236 réponses à ce sujet

[Kronner]

Soldier is not broken. It is a very powerful class, yes; but you have to realize that some people prefer CCing enemies to outright killing them. Soldier is my 3rd most favourite class btw (after Vanguard - 1st; and Sentinel - 2nd).

[CroGamer002]

Bamboozalist wrote...

My only problem with the soldier is that HAB is 140% extra damage where as A-Cloak for the Infiltrator is only like 65% (I'm not booting up my game to check and I'm too lazy to go look it up), I personally think they should be switched, especially since you only get 1 shot with A-Cloak but up to like 5 with HAB, more if you're using a spam weapon like the Mattock.

I still get 1 headshot kill on Insanity even without cloak( and I choose 1 with 40% bonus) so what's the complaint?

[egervari]

Kronner wrote...

Soldier is not broken. It is a very powerful class, yes; but you have to realize that some people prefer CCing enemies to outright killing them. Soldier is my 3rd most favourite class btw (after Vanguard - 1st; and Sentinel - 2nd).

Again... like I said before... whether you prefer something is not really relevant to the discussion. Balance is purely a numbers game - it's logical. Whether you enjoy being underpowered or not is entirely subjective.

In ME1, Crowd control was actually overpowered. It was obvious that it was. If you didn't use any of it, or limited yourself to just throw or something like that, you would have a much tougher time in ME1. If you unleashed throw, lift, singularity and stasis (with bastion upgrade), you were basically a god. If you had adrenaline burst, you could do all of this 2x very quickly. You didn't need health or big guns - the pistol was the best weapon in the game, and the weakest class could use it (adept, engineer).

The reason I bring this up is that balance is logic. It is not about preferring crowd control or not - because depending on the game, it can be balanced, underpowered or overpowered. Emotional subjectivity of whether you enjoy this style of play is entirely irrelevant.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 07:13 .

[Dallas118]

egervari wrote...

That's essentially why I did this post Dallas... to illustrate this balance problem. When a class is this overpowered... sure, I can make a personal decision to avoid playing it... but that doesn't fix the problem - the design flaw still exists in the game. I think it's important to recognize that this really *is* a problem - and that it would be best to correct this sort of design flaw in future games.

I've already commented on your single-player rebuttal. Read above. My argument to this rebuttal is correct.

Think of it this way, an unsuspecting player has no idea which class is stronger or weaker... so he/she just picks whatever class sounds appealing to them. And lo-and-behond, the game is now incredibly easy (unsatisfying) or incredibly hard (also unsatisfying). How is a player suppose to know these consequences when they pick their class? Doesn't that sound rediculous? It doesn't matter if this problem has been in past games - that's only more examples of design flaws.

The class you pick should *NOT* be a difficulty setting. The class you pick should be how you desire to play the game. If you want to increase/decrease difficulty, then you should adjust the difficulty setting - not your class!

I think the problem lies elsewhere. The soldier is easier, because the game is more suited to this class. The damage skills is weak and not very intuitive compared to the immediacy of ammunition. The whole game looks too much like a shooter formula.

[Mephistorian]

Play Vanguard on insanity. That's what I call broken.

[Epic777]

Firstly I would say this: all classes can beat me2 insanity fairly easily. The soldier is considered one of the easier classes to play. While I would agree I believe the reasons could be broken down into these points:

->The right gun for the right job; need a gun for a narrow choke point? Soldier has a shotgun, need to fight at a distance? Solder has a sniper's rifle. Other classes don't have that until the collectors ship.
->Another reason, the right ammo for the job: Got geth; solder has disruptor ammo; BloodPack? soldier has inferno ammo and of course cryo ammo.
->Because of the previous two points the solder is very efficient and never runs out of ammo.
->Unlike over classes the soldier doesn't need tech or biotic upgrades to be efficient while others do. This is the biggest reason.

The last 1/4 of the game when all the player has all those upgrades ALL classes become efficient killing machines. :-p

Modifié par Epic777, 04 avril 2011 - 07:52 .

[Bamboozalist]

Mesina2 wrote...

I still get 1 headshot kill on Insanity even without cloak( and I choose 1 with 40% bonus) so what's the complaint?

Right but Infiltrators can't 1 shot heavy targets like Soldiers can which is my point, you think the Inflitrator would be the pricision class capable of taking down the heavy threatening targets with almost surgical pricision which is why I think AB and Cloak need their damage boosts switched around.

[Bamboozalist]

Epic777 wrote...

