I think many players would have found him much less annoying if he had not gotten the story-scripted "win" on the Asari homeplanet and instead might have seen him as a "so cringe it's good" character, but sadly he got taken 100% seriously each time, which completely ruined that possibility, especially with that "win" of his.
If he was a companion in Mass Effect 2 and didn't just randomly appear in Mass Effect 3 as the deus ex machina plot device then it would have felt better. He could have taken Jacob's place, because Jacob is useless.
Yeah, I think he might have been a good "alternative" for the player to choose like with Samara and Morinth, and have the one you choose be on your side, and the other being your enemy.
I heard Kai Leng actually stems from books that have been released between ME2 and ME3, but supposedly there was one book where he was a great character and another one where he was a complete shit character.
Yeah, I think he might have been a good "alternative" for the player to choose like with Samara and Morinth, and have the one you choose be on your side, and the other being your enemy.
I heard Kai Leng actually stems from books that have been released between ME2 and ME3, but supposedly there was one book where he was a great character and another one where he was a complete shit character.
>deweebify him >do this [...] >instead of having cerberus be galaxy spanning military put the guy in charge of a small team on board a stealth ship like Shepherd >make cerberus 80% less moronic
now you have a rival that makes sense instead of a cutscene abusing prostitute of a b***h
He was a terribly-written character in a book that got him a lot of face time.
His first interaction with most people (aside from hanging out with martin sheen briefly) is getting dabbed on by a lizard before escaping without much ability to stop him, then your thing. He doesn't really get to exist outside of a bubble of being "that random who? who you literally can't do anything about but a gecko with lung cancer can dab on" until the moment you kill him.
It's especially pronounced on uuuh horizon? The husking concentration camp planet featuring Miranda's fat tats. He literally just exists in video clips to be a vague potential menace that comes to nothing.
In a series that even if you like it which because I'm a degenerate casual I pretty much did he is a villain with almost no character, terrible on-rails buildup, and in what is in theory a culmination of three games: kind of a fricking unnecessary addon because they were too afraid to make you fight martin sheen in a exo-walker (that also smokes) while earth burns.
If he'd been in since 2 or 1 and you'd worked with him on some shady cerberus shit that underlined the more dodgy underbelly of the shiny presentation of Cerberus or christ, if he was private jacobs and brought back in project lazarus' prototype go as a abominable cyborg that would have been better.
I think some people have already suggested a couple of incredibly simple changes that would make Kai Leng not only tolerable but a decent villain >Method 1: Make him more tech-based
We're told that Cerberus operatives are enhanced with reaper tech but all it amounts to is just fricked up looking soldiers beneath the armor. Keep Kai Leng's cringe attitude but make his entire ego justified because he's got way superior reaper tech to use against you. Then he can actually feel like a threat but still be a whiny shit heel to make his come uppance all the greater. This also solves the dumbass paradox of Thane trying to fight him up close and then getting shanked for no fricking reason >Method 2: Don't make him talk at all, replace his model with a Nemesis
The less he talks, the more effective he comes off as, you can actually take him seriously. His cutscene powers come off as less annoying if he isn't constantly gloating about his non-accomplishments
Yes you anons have very good ideas.
The problem is, picrel is the lead writer of Bioware nowadays.
All of the lackluster plot points of ME2 can be attributed to him not finishing the writing properly.
Then in ME3 you can feel his Hollywood blockbuster tier writing since the first line of dialogue is spoken, the reaper invasion was so fricking cliche for a franchise that used cliches to make KINO moments, not to bore you. "God help us all", what a fricking disappointment the dialogue of ME3 is. He doesn't know how to write sci-fi other than shitty cyberpunk plot threads and hollywood goyslop.
He didn't even know what to do with the Thorian and the Rachni, everything for nu-bioware is "AI! AI LE BAD!! GENETIC ENGINEERING!"
Theres no salvation for this franchise, ME4 will be a shitfest thanks to him, the danger hair and the troony writers. I mean, he (along with Casey Hudson) wrote the ending and considered to write Tali out of the story.
Fricking hack.
I have no idea who the lead writer is these days. Didn't the main writers leave Bioware like 3 times already?
