667 réponses à ce sujet

[The Spamming Troll]

PACKERS RULE!

Schneidend wrote...

I love how the stagger effect is being completely dismissed by people who have no idea what they're talking about. On a nearby mook like a Blue Suns Trooper or Vorcha, a stagger is long enough for the player to run up to them, put a gun to their head, and quickly burn them down with the double damage bonus for melee range. For the Adept the Tempest and Predator are incredibly effective for this. Become a shotgun Adept, and the effectiveness is magnified.

youd die 100% of the time trying to run up to a staggered enemy, unless thats the last enemy on screen.

Bozorgmehr wrote...

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

Yeah,
the "Bulletzzz should rule cause this iz a shooterzz. Go play on EZ if
you are not LEET" people will always say that if a biotic power staggers
an opponent for 0.0009 sec it is a good enough effect.

I'd like
the classes to be substantially differnent rather than having the
soldier classes dominate in shooting and requiring the power classes to
shoot and have powers that often do pretty much nothing. They are happy
with powers that often do nothing though and you are not going to change
their minds.

Mass Effect is a shooter - that means
you'll need to shoot stuff. When you're playing football, you're playing
football - not tennis or hockey.

I seriously doubt you have
played ME2, considering all the nonsense you're constantly posting.
Vorcha narrow-mindedness isn't going to help either. Please post
something constructive or go troll somewhere else.

mass effect is anything you wanna call it. doesnt mean some classes suck, some classes rock people socks off.

Evilsod wrote...

Roxlimn wrote...

Evilsod:

From
what evidence are you getting the information that Heavy Throw does
"minor damage?" The damage Heavy Throw does on Barrier defenses is
significant. Two will strip defenses of Collectors (and Vanguards) on
Hardcore, which is functionally equivalent to a Warp, since Throw has
half the cooldown. If the enemy has already damaged Barriers, Throw
removes it more efficiently than Warp.

Once defenses are down,
Throw is better than Warp, so no, not all powers work best when defenses
are down. I'd say the same about things like Overload.

If Throw
did something more than its current damage and a stagger, it would be
better than Warp against Barrier defended enemies across the board.
That's just silly. Again, you obviously did not know this, even though
it's perfectly obvious once you start doing it. Evidently, you haven't
been using Heavy Throw against defended enemies at all.

On
Hardcore? You can sneeze on an enemy and watch its defence layer drop.
By the time your 1st Throw has reached its target you could've just
popped out and shot it a few times with any weapon and dropped its
defences. Hell if you arced it enough you could probably use Pull and
drop its defences before it connected.

Yes you believe that the
adept is the 'thinking mans' class if it makes you feel better about
yourself Bender. Once you've got the passive and biotic cooldown stuff
you can just sit there spamming Throw or Pull or Singularity or Warp or
Reave till the cows come home and things will eventually die because
thats just how the game works.

throw should throw someone, not stagger them. it should kill them, actually.

the adept isnt the true CCer in ME2. something thats rarely brought up is that most ammo powers create some pretty effective CC.the soldier can light up organsics and synthetics and never need to worry about ranged CC. the adept just doesnt have alot ot offer, its hardly worth playing without NG+.

Modifié par The Spamming Troll, 07 février 2011 - 07:00 .

[Lycidas]

Seriously guys this discussion is all black and white. This is going nowhere if we can not find some middle ground. Saying the Adept is broken is just as wrong as claiming the class is perfect as is. Its obvious you can play the Adept quite effectively and beat the game with no big problems but on the other hand the class seems not on par in the list of favorite classes.

Now IMHO this can not be explained with "the Adept is harder to master" or harder to play in general. Have a look at the Vanguard. This class is IMHO just as hard to learn as the Adept if not harder. It can be so frustating if you just messed up the 5th time because charge did not go off or you aimed wrong with your claymore. Still the Vanguard is way above the Adept in every "favorite class poll" I have seen so far.

I don't think the Adept should be more powerful but it is indeed lacking some fun and uniqueness especially at the beginning of the game.

Maybe it's because the SMG's are lacking maybe it's because of the missing ammo powers or because the class is not actually rewarding you much for playing aggressive. I honestly can not put my finger on it.

[Arijharn]

Schneidend wrote...