Firstly I would say this: all classes can beat me2 insanitiy fairly easily. The soldier is considered one of the easier classes to play. While I would agree I believe the reasons could be broken down into these points:

->The right gun for the right job; need a gun for a narrow choke point? Soldier has a shotgun, need to fight at a distance? Solder has a sniper's rifle. Other classes don't have that untill the collectors ship.
->Another reason, the right ammo for the job: Got geth; solder has distruptor ammo; BloodPack? soldier has inferno ammo and of course cryo ammo.
->Because of the previous two points the solder is very efficient and never runs out of ammo.
->Unlike over classes the soldier doesn't need tech or biotic upgrades to be efficient while others do. This is the biggest reason.

The last 1/4 of the game when all the player has all those upgrades ALL classes become efficient killing machines. :-p

Point #5 if you have it, the Mattock is broken as hell.

[egervari]

Dallas118 wrote...

I think the problem lies elsewhere. The soldier is easier, because the game is more suited to this class. The damage skills is weak and not very intuitive compared to the immediacy of ammunition. The whole game looks too much like a shooter formula.

Again, you're just proving my point for me. If the game is suited to one class over another, then by definition, that's an imbalance.

[egervari]

Bamboozalist wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

I still get 1 headshot kill on Insanity even without cloak( and I choose 1 with 40% bonus) so what's the complaint?

Right but Infiltrators can't 1 shot heavy targets like Soldiers can which is my point, you think the Inflitrator would be the pricision class capable of taking down the heavy threatening targets with almost surgical pricision which is why I think AB and Cloak need their damage boosts switched around.

Exactly. I agree with this. The infiltrator should have been like a Rogue in the sense that it should be the best single-target damage class. The soldier should have been a safer, reliable dps class, but never reached the potential heights of the infiltrator.

Basically the balance should have been "more damage but greater risk" vs. "less damage but safer" between these 2 classes.

And since the soldier gets every weapon they need right away, I think this further reduced the need to use an infiltrator. If the infiltrator was the only class to get a sniper rifle... just like the soldier was the only class to get an assault rifle... this might have further balanced things. If the soldier also gets a sniper rifle, then you really gotta make the infiltrator do a lot more damage with a sniper rifle.

The infiltrator should have been a light, long-range/tactical and single target damage class. The soldier should have been an up close to medium range, good damage and tough class. This would have made them very different. As it stands, the infiltrator can do less than a soldier can in my mind. It's not awful, but it's not as good. Pretty much the same situation as in ME1, except a little better because tactical cloak is at least something the soldier doesn't get.

[egervari]

Epic777 wrote...

The last 1/4 of the game when all the player has all those upgrades ALL classes become efficient killing machines. :-p

While I do think things somewhat balance out better in the end, I don't think it's fair that half of the classes need to play through 75% of the game before they finally realize some potential while the other classes simply do not have to wait.

It would be nice to have them all mature at similar rates, and if played perfection, each class would be relatively the same level of power.

If it so happens that one class is easier to play, that doesn't make it imbalanced - just as long as it is still not better than a tougher class to master when played to perfection.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 08:09 .

[Stick668]

Most of it has been said before, but since I'm bored and chatty...

The FUN™ classes in ME2 - yes, for me, YMMV, etcetera - were Vanguard (zooom!), Infiltrator (boo!) and maaaybe Adept (siiiingulariteeee). Engineer was bland, partly because the special wasn't unique. Sentinel? Yeah, tanky and versatile, but... meh.

Soldier? With the available options, I couldn't see the point of just being the Man With The Gun. And I'm saying this as someone who plays "regular" shooty games, sometimes even against that most overpowered of bastards, the common Human.

Bullet-time? Yeah, it works for Max Payne and a few others. But compared to - erm - charge'n'targing in the face of stuff with a Shotgun Not Meant For Human Use? You can keep it.

Insisting on class balance in an Absolutely No Multiplayer game? Redundant.

One class has to have the highest average effectiveness. It's of course possible the difference could be less severe, but basically... it doesn't matter. Since you're balancing yourself by choice of Most Fun Playstyle. There's no-one else in the game that matters.

Now, if you want to talk about the general brokenitude of the Soldier in Team Fortress 2... I'll be the first to fume along.  

Modifié par Stick668, 04 avril 2011 - 09:14 .

[Zatwu]

You should play the Vanguard. We suck so much when we win its badass.

[Kronner]

egervari wrote...

