[Confirmed] Potential Cheese for Paramour II/III & Insanity II/III

[Valyrious]

On 6/8/2021 at 4:37 AM, SpikeToW said:

Seems like Paramour2/3 not unlocking after 1.03 update.

Probably need to delete game and try to download without updates. Can somebody confirm that its possible to skip updates for digital version.

Seconding. 

I romanced Miranda in ME2 after the patch. Doesn't work. Playing Renegade. Flirted with Liara in Lair of the Shadow Broker, as she was my love interest in the first game. Purposely passed on the final paragon prompt in Lair of the Shadow Broker, as I knew that would ruin the Miranda romance and the trophy for romancing Liara in ME2 wouldn't work. Continued my romance with Miranda. Had sex with her. No trophy. I did this legitimately btw. No cheese.

Edit: figured out the cause. Was able to get the trophy.

Edited June 12, 2021 by Valyrious

[rap1re]

Can also confirm that the method works by resetting digital copy of the game to 1.00 using the method mentioned in this post. 

[ThatMuttGuy]

Can anyone let me know if you can play the game on the latest update, and then go back to 1.00 once you reach the end of the game and do the trick? I'm just wanting to know if I need to play the whole game unpatched or not.

[AyAerith]

1 hour ago, ThatMuttGuy said:

Can anyone let me know if you can play the game on the latest update, and then go back to 1.00 once you reach the end of the game and do the trick? I'm just wanting to know if I need to play the whole game unpatched or not.

 

Its been mentioned a few times that you can use 1.03 saves on update 1.00.

[Fryerisgod]

I am so glad I found this thread.  Thank you for posting this.  I got Insanity 1 and 2 legit with new game+ and really didn't want to do a second ME3 run on ng+. 

[Spacey_Dweeb]

So I ran into a frustrating bug when performing this cheese.

 

TLDR: My recommendation is that if you are on a PS5, don't do the cheese while offline. 

 

Long Version: So I was playing through ME2 and checked this thread again and I saw that 1.03 broke the cheese and you'd have to downgrade to 1.00 again to make it work. I figure that it might not be long before a patch comes that makes it so you can't load your saves in previous patch versions and I don't want that to happen. Last night, I decide to take care of it. I uninstall the 1.03 version and reinstall ME from the disc. I has turned off the network connection so I don't have to deal with the patch downloading at some point. After the resintall, the cheese seems to work as exactly described. Trophies for Insanity and Paramore pop when expected. I turn the network back on, then I go to update the PSNP site to see the trophies and they aren't there at all. I checked on my PS5 and the legendary edition trophies aren't popped there. I go to my media gallery and I have screenshots and the 15 second videos from popping the trophies stored there. Those are there! The in-game trackers show I earned them too. I was super confused. I do various things like restart the PS5, launch the game again, confirm with @gruffiiti and he can't see them either. etc. Nothing changes trophy-wise. 

 

Anyway, now that I'm online I re-do the cheese. No trophy. I try again, no trophy. I go to start one more time being super careful to follow the directions given. There's a step where you look at the greyed-out trophies in extras, go back to launcher, launch the game again and look at the trophies again which are now colored in. I notice the insanity trophies are colored in, like I have earned them already. I think I must have screwed up somehow. I completely delete my save. Download a three-day old save from the cloud (I was using USB saves previously). Start the cheese again, but somehow the insanity trophies are colored in again! I don't know how. It's clearly tied to more than the save. I perform the cheese one more time to be sure, no trophy. I think my profile has stored information that I've obtained the trophy somehow and it would be impossible to pop it again. (Has happened in the past in a couple other games for me) So I delete my entire profile off the PS5. Uninstall and reinstall the game. Download the cloud save again. This time, the insanity trophies are not colored in. I perform the cheese again with the network connection turned on. The trophies pop again. Each time I went and looked to make sure they actually show on the profile and I can sync them on PSNP. They all worked fine. The only real change I made to performing the cheese is being online while doing it. All the other garbage from my experience is just trying to deal with it having gone wrong. This cheese took me like 6 hours instead of the hour or so I expected and I had to kill my profile which is annoying. 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Spacey Dweeb

[ReoJee]

22 minutes ago, Spacey Dweeb said:

So I ran into a frustrating bug when performing this cheese.

