24 réponses à ce sujet

[Neuzhelin]

LotSB combat is a sign. A sign that Bioware is finally heading in the right direction when it comes to combat.

1) Tela Vesir
pro: Tela Vesir has "charge". It looks great.
con: Instead of adding strategy to make the fight challenging extra barrier and armor are added. A solution would have been adding a rechargable, realistic barrier you have to take down fast (4-5 secs) in order to damage armor  INSTEAD of mb1+w'ing the gazzilion of hit points, more hit points then all the YMIR Mechs and all the other bosses have combined. This resulted in a a tedious chase, as Verir's version of charge does not require a target, does not recharge barrier and is used 1-2 seconds after you are close.

2) Shadow Broker
pro: A unique boss encounter with great visuals requiring mellee.
con: Everything is explained way too much, the strategy is handed to you immediatly making it too easy. The close quater fight is at times bugged (beginning of my video) or poorly scripted.

3) Mercs
pro: Interractable environment, good spawn rates resulting in fun fights, flashbangs spice things up
con: They are still mercs.

Note: This is seen from a vanguard's perspective on insanity. This is a post about combat, not the actual value of the DLC (which is awesome).

The encounters can be seen here:
video 1
video 2

[swk3000]

What is 'mb1+w'ing'? I can't figure it out.

[Kronner]

my Vanguard perspective: (played twice, Insanity both times)

1) Vasir was nice, but if she had much better offense/tactics and less defense points, it would be more realistic and fun. She can now take more damage than 2 YMIR mechs combined, but she presents no threat.

2) Shadow Broker was too easy. It took about 10 seconds to remove all his defenses on Insanity. I liked the melee cutscenes though. SB is too slow, so his Revenant and "charge" are pretty useless.

3) It seems to me levels were clearly designed with Vanguards in mind, Charge was always available and it was lots of fun. Although I did encounter bug on that big ship, one "switch" did not appear. Reload was needed, this was probably caused by Charging (did not happen with other classes).

Modifié par Kronner, 12 septembre 2010 - 10:02 .

[Neuzhelin]

swk3000 wrote...

What is 'mb1+w'ing'? I can't figure it out.

As I played the PC version: the act of holding "W" - forward and "mouse button 1" - fire.

[JaegerBane]

I dunno. I did think the sheer resiliance of Vasir was just, in a word, absurd - she was tougher than a bloomin' gunship. IT didn't really bother me, though - there's less consistent things in the game.

If anything the biggest annoyance I had is that Vasir doesn't need a target to charge at. I wish Shep could do that.

[swk3000]

As a Soldier (played once, but on Insanity. Picked up ME1 again right after), I found a lot of the combat annoying. Playing as a Surgeon is all but impossible, as just about every non-major fight (in other words, every fight not against Vesir or the Shadow Broker) had far more enemies than any other encounter in the normal game. There were something like 5 groups of 4-5 enemies on the parking lot of the Azure, and I kept running out of ammo. Many of the fights in this DLC were that way, and I found it annoying. Quantity does not equal quality.



As for the fight against Vesir, it was also annoying, though to a lesser degree. It was actually kind of refreshing to see her take a Widow headshot to the face and survive, in a 'Dear Lord! Would you just fscking die already!' sort of way. There were a few points where it could have gone south, but I never claimed to be the best player out there.



The fight with the Shadow Broker was actually very satisfying. It was somewhat easier than I might have liked, but considering just how difficult it was to get to that point in the first place, having a cakewalk fight to end things was rather relaxing. I would have preferred the fights up to it to be easier, and this fight to be tougher, but it was balanced enough that I'm relatively happy with it.

[JaegerBane]

swk3000 wrote...
The fight with the Shadow Broker was actually very satisfying. It was somewhat easier than I might have liked, but considering just how difficult it was to get to that point in the first place, having a cakewalk fight to end things was rather relaxing. I would have preferred the fights up to it to be easier, and this fight to be tougher, but it was balanced enough that I'm relatively happy with it.

Actually, I found it to be an interesting fight. I was a bit surprised that something that size decided to sit at the back and shoot rather than do the melee thing... and I think I chuckled at how blatantly Vanguard-focused the fight was, but hey, it was a fun battle.

[numotsbane]

I found the shadow broker slightly disappointing from a story standpoint. I just don't think someone as supposedly intelligent as the shadow broker would act and fight in such a brute, unintelligent way. i expected him to be classy but deadly, not another angry Krogan wannabe.

still good fight. good enemy. not as good as vasir.

[JaegerBane]

numotsbane wrote...

I found the shadow broker slightly disappointing from a story standpoint. I just don't think someone as supposedly intelligent as the shadow broker would act and fight in such a brute, unintelligent way. i expected him to be classy but deadly, not another angry Krogan wannabe.
still good fight. good enemy. not as good as vasir.

