27 réponses à ce sujet

[Pacifien]

So I needed to run through a section of ME2 over and over and over again, which I realized would go much faster if I would simply reduce the difficulty setting from Insanity. I do like how the extra defenses on Insanity force you to alter your tactics, but I will say this for Normal difficulty:

It is very nice to be able to let Jack throw a shockwave immediately in a fight and have it actually do something for a change.

I'd prefer it if an increase in difficulty didn't necessarily make the enemies tougher, just smarter. A shockwave on Normal has the same weight as a shockwave on Insanity, but the enemies are less likely to line up in a row for you to bowl them away neatly.

But then again, considering how much damage Warp does on Normal, if it did just as much damage on Insanity and the enemy wasn't any tougher, all the best tactics in the world aren't really going to save an enemy from the trauma of a well aimed Warp. So unless the AI is being run by Deep Blue, adding toughness is one of the better ways to really make the battle appear more difficult.

I know the enemies are supposed to scale according to your level, so perhaps instead of you fighting Level 1 enemies when you're Level 1, you'll be fighting Level 5 enemies when you're Level 1 on Insanity difficulty.

Anyway, the developers designed the game to work as it does on Normal difficulty, so obviously they intended a power like shockwave to be able to do some damage at any time during a fight. It just can't when every single enemy has a defense up as they do on Insanity. Then you're left wondering how your almighty biotic **** can't seem to do anything useful with her biotics.

[incinerator950]

I love Casualty runs.

[Shadedclan]

Pacifien wrote...

So I needed to run through a section of ME2 over and over and over again, which I realized would go much faster if I would simply reduce the difficulty setting from Insanity. I do like how the extra defenses on Insanity force you to alter your tactics, but I will say this for Normal difficulty:

It is very nice to be able to let Jack throw a shockwave immediately in a fight and have it actually do something for a change.

I'd prefer it if an increase in difficulty didn't necessarily make the enemies tougher, just smarter. A shockwave on Normal has the same weight as a shockwave on Insanity, but the enemies are less likely to line up in a row for you to bowl them away neatly.

But then again, considering how much damage Warp does on Normal, if it did just as much damage on Insanity and the enemy wasn't any tougher, all the best tactics in the world aren't really going to save an enemy from the trauma of a well aimed Warp. So unless the AI is being run by Deep Blue, adding toughness is one of the better ways to really make the battle appear more difficult.

I know the enemies are supposed to scale according to your level, so perhaps instead of you fighting Level 1 enemies when you're Level 1, you'll be fighting Level 5 enemies when you're Level 1 on Insanity difficulty.

Anyway, the developers designed the game to work as it does on Normal difficulty, so obviously they intended a power like shockwave to be able to do some damage at any time during a fight. It just can't when every single enemy has a defense up as they do on Insanity. Then you're left wondering how your almighty biotic **** can't seem to do anything useful with her biotics.

That is quite irritating sometimes. Times when you just wished they had no shield or armor and have Garrus throw a concussive shot because they are already flanking you! But no! I would have appreciated more health than defenses. It really puts us a difficult position. Well because it's on INsanity but it's too much.

[The Spamming Troll]

ive found the best way to play is harcore so your abilities become much more fun and i actually use them. i also dont upgrade my weapons or my health so i can get a little more of a challenge. i wish there was a way i could make that mode harder without going into the enemy protection bull**** that is hardcore and insanity.

[SAE100]

If you´re playing on PC you can make the game harder (or easier) very easy. In the Coalsced.ini are a lot of entrys affecting Enemys. Not sure what I could exactly post, but as far as I know it´s possible to highten up enemys accurracy, damage and the way enemys lay down fire on you. Also possible: altering health and defenses multipliers for the different difficultys.

[kglaser]

I'm playing on Hardcore, but I had to dial down the difficulty on Horizon, both times. That level kicks my ass.

[badkenbad]

I like the fast pace of Veteran, and really it's the highest level that is actually balanced with all abilities in mind. While Hardcore and Insanity are more challenging, they really mess with your tactics. You have to put so much more emphasis on stripping armor that you can't spend as much time doing the fun stuff. Insanity to me just feels like I'm fighting with nerf bullets. I mean, you kill the enemy eventually but it takes freakin forever. Not as fun for me.