 

TLDR: My recommendation is that if you are on a PS5, don't do the cheese while offline. 

 

Long Version: So I was playing through ME2 and checked this thread again and I saw that 1.03 broke the cheese and you'd have to downgrade to 1.00 again to make it work. I think that it might not be long before a patch comes that makes it so you can't load your saves in previous patch versions and I don't want that to happen, so I decided last night was the time to knock it out. I uninstall the 1.03 version and reinstall ME from the disc. I has turned off the network connection so I don't have to deal with the patch downloading at some point. After the resintall, the cheese seems to work as exactly described. Trophies for Insanity and Paramore pop when expected. I turn the network back on, then I go to update the PSNP site to see the trophies and they aren't there at all. I checked on my PS5 and the legendary edition trophies aren't popped there. I go to my media gallery and I have screenshots and the 15 second videos from popping the trophies stored there. Those are there! The in-game trackers show I earned them too. I was super confused. I do various things like restart the PS5, launch the game again, confirm with @gruffiiti and he can't see them either. etc. Nothing changes trophy-wise. 

 

Anyway, now that I'm online I re-do the cheese. No trophy. I try again, no trophy. I go to start one more time being super careful to follow the directions given. There's a step where you look at the greyed-out trophies in extras, go back to launcher, launch the game again and look at the trophies again which are now colored in. I notice the insanity trophies are colored in, like I have earned them already. I think I must have screwed up somehow. I completely delete my save. Download a three-day old save from the cloud (I was using USB saves previously). Start the cheese again, but somehow the insanity trophies are colored in again! I don't know how. It's clearly tied to more than the save. I perform the cheese one more time to be sure, no trophy. I think my profile has stored information that I've obtained the trophy somehow and it would be impossible to pop it again. (Has happened in the past in a couple other games for me) So I delete my entire profile off the PS5. Uninstall and reinstall the game. Download the cloud save again. Now this time, the insanity trophies are not colored in. I perform the cheese again with the network connection turned on. The trophies pop again. Each time I made sure to go look and make sure they actually show on the profile and I can sync them on PSNP. They all worked fine. The only real change I made to performing the cheese is being online while doing it. All the other garbage from my experience is just trying to deal with it having gone wrong. This cheese took me like 6 hours instead of the hour or so I expected and I had to kill my profile which is annoying. 

Sometimes it happens like this and it is not the fault of you playing offline.

 

happened to me with some other games, while offline i can see the trophies, while online - not.

 

Putting PS5 to rest mode and waiting 30 mins fixed it and then trophies were available online. 
 

So PS5 sometimes has the sync issue, but if trophy popped once offline, no need to try pop it again, just patience

[Spacey_Dweeb]

Just now, ReoJee said:

Sometimes it happens like this and it is not the fault of you playing offline.

 

happened to me with some other games, while offline i can see the trophies, while online - not.

 

Putting PS5 to rest mode and waiting 30 mins fixed it and then trophies were available online. 
 

So PS5 sometimes has the sync issue, but if trophy popped once offline, no need to try pop it again, just patience

 

I didn't try your rest mode advice and definitely will if this comes up again. The reason I wanted to post was not to complain, it was to give people a heads up that they could have a problem if they are off-line. This situation was bigger than earned trophies just not syncing. I've earned plenty of trophies offline and synced them later;  It's practically the way of life for a Vita owner. In this situation, the PS5 itself didn't show I had earned the trophies. When I'd look at my trophies on the PS5, ME2 and ME3 were still above the Legendary Edition list. The console sorts automatically with the list with the most recent trophy earned being on top. Meaning that it didn't even register that something happened with the Legendary Edition list, but somehow the in-game systems and the trophy screenshots triggered. I don't know what happened. Could have been a giant fluke, and have nothing to do with being offline. But that's the difference in my equation. When off-line it seemed the trophies popped, but the list didn't update. When trophies were popped on-line the list did update.  