The reason I bring this up is that balance is logic. It is not about preferring crowd control or not - because depending on the game, it can be balanced, underpowered or overpowered. Emotional subjectivity of whether you enjoy this style of play is entirely irrelevant.

Well, Soldier is one of my most favourite classes, only Vanguard is clearly ahead for me.
You know, not all Soldiers are the same. E.g. Revenant + Viper Soldier is different from Mattock + Widow etc.

And like I said, what YOU might consider better/broken, is not better/broken for everyone. How is that so hard to understand?

Modifié par Kronner, 04 avril 2011 - 08:21 .

[egervari]

Stick668 wrote...

Insisting on class balance in an Absolutely No Multiplayer game? Redundant.

One class has to have the highest average effectiveness. It's of course possible the difference could be less severe, but basically... it doesn't matter. Since you're balancing yourself by choice of Most Fun Playstyle. There's no-one else in the game that matters.

Is it not desirable to have a balanced game? Is it desirable to have an unbalanced game?

Should game designers actually try and make their games unbalanced?

Why is balancing a game bad?

The truth is that it is highly desirable to balance the game. Your class shouldn't influence difficulty - it should only be how you approach the game. The game should be balanced so that all classes - if played well - are equally powerful and the encounters allow all classes to flourish rather than just some of them to do well.

Essentially, no player should be gimped or rewarded solely based on their class selection - a choice that is more or less arbitrary. It is wrong for the game to unfairly reward or punish a player when they had no idea of the consequences of their choice before they started playing the game.

If you don't care about a balanced game, then you are basically taking the position that it's okay to punish players for choices they made even though they didn't have the necessary information. This is a pretty big choice, as it's irrevesable and you are stuck with it for however long the game is.

Yes, you can still beat the game regardless of which class you pick, but that's not the point. If you want your game to be harder or easier, you should use the difficulty setting feature. Are you saying that we should have multiple difficulty settings in the game, just renamed as different things like class selection? This is nonsense.

And what good is an insanity achievement if some classes make it super easy for? To me, it is more of an achievement to beat insanity with an adept than it is with a soldier... but no such achievement exists. Anyone could do it with a soldier easily.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 08:24 .

[Dallas118]

egervari wrote...

Again, you're just proving my point for me. If the game is suited to one class over another, then by definition, that's an imbalance.

Ok, but I don't understand your point. Instead of looking for this elusive balance, would not be better to create different situations where other classes can also make more use of their peculiarities? This is what I mean ...

[egervari]

Dallas118 wrote...

egervari wrote...

Again, you're just proving my point for me. If the game is suited to one class over another, then by definition, that's an imbalance.

Ok, but I don't understand your point. Instead of looking for this elusive balance, would not be better to create different situations where other classes can also make more use of their peculiarities? This is what I mean ...

Except that there is currently no situation that I have played where the soldier didn't excel at. None. If something was hard (the encounters I already indicated), I don't think most of the other classes would have faired much better. Well, maybe the sentinel can do better against husks because of his armor and the infiltrator can just cloak, but that's it. It really doesn't matter either way though because this is currently 0.1% of all the combat so far - the soldier was decimating the other 99.9%.

Sometimes balance doesn't involve changing the classes and it actually involves changing the encounters or the gameplay. So I would agree that things could be changed to let every class shine.

Overall though, the gameplay balance, as is, kind of reminds me of Dragon Age 2. In that game, 2h warriors were almost always the best option for every encounter. Even in the situations where they were not ideal, they still worked really well. There was basically no situation where they were bad at. AOE spam was basically always good in this game - it was always the right thing to do.

In DA2, even if you could do massive single-target damage, it would usually make you worse off in most situations because the AOE was often enough to deplete most or all of the HP on a target anyway on nearly all mobs. Since there were so many enemies, AOE attack were almost always best. So 2h warriors ruled.

Soldier has basically the same problem in ME2 in that it does nearly everything extremely well - just like the 2h warrior in DA2. Soldier can strip protections, kill everything quickly, deal with every situation imaginable, survive easily, etc. He's ranked #1 in almost everything and #2 in the things he is not ranked first in.

Almost all Bioware games have had this problem honestly.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 09:15 .

[Nathan Redgrave]

egervari wrote...

batman22 wrote...

It's not broken, its just a better class.

Hence 'broken'.

Your definition of "broken" leaves much to be desired, but 'tis amusing nonetheless.

