11 hours in 5 disc changes

I guess ive not picked mission in the order the game would want me to so I've had to chnage discs 5 times already. they really should have made a better solution for this.

In ME2 i think there was only 1 or 2 disc changes.

Anyone else encountered this? on xbox obviously..

I've played for about 12 hours and I've had to swap discs 8-9 times.

Yeah. I'm with you. The way they broke up the game is really annoying.

Disc two has all the sidequests and the last part of the game and disc one has probably the first half of the game, so I've had to switch but not too much since I do as many sidequests as I can before moving onto the main mission.

Man, that is seriously crazy. I wonder if disc two was originally going to just be the multiplayer disc, but they later decided to use multiplayer assets in the single player.

Agreed. I don't mind switching discs, but I'm about twelve hours in and I've switched discs at least three or four times.

@Scrawnto said:

Man, that is seriously crazy. I wonder if disc two was originally going to just be the multiplayer disc, but they later decided to use multiplayer assets in the single player.

Probably not since Mass Effect 2 was also two discs.

Discs?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

@jmood88: Good point. I played all of them on PC, so I didn't know that.

ME2 had less changes because they compromised and put Legion way too late in the game (and then some) but that they didn't do it with this is positively puzzling.
 
Better be hoping MS does the good deed and puts a BR drive in the next Xbox - this is not even in the top five of bad disc swapping examples done in 360 games.

I've only had to switch once in about 15-ish hours. Did the main quest to an extent and then decided to focus on doing sidequests.

Well, another joy of owning a gaming PC. No framerate locked at 30 fps, no disc swapping, instant loadings and three times better picture quality. But those disc swaps are insane, seriously.

If a lot of the side stuff is on disc2, they should have just put something at the front of the game stating to just install disc2 to avoid the disc swapping.

@fox01313 said:

If a lot of the side stuff is on disc2, they should have just put something at the front of the game stating to just install disc2 to avoid the disc swapping.

You have to switch even if you install disc 2. I think someone said when Mass Effect 2 came out that Microsoft doesn't let developers make it so that you just install a disc and play it off the hard drive but I don't know if that's true or not.

@deskp: I had about seven disc changes for the finished game of about eleven hours. They gave me the option an hour in of going on some mission and I have to switch discs after an hour of gameplay. I was about to stop playing after a few hours, but it picked up.

You still have to swit discs if the game is installed. It sucks but not anything to be upset about, it only takes 5 seconds

Jeff griped about it on the podcast.

I ended up gettin the PS3 version (comes today). I guess that is a perk... I'll just suffer the horrible framerate which is a worse trade-off imo.

Man, that is a real boner-jam. I haven't gotten to that part, yet. I will just make sure that I do all the side-quests together, to minimize disc switching.

I hope it will be released on Games on Demand soon, my 360's disc drive is not that great anymore.

@handlas: The frame rate isn't horrible. From what I hear it's no worse than the 360 version.

Also wow. Swapping discs 9 times is stupid. I don't know what the solution is but Bioware could've done a better job. Actually Microsoft could've done a better job and give you the option to download the game like you can on the PS3. At least then you guys wouldn't be dealing with this.

Ya the disc swapping in this one is really bad. ME2 Disc Swaps were much less inconvenient.  
It's kind of annoying. I'd have gotten this for PC but since I have my ME1 and ME2 saves on my XBOX I figured I might as well end on the platform I've been playing it on all these years.

@deskp said:

I guess ive not picked mission in the order the game would want me to so I've had to chnage discs 5 times already. they really should have made a better solution for this.

In ME2 i think there was only 1 or 2 disc changes.

Anyone else encountered this? on xbox obviously..

The solution is playing on PC.

Oh Christ no you've had to get off your ass 5 times over an 11 hour period.

Sue 'em.

whoa, this makes me glad that i decided to transfer to PC for the last game, i wasn't expecting this on Xbox though, the way Mass effect 2 was set up was fine, 1 disk change and that was it. I was lucky to get my save game working on PC too, so i don't feel like I'm missing anything except maybe achievements.

@jozzy said:

I hope it will be released on Games on Demand soon, my 360's disc drive is not that great anymore.

Mine just recently broke, part of my decision to move to PC

@James_Giant_Peach: The problem isn't getting off my ass, its needing to get off my ass when I want to play a video game.

@jmood88: Well I'm just for putting the extra content disc2 on there & running everything off disc1. Just tired of how they did it here with the constant disc swapping in ME3 as it seems a bulk of content is on both discs.