I like ME2 in a vacuum and the Suicide Mission is a decent set-piece but I felt that ME2 advanced nothing in the "stop the reapers" plot and let ME3 do the heavy burden of not only finding a way to stop them but also doing the act of stopping them at the same time.
>but I felt that ME2 advanced nothing in the "stop the reapers" plot
You lack imagination. The writers (Walters) did a poor job showing (or telling) how much of a threat a human reaper would be.
Imagine this thing flying above human colonies, indoctrinating everything in his path without even trying thanks to his big pool of human DNA embedded in the reaper code.
Literally god on heart, judgment day (not alien invasion) imagery. A human reaper would break humanity's morale in 1 day, there would be no one to fight it.
The Haerstrom plot was also supposed to go somewhere. The plot points were there left by Karpyshin, Walters just didn't know what to do with them. I know ME had other better writers like Chris L'Etoile, but the heavy plot points always fell on Karpyshin and then Walters when he left, and Walters was clearly worse than Karphyshin, because Walters doesn't know how to imply things, hot to guide you to interpret things without outright telling you.
But wouldn't the Human Reaper be the "core" and the actual outer shell that most people dying to it be the usual space cephalopod in appearance?
2 years ago
Anonymous
We don't know, thats the excuse some fans use, but i just think it was due to item modelling, ME games are from the 7th gen, designing too much different enemies would be a ton of work.
2 years ago
Anonymous
We hear in-game that every reaper has an inner core resembling the races it assimilates though, right? All of their exteriors look like squids or octopi so I'm led to believe they all look different inside but look thematically similar to leviathans outside.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>We don't know, thats the excuse some fans use,
Because it's what the concept art showed
Who gives a shit about the human reaper when theres like fifteen other colony races?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Cut dialogue showed that the Reapers evaluated the other species and generally found them lacking in one way or another. Humans had versatility and adaptability, and managed to destroy Sovereign.
Asari were too fixed in their ways, Quarians were biologically weak, Krogan were dumb, violent and genetically compromised, Taurians were too limited in their thinking abilities (couldn't think outside the box) etc.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Ah, it's the age old "humans are so special".
Gods, how do I hate this era of fantasy/sci-fi where writers can't just have humans to be like every other race or kicking far above their league in anything that isn't intended for more hardcore fans of the genre.
I guess it would make the plebs unable to comprehend the possibility that we might not be the most adaptable, versatile, brightest, sneakiest frickers around.
Western morons bullshit on isekai, wuxia, power fantasies etc., but they consider this kind of story building completely fine. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I actually thought Tuchanka and to a lesser extent Ranoch were done very well and were also awesome in terms of "choices matter", but I think they also had writers different from the main ones.
He should've been the Virmire sacrifice.
If Cerberus revived Shepard after atmospheric reentry, they could've easily revived Kaidan/Ashley after a nuke to the face.
>companion in Mass Effect 2
But then you would have Kai Leng and Thane who fulfill the same character archetype and it just seems redundant to have both
If he was a companion in Mass Effect 2 and didn't just randomly appear in Mass Effect 3 as the deus ex machina plot device then it would have felt better. He could have taken Jacob's place, because Jacob is useless.
>instead of having cerberus be galaxy spanning military put the guy in charge of a small team on board a stealth ship like Shepherd >make cerberus 80% less moronic
now you have a rival that makes sense instead of a cutscene abusing prostitute of a b***h
He was a terribly-written character in a book that got him a lot of face time.
His first interaction with most people (aside from hanging out with martin sheen briefly) is getting dabbed on by a lizard before escaping without much ability to stop him, then your thing. He doesn't really get to exist outside of a bubble of being "that random who? who you literally can't do anything about but a gecko with lung cancer can dab on" until the moment you kill him.
It's especially pronounced on uuuh horizon? The husking concentration camp planet featuring Miranda's fat tats. He literally just exists in video clips to be a vague potential menace that comes to nothing.
In a series that even if you like it which because I'm a degenerate casual I pretty much did he is a villain with almost no character, terrible on-rails buildup, and in what is in theory a culmination of three games: kind of a fricking unnecessary addon because they were too afraid to make you fight martin sheen in a exo-walker (that also smokes) while earth burns.