I love how the stagger effect is being completely dismissed by people who have no idea what they're talking about. On a nearby mook like a Blue Suns Trooper or Vorcha, a stagger is long enough for the player to run up to them, put a gun to their head, and quickly burn them down with the double damage bonus for melee range. For the Adept the Tempest and Predator are incredibly effective for this. Become a shotgun Adept, and the effectiveness is magnified.

No it isn't, stagger effect lasts for like half a second and does barely anything. It interrupts someone shooting and that is good, but considering the points you put into it, I don't think it's a valuable trade off, especially since iirc the stagger is the same duration if you put one or 4 points into throw or hell, if you used Warp.

[Lycidas]

Arijharn wrote...
No it isn't, stagger effect lasts for like half a second and does barely anything. It interrupts someone shooting and that is good, but considering the points you put into it, I don't think it's a valuable trade off, especially since iirc the stagger is the same duration if you put one or 4 points into throw or hell, if you used Warp.

What if Throw would knock a protected target off their feet (falling to the ground Stasis like) instead of well throwing them and working as it is now on unprotected targets. I think that could be fun without totally overpowering it.

[Evilsod]

Schneidend wrote...

I love how the stagger effect is being completely dismissed by people who have no idea what they're talking about. On a nearby mook like a Blue Suns Trooper or Vorcha, a stagger is long enough for the player to run up to them, put a gun to their head, and quickly burn them down with the double damage bonus for melee range. For the Adept the Tempest and Predator are incredibly effective for this. Become a shotgun Adept, and the effectiveness is magnified.

I'd rather play Soldier or Vanguard or Infiltrator if i was going to be aiming to shoot everything in the face at point blank, but thanks all the same. Heavy Throw should at the very least knock an enemy on his arse.

[kumquats]

So I started my second Insanity Playthrough with an Adept, I'm LvL 23 now and I will need a few Loyality Missions, but so far I'm having a great time with the Adept.



As a Soldier there is no need to learn how to shoot, as an Adept you have to master the Power System. It's a different gaming expirience and very rewarding when a Krogan flys all over the map.

And I think the Adept is a really powerful AE-Damage class. There is no way a Soldier could kill 3-4 Enemys as fast as the Adept. On the other Hand, with the Soldier and Widow, the Shadowbroker was a joke, with the Adept I had to run a lot.



I think the diffrence is, if you want to kill your Enemys on Insanity and yawn, because it is so easy. Or you want to kill your Enemys and laugh your ass off, that's what happend to me.

I'm sorry but I had to compare the Adept to the Soldier, the Infiltrator is the last class I have to try.



I don't think the Adept needs Buffs on Insanity. Maybe they should have switched the useless Health Armor with more Powerbuff Armor, just to give my LvL 3 Adept more Love in the beginning.

[Bozorgmehr]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

You are the troll, Bozo. You insult everyone who disagrees with you. The polls show the adept to be the seconde least popular class (the engineer is last.) There are reasons for that. Reasons that we have been expressing while you have been insulting us.

Fanbois are hopeless.  Oh, King Troll, I have played through insanity multiple times with each class. I just don't like having to be a gimped soldier in places.

I think you have a rather strange definition of "insulting". You are the one who is "insulting" biotics in general and the Adept in particular by posting stuff which is simply wrong. If you say you like other classes better for whatever reason, i.e. posting your opinion, that's fine. I don't care if you have different feelings about certain classes, I do care about nonsense being posted.

They do, which is why they are an unpopular class.

I don't see what this has got to do with the argument here. Besides, how do you "know" Adepts are unpopular? Soldiers are the most popular class simply because it's the default class and lots of players play ME2 only once (using the default class) hence the results are useless to determine the "overall favorite" class. I only value the opinion of those who have played all. If not, they cannot know if they like Vanguard or Engineer better.

Polls conducted here at the Strategy Forum show different results though - Soldier is among the least popular classes, Adept somewhere in the middle and Vanguard's on top.

You shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot. You pretty much play an adept like a vanguard. It is moronic to think that just because weapons are so overpowering in the game (like I have said from day 1) that everyone can shoot so the balance is fine.

There is really no reason to have separate classes if you want each class to be constantly shooting.

The whole point of Mass Effect is about creating a game that is both a shooter and allows player to use powers to assist with shooting. This is not an opinion, this is how Bioware designed the game form the beginning. Like it or not, that's how it is. If you argued you like Adepts to shoot less and use powers more often, you have a fair point, but arguing shooting's supposed to be redundant in a (hybrid) shooter game is ridiculous. But ME2 already fulfills all your needs coz you can easily complete the game without having to shoot much or at all - play on Normal. Insanity should force player to use everything the game has to offer, instead of negating half the potential.