I like the combat to keep moving, and I like the feel of really kicking ass. For example: you're a soldier, you hit Adrenaline Rush and you squeeze off four head shots in a row with your sniper rifle. Or you're a Sentinel, and you Full Cryo Blast a group of enemies and use Throw Field to shatter them all against the walls and ceiling. Those are the kinds of things you just don't get to do at the higher difficulty levels. They're possible, but the conditions have to be just right, armor has to be stripped, and it just doesn't happen enough.

Modifié par badkenbad, 13 juin 2010 - 12:48 .

[Cyberfrog81]

Insanity is a bit of a chore, unfortunately. I did 3 insanity playthrough (meaning I also never changed the difficulty) with 3 different classes. But with my latest run with Kasumi as a permanent squad member, I decided enough is enough, and went for Veteran instead.



It was a lot of fun and you really feel like a badass, even a NG+ Vanguard is crazy effective on Veteran. It is also great that you don't "need" overload/warp but can just bring whoever the heck you feel like bringing, and still destroy the opposition.

[GtarTravis]

Veteran is the difficulty for Power-Users. That difficulty offers the most challenge w/o hindering the use of entertaining powers. However, I find that my hugest gripe with the lower difficulties is that my squadmates ALWAYS seem to steal my kills! Imagine, lining up that perfect pull-throw combo... and then having your squadmate kill the floating bad guy. Yes, I am aware that there are is no longer an experience system based on who got the kill anymore, but you have to admit... kills just aren't as satisfying unless you're the one that did it!



My solution is simple: I edit the coalsced to make Insanity easier and a little harder at the same time. Though it's been weeks since I've been working on it and I can't seem to find a perfect balance for modifying the stats.

[badkenbad]

You could always turn off auto-power-usage in the game options, but your squadmates would probably still steal kills with their guns!

[Crunchyinmilk]

I found Hardcore to be the sweet spot (on the PC). Enemies have protection, but not too much. They don't have too much health and they don't deal too much damage. Enemies punish you if you play stupid, but you don't have to play a 'perfect game' to complete a level.

When I started playing ME2 I ignored hot keys all together. Opening the command menu and picking what to use, I found the red shaded icons taught me bad habits. Powers still work against armoured opponents, just not to their maximum effect.

Since moving to a hotkey setup for both mine and my squad mates abilities, I tend to use them quite frequently against armoured opponents now. They're still handy. I'd prefer if shields responded the same way but they seem to just shrug off most abilities completely.

I have to disagree with GtarTravis. Veteran was my starting difficulty and I do not enjoy going back to it. If I was to customise any difficulty it would be to add just a little bit more protection to enemies in Hardcore. And ever so slightly increase the number of rushing mobs. I think everyone finds the battles with husks, fenris mechs and the varren in Archangel's mission that little bit more nerve racking.

Ramping the AI is a tough ask, but I could definitely see the difficulty setting effecting enemy numbers, types and position as an interesting test to try harder difficulties. Bigger damage output and protection isn't as much of an incentive to try them.

Modifié par Crunchyinmilk, 13 juin 2010 - 08:03 .

[SAE100]

Ok I found the really Interesting Option in the Coalsced.ini some of you might like:



Under:

[SFXGame.SFXGameConfig]

is an entry called:

bShieldsBlockPowers=true



changing this value to false allows you to use powers in its full effect regardless of Defences as long the target could be affected. (You still can´t throw Harbinger for example).

Not sure, but I think squadmates don´t use their powers as long defences are up. So you have to order them to use pull/throw/hack/cryoblast/etc.



Warning: It alters the gameplay a lot and espacially with Kasumis Flashbang Grenade with 9m radius the game is going to be childsplay. I tried out, but even on insanity its to easy with most of the classe (in my opinion). But it´s a singleplayergame so it´s your choice.

[Bhatair]

I'm pretty sure that's why they named in "Insanity" rather than "Hard"

[Bozorgmehr]

Insanity is insanely easy, it should have been the veteran level - Insanity should be insanely difficult, but its not.



@ SAE100 Did you find anything about the number of enemies you have to engage, would love to double or triple them and have some fun.