Actually, that part... if I could have applauded Liara in the way she dealt with him, I would have. Her studies of the shadow broker and her own natural intelligence meant that she knew *exactly* how to exploit him. All that time he was invulnerable behind his anomynity - the best way to make him vulnerable to was to draw attention to the fact that at the end of the day, he was a savage, a pretender.

Really cool

[numotsbane]

Oh, yeah i liked that she was able to make him angry, but I didn't think it made sense that he became so angry that his brain completely stopped working. personal view probably.

did anyone else really enjoy the car chase? it was like playing burnout again, only in mass effect, and with snide comments. and better. is the car chase combat? I'm going to go with yes, to justify the question being in this thread.

[Sailears]

Playing as an adept, one thing I enjoyed for sure was the exterior of the broker's ship. There was a lot of *shoot the lightning capacitors* followed by pull field spam.
I enjoyed every merc encounter in the mission (apart from those confounded enemy engineers <_< ).

On the boss fights, well Vasir was good fun. Sadly stasis killed this fight by completely neutralising her charge, but I liked the breaks in the fight where a set of mercs/drones would show up.
The shadow broker fight - that wasn't so fun for me. Three rounds of grinding his protection down got a little tiresome. I would have preferred 1, maybe 2 rounds but with more variety (ie some mechs/drones to spice up the challenge).

But yeah, on the whole combat was very entertaining.

[Neuzhelin]

Kronner wrote...

1) Vasir was nice, but if she had much better offense/tactics and less defense points, it would be more realistic and fun. She can now take more damage than 2 YMIR mechs combined, but she presents no threat.

Clearly, Bioware is improving the combat and enemy powers. There is a core concept that is wrong, however: more shield/barrier + armor = more fun/challenge.  How about directing that on a more complex AI and then differentiating the power usage.

Modifié par Neuzhelin, 12 septembre 2010 - 11:46 .

[Kronner]

Neuzhelin wrote...

Kronner wrote...

1) Vasir was nice, but if she had much better offense/tactics and less defense points, it would be more realistic and fun. She can now take more damage than 2 YMIR mechs combined, but she presents no threat.

Clearly, Bioware is improving the combat and enemy powers. There is a core concept that is wrong, however: more shield/barrier + armor = more fun/challenge.  How about directing that on a more complex AI and then differentiating the power usage.

Yep, if she had tech attacks like Damping from ME1, so she could disable all Sheps powers for some time, it would be a nice change. Her Shockwave (or whatever it is) took too long to cast and was easily avoided. Insantly cast Throw or Slam - sending Shepard to the ground for a few seconds - would work much better. Though it was cool to see Charge from another perspective, it was just eye candy and pretty much inefficient.

[VampireCommando]

In my eyes LoTSB has set the bar for future mass effect gameplay, squad banter and interactions, bos fights, car chases... FREAKIN CAR CHASES! and just everything in genral. I honestly loved it, its the best DLC for any game i've ever played, i truely do hope we get mre things in this direction BW, i especially loved the banter during combat between Shep and Liara, and the ME1 refrences to omni gel had me in pieces. All in all, utterly amazing.

[JaegerBane]

Kronner wrote...
Yep, if she had tech attacks like Damping from ME1, so she could disable all Sheps powers for some time, it would be a nice change. Her Shockwave (or whatever it is) took too long to cast and was easily avoided. Insantly cast Throw or Slam - sending Shepard to the ground for a few seconds - would work much better. Though it was cool to see Charge from another perspective, it was just eye candy and pretty much inefficient.

To be honest, one of the things I liked about ME2 was the removal of all those irritating 'thrown to the floor' moments from ME1. Telekinesis is a great concept for the player to use in a game, but not so much *against* them.

[numotsbane]

I know, its frustrating as opposed to fun. even the stagger effects annoy me, as they feel cheap. especially on insanity, where one shockwave or singularity can pop you up into the open view of a host of nasty weapon sights.

definitely the worst way to die. I hated harbinger until i learned the 'move right, then left, then right' trick to neutralise singularity

[Kronner]

JaegerBane wrote...

Kronner wrote...
Yep, if she had tech attacks like Damping from ME1, so she could disable all Sheps powers for some time, it would be a nice change. Her Shockwave (or whatever it is) took too long to cast and was easily avoided. Insantly cast Throw or Slam - sending Shepard to the ground for a few seconds - would work much better. Though it was cool to see Charge from another perspective, it was just eye candy and pretty much inefficient.

To be honest, one of the things I liked about ME2 was the removal of all those irritating 'thrown to the floor' moments from ME1. Telekinesis is a great concept for the player to use in a game, but not so much *against* them.

Because there were such thing - Shep could be thrown to the floor - armor was meaningful. In ME2 you could run around naked and it would make no difference at all. You get stunned by a rocket no matter what, but the damage the rocket does is laughable..so armor is once again pointless. I am not asking for enemies that can instakill Shep (though who did not love geth snipers in ME1 lol), but something other than 100% accurate enemy fire would be welcome.

