to use everyone's abilities if they're needed and not on cooldown.
-- A corollary to the above is that you will always have tons of stuff to sell. Don't be shy pawning off your inventory--you'll get many, many more items to make up for it. Also, selling things helps you reach the one million credit mark more quickly.
+* If you're not sure which ammo to use, Anti-Personnel/Shredder Rounds and Armor Piercing/Tungsten rounds which deal extra damage to organics and synthetics respectively are always very effective. Mind that they stop dropping at high levels so don't sell your VII versions. Incendiary/Inferno Rounds are never a bad choice either as they provide steady damage and also disable health regeneration.
-- The "Spectre" weapons you can buy once you've hit one million credits are the best weapons in the game. Save up for them and then splurge. (They come in two versions, VII and X. Version X weapons are better but won't be available until you're very high level.)
+* Enemies killed while driving the Mako vehicle yield 50% of their normal experience points. If you want to game the system a bit, it's possible to first weaken powerful enemies like Thresher Maws with the Mako and finish them off on foot.
-- The experience and credits you get for doing things scale with your level, so even if you skip side quests for a long time they'll still be worth doing.
+* Speaking of Thresher Maws, the best way to deal with one is to try and get into medium range where it won't either instagib you in melee nor submerge since you're too far away. Then just drive back and fort avoiding the slow acid spits while firing at it. If it does submerge, '''hold still''' to avoid being rammed when it resurfaces.
-- Have targets in mind when you allocate skill points. Your targets should always be ranks that unlock new skills or improve the skill's active ability.
+== Achievements ==
-- When you're on an uncharted planet, there are always more things to be found than your map lets on. Explore areas of the map that are far away from the marked locations--you'll find hidden stuff. This is critical for completing a few annoying item collection sidequests.
+* Certain achievements award permanent bonuses for all created characters. For example killing 150 enemies with a given weapon type allows new characters to start with skill in that weapon, even if their class couldn't normally train in it.
-- Let your allies do whatever they want, they're either generally smart enough to do what you want them to do anyway, or too dumb to not immediately die no matter what you tell them. Use your cooldowns basically whenever they're up, there's no downside to using them other than that you won't be able to use that one for the next 45 seconds or whatever and they make things much easier.
+* The "Ally" achievements require completing 45-50 Assignments (sidequests) with each given party member. Many of these are available very early in the Citadel, so if you're an achievement hunter you'll want to make sure not to do too many of them without the appropriate people in your party.
-- The options menu lets you choose how you want your squad to use their powers. You can tell them to not use anything unless you say so, or to go nuts and use everything they've got. It's usually better to just let them use their powers on their own unless you like crazy micromanagement.
+* All achievements like "use skill X 75 times" or "kill 150 enemies with X weapon" have to be done by Shepard.
-- There's one power, stasis, that squad members won't use unless you tell them to. It's theoretically really useful but since I either forget about it or don't care to micromanage that much it doesn't give me any value.
+* The achievements that require finishing the game on Hardcore and Insanity allow you to change difficulty freely up until the end of Eden Prime.
-- Once you leave the Citadel, you'll be given the choice of three planets to visit. You can do them in any order, but since Noveria is closest you might be tempted to do that one first. Do not do that that is a bad thing to do. The first thing you should do is go to search for Liara T'Soni. After that, it'd probably be better to do Feros. When you do get to Noveria, there's a very awkward section beginning with driving across the cliffs in the Mako, and ending with reaching the tram inside the station. This part is annoying because you won't get any autosaves, so make sure to save whenever you can to avoid having to go all the way back to the beginning.
-- You'll find that the universe essentially "updates" every time you complete one of the main storyline missions. After completing one, you'll have new conversations to have with your squad members on the Normandy, and there'll be a few side quests or happenings on the Citadel. If you want to get the romance subplot for a certain character, you'll need to talk to them after completing each mission. Obviously there are only certain characters you can get involved with (There are no opportunities for Krogan love).
-- If you want to get the achievement for having Liara in your party, don't do any side quests before you pick her up. And never let her leave the party.
-- Most of the achievements that you can get in the game give you bonuses of some kind. The skill use and weapon kill achievements let you take those skills or weapon skills on a later playthrough. The partner achievements give you minor bonuses to your character. The big one is getting the rich achievement. It unlocks a high level weapon manufacturer that will provide some of the best weapons in the game.
-- Pick your partners and keep them with you throughout the entire game. Its best to hold off on any quests at all until you have the members you want.
-- As long as one character in your party has the hacking skill, you can hack devices. So there is no point in spending points on the hacking skill on multiple people.
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Mass Effect: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:41, 9 December 2022

Contents

General Advice

Character Creation & Abilities

Combat

Achievements

Navigation menu