[badkenbad]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

Insanity is insanely easy, it should have been the veteran level - Insanity should be insanely difficult, but its not.

Hey, uh, your epeen is showing. You might want to do something about that.

Nobody is complaining about Insanity being hard. We're complaining about it being tedious and about it fundamentally altering some fairly well balanced gameplay design.

Modifié par badkenbad, 13 juin 2010 - 11:09 .

[Pacifien]

badkenbad wrote...
Nobody is complaining about Insanity being hard. We're complaining about it being tedious and about it fundamentally altering some fairly well balanced gameplay design.

Well, really, I was just trying to say how nice it was to use shockwave and then I got a bit off track after that.

All the powers are designed with Normal difficulty in mind. If you play on Normal, you have plenty of opportunity to use various powers without having to work on enemy defenses first. Powers like shockwave, throw, AI hacking -- there isn't a delay using these powers during combat.

However, the developers had to find a way to make gameplay more difficult for those looking at Hardcore and Insanity, and the fastest way to do that apparently was to make sure every enemy had some armor, shield, or barrier up. While I can strip these no problem, it's obvious that a lot of the different powers were not designed with so many defenses in mind. Some powers end up not getting used much at all because of it, so when I recently dropped a game's difficulty from Insanity to Normal, I was just pleasantly surprised to find use for them again.

[Bozorgmehr]

badkenbad wrote...

Nobody is complaining about Insanity being hard. We're complaining about it being tedious and about it fundamentally altering some fairly well balanced gameplay design.

ME2 is very well balanced on insanity and I do appreciate the system used by Bioware. Its not like most other games that on higher difficulty levels you simply have to kill enemies a dozen times (compared to normal difficulty). Shep has a shield / barrier so it makes sense that enemies have shields and barriers too (though enemies don't use powers shep and his/her squadmates can use to strip defenses). Raising the difficulty level with ME2 makes the game more complex - certain powers work better (or not at all) in certain situations - which is a good thing.

ME2 is better balanced on Insanity than on Normal difficulty. Caster classes (Adepts, Engineers and Sentinels) are extremely powerful on Normal difficulty compared to the combat orientated classes (Soldiers, Infiltrators and Vanguards). Soldiers have no special powers, but do have access to a lot of different Ammo powers. They are useless at Normal difficulty (no defenses to deal with), but are very useful on Insanity.

Pacifien wrote...
Well, really, I was just trying to say how nice it was to use shockwave and then I got a bit off track after that.
All the powers are designed with Normal difficulty in mind. If you play on Normal, you have plenty of opportunity to use various powers without having to work on enemy defenses first. Powers like shockwave, throw, AI hacking -- there isn't a delay using these powers during combat.

Shockwave is the only power thats OPed at Veteran and below, but utterly useless at Hardcore and Insanity.

Modifié par Bozorgmehr, 14 juin 2010 - 09:03 .

[Bhatair]

I'm another person who loves veteran. It really is the best in my opinion. It gives you enough of a challenge while still letting 'fun' powers like shockwave/throw/cryo blast to be useful more often.

[SAE100]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

Insanity is insanely easy, it should have been the veteran level - Insanity should be insanely difficult, but its not.

@ SAE100 Did you find anything about the number of enemies you have to engage, would love to double or triple them and have some fun.

Mmh, as far as I know there´s no possibility to possibility to manipulate the spawns. But It´s possible to change how many defences and health the enemys have. It´s also possible to change the damage they´re dealing to you and your squadmembers. If you´re not familiar with coalsced modding (its very easy) I can help you.

If you want the ultimate challange try the hidden difficulty level 6. You can get it through gibbeds savegame editor. But I can tell you you´ll never make it, cause enemys have an health and defence multiplier of tenthousand. 

[Ieldra]

Since we're talking about changing combat settings: is there a setting that makes armor not protect against biotics? I'm fine with shields and barriers, but armor should be affected since it's just matter.



Apart from that, I found my (so far only) Insanity run interesting and not too tedious. It was also not frustratingly hard. ME1 was very much worse. But I, too, wish that biotic powers were more useful, particularly the telekinetic powers. I wouldn't mind a chance of resisting like in ME1, but that a whole group of ten armored Husks is completely unaffected by a Throw Field, that's not fun.



