34 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Spoiler

I don't know because I always took him with me in the final fight. His Incinerate is, at least as far as I can tell, probably the best NPC power for eating away Humano-Reaper's armor. If you *do* take him with you in the final fight, he lives (though you'll definitely get a scare!

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Once you know what specialists to send where, you'll know beforehands which team members are going to die and which are going to live, which is annoying.

I believe you're incorrect, it's a fair deal more complicated than that. In fact, I believe a Bioware dev mentioned on the forums that it's possible to get everyone through the suicide mission alive with only 4 loyal party members (and that is the minimum).

Qwinn

[Dark-Mage]

Spoiler

I don't know because I always took him with me in the final fight. His Incinerate is, at least as far as I can tell, probably the best NPC power for eating away Humano-Reaper's armor. If you *do* take him with you in the final fight, he lives (though you'll definitely get a scare!

Qwinn

Spoiler

Ahh yes, I know to what you are refering. I imagine tha thappens every time, with a randomly selected character. Though I wonder if it favours the love interest if they are in the party.

[WeeRLegion]

Once you know what specialists to send where, you'll know beforehands which team members are going to die and which are going to live, which is annoying.

I believe you're incorrect, it's a fair deal more complicated than that. In fact, I believe a Bioware dev mentioned on the forums that it's possible to get everyone through the suicide mission alive with only 4 loyal party members (and that is the minimum).

Qwinn

Hm? Seriously? Interesting.

I haven't read anything about it officially, but my observations thus far do support an 'Loyals live, others die' mechanism, with no exceptions.
Not that 3 play-throughs really would be a proper statistical sample size, but whatever. .p

[vilkacis]

Spoiler

Four people makes sense - you have your tech expert, a squad leader (same person twice), a biotic and an escort. Then take two of the non-escort people to fight the final boss, since apparently party members will die during the escape if they're not loyal. (Someone, as in "not me", should test this.)

Apart from that, the general theory seems to be that each character has a squishiness rating, ranging from "overripe banana" in Mordin's case to "brick shithouse", meaning Grunt. The overall squishiness rating of the group that "holds the line" while the people who actually matter go off to kill the Terminator would affect whether someone dies there or not, typically with the squishiest people being the first to go. This does not seem entirely impossible, since a lot of people do report Mordin dying on them, but it probably has at least some randomness to it.

It has also been speculated that the non-vital character upgrades (read: anything but the Normandy's new sheilds, armour and big honking laser) help the sqishiness rating somewhat; I have no idea, but I know my Mordin did have his upgrade, and lived despite a not very optimal "line".

[WeeRLegion]

@vilkacis
If I understood that correctly, you'd take two non loyal people to the boss fight?

Naa. Doesn't work. I had two non loyals, took them both to the boss fight in the hopes of avoiding random elimination... And they were both killed by falling debris after the boss dropped.

[vilkacis]

@vilkacis
If I understood that correctly, you'd take two non loyal people to the boss fight?

No, the opposite: you take two loyals because they die if not loyal. Out of the four loyal characters you brought, you would still have three (because one goes away to escort the crew back to the ship). Thus, you'd have two out of Legion/Tali (the tech expert), Samara/Jack (biotic) and IIRC Garrus/Miranda/Jacob (squad leader).

[Eleima]

I believe Vilkacis has the right of it, regarding loyalties, and requirements for different tasks. However, I don't see why anyone wouldn't do all of the loyalty missions, if only for the credits and experience, not to mention from a role-playing perspective.
There is one thing that eludes me in your answer, though, Vilkacis, and it's the "Mordin" variable. In my gameplay, there were all loyal, and if I didn't send Mordin to escort everyone back to the Normandy, his high squishiness factor always made him a casualty. Where does that leave him in the "only four loyals" equation? Wouldn't he die?

[Archmage Silver]

Well, as some of you know, I'm the guy who can't finish a game without doing everything there is to do in one run, so it actually took me 64 hours to finish the game on Veteran with an imported Infiltrator (I actually finished DA: Awakening in the middle). Everyone survived the suicide mission - squad members were all loyal, I had ALL the upgrades (I really mean all of them, I told you I use a lot of time on games). On the plus side, I had all 12 squad members with me when I hit the Omega Relay.