If you can't see or haven't noticed any difference between classes in ME2 you're either blind or you've never used powers at all. Every class in ME2 has a unique playstyle, some classes rely on one power only, Adept need all powers to be truly effective.

BTW, are you also arguing all the other classes are pointless?

Arijharn wrote...

Health does not matter because nothing suffers penalties when fighting it, does that make sense? There is no negative, so saying that Adepts doesn't suffer when fighting pure health enemies and is therefore balanced is redundant, because no other class suffers negatives either.

I don't understand what you're saying here. But I'll use different words to explain what I meant; enemy defenses only make up 1/3 of total HP (relatively speaking - powers and weapons receive multipliers versus defenses, not health). Biotics are devastating versus health, they can disable and kill enemies without defenses insanely fast. Used right, biotics can make 2/3 of the entire time spend fighting very easy - enemies cannot shoot back.

Those who struggle with defense stripping are going to have a hard time to kill enemies because it requires more effort to kill enemies than to strip their defenses. The argument enemies without defenses are doomed is true for Adepts, it is not true for Soldiers - they're only at the 33% mark.

Evilsod wrote...

Once you've got the passive and biotic cooldown stuff you can just sit there spamming Throw or Pull or Singularity or Warp or Reave till the cows come home and things will eventually die because thats just how the game works.

Spamming 5 powers and using guns is a lot more versatile than spamming only one power. Why are you even playing games like ME2 if you think it's that bad and boring. In most other shooter games you cannot use powers at all (only weapons). I'm still playing ME2 because it has a good balance between shooting and using other cool abilities, allowing different experiences playing each class. Much better than most single player shooters out there IMHO.

The Spamming Troll wrote...

throw should throw someone, not stagger them. it should kill them, actually.

Play on Normal if you prefer Mass Bowling.

Arijharn wrote...

No it isn't, stagger effect lasts for like half a second and does barely anything. It interrupts someone shooting and that is good, but considering the points you put into it, I don't think it's a valuable trade off, especially since iirc the stagger is the same duration if you put one or 4 points into throw or hell, if you used Warp.

Staggers are incredibly useful. The half a second you're mentioning is enough to get your shield blown of by a single enemy, or kill you without shield. If you think that's not much of a deal I don't know what is. This is what OniGanon had to say about staggers in his Infiltrator guide:

OniGanon wrote...

Now, if you aren't already aware of the glory of staggers, you need to learn it for this playstyle. Many abilities stagger enemies if they hit their defenses. This very briefly stops them from moving or taking any action (like shooting your face off), and will interrupt whatever they were doing. This gives you an opportunity to move into cover, to rush up to them, or to shoot them. Enemies also stagger when hit with melee or weapons, with some weapons providing more reliable stagger than others (shotguns, Viper and Mattock have reliable stagger). Abilities used don't have to be effective vs the defense, either. Warp or Neural Shock will stagger a shielded foe just fine. Actually, Overload doesn't stagger anyway.

Because stagger makes it easier to hit a moving target, it can be beneficial while Cloaked to melee your target first before shooting them. Despite what some might tell you, Cloak damage bonus does not apply to only the first shot. It applies to all shots for roughly 2 seconds, or around the time it takes to emtpy a Predator/Carnifex/SMG clip. Alternatively, if you're using the GPS/Pistol/SMG, you can simply fire from a few metres away where it's much easier to hit (this additionally can provide a stagger), but you will do less damage from there. Or you can just use squadmate abilities to provide the stagger. Outside of Cloak, an instant aoe stagger like Neural Shockwave or squadmate abilities can be used immediately before firing a volley of SMG/Viper/Pistol shots, reducing the damage you take and sometimes forcing other enemies out of cover.

Staggers are also invaluable for pulling your boots out of the fire. I cannot count how many times that second or so of stagger time has been the difference between life and death. Squadmate abilities are especially useful here, as they are usually cast instantly, and if you need stagger to save you you're probably on cooldown anyway. Warp, Concussive Shot, Throw, Flashbang, these powers work great for this purpose.