In the end, I agree that Veteran is the most fun difficulty. Admittedly it's a little easy at times once you've played a whole game on Insanity, but at least you can use all your powers to good effect. The occasional Casual run is also fun - in the cutscenes you're often a real badass, and it's disappointing when you get back to normal gameplay and realize you aren't. Play on Casual and the cutscenes don't lie as much anymore.

[Pacifien]

Ieldra2 wrote...
Apart from that, I found my (so far only) Insanity run interesting and not too tedious. It was also not frustratingly hard. ME1 was very much worse. But I, too, wish that biotic powers were more useful, particularly the telekinetic powers. I wouldn't mind a chance of resisting like in ME1, but that a whole group of ten armored Husks is completely unaffected by a Throw Field, that's not fun.

I just did an Adept playthrough on Insanity and it does take an incredible amount of finesse to get it to work properly. After enough upgrades and evolving of your powers, Shepard can set up the biotic combinations by himself, but I still think it works best with other biotic squadmates.

There is still Warp to help take down armor, but that's not going to help you when husks are swarming in droves. Heavy weapons became a must in such cases. As a Vanguard, Avalanche was my heavy weapon of choice. As an Adept, the Arc Projector meant everything to me. The Arc Projector also has the added benefit of giving my Adept a way to cut through shields, too.

I also surprisingly found a use for Shockwave on Insanity because it will still cause an enemy to stumble, which allows me time to switch weapons on them. But still, not as satisfying as it is on lower difficulties when it sends enemies flying in different directions.

[badkenbad]

Bozorgmehr wrote...
ME2 is better balanced on Insanity than on Normal difficulty. Caster classes (Adepts, Engineers and Sentinels) are extremely powerful on Normal difficulty compared to the combat orientated classes (Soldiers, Infiltrators and Vanguards). Soldiers have no special powers, but do have access to a lot of different Ammo powers. They are useless at Normal difficulty (no defenses to deal with), but are very useful on Insanity.

Let's look at how many classes have powers affected by extra armor and shields at higher difficulties, and how many don't.

classes with powers rendered useless by extra armor and shields:
Infiltrator
Vanguard
Adept
Sentinel
Engineer

classes with powers unaffected by extra armor and shields:
Soldier

How can you say the game is more balanced at Insanity when 83% of the classes are less effective at Insanity? The majority of the classes have nothing to do except stand around and plink with their ineffective light weapons until armor and shields are stripped from Insanity enemies. The experience of playing the different classes is completely different, and not in a good way.

At Veteran and lower difficulties, there are still armored enemies, enemies with shields or barriers, and bosses with invulnerabilities. Soldiers are not useless at lower difficulties. All their ammo powers have secondary abilities that are very useful against unarmored targets. Disruptor ammo disables weapons. Incendiary ammo makes organics do the "I'm on fire" dance. Cryo ammo makes enemy popsicles. All very useful effects. In the higher difficulties, there are no unprotected enemies, so even the Soldier's secondary abilities are less useful.

Insanity is fine for a challenge. It generally requires you to rely more on your squad, or get creative with your own powers. It requires you to be more careful about using cover and the environment to your advantage. Fights last longer, so it's better for people who crave combat. It does not, however, offer balanced use of all classes and powers in the way that Veteran and lower do.

Modifié par badkenbad, 14 juin 2010 - 04:20 .

[Bozorgmehr]

SAE100 wrote...
If you want the ultimate challange try the hidden difficulty level 6. You can get it through gibbeds savegame editor. But I can tell you you´ll never make it, cause enemys have an health and defence multiplier of tenthousand.

Didn't know you could go to level 6 with Gibbeds - but I'm defenitely going to try   sounds fun.

Thanks for offering help, but I've used Gibbed and the C.ini myself, but I only used it to change Shepard's appearance and to remove Heavy Weapons and squadies to make ME2 a bit more challenging (and recourses of course, I hate planetscanning). A 10k multiplier seems a bit extreme and it's just the usual 'make the game harder' approach. I would appreciate if you could tell me where you've found the line to change the number of enemy defenses and health. Adding an additional layer of protection and some health would be nice.