[jess210sw]

1 hour ago, Spacey Dweeb said:

 

I didn't try your rest mode advice and definitely will if this comes up again. The reason I wanted to post was not to complain, it was to give people a heads up that they could have a problem if they are off-line. This situation was bigger than earned trophies just not syncing. I've earned plenty of trophies offline and synced them later;  It's practically the way of life for a Vita owner. In this situation, the PS5 itself didn't show I had earned the trophies. When I'd look at my trophies on the PS5, ME2 and ME3 were still above the Legendary Edition list. The console sorts automatically with the list with the most recent trophy earned being on top. Meaning that it didn't even register that something happened with the Legendary Edition list, but somehow the in-game systems and the trophy screenshots triggered. I don't know what happened. Could have been a giant fluke, and have nothing to do with being offline. But that's the difference in my equation. When off-line it seemed the trophies popped, but the list didn't update. When trophies were popped on-line the list did update.  

Apparently it can happen at any time with any game to any trophy earned on the PS5. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with being offline or with the insanity cheese. I was looking at the forums for another game I'm playing and saw someone with the same trophy issue. It seems like if this happens to you, don't delete saves or take drastic action! Just wait and eventually the PS5 will show you earned the trophies. Sorry you had to go through all of that and hopefully you didn't lose too much progress

 

[Spacey_Dweeb]

53 minutes ago, jess210sw said:

Apparently it can happen at any time with any game to any trophy earned on the PS5. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with being offline or with the insanity cheese. I was looking at the forums for another game I'm playing and saw someone with the same trophy issue. It seems like if this happens to you, don't delete saves or take drastic action! Just wait and eventually the PS5 will show you earned the trophies. Sorry you had to go through all of that and hopefully you didn't lose too much progress

Ahh! That is interesting to know. Thanks for the sharing the post with a similar experience. I didn't lose any progress as far as the base games go. My only lost time is that the insanity trophies took me like 5 times longer than expected to perform. Either way, screwing around with saved games and reinstalling for a few hours is still way more efficient than extra playthroughs.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Spacey Dweeb

[AyAerith]

Xbox gamers have been dealing with achievement syncing issues since 2013 on the Xbox One, really annoyed to hear that the problem has made its way to PS5. Hopefully it is only an offline issue, because it can happen on Xbox at any time, even when connected to the internet.

[Kunegunda_GoRyl]

I'd back up my save surely before trying this (luckily got a disc version). I remember original ME3 being pretty damn tough on Insanity back in the days.

Cheesing insanity/romance trophies with the above method & then updating the game with latest patch to return to my backed up save & continue playing ME2/3, will tampering with these stats trackers in any way affect/ruin any progress towards the cumulative kill trophies (Recruit/Soldier/Veteran & Bruiser)?

Edited June 30, 2021 by Kunegunda_GoRyl

[ReoJee]

39 minutes ago, Kunegunda_GoRyl said:

I'd back up my save surely before trying this (luckily got a disc version). I remember original ME3 being pretty damn tough on Insanity back in the days.

Cheesing insanity/romance trophies with the above method & then updating the game with latest patch to return to my backed up save & continue playing ME2/3, will tampering with these stats trackers in any way affect/ruin any progress towards the cumulative kill trophies (Recruit/Soldier/Veteran & Bruiser)?

No, it won’t affect progress. Just make sure you back up your original save.

[BiosNova]

On 09/06/2021 at 4:51 AM, Valyrious said:

Seconding. 

I romanced Miranda in ME2 after the patch. Doesn't work. Playing Renegade. Flirted with Liara in Lair of the Shadow Broker, as she was my love interest in the first game. Purposely passed on the final paragon prompt in Lair of the Shadow Broker, as I knew that would ruin the Miranda romance and the trophy for romancing Liara in ME2 wouldn't work. Continued my romance with Miranda. Had sex with her. No trophy. I did this legitimately btw. No cheese.

Edit: figured out the cause. Was able to get the trophy.

What was the cause? Can't leave us hanging like that!

[SuperSaiyan3985]

On 5/16/2021 at 11:06 PM, AerisFlowerGirl said:

Edit: It appears that patch 1.03 has fixed this cheese. You will need to delete the update and perform the cheese on version 1.00 in order to do this now.

 

Hi friends,

 

First of all, I would like to say that if you aren't cool with cheeses and/or want to do Insanity legit, great. You do you, but don't come in here posting nonsense unless you have information to share.