If he'd been in since 2 or 1 and you'd worked with him on some shady cerberus shit that underlined the more dodgy underbelly of the shiny presentation of Cerberus or christ, if he was private jacobs and brought back in project lazarus' prototype go as a abominable cyborg that would have been better.
Eh, yet he fails the moment you just tell Miranda "listen there's this dude Kai Leng around, watch your step", meaning he can only succeed with a surprise attacking while having the information advantage.
He also almost jobbed to an assassin that was in his final days dying from space cancer.
yeah because miranda is suppose to be a badass and kai leng is probably only about as strong as your average squaddie which is good but he isn't the best, he needs a spaceship constantly shooting at you on thessia to stand a chance and the final fight he calls a bunch of goons to help him
I've seen a few swat jackets with a 4-pocket setup on the front breast. Which almost makes sense for a CQB guy likely to shoot more than one butthole at a time.
I think some people have already suggested a couple of incredibly simple changes that would make Kai Leng not only tolerable but a decent villain >Method 1: Make him more tech-based
We're told that Cerberus operatives are enhanced with reaper tech but all it amounts to is just fricked up looking soldiers beneath the armor. Keep Kai Leng's cringe attitude but make his entire ego justified because he's got way superior reaper tech to use against you. Then he can actually feel like a threat but still be a whiny shit heel to make his come uppance all the greater. This also solves the dumbass paradox of Thane trying to fight him up close and then getting shanked for no fricking reason >Method 2: Don't make him talk at all, replace his model with a Nemesis
The less he talks, the more effective he comes off as, you can actually take him seriously. His cutscene powers come off as less annoying if he isn't constantly gloating about his non-accomplishments
>This also solves the dumbass paradox of Thane trying to fight him up close and then getting shanked for no fricking reason
Why would this justify Thane's shitty fighting techniques?
That fight will always be moronic, i always thought the fight was bad because it was made in-engine so there was limitations compared to his introduction in ME2, but i replayed his recruitment mission last week and his fight was also in-engine there.
His fight in ME3 is so idiotic,
taking 10 seconds to fire his gun at point blank range, hitting Kleng with a biotic discharge to send him flying across the room instead of just shooting him in the face, trying to punch a guy whos carrying a sword, etc.
This is just mediocre writing and i don't know how Kaileng being enhanced with reaper tech would've helped make it less moronic. Maybe if he was shown to have superspeed or being able to withstand fatal wounds to the head and keep fighting, but i don't know, that would make him too powerful and his fight with Shepard would've have to jump the shark even more.
>This is just mediocre writing and i don't know how Kaileng being enhanced with reaper tech would've helped make it less moronic.
Let's say getting in close is the ONLY way to make his hypothetical "reaper shields" less effective so you're forced into close combat scenarios to actually get any good hits on him. Make small arms slugs from firearms trivial for him to shrug off while something like a gut punch actually sell on him.
His armor already looks more like a trench coat than armor so that reasoning is already there.
>This also solves the dumbass paradox of Thane trying to fight him up close and then getting shanked for no fricking reason
Why would this justify Thane's shitty fighting techniques?
That fight will always be moronic, i always thought the fight was bad because it was made in-engine so there was limitations compared to his introduction in ME2, but i replayed his recruitment mission last week and his fight was also in-engine there.
His fight in ME3 is so idiotic,
taking 10 seconds to fire his gun at point blank range, hitting Kleng with a biotic discharge to send him flying across the room instead of just shooting him in the face, trying to punch a guy whos carrying a sword, etc.
This is just mediocre writing and i don't know how Kaileng being enhanced with reaper tech would've helped make it less moronic. Maybe if he was shown to have superspeed or being able to withstand fatal wounds to the head and keep fighting, but i don't know, that would make him too powerful and his fight with Shepard would've have to jump the shark even more.
Thane was greatly weakened due to dying from space cancer.
Which makes him even stupider for CLOSING THE DISTANCE against a guy with a sword when he just created said distance with biotics and had a gun on him.
Anon, he pointed the gun and waited like half an hour to shoot Kleng's head at point blank, thats not an excuse by Space Cancer.
Also, Shepard and co did nothing to help.
"They could've shot thane"
Nah, ME weapons have insane accuracy + shep team is full of trained soldiers/mercs, thats not an excuse either.
