196 réponses à ce sujet

[Glorious_Leader]

Did anyone else question the in-game explanation for thermal clips?  I understand that being able to instantly reduce the heat of your gun is probably useful, but what's the point when the damn things are so cumbersome and difficult to carry around that you can only have a handful of extra clips for most of your guns?  Doesn't it seem like the technology should've been refined a little bit before it set the universal standard in small arms manufacturing?  And while we're on the subject, how does Shepherd get all the way through Mass Effect 2 without stumbling upon a single gun that's more than two years old?

Modifié par Glorious_Leader, 03 février 2011 - 07:10 .

[Shotokanguy]

Gameplay is important too. Let's let some things slide.

[Gleym]

Shotokanguy wrote...

Gameplay is important too. Let's let some things slide.

Didn't change gameplay that much for me, outside of making it more annoying. Then I altered the game to use the heat system and my gameplay vastly improved, although it was still greatly hampered by the fact that it relied still on ME2's mechanics rather than the original heat system.

[Whereto]

This has been discussed to death. Yes it wasn't explained well, yes a lot don't like it, but I think it improved a dull overheating system. Of course that's my own opinion

[JKoopman]

Glorious_Leader wrote...

Did anyone else question the in-game explanation for thermal clips?

Yes. Many people over the last year since ME2's release on the Xbox 360.

Do we really need another 20+ page thread regurgitating the same arguments?

[Nohvarr]

I admit, I prefer the new system. Thermal Clips add a flavor the original game was missin. Sure I could manage my heat by pulsing my fire, but it didn't 'feel' right. Then when my weapon did overheat I had to sit and wait for the system to kick in before firing again.



Overall I think whether or not one likes Thermal Clips is a personal thing. I'd prefer they keep the current system but admit that not everyone feels the same way.

[marshalleck]

The only thing I question is why the crew of the MSV Hugo Gernsback has thermal clip weapons when their ship went down and became lost ten years before the events of ME2. 

Excellent 'fridge logic' moment. 

Modifié par marshalleck, 31 janvier 2011 - 01:20 .

[TheBlackBaron]

marshalleck wrote...

The only thing I question is why the crew of the MSV Hugo Gernsback has thermal clip weapons when their ship went down and became lost ten years before the events of ME2. 

Excellent 'fridge logic' moment. 

Another one of those "Gameplay and Story Segregations" moment. People already complain about how "limiting" the thermal clip system is (despite in practice it being very difficult to run out of them), they'd have thrown a holy **** fit if you had to beat that entire mission with only what you carry at the start, plus whatever powers you bring.

Come to think of it, that sounds like a pretty cool change of pace mission. 

Modifié par TheBlackBaron, 31 janvier 2011 - 01:28 .

[marshalleck]

Of course. I was just amused by it, is all.

[TheBlackBaron]

marshalleck wrote...

Of course. I was just amused by it, is all.

Oh, I know. But for me it's practically a reflex to bring that up now, given how many arguments about this I've been in here and elsewhere. 

[Glorious_Leader]

Okay, for the "Do we really need another thread for this" crowd, I just showed up as an active member on this website, so cut me some slack. I saw no other threads on this topic on the front page. If it's a frequent topic of discussion then it must be having some downtime in popularity, because I was most definitely deceived.

I feel that the thermal clips system an was unneeded addition to the franchise. Seemed fresh and polished for the first thirty minutes, then the novelty wore off and it became annoying. But it didn't irk me quite as much as the poor in-game excuse for its implementation. If they increased Shepherd's carrying capacity to make it feel less limiting, this plot hole would not exist, as it would make the thermal clips actually seem more efficient than the two-year-old counterparts.  Instead, I find myself wondering how the hell something that would be so expensive to maintain was brought into mass acceptance in two years.

Modifié par Glorious_Leader, 31 janvier 2011 - 01:43 .

[TheBlackBaron]

Glorious_Leader wrote...
I feel that the thermal clips system an was unneeded addition to the franchise. Seemed fresh and polished for the first thirty minutes, then the novelty wore off and it became annoying. But it didn't irk me quite as much as the poor in-game excuse for its implementation. If they increased Shepherd's carrying capacity to make it feel less limiting, this plot hole would not exist, as it would make the thermal clips actually seem more efficient than the two-year-old counterparts.