Incidentally, the drawback to playing a soldier is that it depends wholly on your ability to aim and shoot effectively and efficiently, whereas powers can be fired off via the pause screen and practically play themselves. Potentially, Soldier is a superior class to many others, but it's only as good as you are at the game. More power-heavy classes can supplement lack of player skill with abilities that require less precision on the player's part. It's something of a risk-reward kind of deal, much like Biotic Charge, which can either suck ass or kick ass depending on when and how it's used.

[Dallas118]

egervari wrote...

Except that there is currently no situation that I have played where the soldier didn't excel at. None. If something was hard (the encounters I already indicated), I don't think most of the other classes would have faired much better. Well, maybe the sentinel can do better against husks because of his armor and the infiltrator can just cloak, but that's it. It really doesn't matter either way though because this is currently 0.1% of all the combat so far - the soldier was decimating the other 99.9%.

Exactly.
The soldier makes other classes useless, but not because he is too strong or broken, but because there are no situations where the other classes are essential or nearly so.
What I mean is that it is an inherent problem of the game that can't be solved nerfing the soldier.

[Stick668]

Disclaimer: Argumentizing-for-the-thrill-of-it Mode Engaged.

egervari wrote...

Is it not desirable to have a balanced game? Is it desirable to have an unbalanced game? Should game designers actually try and make their games unbalanced? Why is balancing a game bad?

Of course, no, no and it isn't.

Here's the kicker. I agree with every single thing you wrote - well, except for caring about canned achievements - I just don't think PC class balance should be a top priority in a game never involving more than one PC at a time.

I get you want equal challenge across classes as well as across difficulty levels. It's a good design goal, but - I suspect - pretty hard to pull off. And yeah, they probably could do better.

... but:

I'm more bothered by the fact my experience that only half the classes were enjoyable. (See previous post for some reasoning.)

In a perfect world, we all get what we want.
In this one, we get to talk about stuff on web forums.

Zatwu wrote...

You should play the Vanguard. We suck so much when we win its badass.

Ah, a Pyro player. 

Modifié par Stick668, 04 avril 2011 - 09:41 .

[Dave666]

 Going to chime in with my thoughts on this.  (All my opinion obviously)

The problem as I see it is that the game is too heavilly in favour of the Combat classes (Soldier in particular).

Adepts I would say are actually well balanced for this rock, paper, scissors system.
You need to remove defences in order to use abilities which while I may not like it, it does add tactics.

The Combat classes however can more or less ignore these defences, with a Soldier for example it goes from rock, paper, scissors to Sledghammer.

I've suggested before that perhaps they could increase the enemies health whilst leaving the defences alone and increasing the damage that powers do to said health.  Often when we get an enemy down to health our Squaddies kill that enemy with guns before we can even use our powers.  Ideally a Warp Bomb should be more powerful than just shooting because the player has had to set up the warp bomb, as opposed to simply aiming and holding down a trigger.

Combo's that the player sets up should be more effective than guns because it takes more effort.

[Stick668]

 

Dallas118 wrote...
The soldier makes other classes useless, but not because he is too strong or broken, but because there are no situations where the other classes are essential or nearly so. What I mean is that it is an inherent problem of the game that can't be solved nerfing the soldier.

"Useless"? As in "without use"? As in, "not possible to complete the game with"?

The Soldier is "nerfed" by its inherent Less Fun Gameplay. (Suuubjective, but there is only one person in the room. So to speak.)

... funny thing is, your argument is entirely valid for a multiplayer shooter - even a specific one - where Must Be Optimized is frequently the only way to avoid camping the respawn queue. 

Here? "I have to be the killingest killer possible" is a playstyle choice.
There may be people who've "had fun" and "won" the game while playing one of the "useless" classes.
Are you sure you didn't take a wrong turn near the TF2 forums? 

Modifié par Stick668, 04 avril 2011 - 10:14 .

[termokanden]

Stick668 wrote...

... funny thing is, your argument is entirely valid for a multiplayer shooter - even a specific one - where Must Be Optimized is frequently the only way to avoid camping the respawn queue. 

Here? "I have to be the killingest killer possible" is a playstyle choice.
There may be people who've "had fun" and "won" the game while playing one of the "useless" classes.
Are you sure you didn't take a wrong turn near the TF2 forums? 

It's clear that you don't care about balance in a single-player game. Some of us do.

[Stick668]

... what?

Ediiit: Ok, I can't just reply like that.

"My previous posts speak for themselves. If you read them."

There.

Modifié par Stick668, 04 avril 2011 - 11:39 .

[termokanden]

Yeah they do. Sounds like you're expecting everyone who cares about game balance to be playing TF2.