You're also ignoring the fact that although Throw does only stagger enemies with protection, which basically means Throw cannot be utilized to its fullest potential when engagements start. After one or a couple of seconds enemies have lost defenses and Throw can be used at will, i.e Throw is fully effective >80% time you spend fighting. Losing only 20% of its potential when used on Insanity isn't a really bad trade off IMHO.

[Roxlimn]

Evilsod:



You can't argue that both ways. Either defenses are easy to deal with and Adepts are very nearly as powerful on Hardcore and Insanity as they are on lower levels (and actually, they kind of are), or they're fairly significant and using the appropriate powers against defenses (which includes Throw vs. Barriers) is a significant advantage.



It's one or the other. It can't be both at your convenience.



The Spamming Troll:



Everything you want the Adept to do, it does on Normal. The game already does what you want. Now go change your difficulty setting and have the fun you want.

[mcsupersport]

First some notes:

1200 newtons of force is around 300 pounds of force. The average professional boxer punches with around 750 pounds of force and elites up to 1300 pounds of force. So 1200 Newtons is around half a professional boxers punch, so a stagger is well within parameters.

source: http://www.connectsa...article/102548/

Now, I personally know Adepts are fun and effective at the higher levels. I have played every class, and so far the only ones I have yet to complete are Sentinel and Engineer, first because of boredom Tech armor is just too good, and the second because well I am getting my butt handed trying a shotgun engineer on the collector ship and haven't enjoyed the experience. So I think I can say the Adept isn't gimped or a bad class, for me the Engineer is much weaker and the Sentinel a whole lot less fun to play because of the one trick pony and god mode.

You can't make powers effective against protections without changing something major in balance otherwise you will see another ME1 adept fiasco on insanity. I don't play ME1 insanity because to make the enemies have a chance they HAD to spam immunity otherwise they would be wiped out in a thrice due to the insane CC of adepts and Engineers. I can also say that adepts when played up to their full potential will absolutely rock insanity, but there is a learning curve some don't want to commit to or don't like doing because they have a preconceived idea how the class should play. If you go into the higher two levels expecting ME1 style adepts then yeah to you they are gimped, but if you learn how they act in ME2 then they will rule the battlefield. ME2 adepts don't spam one power and thus they are called weak, but the entire package of powers makes the adepts the king of biotics if you really like playing with your victims.

If you want to play ping pong with every mook who shows up play veteran and below, if you want a little more challenge then play Hardcore and up. Simple as that, and complaining that a class has a bit of a challenge on the HARDEST SETTING, seems a bit absurd to me, maybe not to you, but to me it does.

As for why everyone likes Vanguard so much, it is because it is an adrenaline filled ride to live or die with flash and pretty lights. Vanguard is a straight forward, easy to understand class with a flashy power. Adept isn't flashy, doesn't have one power to use in every situation, and if you are expecting that, then you are destined to be disappointed.

Modifié par mcsupersport, 07 février 2011 - 11:05 .

[Evilsod]

mcsupersport wrote...

First some notes:

1200 newtons of force is around 300 pounds of force. The average professional boxer punches with around 750 pounds of force and elites up to 1300 pounds of force. So 1200 Newtons is around half a professional boxers punch, so a stagger is well within parameters.

Where exactly did you get those numbers from? Newton is measured in kg so converting to lb would make it bigger not smaller.

At any rate, Heavy Throw has the power to launch a weightless half the map away and a regular enemy very hard into the wall. That has absolutely zero bearing on the power behind a boxers punch. Since you want to bring science into this:

F=ma.
1200 = 100a (100 being a fairly conservative estimate of a regular enemies weight)
a = 120 m/s (or 12g)

so that Heavy Throw is accelerating the ENTIRE enemy by 12 times (Earth) gravity. If you say they weigh 1kg when Pulled then you'd be accelerating them 1200g which would shred there internal organs apart never mind launch them out the map.

This same Heavy Throw will make a YMIR Mech look at you through a hail of bullets turning you into swiss cheese. Until its armour is destroyed at which point it collapses to the floor on the spot. So are you telling me that a regular enemy wearing Armour will somehow only be staggered by that force when the same force will make a YMIR Mech fall down?

[Bender5252]

OMG evilsod you are dumb. A newton is a measure or force. That is THE MEASUREMENT. You don't measure newtons in KGs the newton IS THE UNIT OF MEASUREMENT OF FORCE. KGs measure mass.... not weight.... your physics is off horribly too. You don't even know what the variables represent and what units are used. Acceleration is M/s^2 not M/s that is velocity. Plus your math is wrong. The way you do it is...