Tech Specialist:

Spoiler

I picked Kasumi (yeah, I know, I hadn't finished the game by the time the DLC was released) and she did fine.

Fire-Team Leader:

Spoiler

I picked Miranda, she seemed to be the most appropriate choice. It worked out well in the end.

Survivors:

Spoiler

I picked Mordin to take them back to the Normandy, as otherwise he seemed to have a habit of dying.

Biotic Specialist:

Spoiler

I picked Jack, because I thought Samara would be have a better chance of staying alive if left to hold the ground.

Final Battle Team:

Spoiler

I picked Legion and Jack, as I needed a second sniper with a M-98 Widow Anti-Material Rifle to make up for Jack's lack of firepower. Jack was there purely to stay alive, as I thought Tali had a better chance of staying alive if left behind.

Final Battle:

Spoiler

I used the M-920 Cain and M-98 Widow Anti-Material Rifle (with fully developed Armor Piercing Ammo gained through Advanced Training) to demolish the Reaper shell, and then proceeded to blow up the Collector Base and tell the Illusive Man to get lost. Joker, get rid of this channel. Priceless.

[vilkacis]

It seems we have official info on the squishiness scale now!

Spoiler

From squishiest to un-squishiest:
Mordin, Tali, Kasumi, Jack, Miranda, Jacob, Garrus, Samara (Morinth), Legion, Thane, Zaeed, and Grunt

Most of this was already known, but it's worth noting that Garrus (who is generally said to be one of the best at holding the line) is dead average, and below Samara, Legion and Thane on the list. Thane's position is especially surprising, since I've never heard anyone claim that he's anything special in that scene.

This info was printed in Game Informer as part of a complete endgame guide. Full (large) scans below:

Spoiler

Credit to raptorix for the images.

[Qwinn]

That's a GREAT graphic, thanks vilkacis and raptorix!!

Spoiler

I'm curious about what it says under "The Crew". I've only gone through the full game once so far (and stopped just before the IF mission once), but in that first game, I *know* I went through with everyone loyal, and yes, I got everyone to survive. Legion was also definitely loyal. Doesn't that then count as a "mission completed before opening the Omega 4 relay and traveling through it"? By that graphic, I should've lost half my crew. If I did, it wasn't mentioned other than in seeing a single person (woman, I think) die horribly in a tank when I get there, and it wasn't totally clear to me that she was a member of my crew, but all the *named* crew survive, including the engineers, the cook, the secretary and the doctor. And I wasn't told anything explicit like "half the crew died", or at least I don't remember it, which I think I would.

So, is Legion's Loyalty quest a "freebie" somehow? Or is there an even better ending than the one I got, maybe just subtracting than clip of Human Female (Crewmember?) dying in a tank? Cause what I got looked pretty optimal. If that's the 1-3 ending, that's cool, since I'd prefer to take Legion in loyal, it'll allow me to take Legion -and then- Tali's mission (with Legion) without making things worse for myself.

Actually, ya know what? This makes Kasumi kinda valuable, heh. If you want to get the "0 missions" result, and you want to take Legion to the Migrant Fleet (which I *definitely* do), then you'd want to do both Legion and Tali's loyalty quests after the Final Mission. Before Kasumi, that wasn't possible without one of them dying. So, cool! I think this is what I'll try in my next playthrough, will report if the crew rescue with 0 missions really changes. Or does anyone already know the answer?

Edited by Qwinn, 14 May 2010 - 06:33 AM.

[Qwinn]

Spoiler

I see where my mistake was now... I was confusing the one mission you can do after IFF with "opening the Omega 4 relay". But yeah, after doing that one, I immediately got the whole kidnapping thing and went immediately through the relay, so that's why I got the saved-everybody ending.

Apparently, if you don't go immediately, then you lose "half the crew" including Kelly, don't know if you lose any of the other named crew. Kelly cannot be allowed to die though, simply having red hair and green eyes makes her irreplacable in my book.

[Cal Jones]

Heh, I've managed three runthroughs with no deaths so far. Mordin always gets escort duty - that keeps him out of trouble (as would taking him to the final fight). So long as you leave at least a couple of heavy hitters (eg Grunt and Zaid) to hold the line, the others should all survive.