The fight was moronic because the writers were moronic and wanted a cool flashy fight, nothing to do with Thane dying.
Hell, him dying means he should have wanted to end the fight as soon as possible, not extend it with unnecessary movements.
Yeah I don't deny the choreography was shit. I was just saying that Thane losing to Kai Leng in itself was reasonable enough if it was animated better, even if it was just Thane suddenly spitting out blood, when he is about to shoot KL, due to stressing his lung too much and being killed at that moment.
Anon, he pointed the gun and waited like half an hour to shoot Kleng's head at point blank, thats not an excuse by Space Cancer.
Also, Shepard and co did nothing to help.
"They could've shot thane"
Nah, ME weapons have insane accuracy + shep team is full of trained soldiers/mercs, thats not an excuse either.
The fight was moronic because the writers were moronic and wanted a cool flashy fight, nothing to do with Thane dying.
Hell, him dying means he should have wanted to end the fight as soon as possible, not extend it with unnecessary movements.
>You're slower than I imagined, Shepard. >Your friend Thane died like a coward!
BioWare definitely wanted him to be a giant shitlord, and when TIM was giving him the business for being defeated by Shep after Priority: Citadel they had him act like a bruised-ego child
just give us bruce, murray you hack
I think many players would have found him much less annoying if he had not gotten the story-scripted "win" on the Asari homeplanet and instead might have seen him as a "so cringe it's good" character, but sadly he got taken 100% seriously each time, which completely ruined that possibility, especially with that "win" of his.
If he was a companion in Mass Effect 2 and didn't just randomly appear in Mass Effect 3 as the deus ex machina plot device then it would have felt better. He could have taken Jacob's place, because Jacob is useless.
Yeah, I think he might have been a good "alternative" for the player to choose like with Samara and Morinth, and have the one you choose be on your side, and the other being your enemy.
I heard Kai Leng actually stems from books that have been released between ME2 and ME3, but supposedly there was one book where he was a great character and another one where he was a complete shit character.
Man imagine that... one of the main mass effect 2 compaions becoming a villian. would have been neat
Yes you anons have very good ideas.
The problem is, picrel is the lead writer of Bioware nowadays.
All of the lackluster plot points of ME2 can be attributed to him not finishing the writing properly.
Then in ME3 you can feel his Hollywood blockbuster tier writing since the first line of dialogue is spoken, the reaper invasion was so fricking cliche for a franchise that used cliches to make KINO moments, not to bore you. "God help us all", what a fricking disappointment the dialogue of ME3 is. He doesn't know how to write sci-fi other than shitty cyberpunk plot threads and hollywood goyslop.
He didn't even know what to do with the Thorian and the Rachni, everything for nu-bioware is "AI! AI LE BAD!! GENETIC ENGINEERING!"
Theres no salvation for this franchise, ME4 will be a shitfest thanks to him, the danger hair and the troony writers. I mean, he (along with Casey Hudson) wrote the ending and considered to write Tali out of the story.
Fricking hack.
I have no idea who the lead writer is these days. Didn't the main writers leave Bioware like 3 times already?
I like ME2 in a vacuum and the Suicide Mission is a decent set-piece but I felt that ME2 advanced nothing in the "stop the reapers" plot and let ME3 do the heavy burden of not only finding a way to stop them but also doing the act of stopping them at the same time.
>but I felt that ME2 advanced nothing in the "stop the reapers" plot
You lack imagination. The writers (Walters) did a poor job showing (or telling) how much of a threat a human reaper would be.
Imagine this thing flying above human colonies, indoctrinating everything in his path without even trying thanks to his big pool of human DNA embedded in the reaper code.
Literally god on heart, judgment day (not alien invasion) imagery. A human reaper would break humanity's morale in 1 day, there would be no one to fight it.
The Haerstrom plot was also supposed to go somewhere. The plot points were there left by Karpyshin, Walters just didn't know what to do with them. I know ME had other better writers like Chris L'Etoile, but the heavy plot points always fell on Karpyshin and then Walters when he left, and Walters was clearly worse than Karphyshin, because Walters doesn't know how to imply things, hot to guide you to interpret things without outright telling you.
But wouldn't the Human Reaper be the "core" and the actual outer shell that most people dying to it be the usual space cephalopod in appearance?