1200 N = 100 KG * Acceleration (M/S^2)...

This means you divide both sides by 100 and get...

12 = Acceleration (M/s^2) so that means your acceleration is not 12 times the force of gravity but actually 1.22 times the acceleration that you get from earths gravitational field. Easily the most epic fail on this whole forum...

[Evilsod]

Bender5252 wrote...

OMG evilsod you are dumb. A newton is a measure or force. That is THE MEASUREMENT. You don't measure newtons in KGs the newton IS THE UNIT OF MEASUREMENT OF FORCE. KGs measure mass.... not weight.... your physics is off horribly too. You don't even know what the variables represent and what units are used. Acceleration is M/s^2 not M/s that is velocity. Plus your math is wrong. The way you do it is...
1200 N = 100 KG * Acceleration (M/S^2)...
This means you divide both sides by 100 and get...
12 = Acceleration (M/s^2) so that means your acceleration is not 12 times the force of gravity but actually 1.22 times the acceleration that you get from earths gravitational field. Easily the most epic fail on this whole forum...

Congraulations, you know that a Newton is a KILOGRAM m s-², i just didn't feel the need to point the rest out. As for the a, i forgot the ², for all the no difference that made.

The only epic fail there was my maths regarding 1200/100 (which i blame on it being late). Its sad how you thought you were being so smart at correcting such a stupid math error.

But i digress. 1.22g certainly doesn't account for the enemy going flying into the wall with 'hurricane force' without Armour and only flinching slightly when hit with Armour. Which was kinda my point about comparing it to a punch.

Modifié par Evilsod, 08 février 2011 - 01:55 .

[Arijharn]

Lycidas wrote...

Arijharn wrote...
No it isn't, stagger effect lasts for like half a second and does barely anything. It interrupts someone shooting and that is good, but considering the points you put into it, I don't think it's a valuable trade off, especially since iirc the stagger is the same duration if you put one or 4 points into throw or hell, if you used Warp.

What if Throw would knock a protected target off their feet (falling to the ground Stasis like) instead of well throwing them and working as it is now on unprotected targets. I think that could be fun without totally overpowering it.

Agreed as a nice compromise between 'lorelol' and gameplay imo. 

[khevan]

The arguing in this thread is really going around in circles. Now, I personally find myself in the camp of "Adepts rock, but like every class, could use a few tweaks for ME3." I'd like to suggest some tweaks to put biotics slightly more towards ME1 style, while keeping the global cooldowns and faster casting of ME2. All of these suggestions assume that the target has protections up.

Pull: Should jerk the enemy forward, and knock them down, basically "pulling them" out of cover instead of knocking them down where they stand. But, they only get knocked down, not pulled up into the air.

Throw: Same as Pull, but knocking them backwards. This way you could use whichever power would work best to knock the target out of cover so you can shoot them, use squad powers, etc.

Shockwave: Should do some damage vs. protections. I'd like to see a damage scale like other powers, but with only a x1.5 multiplier vs all defenses. Won't strip any defense entirely on Insanity, but along with a knockback or a knockdown effect, it'd make Shockwave's 6s cooldown more worth it, and go a long way to making Shockwave a useful option in certain situations.

Warp: Should work as it does now. It's already an incredibly powerful ability.

Singularity: Should pretty much work the way it does now also. It locks protected enemies in place, which does a decent job of CC even with protections up.

Maybe with Pull/Throw affecting enemies with protections like the above, we could see a couple of tweaks to cooldown times, but I'm not at all certain about that. Does anyone else have any ideas for what they'd like to see for ME3?

Edit: fixing the daggone default formatting...

Modifié par khevan, 08 février 2011 - 07:44 .

[Lycidas]

khevan wrote...
Pull: Should jerk the enemy forward, and knock them down, basically "pulling them" out of cover instead of knocking them down where they stand. But, they only get knocked down, not pulled up into the air.

I agree with the forward jerking (basically a slightly longer stagger) but not the knock down. Pull is quite good as it is (can be used for Warp explosions other than Throw) I don't see the need to make it that much better.

khevan wrote...
Throw: Same as Pull, but knocking them backwards. This way you could use whichever power would work best to knock the target out of cover so you can shoot them, use squad powers, etc.