14 hours in, swapped disc once. But I understand the complaints and I agree, they should've come up with a better solution.

I've had to swap 4 times so far in my 13.5 hours of play.

if anyone would care to clarify: you can't just install all of the discs and then run the whole thing with the main disc? if not, that's insane that you can't do that.

And people still back up this game.

"It's cool guys. It's only disc swapping about 10-20 times, DLC that was taken out of the game, and capped framerate. Totally still worth the $60."

I've hit around 9 hours and I've changed the disc twice. I think it's more about how your playing the game than anything else. Jeff DID say that he felt like most of the side quests were on the second disc.

How many discs is the 360 version have?

When the majority of mainstream big games need multiple discs, its a sign of a dated platform. It's why we can't have new nice things.

and Games On Demand is not the solution, not in its current form. Charging 3x more than price elsewhere and Online passes are not included in most EA Games on Demand.

Console specific rant below

This much disc swapping is annoying. 7-8 hours in, 3-4 disc changes.

FF VII came out for the 360?

I've had to switch twice. Not a big deal, but I only had to swap once with ME2.

Really? I changed the game from Disc 1 to 2 after 15 hours, and now I've been on disc 2 for at least 10 hours without a disc swap to 1 again. This seems weird to me, but I guess it all depends on what order you're addressing the missions in. I also think it's weird that we can install both discs, but still need to change them, though I would assume it's because of security issues, but what can you do. It's not 'that' bad to get up and change a disc, unless you have some physical issues, then it would be bad.

@mikey87144 said:

@handlas: The frame rate isn't horrible. From what I hear it's no worse than the 360 version.

Also wow. Swapping discs 9 times is stupid. I don't know what the solution is but Bioware could've done a better job. Actually Microsoft could've done a better job and give you the option to download the game like you can on the PS3. At least then you guys wouldn't be dealing with this.

They could have written a cohesive storyline instead of a couple important missions and the rest all being considered stuff on the side. That seems to be the way the discs are broken up, so every time you want to do a side quest, time to swap the disc. ME2 did a much better job with this, but then again, the storyline was much clearer there.

@mikey87144 said:

@handlas: The frame rate isn't horrible. From what I hear it's no worse than the 360 version.

Also wow. Swapping discs 9 times is stupid. I don't know what the solution is but Bioware could've done a better job. Actually Microsoft could've done a better job and give you the option to download the game like you can on the PS3. At least then you guys wouldn't be dealing with this.

Uh, you heard wrong: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-mass-effect-3-ps3-fps-issues

12 hours in and I've done it once.

lolwut. I beat the game in around 30+ hours, and I did maybe 3 swaps max.

Well, another joy of owning a gaming PC. No framerate locked at 30 fps, no disc swapping, instant loadings and three times better picture quality. But those disc swaps are insane, seriously.

Why the hell couldn't they have done a Forza 3 thing? The second disc is an install disc that adds a bunch of extra stuff. Those with the space can do it, those without can go buy a decent fucking HDD already. Frankly, it's Microsoft's fault for selling those dumb shit Arcade and 4GB systems, basically requiring the developers to work within stupid constraints so that the people not willing to just throw down another $50 for a system can play anything.

I had to disk swap 2 times within 10 minutes. Right after I got on the Normandy, I went and did a sidequest, which prompted Disk 2, then after I finished, I went on to the first Story Mission and had to put Disk 1 back. Seems kinda silly to me.

Good thing I started playing through ME2 on PS3 and decided I'd get ME3 on PS3.

Holy shit... They should of at least gave you the option to install them all and play from one disc. That sucks dude.

PC has instant load times and no frame rate problems... I don't know how that helps you, but I thought I would share.

It's like they learned nothing from forza....I quickly realized that all the n7 missions were on disc two so I saved them up. I'm at 22 hours and only had 3 disc swaps and am expecting a fourth.

I just don't understand what was wrong with whatever they did for ME2.

If they did the "install so you don't have to switch" thing with Forza 3, I don't see why they couldn't have done it here. I guess because ME3 isn't a first party game or whatever. It doesn't much bother me, it's just a bit of a bummer that it happened.

As for me, I've only had to do three or four disc changes in ~15 hours of play. It's not that bad and certainly not a deal breaker. Besides, disc changing isn't anywhere near as bad as the shit framerate that the PS3 version supposedly has, though the 360 drops there sometimes as well.

I beat the game and only had to swap twice....

Yeah im right at the end of the game and I had to switch around 6 times. Once you get to a certain point though you wont have to switch anymore. They could have handled this better though.