ME3 Ashley or Kaiden - content?

Hi!

I’ve never played me3 with Ashely before and I am curious if she has the same volume of content as a Kaiden playthrough.

So those who have done both is there any glaring defeciencies with Ashely’s content compared to Kaiden? I’ve heard some of her interactions are bugged and don’t play - Xbox so no community patches for me!

I've played through with both Kaiden and Ashley on Xbox 360. I didn't experience any hiccups. Their role in the main story is practically identical.

Im more concerned about the between story stuff - crew/citadel interactions and such between missions.

It's Mass Effect 3... not many choices have any real impact beyond killing a companion and not having them available for play.

@junkerman: It's been a while but if memory serves, each character is given the same amount of screen time. If you already played ME3 with Kaiden, just imagine that but with Ashley and that's close to what you'll get.

Well Ashley is the best route in the series by far because you have the peace of mind of knowing that Kaiden is dead and long forgotten by everyone.

I'm not a fan of either so when I do different trilogy playthroughs I will save different ones, but then promptly ignore them.

@mems1224: screw that. Ashley is a space racist and an all around jerk.

There is no real different in volume of their appearance or the content they affect. The only true difference is that since they are both heterosexual, you can only romance Ashley if you are male and Kaiden if you are female.

Personally, I went with Ashley. To kill off I mean, obviously. She's a distrusting xenofoob and racist. I don't just find those traits unattractive, but they also actively disgust me. I just don't want to talk to her. On the flip side, while Kaiden is certainly not the best squad mate, he at least has that brotherly quality where he also went through some shit and managed to keep his head cool around it all. Now that is a trait that makes me interested in a person.

Far as I'm aware, they act the same and have the same scenes.

@redhotchilimist said:

I don't know if that's entirely true. You will get different story bits, and different references to previous events in the previous games based on who you choose. They are essentially one for another as far as large story elements though. If you enjoy multiple ME3 play throughs, I see no reason to not give Ashley a try if you've already done it with Kaiden. I enjoyed my play through with Ashley when I did it numerous years ago.

They're both pretty bland characters, I went with Aiden and his story was kinda whatever.

I played with both and dont remember either equally. 2 very forgettable characters. I don't remember any bugs with either but like i said i dont remember much about them in 3 lol.

@zevvion: Poor Ashley, she gets so much undeserved shit. She makes a rough first impression. but really isn't anywhere that bad by the end of the the first game.

Gotta say, I regretted going with Kaiden. Boring ass, white bread motherfucker. He's the least interesting character in the game.

Now, Ashley might be a space racist, but at least she's interesting. Also, it sounds like she grows as a person as the series goes on. The mark of good characterization.

@aktivity: You're right, she has some redeeming qualities for sure and they didn't write her as such a bad person in the other two games. Though I've always wondered if I went for a renegade playthrough if that would be different. But Kaiden has always been cool and felt like a friend. Yet he gets a lot of criticism too, probably more than Ashley does. Most people think he's boring. Which I think is crazy.

@xanadu: But Kaiden, as a fictional character, is even worse. He’s blaaaand.

@zevvion: I’m on the “Kaiden is boring” train. It pained me at first since the guy that voiced him was great as Carth in KOTOR.

@nutter: I will take bland over xenofoob racist any day. When I get invested in a game I tend to approach it how I would approach issues for real. I sort of 'forget' it is a videogame and thus the decision was easily made.

On top, I don't think Kaiden is bland myself. I really like his background story and motivations.

That said, it is now more than 10 years after the first Mass Effect and we are still talking about which you'd save, Kaiden or Ashley. This just seems like one of those discussions that will go on forever. Which is good.

The hardest decision in Mass Effect 1 for me by far was whether to pick Ashley or Kaiden, because I hate them both so much. If I could've left them both to die I would've.

@zevvion: Perfectly valid approach. I just knew I’d be stuck with caffine-free diet Carth (Carth was an alright dude) or someone with loud, proud, and less-than-cool outlooks on the world for the next 60 hours.

It was similar to my second Mass Effect playthrough (where my headcannon started), when I discovered the joys of Renegade Femshep. I was like “I just wasted 65 hours playing as a wet blanket when I could have been listening to Jennifer Hale’s performance?”

From that point forward, I never replayed a moment of Mass Effect. All Renegade Femshep, all the time.

Edit: It was the very first mission, checking in on that outpost with that survivor locked inside his appartment, pod, or whatever. I was immediately sold on her.