If they could properly implement it so that they truly are universal and interchangeable, instead of the halfway system ME2 had, I think that would go a long way to silencing much of the complaints, yes? 

[JKoopman]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

The only thing I question is why the crew of the MSV Hugo Gernsback has thermal clip weapons when their ship went down and became lost ten years before the events of ME2. 

Excellent 'fridge logic' moment. 

Another one of those "Gameplay and Story Segregations" moment. People already complain about how "limiting" the thermal clip system is (despite in practice it being very difficult to run out of them), they'd have thrown a holy **** fit if you had to beat that entire mission with only what you carry at the start, plus whatever powers you bring.

Come to think of it, that sounds like a pretty cool change of pace mission.

Or they could've simply had Shepard scavenge weapons off the first group of hunters you encounter or pick some off a few corpses found laying around ala the Collector Ship, made "ammo" temporarily unlimited from then on and tacked a heat gauge onto the HUD as a clever nod to the old weapons system. They could've even made the weapons fire a bit slower and/or inflict less damage to really hammer home how thermal clips are supposedly an improvement. And at the end, the weapon could've overheated and fried, forcing Shepard to discard it at mission completion.

But instead we have 10-year-old stranded colonists dropping thermal clips left and right with "state-of-the-art" combat mechs reinforcing them.

Modifié par JKoopman, 31 janvier 2011 - 01:46 .

[AdmiralCheez]

Like the Lazarus Project, the thermal clip explanation is a case of a poor story element attempting to incorporate a gameplay change. I think it was something along the lines of "reloading is faster than waiting for a gun to cool off, so troops can do more damage in less time."

[Glorious_Leader]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

Glorious_Leader wrote...
I feel that the thermal clips system an was unneeded addition to the franchise. Seemed fresh and polished for the first thirty minutes, then the novelty wore off and it became annoying. But it didn't irk me quite as much as the poor in-game excuse for its implementation. If they increased Shepherd's carrying capacity to make it feel less limiting, this plot hole would not exist, as it would make the thermal clips actually seem more efficient than the two-year-old counterparts.

If they could properly implement it so that they truly are universal and interchangeable, instead of the halfway system ME2 had, I think that would go a long way to silencing much of the complaints, yes? 

Agreed!  If all heatsinks are magazine shaped blocks that go into the gun, then what the hell are these bolt things flying out of my sniper rifle?!

@ JKoopman: Even ME1 guns had ammo.  We just never saw the ammo, because each bullet was but a shaving off a metal block, which would give an insane amount of ammo.  But this amount of ammo may very well be exhuastable over a ten year period.  Especially when one considers that Wrex was apparently able to go through all of his guns' ammo supplies in a short period of time while hunting some Asari on a space station!

Modifié par Glorious_Leader, 31 janvier 2011 - 01:50 .

[rabidhanar]

oh its this thread again.



OP pelase use search next time, it is easy and you do not have to add anything...just read some posts on the old thread and feel happy about your opinion.

[Mystranna Kelteel]

I wonder why more people bring up the thermal clips than something like, oh, I don't know, the "wearing a piece of armor or having a shield up makes people immune to singularities" thing.



lulz, consistent lore

[Glorious_Leader]

rabidhanar wrote...

oh its this thread again.

OP pelase use search next time, it is easy and you do not have to add anything...just read some posts on the old thread and feel happy about your opinion.

Just because something comes up in the search doesn't mean it's not threadworthy.  If it's not been discussed recently, then I don't see the problem with bringing it up for discussion.

Mystranna Kelteel wrote...

I wonder why more people bring
up the thermal clips than something like, oh, I don't know, the "wearing
a piece of armor or having a shield up makes people immune to
singularities" thing.

lulz, consistent lore

It was overshadowed by the large changes to the health and shield system's changes in general.

Modifié par Glorious_Leader, 31 janvier 2011 - 01:52 .