Do you think any Throw should do that or just Heavy Throw?

khevan wrote...
Shockwave: Should do some damage vs. protections. I'd like to see a damage scale like other powers, but with only a x1.5 multiplier vs all defenses. Won't strip any defense entirely on Insanity, but along with a knockback or a knockdown effect, it'd make Shockwave's 6s cooldown more worth it, and go a long way to making Shockwave a useful option in certain situations.

I struggle to come up with anything good for Shockwave. An AoE knockdown would make sence but I think it just might be too powerful.

khevan wrote...
Warp: Should work as it does now. It's already an incredibly powerful ability.

Singularity: Should pretty much work the way it does now also. It locks protected enemies in place, which does a decent job of CC even with protections up.

Agree 100%

khevan wrote...
Maybe with Pull/Throw affecting enemies with protections like the above, we could see a couple of tweaks to cooldown times, but I'm not at all certain about that.

IMHO cooldown times should not be touched. Why using a Thow on a longer cooldown over Singularity?

[termokanden]

I started out thinking there was something wrong with adepts in ME2 and basically hating the class. After playing one PAST Horizon on insanity, I no longer believe this is the case.



The only real problem I see with the class is the lack of biotic upgrades before Horizon. Apart from that, for me it was really all about getting used to biotics being different in ME2. Definitely less powerful but ultimately more fun because you don't just own everything without any effort.



class-balance-wise you can always argue that another class gets through the game more easily. It's true. However, I think power-wise adepts are right about where they should be, and other classes may be over the top (mainly thinking about soldiers and sentinels here).

[Roxlimn]

Lycidas:



I can see way broken shenanigans with Throw Field given a fall-down effect. Fully upgraded, Throw cooldowns about as fast as enemies get up. A Throw Field could easily be used to CC enemies more or less permanently. In conjuction with Stasis, this can lockdown a room completely for a few seconds - easily long enough to eliminate half. Then just repeat Throw Field. Insta-win ala ME1.



In fact, you can already do this on Hardcore and Insanity - you just need to get defenses off. Once you CC down a crowd, you can just order Grunt in with his shotgun and it's a no-effort win. Having this possible with defenses up opens up this potential right from the start of the encounter.

[Lycidas]

Roxlimn wrote...

Lycidas:

I can see way broken shenanigans with Throw Field given a fall-down effect. Fully upgraded, Throw cooldowns about as fast as enemies get up. A Throw Field could easily be used to CC enemies more or less permanently. In conjuction with Stasis, this can lockdown a room completely for a few seconds - easily long enough to eliminate half. Then just repeat Throw Field. Insta-win ala ME1.

Exactly that thought put me on the fence too. IMHO if Throw would get a knockdown effect it should only be for Heavy Throw.

[khevan]

Lycidas wrote...

Roxlimn wrote...

Lycidas:

I can see way broken shenanigans with Throw Field given a fall-down effect. Fully upgraded, Throw cooldowns about as fast as enemies get up. A Throw Field could easily be used to CC enemies more or less permanently. In conjuction with Stasis, this can lockdown a room completely for a few seconds - easily long enough to eliminate half. Then just repeat Throw Field. Insta-win ala ME1.

Exactly that thought put me on the fence too. IMHO if Throw would get a knockdown effect it should only be for Heavy Throw.

Yeah, I should have been more clear in my original post.  Heavy throw should do the knockdown, Throw field and maybe rank 3 throw should do more of a knockback, a bit more than a stagger. 

I can also understand your earlier point about pull being used for Warp Explosions, so, yeah, I can see having it just be a "jerk", again a bit more than a standard stagger, but I agree with you about the no knockdown from pull.

I want to see biotics be a bit more useful against protections in ME2, but not to the point where they're completely broken like in ME1.

[kstarler]

I actually think the only power that the tweak might work on is Pull (though I will cover why I don't think it should be changed after this bit). Barriers, Kinetic Shielding, and Armor should all absorb impacts, and Throw and Shockwave are essentially impact abilities. I think, regardless of the points in the skill or evolutions of said skill, the stagger effect should be all that you get while defenses are up for those two abilities (and either a tweak to Shockwave's cool down (making it shorter) or to the damage it does to defenses). Otherwise, as has been stated, you are moving back toward biotics being overpowered a la ME1.