That is not true. Yes, they are both injured on Mars, both distrust Shepard due to his/her Cerberus affiliation in ME2, both become the second human Spectre, and both stand against Shepard during the confrontation with Udina and need to talked down, but that's their role in the main plot. Their personal stories are completely original, and all the on ship and Citadel conversation with them are entirely unique. Ashley story revolves around her family and the death of her sister's husband. Kaiden has a variety of different conversation topics, one recurring one being his concern for a team of biotics he was in command of.

They serve the same role in the story, but they are each their own character.

Kaiden is a gay romance option in ME3.

Not sure what you're talking about. I've never played with Kaiden (he always dies), and I've beaten Mass Effect 3 three or four times and the playthroughs have never glitched. I don't think there'll be an issue. That said, I played it on the 360, so I don't know if there's a problem on the PC, PS3, or backward compatible. As for content, I have to assume it's the same. They just switch out characters for the same scene I believe.

Ha! See, I have never been able to do that. The first time I attempted a Renegade run was my third run of Mass Effect. The very first renegade conversation option in the Normandy against Joker made me go: 'Oompfh', as if I had taken a serious blow. I proceeded to hold my head with my head for the next 20 seconds, shrugged it off and continued playing. Before I got an hour of playtime in, I quit and immediately deleted the savegame. I can't do it. I'm too invested in the game and the characters to experience it this way, especially when I have the choice to do so.

At this time, I still cared about achievements so eventually I just did paragon as normal until you got to the cheat spot on Navara I think the planet was called, where you could gain massive amounts of renegade points with an exploit. Unlocked it, deleted the savegame and never bothered with renegade again. At least not forced renegade. I play these games with picking the options I feel are appropriate, so there are a few conversations and sequences where I did a renegade thing.

@ll_exile_ll Now that you mention it, I do remember something like that being said. I never noticed it though. Which is a little odd, usually the romance paths are super straight forward.

@zevvion: She isn't even a xenophobe though. She has hard time trusting aliens due to the events surrounding her grandfather during the first contact war and how that ruined hers and her fathers military career. But she doesn't hate aliens, if you have her in your party on the Citadel near the end in ME1 she voices her disapproval towards a group protesting against aliens.

@zevvion: It’s a great series in that everyone has this canon as to who Shepard is and how the world is colored.

I couldn’t imagine Wrex, Mordin, or Garus dying. It wouldn’t be my Mass Effect. But for some, it is.

My Shepard was no nonsense, for the right cause. I’d slap innocents to get their heads straight, and push fools working on the wrong side of the law out windows.

When the first game was being promoted, I believe Casey Hudson said you could basically go Bond, Bourne, or Bower. I’m not sure if my Mark Meer Shepard felt like any of these (pragon), but my renegade Jennifer Halo Shepard was 100% Jack Bauer.

I just wish there was a Vic Mackey run...that’d be interesting...

I think Mass Effect was the first game where I played as “dirt is going down, we need to break some eggs to make this omelette.” Before that, it was all very black and white for me.

@nutter:I think that was one of my main issues with Andromeda. It felt like Ryder was always going to be this snarky chosen-one type character no matter what choices you made. Getting rid of the paragon/renegade system should in theory have allowed you to make a really varied different character, but in practice it didn't turn out that way at all. Even if you selected more serious dialogue choices, the ambient dialogue for the character was always in line with the more casual dialogue, making it feel like you couldn't real make your Ryder like you could make your Shepard.

For OP's question, I think Kaiden is boring and Ashley is obnoxious. Neither are among my favorite characters, though I've generally saved Ashley in my playthroughs since she is at least a little more interesting.

If you changed her mind. Isn't it the case that on renegade runs you can basically fuel her dislike of other species?

Nevertheless, having her past is no excuse to want other species off your ship, revoke their access, don't share a common goal with them, only 'look out for your own', and 'we matter the most' mentality. She'd shove her dog under a bear if she thinks it would save her life because it isn't human anyway. This is her analogy to how we should treat other species. Throw them under the bus if you think it gives you an edge, whatever it takes.

I'm pretty sure xenophobia means you are distrusting or scared of foreign things, in Ashley's case anything that isn't human. Which fits her behavior perfectly.

Ashley is not a space racist. Literally what she says is "Aliens have their own agendas, I don't know if we can trust them".

I think you`re mixing up Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol here. Before launch they talked about the three different types of replies you could choose in Alpha Protocol (funny/charming, aggressive and something else) and compared it to three different types of secret agent characters in media.