 

With that out of the way: I mentioned in the PSA: Mass Effect 1 Insanity cheese still works thread that Xbox players can currently cheese Paramour II/III and more importantly: Insanity II/III by simply romancing once or beating Insanity once, closing the game, reloading a save, and doing it again. That is such a time saver that would be great for vets who don't really want to play the hell that is Mass Effect 2's insanity again. Sure, we will do it, but what if you could save those 20-40 hours for something else? Unfortunately, the cheese only works on Xbox and I've been trying to replicate it and/or find out why.

 

With that being said, I uploaded all my stuff to the Cloud and deleted everything off my console, except the save I made right before traveling to Ilos, which locks in your romance. Replaying the scene with my chosen partner actually managed to trigger Paramour II! But only Paramour II, as deleting my profile saves again and repeating the steps did not unlock Paramour III. I tried doing it offline once and repeating various things, but it seems to pull your trophy information from somewhere. When I boot up the game after deleting my trilogy profile saves (all profile saves, to be safe), it shows zero trophies unlocked at the Mass Effect 1 main menu. But once I've done the romance scene and exited back to the ME 1 menu, all my trophies are there, including Paramour I and II. Since nobody has unlocked Paramour III yet, I suppose we'll have to wait and see if it is even unlocking properly in the first place on the PS side.

 

I want to turn it over to anyone willing to test the same theory on Insanity II, who already has Insanity I cleared on their chosen game. Or anyone who wants to do more testing in hopes we can find a reliable method to skip Insanity II and III. I got this idea from the Bioshock Infinite blue ribbon trophy skip, so I thought it may work similar to that. Anyone want to take my theory and run with it to see if we can figure something out? Or once far enough into the trilogy, see if the method will work when you have say two Insanity clears and can skip the third one. Idk just an idea.

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

EDIT: This has now been confirmed to work! Thank you for your hard work and testing, Wrangberth & Varun10000! Here are the official steps, tested by myself on patch 1.02:

 

Step 0: You will need to revert your patch back to 1.00 in order to do this cheese now, since it was patched in 1.03. For physical games, delete the game (not your saves) and then redownload the game while choosing not to download the patch. Either pause it or turn off your internet until the cheese is performed. Do not worry, several users have indicated that saves on patch 1.03 work with game version 1.00. If you have a digital copy of the game, you will have to perform a more complex way to downgrade to patch 1.00. Here's a link to that (I take no credit):

 

 

Step 1: Complete Mass Effect 1 on Insanity. You can either do this legit, or by doing the cheese outlined in this post. Credit to xZoneHunter for discovering the old cheese still works from the PS3 days. If doing it legit, make sure to keep a save right before activating the final panel in the Citadel Tower. 

 

Step 2: Once you have earned Insanity I, quit the game and back up all of your data to the PS+ Cloud. This step is necessary to ensure you keep progress on other trophies in the trilogy set, such as Paramour and Long Service Medal.

 

Step 3: Delete the gamer profile, trilogy profile and launcher profile from your console. Do this for any game you have started, such as Mass Effect 2 and 3. You will also want to delete the “Saved Data” file. This looks different than the other saves as it has the Mass Effect Legendary Edition picture on it. No need to delete any auto saves or game saves. 

 

Step 4: Launch Mass Effect 1 and go to Extras -> Trophies to confirm you have none unlocked. All trophies should be grayed out. Back out and press Exit to Launcher.

 

Step 5: Re-launch Mass Effect 1 and check your trophies again (Extras -> Trophies). They should all now be unlocked as intended.

 

Step 6: Now you can load your save from step 1 right before the final fight with Saren on Insanity. Defeat Saren once more and the next Insanity trophy should pop at the Mass Effect Relay loading screen, right before talking with Anderson/Udina.

 

Step 7: Repeat Steps 3-6 in order to unlock Insanity III. Congrats! You no longer have to spend hours on Mass Effect 2 & 3's insanity if you do not want to. Now just download your profile saves you deleted earlier and continue on.

 

As noted, this will also work on Paramour II/III should you need it. You would need to make a save right before traveling to Ilos in Mass Effect 1, and then do steps 3-6. Just replace "watch romance scene" with "fight Saren." This should also theoretically work with Mass Effect 2 and 3, as my Paramour III popped in Mass Effect 2 after traveling to the Omega 4 relay.

 

Lastly, this can be done anytime. I personally did it after completing Mass Effect 1 and 2, and xZoneHunter has successfully done it after completing Mass Effect 1 and 3 on Insanity. Any other questions or problems, feel free to post. 