Pacifien wrote...
There is still Warp to help take down armor, but that's not going to help you when husks are swarming in droves. Heavy weapons became a must in such cases. As a Vanguard, Avalanche was my heavy weapon of choice. As an Adept, the Arc Projector meant everything to me. The Arc Projector also has the added benefit of giving my Adept a way to cut through shields, too.

That's the whole point of making the game just a little bit harder. On lower difficulties it doesn't even matter what you do, just press some power buttons and all enemies are gone. On Insanity you'll have to bring the right tools for the right job, thats all.

I also surprisingly found a use for Shockwave on Insanity because it will still cause an enemy to stumble, which allows me time to switch weapons on them. But still, not as satisfying as it is on lower difficulties when it sends enemies flying in different directions.

Almost all powers have that effect. If you use Pull or Throw against a protected enemy they will be stunned for a (very) short time. The main problem with Shockwave is its relative long animation and aiming (ME2 uses an auto-aim system and with something like Shockwave you'll want to attack an area not one enemy)

badkenbad wrote...
Let's look at how many classes have powers affected by extra armor and shields at higher difficulties, and how many don't.

classes with powers rendered useless by extra armor and
shields:
Infiltrator
Vanguard
Adept
Sentinel
Engineer

classes with powers unaffected by extra armor and shields:
Soldier

How can you say the game is more balanced at Insanity when 83% of the classes are less effective at Insanity? The majority of the classes have nothing to do except stand around and plink with their ineffective light weapons until armor and shields are stripped from Insanity enemies. The experience of playing the different classes is completely different, and not in a good way.

83% of the classes less effective? Powers like Warp and Reave do double dmg against armor and barriers, Overload and Energy Drain do the same against shields etc. Why have such powers in the first place if you hardly ever need to use them. The only thing that changes on Insanity is to use the right squadies, powers and HWs for the right missions. Infiltrators can one-(head)shot-kill all normal enemies (80%) on Insanity, Vanguards have an easier time on Insanity (enemies you charge don't start flying around (bad for aiming) and like the Infiltrator can one-shot-kill almost all enemies (with the occasionally melee follow up), for Adepts check my sig, Sentinels are tanks with their armor, but on Insanity they'll die sometimes (on Normal you simply can't die if you spam the armor), I can't tell you much about Engineers I still have to give that class a try.

At Veteran and lower difficulties, there are still armored enemies, enemies with shields or barriers, and bosses with invulnerabilities. Soldiers are not useless at lower difficulties. All their ammo powers have secondary abilities that are very useful against unarmored targets. Disruptor ammo disables weapons. Incendiary ammo makes organics do the "I'm on fire" dance. Cryo ammo makes enemy popsicles. All very useful effects. In the higher difficulties, there are no unprotected enemies, so even the Soldier's secondary abilities are less useful

I never said Soldiers are useless, they're a very powerful class and I love playing with them. I only said that their ammo powers or not needed at lower levels. One sniper/shotgun/AR shot/salvo will kill almost anything without using ammo powers at all. Soldiers are getting alot more effective at higher levels where ammo makes a big difference - improving the Soldier's (and squad) dmg output significally.

Insanity is fine for a challenge. It generally requires you to rely more on your squad, or get creative with your own powers. It requires you to be more careful about using cover and the environment to your advantage. Fights last longer,

Exactly

so it's better for people whocrave combat. It does not, however, offer balanced use of all classes and powers in the way that Veteran and lower do.

I have a different view.

Modifié par Bozorgmehr, 14 juin 2010 - 10:34 .

[Unit-Alpha]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

badkenbad wrote...

Nobody is complaining about Insanity being hard. We're complaining about it being tedious and about it fundamentally altering some fairly well balanced gameplay design.

ME2 is very well balanced on insanity and I do appreciate the system used by Bioware. Its not like most other games that on higher difficulty levels you simply have to kill enemies a dozen times (compared to normal difficulty).

What games have more spawns on a higher difficulty? Not any I've seen in the last 5 years. When I play MW2 on veteren, the enemies just strip my health faster, the same as ME2. Bioware is using the same outdated difficulty system that most games use; we need a system based on AI intelligence, not that relative amounts of health. Far Cry 2, as flawed as it was, presented great AI enemies. They snuck around, flanked you, and then sprinted in with a shotgun. We need that, not less health.