236 réponses à ce sujet

[Stick668]

@cedgedc & javier:

Ya, I think "straightforward" is the key word.

This said, "commuting" can give you a rather interesting perspective:

Many RPG-fans think the shooter-jocks are all casual, no-brain, do not like "depth", want easy mode, have no concept of strategy, are generally unable to locate their own posteriors with both hands.

Many shooty-folks think the RPG-muppets are lazy, enjoy finding no-effort-required win-buttons, lack the motor skills to tie their shoelaces, have no brains nor any concept of tactics and want to breeze through all games.

Sometimes it's a bit like watching, erm, Don Quixote and a windmill? Except there's no Quixote, just two windmills.

... I think I'm really out of metaphorce, here.

[Dave666]

Stick668 wrote...

@cedgedc & javier:

Ya, I think "straightforward" is the key word.

This said, "commuting" can give you a rather interesting perspective:

Many RPG-fans think the shooter-jocks are all casual, no-brain, do not like "depth", want easy mode, have no concept of strategy, are generally unable to locate their own posteriors with both hands.

Many shooty-folks think the RPG-muppets are lazy, enjoy finding no-effort-required win-buttons, lack the motor skills to tie their shoelaces, have no brains nor any concept of tactics and want to breeze through all games.

Sometimes it's a bit like watching, erm, Don Quixote and a windmill? Except there's no Quixote, just two windmills.

... I think I'm really out of metaphorce, here.

That did kinda trail off a bit at the end didn't it? 

[Irrepressible]

Ironically, your description of what RPG-fans think of shooter-jocks is exactly what a past FPS player would describe as the current generation of FPS players. I'm guessing that's because when people think of FPS these days it's always Call of Duty, whereas FPS players like myself always define the genre with classics such as Quake and Unreal Tournament.

On that thought, I miss playing Unreal...

[Youknow]

Stick668 wrote...

@cedgedc & javier:

Ya, I think "straightforward" is the key word.

This said, "commuting" can give you a rather interesting perspective:

Many RPG-fans think the shooter-jocks are all casual, no-brain, do not like "depth", want easy mode, have no concept of strategy, are generally unable to locate their own posteriors with both hands.

Many shooty-folks think the RPG-muppets are lazy, enjoy finding no-effort-required win-buttons, lack the motor skills to tie their shoelaces, have no brains nor any concept of tactics and want to breeze through all games.

Sometimes it's a bit like watching, erm, Don Quixote and a windmill? Except there's no Quixote, just two windmills.

... I think I'm really out of metaphorce, here.

That's funny, and yes, I see where you are going. I like both RPGs and Shooters. So when I play Mass Effect, I prefer something like Engineer, which let's me shoot all sorts of crap at people! While getting the satisfaction of still shooting people.

I still have to play my Soldier "Punch" playthrough where I don't use any skills but HAR and punch people to death. I suppose I'll have to use weapons for the final boss though.

[Tasha vas Nar Rayya]

I have played as all classes, and tried them each on insanity. And personally, I have never been a big fan of the soldier's special abilities. In ME1, soldier was definately the best class because they could use ALL weapons AND wear heavy medium armour. I am glad they balanced this more in ME2.

My favourite class is an adept. I love biotic skills. But on insanity, I have found that it is easiest as an infiltrator. My fighting style is long distance. So snipers and the vindicator assault rifle are brilliant. And if you get low on health, or someone is closing in too close, then tactical cloak time!!

Sortes!

[cedgedc]

javierabegazo wrote...

cedgedc wrote...



Bioware needs to include that more straightforward class so that the game is still accessible to the casual player who doesn't want to deal with having funky magical powers.

And Ultimately, I think this is what happened. BioWare knows that not every person who picks up a copy of ME2 is going to invest the time to really understand the battle mechanics and that there WILL be casual gamers who will still want to play ME2.

I think we're talking about this issue as if it were an oversight of BioWare's, and not just intentional.


Lets bring Christina Norman in here

I absolutely agree. It most certainly was intentional. When I first started playing ME 1, I tried a biotic based class and just didn't understand the system. Because I wasn't yet familiar with the lore and the world, I wasn't interested in spending too much time to work on my class and really understand it.

Playing soldier took away a lot of frustration I had right at the start, and helped me get into the flow of things. Then I was able to go back on a second and third play through with more complex classes, once I had a greater appreciation for the game.

[egervari]

Nathan Redgrave wrote...

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.

The term 'broken' is commonly used in games of any kind to refer to an imbalance of some sort. I didn't invent it.

While I don't think it takes a lot of player skill to use adrenaline rush, my logic is still accurate. We are not talking about ease of use here - we are talking about potential power. The soldier simply has more of it.