The proposed tweak to Pull would mesh better with the lore, but there would have to be a cool down increase to balance it, which would make Pull more or less redundant with Singularity (assuming the global cool down is kept), making it useless in a way similar to how Shockwave is currently useless. With that in mind, I don't think they should change any of the biotic powers functioning against defenses in ME3 (as a case of game play trumping lore). Maybe they can add a new power that works like Singularity, where it has effectiveness against protected and unprotected enemies, though the effectiveness is different depending on the enemy's protections.

Modifié par kstarler, 08 février 2011 - 06:35 .

[khevan]

kstarler wrote...

I actually think the only power that the tweak might work on is Pull (though I will cover why I don't think it should be changed after this bit). Barriers, Kinetic Shielding, and Armor should all absorb impacts, and Throw and Shockwave are essentially impact abilities. I think, regardless of the points in the skill or evolutions of said skill, the stagger effect should be all that you get while defenses are up for those two abilities (and either a tweak to Shockwave's cool down (making it shorter) or to the damage it does to defenses). Otherwise, as has been stated, you are moving back toward biotics being overpowered a la ME1.

The proposed tweak to Pull would mesh better with the lore, but there would have to be a cool down increase to balance it, which would make Pull more or less redundant with Singularity (assuming the global cool down is kept), making it useless in a way similar to how Shockwave is currently useless. With that in mind, I don't think they should change any of the biotic powers functioning against defenses in ME3 (as a case of game play trumping lore). Maybe they can add a new power that works like Singularity, where it has effectiveness against protected and unprotected enemies, though the effectiveness is different depending on the enemy's protections.

Well, I for one do not want biotics to be overpowered like they were in ME1, but if you think about it, shields and armor didn't stop impact powers then, so why should they now?  I understand the need for game balance, and ME2's system did a better job of balancing the powers, but I think they went too far in the right direction.  Having a slightly longer stagger (a forward "jerk" effect) for Pull, a knockback effect for high ranking Throws (and a knockdown for Heavy Throw) won't substatially make biotic abilities overpowered, at least not nearly to the level that ME1 was.  However, biotic abilities are pretty much ineffective against defenses in ME2.  Yes, defenses are easy to remove, but that's not the point of this particular brain exercise.  This is an attempt to make biotics "feel" more like ME1, but without the complete overpoweredness. 

Adding a new power that affects defenses ala Singularity is unnecessary when current powers can be tweaked to provide a slight improvement to their effects, without completely overpowering them.  Just my two cents, and of course, this is all my opinion.

[kstarler]

khevan wrote...

Well, I for one do not want biotics to be overpowered like they were in ME1, but if you think about it, shields and armor didn't stop impact powers then, so why should they now? I understand the need for game balance, and ME2's system did a better job of balancing the powers, but I think they went too far in the right direction. Having a slightly longer stagger (a forward "jerk" effect) for Pull, a knockback effect for high ranking Throws (and a knockdown for Heavy Throw) won't substatially make biotic abilities overpowered, at least not nearly to the level that ME1 was. However, biotic abilities are pretty much ineffective against defenses in ME2. Yes, defenses are easy to remove, but that's not the point of this particular brain exercise. This is an attempt to make biotics "feel" more like ME1, but without the complete overpoweredness.

Adding a new power that affects defenses ala Singularity is unnecessary when current powers can be tweaked to provide a slight improvement to their effects, without completely overpowering them. Just my two cents, and of course, this is all my opinion.

To clarify, BioWare developers have basically made it clear that they will not be changing ME2 from here in, so the abilities in it are what they are. At most, we might get a bonus ability in the final bridging DLC. All of my suggestions are in regards to ME3. With that in mind, I'll address the last part first. If there are absolutely no new powers in ME3, I will be very disappointed, regardless of how much I want to kill the Reapers. I love ME2, but if ME3 is just the same game with a different story, then I may even excercise my consumer right to vote with my dollars, and not buy it.

We are in agreement that the stagger could be longer, especially once upgrades are obtained and/or the powers have been leveled. However, that is not how the ME engine works, unfortunately. Regardless of what worked in ME1 (and whether that actually was in line with the overall lore of the ME universe), if the Widow doesn't knock protected enemies on their rears (and I use the Widow for an example because it is powerful enough to substitute for the cannon in the Kasumi DLC (where you blow a hole in the wall)), then Heavy Throw shouldn't either. And, if Heavy Throw does, then why doesn't a shotgun to the face, a shot from the Widow at any range, or even a succession of bullets from another weapon? Realistically, all of the weapons should have that ability, but they don't because that's not how the ME engine works. It's one of the reasons why some folks complain that ME2 is a sub-par shooter (I am not one of them, to be clear).