[TheBlackBaron]

JKoopman wrote...
Or they could've simply had Shepard scavenge weapons off the first group of hunters you encounter or pick some off a few corpses found laying around ala the Collector Ship, made "ammo" temporarily unlimited from then on and tacked a heat gauge onto the HUD as a clever nod to the old weapons system. They could've even made the weapons fire a bit slower and/or inflict less damage to really hammer home how thermal clips are supposedly an improvement. And at the end, the weapon could've overheated and fried, forcing Shepard to discard it at mission completion.

That would have also been cool as a change of pace. I just don't think it's worth getting too up in arms about.

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Like the Lazarus Project, the thermal clip explanation is a case of a poor story element attempting to incorporate a gameplay change. I think it was something along the lines of "reloading is faster than waiting for a gun to cool off, so troops can do more damage in less time."

That's exactly what it was, actually. Without having to limit ROF to manage heat, or waiting several seconds for the gun to cool down, it increase the amount of fire you can put downrange, which makes things die faster. 

It's the exact same reason we switched IRL from using bolt-action rifles to semi-automatic rifles, and then from battle rifles to assault rifles. 

[Glorious_Leader]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

JKoopman wrote...
Or they could've simply had Shepard scavenge weapons off the first group of hunters you encounter or pick some off a few corpses found laying around ala the Collector Ship, made "ammo" temporarily unlimited from then on and tacked a heat gauge onto the HUD as a clever nod to the old weapons system. They could've even made the weapons fire a bit slower and/or inflict less damage to really hammer home how thermal clips are supposedly an improvement. And at the end, the weapon could've overheated and fried, forcing Shepard to discard it at mission completion.

That would have also been cool as a change of pace. I just don't think it's worth getting too up in arms about.

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Like the Lazarus Project, the thermal clip explanation is a case of a poor story element attempting to incorporate a gameplay change. I think it was something along the lines of "reloading is faster than waiting for a gun to cool off, so troops can do more damage in less time."

That's exactly what it was, actually. Without having to limit ROF to manage heat, or waiting several seconds for the gun to cool down, it increase the amount of fire you can put downrange, which makes things die faster. 

It's the exact same reason we switched IRL from using bolt-action rifles to semi-automatic rifles, and then from battle rifles to assault rifles. 

It doesn't provide an improvement in performance that justifies the cost of such measures.  I ended up creating my own explanation that newer guns revolving around thermal clip technology were able to be more powerful since heat distribution wasn't as much of an issue, resulting in stronger shields coming out to counteract this, and making heatsink weaponry largely obsolete and unusable on the modern battlefield. 

Modifié par Glorious_Leader, 31 janvier 2011 - 02:03 .

[TheBlackBaron]

Glorious_Leader wrote...
It doesn't provide an improvement in performance that justifies the cost of such measures.  I ended up creating my own explanation that newer guns revolving around thermal clip technology were able to be more powerful since heat distribution wasn't as much of an issue, resulting in stronger shields coming out to counteract this, and making heatsink weaponry largely obsolete and unusable on the modern battlefield.  Why Bioware couldn't come up with such an explanation is beyond me.

It may only be a small improvement for Shepard, but I imagine that for the average Alliance marine or Turian soldier or mercenary "employee", who don't have access to HMWAR X rifles with heat sink upgrades that make them fire infinitely (which is incredibly borked and unrealistic), it would constitute a pretty big improvement. They probably get something along the lines of a lower-end Lancer rifle as their standard issue, to which the Avenger or Vindicator would be a huge upgrade. 

[Glorious_Leader]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

Glorious_Leader wrote...
It doesn't provide an improvement in performance that justifies the cost of such measures.  I ended up creating my own explanation that newer guns revolving around thermal clip technology were able to be more powerful since heat distribution wasn't as much of an issue, resulting in stronger shields coming out to counteract this, and making heatsink weaponry largely obsolete and unusable on the modern battlefield.  Why Bioware couldn't come up with such an explanation is beyond me.