@zevvion: If memory serves, she comes around even more during ME3.

Maybe racist is the wrong terminology. Well, it certainly is since we are not talking about race, so it can't apply by matter of definition. But she goes a lot further than the line you claim. She wants them off the ship, she'd have an all-human effort if she was calling the shots, she'd never share information, she'd let them all die if she thought it was safer and so on.

I believe in the whole 'bad people are good people who don't act' thing, cringey as such sayings can be. If it wasn't for Shepard giving commands, she would be. She claims as much. This is all a matter of perspective of course, but this is how I look at it.

@zevvion: I dunno, I've played a lot of those games, and beyond not trusting the agenda of aliens, I don't believe she ever says anything diminishing the value of their lives or their abilities. She might be a little bit xenophobic, but racism generally refers to people who think they are inherently superior, and she never says anything along those lines. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Let me give a real world analogy. A congressman is talking about how to budget. He says, "Well, yeah, things are really shitty in Somalia, but we can't afford to do anything for them. We have to look after things here - they'd do the same thing in our shoes." Is he a racist or just a realist? How about "We shouldn't let the Chinese in on this anti-terrorist mission. It might compromise our state secrets". Is that racist?

@odinsmana: I could have SWORN I remembered seeing the citadel while hearing this, but a quick google shows you’re right. My mistake.

P.S. My femshep was still totally Bauer.

P.P.S. Alpha Protocol was pretty damned cool.

@veektarius: I agree. I think “space racist” popped-up a bunch as shorthand for her exhibiting some xenophobia, isolationism, etc.

I don’t think those approaches make someone racist, but “space racist” is a funny shorthand.

I forgot Kaidan existed tbh

I'd probably find if funny, too, if there won't so many people who seem to legitimately hate her. Maybe this is assigning too much importance to a video game, but labeling a moderately cynical world-view as inherently evil seems like it might reflect some of our modern political issues in reaching compromise.

Also, this is my first space love we're talking about; fuck that blue chick. Not literally. Also Kaiden. I tried keeping him alive in my femshep playthrough and did my best to avoid him after I heard what his dialogue sounded like.

As I said, racist is almost certainly the wrong word to describe her so we can disregard that as far as I am concerned.

In fact, let's just disregard all labels here for a moment, it's probably better if I just describe what I do not like about her personality. It's not that she is hostile towards anyone that she perceives to be an outsider, it is that she defaults to presumptions and suspicions and acts as if they are true without confirmation. In your example, it isn't a congressman that can't help, it is a congressman that can help, but perceives that he cannot based on the nationality of the people in question and/or an inward sense of duty. 'We have 2 million to spend. Aid here costs 1 million, aid in Somalia cost 1 million. We can't afford it, we need 2 million here'.

And also more like: 'We shouldn't let the Chinese in on this anti-terrorist mission. It might compromise the state secrets we have obtained from our Chinese allies'. She has many lines that make her come across as such. She wants all species except humans to have revoked access from systems that was a joint effort to built and that humans didn't even have the largest finger in, nor had the best innovative designs for.

I understand the whole idea that her being suspicious of allies can be a good thing since she'll be on the lookout for risks, but I disagree with this because the person that keeps distrusting a team that has no traitor is the person that makes it brittle. I saw it as someone who would never be part of such a team in real life, she compromises teamwork and trust which is crucially important. Kaiden on the other hand only promotes it. He would also far sooner spot an actual traitor because he isn't blinded by default mistrust of certain species. Ashley is wasting her energy.

This not counting her metaphor for shoving a dog under a bear to save your own life as an analogy when talking about other species, which is one I found particularly gross. This is how I think anyway.

I see a parallel to my own experiences in this comparison. In my life spent on several continents I have met many Ashleys -- bet you have, too -- and they came in all shapes, colors, and ages. The Kaidans, however, were far fewer, and mostly teenagers from economically stable families without much turmoil. The former were always more interesting and grounded, if challenging for one's own convictions and preferences; the latter was just waiting to have personal upheaval come their way.

I suppose one issue I have with Kaidan's writing is the unstoppable enthusiasm and optimism coming from an adult man. It feels like a rare occurrence in today's political and cultural climate, and simply not a way most people, wander through the world. Especially people of his calibre and experience. Whereas with Ashley I see the lashing out as an expression of insecurities and doubts, which I recall her voicing at points, too.