Even still, I am hard pressed to hear about players not able to aim their viper sniper rilfe or mattack or collector assaulr rifle with heightened adrenaline rush. The time goes by so slow... how can you miss?

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 04:47 .

[cedgedc]

Dave666 wrote...

javierabegazo wrote...

cedgedc wrote...



Bioware needs to include that more straightforward class so that the game is still accessible to the casual player who doesn't want to deal with having funky magical powers.

And Ultimately, I think this is what happened. BioWare knows that not every person who picks up a copy of ME2 is going to invest the time to really understand the battle mechanics and that there WILL be casual gamers who will still want to play ME2.

I think we're talking about this issue as if it were an oversight of BioWare's, and not just intentional.


Lets bring Christina Norman in here

The thing is, if this is indeed the case then it kinda takes some of the achievement away for those who have done things like completing Insanity on a Soldier.  (I did my first one with the Adept and Damn it was fun!)  Challenging though.

I agree, to an extent. But competing the game on insanity is already a step above what most will even attempt. Furthermore, it's all about style. You can still choose to play a soldier, and yet approach the game in a fashion that is more challenging for you-

Not using midgame pauses, choosing weapons that are trickier to work with. Being more aggressive and less conservative during combat encounters. And of course if you feel a bit cheated, feeling that you played through on an 'easy' class, you can always pick up another and do it again lol. Every play through should be different!

[egervari]

Dave666 wrote...

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.

Yes. Totally agree with this logic. Not only is it harder to setup, but the payoff is so abysmal compared to adrenaline rush that it really does need to do more damage. It is so disappointing.

Some people may comment that, "Well, the soldier can't crowd control!" But the thing is, you don't need to. The fact that you can kill stuff so quickly and efficiently - sometimes 2 mechs in a single adrenaline burst - actually *is* crowd control

So yeah, biotic powers really need a buff in some regard rather than a massive soldier nerf. And probably restructuring many encounters to favour biotic squadmates and/or biotic shepard classes would also be helpful.

[Elvis_Mazur]

I agree. Mass Effect's game system is about how well one can obliterate enemies' defenses (barriers, armor) and Soldier tends to be the best class in such.

[egervari]

termokanden wrote...

Are you claiming there's no such thing as singleplayer balance at all?

Singleplayer balance does matter. For example, Concussive Shot is horrible, and Adrenaline Rush is on the same cooldown. This means lots of us would never dream of even using CS. Our loss you could say, but I still think more balance would encourage build variations.

Agreed. 1 Point in concussion shot is all that is ever truly needed just for it's knockdown effect. That's the only thing that's actually good about it :/

[egervari]

cedgedc wrote...You can still choose to play a soldier, and yet approach the game in a fashion that is more challenging for you-

Balance between classes should be measured by playing those classes to perfection. It is not the player's responsibility to balance the game - that is the job of the game designers.

[egervari]

sonsonthebia07 wrote...

I don't think I ever died once while playing sentinel on insanity. If any class is overpowered, I would say it would be sentinel. They are way too durable, plus the shield explosion is nasty and you can reapply it rather soon...you don't even really need to fire your weapon (bit of an exaggeration) to beat it, you can just keep reapplying the shield.

But soldier is very powerful with the time slowing nonsense.

I am not aguring that the Soldier is the "most powerful" - I am only arguing that it is clearly overpowered.

I will try a sentinel out one day and judge it's overpoweredness  I suspect that you will kill slightly less quickly than a soldier but have insane survivability to compensate for the lack of killing speed. If it turns out that you can kill stuff just as quickly as a soldier, then it would even be more broken then.

[egervari]

Nyoka wrote...

I must not be so good a gamer, because I didn't notice anything about this. There are places where I thought a vanguard was better than a soldier, like in the derelict reaper. I experienced pure joy and happiness insta-killing hordes of husks with shockwave, while as a soldier I could only use concussive shot once at a time and tediously shoot the rest of them to death.

Maybe the numbers are wrong, but I don't think it affected my experiencing of the game.

Shooting the husks in the legs seems to kill them a lot faster. Of course this requires good aiming, but that's what I did.

[egervari]

termokanden wrote...

I never agreed with that part either. All classes are powerful. But I still think powers could be balanced better. My favorite example is still Concussive Shot vs Adrenaline Rush. One is too weak and the other too strong. I believe soldiers would be more fun to play if Adrenaline Rush didn't dominate every other power.

Exactly. The voice of reason as always.

termokanden wrote...

I do not. I find vanguards and engineers most fun. Soldiers are in my mind a very powerful one-trick pony. You could say the same about vanguards, but I think it requires more skill to play.