It may only be a small improvement for Shepard, but I imagine that for the average Alliance marine or Turian soldier or mercenary "employee", who don't have access to HMWAR X rifles with heat sink upgrades that make them fire infinitely (which is incredibly borked and unrealistic), it would constitute a pretty big improvement. They probably get something along the lines of a lower-end Lancer rifle as their standard issue, to which the Avenger or Vindicator would be a huge upgrade. 

This is a really good point.  If one attributes the poor performance of early assault rifles in ME1 to heat management, then your argument makes a lot of sense.  But at the same time, one would think that there would be a high quality thermal clip weaponry market with some kind of parallel to the Master Spectre Arsenal equipment, but such a thing is absent in ME2.

[Praetor Knight]

Glorious_Leader wrote...

I feel that the thermal clips system an was unneeded addition to the franchise. Seemed fresh and polished for the first thirty minutes, then the novelty wore off and it became annoying. But it didn't irk me quite as much as the poor in-game excuse for its implementation. If they increased Shepherd's carrying capacity to make it feel less limiting, this plot hole would not exist, as it would make the thermal clips actually seem more efficient than the two-year-old counterparts.  Instead, I find myself wondering how the hell something that would be so expensive to maintain was brought into mass acceptance in two years.

Thermal Clips were a result of fighting the Geth after the Battle of the Citadel, so in between ME and ME2, so not a plot hole, retcon or whatever.

Weapons were retrofitted (the Mattock and Locust are really old weapons in the ME universe for example), so the existing heat sink and cooling system (used in ME) was replaced with the disposable Thermal Clip system used in ME2.

But, I think the main issue with Thermal Clips is how the HUD displays the weapon's Thermal Capacity and what happens after a fight.

The HUD should not have given the total number of spare rounds available. There should have been a different interface used, IMHO.

One that I suggest, is to use only the red bar (not displaying the total number of spare rounds) to represent the spare Thermal Capacity in the equipped weapon.

So for example, with the Avenger, every time you reload, 1/10th of the bar decreases. And say for the Widow 1/12th of the bar deceases every time you reload. Not much else should change and this keeps the balance of the weapons as is.

And after a fight, the Thermal Capacity in the weapons are replenished automatically. Maybe have an animation play like Shep raising the Omnitool or something similar.

I've played the Soldier the most, and on Insanity, and there have been only a small number of areas where "ammo" was a concern, and that was more with how I was playing than any issues with the level.

[Glorious_Leader]

Praetor, I definitely see where you're coming from. ME2 feels like it's trying to copy other third person shooters. By clarifying that you're not loading magazines, but rather disposable heatsinks, this problem is fixed. Your points are also very valid. However, I do find it likely that many soldiers would've stuck with the old heatsinks, as ammo is plentiful to Shepard who can kill people like it's nobody's business, but your average soldier won't get as many kills as Shepard, and as such won't have as many opportunites to loot ammo. As such, I still see the mass adaption of thermal clip technology unlikely.

[TheBlackBaron]

Praetor Shepard wrote...
But, I think the main issue with Thermal Clips is how the HUD displays the weapon's Thermal Capacity and what happens after a fight.

The HUD should not have given the total number of spare rounds available. There should have been a different interface used, IMHO.

One that I suggest, is to use only the red bar (not displaying the total number of spare rounds) to represent the spare Thermal Capacity in the equipped weapon.

So for example, with the Avenger, every time you reload, 1/10th of the bar decreases. And say for the Widow 1/12th of the bar deceases every time you reload. Not much else should change and this keeps the balance of the weapons as is.

If, as I said before, they were to make them universal in nature (as the codex suggests they should be), you could get away with just having a single counter indicating the number of thermal clips you have in reserve.

Really, I think the main issue here is that, despite the lore maintaining that it's all about heat management, the system is identical to any old ammo system; for example, popping out a thermal clip that is only half filled (half-empty, in ammo terms) means that you only lose half a clips worth of reserve heat capacity. 

I like your suggestion, but imo it would be best flipped - use a bar to indicate the thermal clip currently in the weapon, and if you don't empty it all the way in a battle it'll refill/"cool down" after combat ends. And have a number indicating how many thermal clips Shep has left in a universal reserve pool.