Wait, we're supposed to redownload our save from the PS Cloud right? Does that happen after Step 4 or what? 

[AyAerith]

10 minutes ago, SuperSaiyan3985 said:

Wait, we're supposed to redownload our save from the PS Cloud right? Does that happen after Step 4 or what? 

 

Its listed there in step 7.

[SuperSaiyan3985]

1 minute ago, AerisFlowerGirl said:

 

Its listed there in step 7.

Wait, but how can we continue playing from the Saren save point if the data was deleted from our console? That doesn't make any sense.

[AyAerith]

21 minutes ago, SuperSaiyan3985 said:

Wait, but how can we continue playing from the Saren save point if the data was deleted from our console? That doesn't make any sense.

 

It says in step 3 what to delete, which does not include saved games such as the save right before Saren.

[SuperSaiyan3985]

1 hour ago, AerisFlowerGirl said:

 

It says in step 3 what to delete, which does not include saved games such as the save right before Saren.

Oh okay, my bad. 

[AyAerith]

58 minutes ago, SuperSaiyan3985 said:

Oh okay, my bad. 

 

No worries, glad you got it sorted. 

[SuperSaiyan3985]

I just got all three Insanity trophies. I can confirm that both the Insanity I glitch that you linked as well as the Insanity II and III steps you outlined so work perfectly. The Insanity I glitch goes back to PS3 and works on Patch 1.03, so I don’t think that’s ever getting fixed. In regards to Insanity II and III, I have the physical version so I deleted the game, turned off my internet, turned off auto-updates, started re-installing the game, then paused the download right after the “data needed to start playing” was complete (I’m sure I could’ve let it install the remaining 40 GB or so but I decided to stay on the safe side). Got all the trophies with no hitches, thanks so much!!! 

 

Also as a little side note, ME3 specifically has a “Local Profile” save that you didn’t mention in your steps. I assumed that needed to be deleted too so I did it anyway with no problems, but you might as well include it.

[coutogustavo1]

Has anyone been able to download the 1.00 digital copy of the game ? I’ve tried both methods in the link from the post, but the first method it’s always downloading the 1.03 version, and the second method it’s not working.

 

any tips ?

[Kunegunda_GoRyl]

One more question - I've got a limit transfer of 300 GB on my internet so I really don't want to re-download the update 3 times for paramour & insanity cheese. Just installed the game from disc, but left the update paused. Is it possible to play Mass Effect1 unpatched comfortably, or the experience is significantly worsened? Will other trophies pop no problem on unpatched game? Wanted to install the patch only after cheesing the said trophies & play legit no higher than Hard difficulty, not worrying about who I can or cannot romance with.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Kunegunda_GoRyl

[jess210sw]

4 hours ago, Kunegunda_GoRyl said:

One more question - I've got a limit transfer of 300 GB on my internet so I really don't want to re-download the update 3 times for paramour & insanity cheese. Just installed the game from disc, but left the update paused. Is it possible to play Mass Effect1 unpatched comfortably, or the experience is significantly worsened? Will other trophies pop no problem on unpatched game? Wanted to install the patch only after cheesing the said trophies & play legit no higher than Hard difficulty, not worrying about who I can or cannot romance with.

You shouldn't run into any totally gamebreaking bugs with the fully unpatched version, just annoying minor ones. A couple of different sites have all of the patch notes compiled if you want to review exactly what fixes you'll be missing if playing on a unpatched version. Here's one from IGN. The only trophy problem you might have is kill based trophies were not always counting properly before the patches. But it's not a huge deal and can be ground out quickly once you're done with the insanity cheese. Also I recommend importing your character into ME2 before applying the patch! One of the patches severely reduces the amount of credits you can bring with you from ME1 so best to get your credits before updating. https://www.ign.com/wikis/mass-effect-legendary-edition/Patch_Notes

[Kunegunda_GoRyl]

So, this glitch is probably impossible to do on PS5. Just backed up my save files & PS5 shows just one file. When backing up it says 1/6 etc, but the console interface only lets me interact with 1 general file (upload or delete). Wonder if I can install the game (ver.1.00) on my PS4, do the glitch there using save backed up to the cloud through my PS5. So the question is will the PS4 accept save files from PS5...