Well I just played ME1 and 2 by importing a character from the first playthrough( to see what kind of perks you get and so on), I also compared the basic gameplay stuff and aside form the concerns I previous stated I would like to add the following:
-Paragon/Renegade:
-1-During cutscenes instead of only showing a renegade or paragon icon, make it possible to do both( so present a choice).
-2-You earn points in Paragon/Renegade according to your actions, which is fine when it comes to the big things; are you siding with Cerberus(renegade) or with the alliance(paragon), do you save the autistic kid in overlord or do you hand him over to Cerberus/his brother.
I don't like it however when it applies to(relative) small stuff, for instance:
On the Thane recruiting mission you have a little cutscene with a mercenary ( part of a group which tried to kill you, so no innocent bystander in any way) there you canhit the LMB to push him out of the window and although I play paragon I pushed him and got rewarded renegade points, how come? I just killed a whole floor of similar mercenaries....If I would have killed he salarians ( who were locked up at some points in the level) then renegade points would be justified ( since you take innocent lives)
So I hope that in ME3 that they tone down on the whole Paragon/Renegade stuff in where it influences major parts of the game, or at least make it so that if someone is beyond 50% paragon or Renegade they have conversation options available for these alignments .
Thing is I want to make choices that I am comfortable with and I don't like to be force to make a "paragon" or "renegade" choice because I need to fill up some dumb stat in order to be able to keep my crew loyal .
I also feel that a "renegade" action to force an answer out of a mercenary to save a city doesn't classiffy as "renegade" and sweettalking a mercenary ( in other words the paragon option)isn't really going to work in "real life", whereas convincing a mourning mother to confide in you is...
Again I have no objection of the principal of Paragon or Renegade only how it has been implemented-Scripted/linear game mechanics:On my second playthrough ( with a ME2 imported character) I found that certain dialog options weren't available anymore, one of these things was the fact I couldn't resist the Morinth character anymore( could do that just fine the first playthrough) and I couldn't convince Miranda to trust me again after she had a row with Jack, looking at my stats revealed that I wasn't full paragon ( like I was on the first runthrough), but luckily I still had some missions left with character interactions so I could remedy that...or so I thought.
After a couple of missions( where I earned Paragon points) I looked at the stat ....they were still the same I went to talk to Miranda to make her loyal again, which didn't work.
So I had a look on the internet and found several reasons why ...and all of the reasons imo were utter bollocks ( I am not talking about the people who posted these solutions btw):
-Some stated that you had to do loyalty missions in a certain order
-The game has an internal paragon/renegade counter which isn't taking your class evolution ( ie Destroyer/Champion) into account
-It could be a bug
While I understand that a game needs to be programmed( and therefore has its limitations) I really don't like the idea that you need to do stuff in a certain order, another thing is in the case of the Miranda/Jack row, that I already went to hell and back to gain their loyality and the fact that you have to choose between either of them( which has great consequences further along the game)and not an additional option to tell them to both settle down feels both forced and unrealistic, it would be fun that if you put both of them in your active squad that they would start harrassing each other.
The same goes for when the crew got abducted by collectors when you obtained the reaper iff, when I played the game the first time around ( i never check the internet, because I don't want spoilers) either the crew died or some of my squad died, after a search on the internet I saw that you need to have all quests done because there is a timer which keeps score on how many missions you do after the abduction.......again bollocks.
I hope that ME3 doesn't evoke these crude game mechanics, I also hope that the whole loyality crap stops aswell or at least the part where you can lose them because of scripted events over which you have no control and loosing them because you have to choose between 2 characters.
To add to that , if someone saved my sisters' life I would be eternally gratefull, wouldn't you?...Characterclasses/biotics/weapons/leveling etc:After a look at my loadscreen I found that I apparently am a " vanguard", but in all honesty the difference between classes aren't very apparent , sure each character has it's pros and cons but there isn't anything sticking out which really differentiates classes, especially not in ME2 where they ripped out a lot of RPG stuff in favor of simplicity.
Take biotics for instance, the only biotic I regularly use is the shockwave , I have Slam, pull and charge as well but it never made sense to use them, shooting them is quicker and powers aren't that much fun to use, especiall not when you get shot in the back after a charge in the middle of a group( where not everyone is susceptable for the knockdown).
Again coming back to the classes I didn't find that Grunt did more damage with shooting than Tali, or that he was tougher in any way, I also didn't find the biotics of Jack or Samara stronger than mine or any other character.
