14 DAY TRIAL // I am the kind of player who always preferred single player experiences and careful consideration of my next move on the multiplayer game modes that required quick thinking and interaction with other players, regardless of the genre.
Despite this, I tried the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 when it launched and I quickly grew to like it and have since spent time during my lunch breaks and before bed going through missions, either with my work friends or with unknowns.
After playing for about one week on the Bronze difficulty level, we moved onto the Silver one, which offers greater monetary rewards. Some of my Origin friends have also become pretty proficient on the Gold level, which is incredibly punishing even when using a level 20 character with solid gear and plenty of consumables.
I can stand on my own on Silver as long as the rest of the team functions well, but I am usually the one who dies the first when we try Gold and rarely see the end of the most frantic levels, those that involve missions or plenty of special enemies.
And this means that I am basically relying on my squadmates to carry me through the game and it makes me feel really bad.
I could just choose to always play Silver, but that would mean always playing with strangers or offering my buddies a lesser challenge than they are used to.
I could try and put in the hours required to become much better on Gold, but that would feel too close to grinding, something I have always tried to avoid when it comes to my gaming.
This is one of the pitfalls of multiplayer oriented modes: as the overall level of the involved players goes up, some will always feel left out and excluded or, like me, will choose not to participate in order to avoid embarrassment.