We don't know, thats the excuse some fans use, but i just think it was due to item modelling, ME games are from the 7th gen, designing too much different enemies would be a ton of work.
We hear in-game that every reaper has an inner core resembling the races it assimilates though, right? All of their exteriors look like squids or octopi so I'm led to believe they all look different inside but look thematically similar to leviathans outside.
>We don't know, thats the excuse some fans use,
Because it's what the concept art showed
>Literally god on heart
Literally god on earth**
Who gives a shit about the human reaper when theres like fifteen other colony races?
Cut dialogue showed that the Reapers evaluated the other species and generally found them lacking in one way or another. Humans had versatility and adaptability, and managed to destroy Sovereign.
Asari were too fixed in their ways, Quarians were biologically weak, Krogan were dumb, violent and genetically compromised, Taurians were too limited in their thinking abilities (couldn't think outside the box) etc.
Ah, it's the age old "humans are so special".
Gods, how do I hate this era of fantasy/sci-fi where writers can't just have humans to be like every other race or kicking far above their league in anything that isn't intended for more hardcore fans of the genre.
I guess it would make the plebs unable to comprehend the possibility that we might not be the most adaptable, versatile, brightest, sneakiest frickers around.
Western morons bullshit on isekai, wuxia, power fantasies etc., but they consider this kind of story building completely fine. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I actually thought Tuchanka and to a lesser extent Ranoch were done very well and were also awesome in terms of "choices matter", but I think they also had writers different from the main ones.
Walters doesn't work for BW anymore
He should've been the Virmire sacrifice.
If Cerberus revived Shepard after atmospheric reentry, they could've easily revived Kaidan/Ashley after a nuke to the face.
One of the most moronic ideas
So it would be right at home in ME3.
So instead of improving the writing, let's make it more moronic? What a genius idea anon.
I'm willing to bet that (pre remaster) over 50% of thepeople who played ME2 and ME2 never played ME1.
>companion in Mass Effect 2
But then you would have Kai Leng and Thane who fulfill the same character archetype and it just seems redundant to have both
>deweebify him
>do this
>instead of having cerberus be galaxy spanning military put the guy in charge of a small team on board a stealth ship like Shepherd
>make cerberus 80% less moronic
now you have a rival that makes sense instead of a cutscene abusing prostitute of a b***h
>deweebify him
Main reason I disliked him and kasumi was they were weebshit or weebbait. Nothing from Japan is ever cool, unless you're 14
He was a terribly-written character in a book that got him a lot of face time.
His first interaction with most people (aside from hanging out with martin sheen briefly) is getting dabbed on by a lizard before escaping without much ability to stop him, then your thing. He doesn't really get to exist outside of a bubble of being "that random who? who you literally can't do anything about but a gecko with lung cancer can dab on" until the moment you kill him.
It's especially pronounced on uuuh horizon? The husking concentration camp planet featuring Miranda's fat tats. He literally just exists in video clips to be a vague potential menace that comes to nothing.
In a series that even if you like it which because I'm a degenerate casual I pretty much did he is a villain with almost no character, terrible on-rails buildup, and in what is in theory a culmination of three games: kind of a fricking unnecessary addon because they were too afraid to make you fight martin sheen in a exo-walker (that also smokes) while earth burns.
If he'd been in since 2 or 1 and you'd worked with him on some shady cerberus shit that underlined the more dodgy underbelly of the shiny presentation of Cerberus or christ, if he was private jacobs and brought back in project lazarus' prototype go as a abominable cyborg that would have been better.
>vague potential menace that comes to nothing.
he can kill miranda on horizon so he did have that going for him there
Eh, yet he fails the moment you just tell Miranda "listen there's this dude Kai Leng around, watch your step", meaning he can only succeed with a surprise attacking while having the information advantage.
He also almost jobbed to an assassin that was in his final days dying from space cancer.
yeah because miranda is suppose to be a badass and kai leng is probably only about as strong as your average squaddie which is good but he isn't the best, he needs a spaceship constantly shooting at you on thessia to stand a chance and the final fight he calls a bunch of goons to help him
I guess it gets hot there I fricking hate shorts but let's stop shaming people.