Something we have to keep in mind in discussions like this is enemy balance, as well as player balance. If the stagger effect is increased for enemies, then it will likely be increased for Shepard, and there are already some valid complaints about staggers killing the player (one stagger amid supressing fire is enough to drop shields and often kill Shepard) in the same way that ME1 snipers could insta-kill players (at times, there is no cover to be had, all powers are on cool down, and the snipers NEVER miss). I think, for balance sake, the current system is what it is, and to change biotics as suggested either makes Shepard or the enemies too powerful. If BioWare changes the game mechanics in ME3, it will be great. However, I don't have hopes that they will do so. They tweaked the game mechanics heavily for ME2 and have stated that they are focusing heavily on the story in ME3, so that means we should expect light tweaks to the mechanics, if any.

If BioWare can balance the game to make the proposed tweaks work, then I'm all for them. However, assuming that the balance stays more or less the same as it is at present, I think the tweaks will cause negative consequences one way or the other. Just look at how powerful Stasis and the most recent DLC weapons are as proof. We have at least one person in this thread completely dismissing others' videos because they use DLC powers/weapons, and, while I disagree with the conclusions, I will admit that there are some merits to Evilsod's arguments.

Modifié par kstarler, 08 février 2011 - 07:56 .

[tonnactus]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

But I'm afraid we can't have all. When powers like Pull and Throw work on protected enemies everything becomes way too easy.

Not necessarily if combined with penalties,like the breakdown of barrier and increased cooldown time/decreased effect.It have to come at a cost,but should be possible.

I'd like to keep the defense system in ME3 (harder difficulty levels only), but anything that could make biotic powers more useful, when enemies still have defenses, is most welcome. An interactive environment could do that perhaps;

Like in this vid you mean? (walls fall down on enemies after a throw) Dont know why this wasnt included in the final game(hardware limitations couldnt be it/Red Fraction Guerillia have it too,on consoles)
I guess the Bioware programmers couldnt handle that without bugs.

Modifié par tonnactus, 08 février 2011 - 10:29 .

[tonnactus]

kumquats wrote...
cause it is so easy. Or you want to kill your Enemys and laugh your ass off, that's what happend to me.
I'm sorry but I had to compare the Adept to the Soldier, the Infiltrator is the last class I have to try.

Actually the infiltrator is my last favourite class.The soldier is even the better sniper,the engineer the better tech,and tactical cloak is boring for me.(had a character with 100 percent chameleon in Oblivion,maybee because of that).

In the first game,the infiltrator was nearly as durable as the soldier,could get the best tech powers,equal weapon damage with commando and the game has places where real sniping was possible(distances and use of the landscape).

[Evilsod]

Honestly what is the point in the 'Heavy' upgrades?



Heavy Singularity is an exception really, you take because of the way it interacts with defences, ie, it holds more enemies in place for longer if they're protected and damages them. Area Singularity doesn't really imrpove things much, its AoE radius less than doubles and the effect of that just makes it run out even faster doing even less.



But Heavy Pull? Why in gods name would you waste 4 points to get an extra 3 seconds? It recharges in 1.5ish seconds whereas Pull Field has the potential to hit multiple enemies.

Heavy Throw? I've got it mostly for the lols. It isn't *that* much of an improvement over push wise and the ability to throw or stumble multiple enemies is a clear winner.



It would be a reasonable upgrade if the 'Heavy' version actually gave it some effect through defences. It might be worth looking at over AoE versions. I don't even remember the last time i took anything but the AoE upgrade for stuff like Incinerate, Concussive Shot, Overload, etc. Might be an issue with the ridiculously low recharge of some skills using the 'global cooldown' system but it could do with something to make it worthwhile. It really couldn't be too hard to merge ME1 and ME2s system for ME3 so class only skills like Cloak or Adren Rush caused a global recharge and had a short cooldown to block other skills while stuff like Pull only recharged themselves but had a longer 1.



It would be great being able to use a Heavy Incinerate which has enough intensity to deal double damage to shields and barriers too or to make them panic regardless of the defence you hit. Or a Deep Cryo Blast to freeze weaker enemies through defences (or at least armour). Or an Overload that could overheat weapons and shutdown mechs even through defences. Right now theres no reason to take anything but the AoE upgrade for most skills.