[numotsbane]

Back on topic, I just wanted to add that I LOVED that you could use the environment to help neutralise enemies, especially on the shadow brokers ship. or maybe only on it. hmm, must replay. using the... lightning things to get an arc projector effect on enemies was mad. And pulling targets into the air to see them sail off merrily into a lightning storm, wicked. those are the things that are made of win.

[Tony Gunslinger]

VampireCommando wrote...

In my eyes LoTSB has set the bar for future mass effect gameplay, squad banter and interactions, bos fights, car chases... FREAKIN CAR CHASES! and just everything in genral. I honestly loved it, its the best DLC for any game i've ever played, i truely do hope we get mre things in this direction BW, i especially loved the banter during combat between Shep and Liara, and the ME1 refrences to omni gel had me in pieces. All in all, utterly amazing.

I agree, I like the Illium battles because they really give you a sense of scale and atmosphere of Nos Astra, fighting in the middle of the public street instead of another isolated hanger bay or warehouse. Tela reminds me of fighting Benezia, fighing in different stages. I would've liked to see her charging right at me for a huge damage, but balancing it with a slight power-up delay + immunity warning so I know when to take cover. And yes, I agree the shadow broker fight had too much hand-holding, it was border-line quicktime event.

[Neuzhelin]

JaegerBane wrote...

Kronner wrote...
Yep, if she had tech attacks like Damping from ME1, so she could disable all Sheps powers for some time, it would be a nice change. Her Shockwave (or whatever it is) took too long to cast and was easily avoided. Insantly cast Throw or Slam - sending Shepard to the ground for a few seconds - would work much better. Though it was cool to see Charge from another perspective, it was just eye candy and pretty much inefficient.

To be honest, one of the things I liked about ME2 was the removal of all those irritating 'thrown to the floor' moments from ME1. Telekinesis is a great concept for the player to use in a game, but not so much *against* them.

This is getting dangeously off topic.. The only part I liked about ME1 combat compared to ME2 were the "realistic" effects of abilities on the player: damping, sabotage, statis, throw (yes you barely fell but you knew you were facing biotics). It is ridiculous that the most powerful biotic enemies in ME2 up until now only have warp.

A better ballance between acting and reacting is needed as the currect system tolerates mindless hiding behind a crate while waiting for recharge after taking out unoptimally programmed AI 1 after 1. Mobs can outnumber you 15:1 and still sit back as you kill them. Unfortunatly, even the slightest loss of control (Harbringer's warp bomb, attack drone, pyro/heavy mercs, scion shockwave generates so much complaining and rage instead of strategies and counters (which there are plenty of) on the forums that, I picture, Bioware working towards an even more control friendly gameplay in #3.

EDIT: Also as Kronner pointed out, I really liked the resistance part in ME1 where you could chose to get more biotic/tech/physical resistance.

Modifié par Neuzhelin, 12 septembre 2010 - 04:23 .

[IMNWME]

I booted up my Assault Sentinel + Energy Drain to take on LotSB and just massacred all opposition, it was glorious. Engineer w/ Dominate took a bit longer, but it was fun playing around with all the powers, too.

[Homebound]

Tela Vasir was a harder boss fight than the Broker imho.

[Neuzhelin]

Just_mike wrote...

Tela Vasir was a harder boss fight than the Broker imho.

It was longer but I wouldn't say harder as the tactics didn't change.. at all.

[Nooneyouknow13]

See, if you abuse 1 point in Stasis, Vasir was one of the shortest fights in the game. Have Liara pop stasis on her, and run in while charging GPS, blast her as soon as she ragdolls. Takes like 3 reps of this to drop her barrier and trigger her first run away. Stasis is then a OHKO on the drones, so you just have a couple of mercs to drop quickly, then it's back to Stasis and charged shotgun blasts. She just wouldn't have been a boss fight at all without a mass of HP.

That's what I did with an adept, I'm betting it's even easier with a claymore handy, since you can ignore the charge time.

Modifié par Nooneyouknow13, 18 septembre 2010 - 07:56 .

[StarcloudSWG]

The Shadow Broker going into combat mode made perfect sense to me after reading the entry on the Yahg.



The Yahg establish dominance by social maneuvering and/or physical combat. Once dominance is achieved, the Yahg accept it and move on, business as normal.



What Liara did was challenge the Shadow Broker for dominance, socially, by insulting the Shadow Broker, calling him a slave.. or a pet. No matter how civilized the Yahg was, he could not permit that to pass; He'd clearly 'lost' the social dominance fight since Sheperd and Liara were clearly not impressed by his knowledge, so he reflexively moved to assert dominance through combat.



Fairly basic psychology on the Bioware writer's part, and quite believable.