Another thing is weapons and armor, what I liked about ME1 was the fact I could actually buy guns and that you had specie-specific armor( which makes sense), in ME2 they ripped that all out in favour of menu upgrades which took a bit of fun out of the game imo.
The fact that you had to use a power to giveyour weapon frost/fire bullets didn't make much sense either, I'd rather have it like in ME1 where I could install components on the weapon.
The leveling up in ME2 wasn't much fun either you only had one menustat and you weren't able to customize your character by adding points to strength/speed/biotics and so on
My concern regarding this , is that ME3 will follow the line of ME2 when it comes to the aforementioned and that RPG elements are toned down in favour of appealling to a wider audience ( which I find strange since ME1 was a very great succes if I am not mistaken, this is probably under pressure of the "suits"
).
I for one hope that they will reintroduce the leveling up they had in KOTOR1 and ME1, albeit in a more evolved form. so that you can really customize a character according to how you want to play it:
If you have a full biotic character ( goes for npc as well) which has large paragon level he/she should have blue electric arms (renegade red electricity)and should be more powerfull in biotics then a soldier, only be able to wear light/specific armor and limited use of weapons ( only pistols for instance), maybe shoot red or blue bolts instead of using a weapon.
I also hope in the case of biotics that there will be more diverse powers and that evolving them gives fun effects, for instance:
When you evolve the shockwave to its maximum it has an additional effect , if you are a paragon it has a freezing effect meaning that first they get thrown up in the air and then instantlty freeze for a couple of seconds , if you are a Renegade you set them on fire for a couple of seconds.
Also revise other powers to make them more useable.
I think a krogan as a base character should have more health strength and stamina then a quarian, a quarian is quicker however so they can run quickly from cover to cover, where as the krogan has to endure more hits before reaching shelter( balanced gameplay very strong/big characters move slow but are more powerfull).
Introduce Genetherapy/in game character modding:
If you are a soldier, you can add Krogan genes, which makes you stronger and alters your appearance-more krogan like, if you are a biotic adding asari blood would make more sense, in turn making your skin blue if you are an engineer adding either Quarian blood ( pale complexion, white eyes, breathmask) or getting Geth implants (metallic hands/ red or blue metalic eyes)Mining/exploration:To be frank in both ME1 and ME2 this kinda sucked , but if I have to choose between the two, I found exploring in ME1 more fun although level design wasn't that great , the probing in ME2 was verrrrrrrry tedious, I scanned all of the damned planets( until they were depleted)hoping that I would get some reward or been able to sell stuff, or maybe that I needed it in the endgame(fixing the ship)
My concern with this is, that in ME3 they will do exploration using the firewalker ( the hovercraft thingy ), it's not an entirely bad thing of course, but I really hope they go for another angle for instance instead of uninhabited worlds introduce an evolving civilization who aren't ready for ME relays yet but which you need to protect from the reapers, by installing a cloaking shield without being detected, I for one prefer less explorable worlds in favour of quality and diversity and if a planet needs to be scanned for minerals just do an autoscan like in ME1.. NPC behavior/dead worlds/level design/animation:First of NPC behavior, now I understand that you can't have NPC behavior change for every little choice you make, but it would be fun if the game takes like 3/4 keypoints in the game where NPC behavior changes towards you, so let's say if you beat the reapers in the end and after some nice endgame cinematics you return back to your ship that when you talk to Joker he makes a comment about saving the galaxy, shops give you discount, people walk over to you in the streets and so on.
Which leads me to the next hing ...dead worlds, if I look at a game like assasins creed or the witcher the streets seem to be alive; people go about their bussiness, day and night cycles, sunny/cloudy weather... in ME everything is static from the weather to the people, now I understand that most locations are on a space station like omega and that they really don't have any weather, but they could introduce a day /night cycle based on a nearby planet where the light reflects back from the planetsurface illuminating the streets of omega at certain points in the game, this doesn't have to be a full on day/nightcycle, it could be just scripted events..
The leveldesign isn't very imaginative either, it's always corridors with one or two possible ways to get to a certain point, now a corridor based level isn't bad in itself, it works very well on a spacestation, but more diversity in the levels would be fun, because I personally find it strange that a door works and looks the same on a spacestation as on a planetside location.
The last ( and last) point is character animation, not so much in battle or walkcycles, but more in the conversation area, it's always a basic handgesture and a headwobble going slightly to one side
My concern regarding this, is that there won't be any changes regarding any of this, now I don't find the forementioned shamefull in ME1, since it is a fairly old game.
But ME2 is from 2010 ( around the same period as assasins creed/Killzone etc) and I do hope that the devs see that they need to turn it up a notch