>Individual pistol mag holders
I don't think I've ever seen that, even in the military we just put the extra mag in a pouch
I've seen a few swat jackets with a 4-pocket setup on the front breast. Which almost makes sense for a CQB guy likely to shoot more than one butthole at a time.
>never saw an individual pistol mag holder
Literally every fricking holster company makes one, are you blind?
I googled police duty belt and saw hundreds of them.
What if it was just one guy with 6 guns?
shut the frick up Greenly
Tell me why it isn't.
it need belts and spikes, and u have a new 90s antihero
>be bad guy with gun concealed IWB
>see this guy
>cap him first
whoopsie doopsie
these ~~*player*~~ controlled characters are quite topical today
any main character from Final Fantasy X and onwards
I think some people have already suggested a couple of incredibly simple changes that would make Kai Leng not only tolerable but a decent villain
>Method 1: Make him more tech-based
We're told that Cerberus operatives are enhanced with reaper tech but all it amounts to is just fricked up looking soldiers beneath the armor. Keep Kai Leng's cringe attitude but make his entire ego justified because he's got way superior reaper tech to use against you. Then he can actually feel like a threat but still be a whiny shit heel to make his come uppance all the greater. This also solves the dumbass paradox of Thane trying to fight him up close and then getting shanked for no fricking reason
>Method 2: Don't make him talk at all, replace his model with a Nemesis
The less he talks, the more effective he comes off as, you can actually take him seriously. His cutscene powers come off as less annoying if he isn't constantly gloating about his non-accomplishments
>This also solves the dumbass paradox of Thane trying to fight him up close and then getting shanked for no fricking reason
Why would this justify Thane's shitty fighting techniques?
That fight will always be moronic, i always thought the fight was bad because it was made in-engine so there was limitations compared to his introduction in ME2, but i replayed his recruitment mission last week and his fight was also in-engine there.
His fight in ME3 is so idiotic,
taking 10 seconds to fire his gun at point blank range, hitting Kleng with a biotic discharge to send him flying across the room instead of just shooting him in the face, trying to punch a guy whos carrying a sword, etc.
This is just mediocre writing and i don't know how Kaileng being enhanced with reaper tech would've helped make it less moronic. Maybe if he was shown to have superspeed or being able to withstand fatal wounds to the head and keep fighting, but i don't know, that would make him too powerful and his fight with Shepard would've have to jump the shark even more.
>This is just mediocre writing and i don't know how Kaileng being enhanced with reaper tech would've helped make it less moronic.
Let's say getting in close is the ONLY way to make his hypothetical "reaper shields" less effective so you're forced into close combat scenarios to actually get any good hits on him. Make small arms slugs from firearms trivial for him to shrug off while something like a gut punch actually sell on him.
His armor already looks more like a trench coat than armor so that reasoning is already there.
Thane was greatly weakened due to dying from space cancer.
Which makes him even stupider for CLOSING THE DISTANCE against a guy with a sword when he just created said distance with biotics and had a gun on him.
Yeah I don't deny the choreography was shit. I was just saying that Thane losing to Kai Leng in itself was reasonable enough if it was animated better, even if it was just Thane suddenly spitting out blood, when he is about to shoot KL, due to stressing his lung too much and being killed at that moment.
Anon, he pointed the gun and waited like half an hour to shoot Kleng's head at point blank, thats not an excuse by Space Cancer.
Also, Shepard and co did nothing to help.
"They could've shot thane"
Nah, ME weapons have insane accuracy + shep team is full of trained soldiers/mercs, thats not an excuse either.
The fight was moronic because the writers were moronic and wanted a cool flashy fight, nothing to do with Thane dying.
Hell, him dying means he should have wanted to end the fight as soon as possible, not extend it with unnecessary movements.
Actually, I don't think he's so bad.
>You're slower than I imagined, Shepard.
>Your friend Thane died like a coward!
BioWare definitely wanted him to be a giant shitlord, and when TIM was giving him the business for being defeated by Shep after Priority: Citadel they had him act like a bruised-ego child
every jrpg ever made
donte was fun though
Should I play ME trilogy as murder everything renegade?
ME3 intro with the kid and the "PTSD dreams" must be extra jarring for such a renegade Shepard.