I think Vanguard is balance more or less fine. I can't say I've played it all the way on insanity, but there is a nice risk-vs-reward nature to this class. If played to perfection, it is very powerful - I've seen some crazy good players use Vanguards in all parts of the game and they were very efficient at it.

This is fine though because you are very vulnerable after a charge. As I am sure you will agree, the soldier has the same killing power with no drawback - and this is the bad thing about the soldier.

termokanden wrote...

Actually what annoys me most is power balance. I probably shouldn't even involve myself in arguments about which class is better. But it matters a lot to me that powers are correctly balanced. Soldiers being overpowered through Adrenaline Rush actually makes me want to avoid the class.

Same here. I tried a soldier just for the hell of it. I eventually want to play all the classes on insanity over the year. I think balance in a game is extremely important. I don't think it's good to have an easy mode class or a hard-mode class and punish players for making this kind of a decision. A class selection should be how they want to play the game - not how hard they want their game to be.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 05:11 .

[Xivai]

Adepts got nerfed, I think it's only fair soldiers do. They are in the exact same advantageous position Adept's were in the last game. Unless Bioware is going to have a double standard for classes. GEEEE look at Dragon Age and the totally neutering of the mage class. I wonder if they have a bias at all? We know right now no mechanics are going to be changed, so the most we can hope for is some balancing of the numbers.

[Furball34]

The soldier is more forgiving early game than other classes.
How ever after Horizon most other classes are better in my opinion.

Adrenaline rush is no more OP than say,
using Wide singularity + Unstable warp combo on a bunch of Husks.
Personally, I found the Vanguard the easiest class to play, even early game.
Second is infiltrator for the immortality Tactical cloak offers.
And third is Adept, for their ability to trivialize the husk encounters
and making harbringer a sad sad panda
( wide singularity makes him unable to move and sets him up as a
ripe target for you and your team mates weapons fire).
Also, aside from ammo powers and Adrenaline Rush,
the soldier does not have other (usefull abilities: Concussive shot does not count).
Using the argument that Adrenaline Rush allows you to breach defensive layers on
(normal/regular) enemies without any ammo power is moot as any class can do
that without ammo powers.
Vanguard, 1 shot kills (well most of the time, or 1 shot + a punch to the face).
Infiltrator sniper shot to the head.
As for the other classes, they weren't designed to perform 1 shot kills or super fast kills.
Mini bosses and Boss enemies are another matter, but still ammo powers
are not required to bring them down. They just make things easier.

I can see why some think soldier is easier early on as the class has a forgiving learning curve.
Took me a while to master the Vanguard, but once I got it down the class was in my opinion vastly superior to Soldier.

At the end of the day it comes down to your play style.

[egervari]

Lets bring Christina Norman in here

I would love to have a chat with her about this, if anything, to get her reasoning behind her choices.

I am a little worried though because I've read some posts from her. I've read her balance discussion on the mattock... and it sounds perfectly rational in theory about why she balanced the mattock in the way she did.

But the theory completely breaks down in practice. It really didn't take much playtesting to see that by having less ammo, the player was never actually at much of a disadvantage at all. They are just getting more damage per shot. I almost never run out of ammo before I can pick up more. Even if I do run out of ammo, it's not like switching to a viper sniper rifle or a shotgun is putting me at a big disadvantage for a short-time - it's all sickly overpowered anyway :/

Sure, a really bad player who can't aim their shots with a mattack might get lower dps... but that's not proper balance. You need to balance the weapons so that when played perfectly with the right skills/abilities, they are equally powerful if they are supposed to be end-game weapons. This just isn't the case - the mattack is sick and you get it immediately.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 05:22 .

[Irrepressible]

You realise 'playing those classes to perfection' is subjective right? For someone who likes to mention logic a lot you seem to be missing it right there, how exactly do you propose that one discerns what perfection is for each class? You can't, because perfection for one may (and almost certainly would be) different for another due to the vast amount of ways you can play each class and the varying levels of ability of the player.

As for a logical reason why Soldier is overpowered, see cedgedc's post above, essentially saying that the default class is easiest to ease new or casual players into the game, that's a perfectly valid hypothesis and not remotely unreasonable.

[egervari]

Furball34 wrote...

The soldier is more forgiving early game than other classes.
How ever after Horizon most other classes are better in my opinion.

Adrenaline rush is no more OP than say,
using Wide singularity + Unstable warp combo on a bunch of Husks.
Personally, I found the Vanguard the easiest class to play, even early game.
Second is infiltrator for the immortality Tactical cloak offers.
And third is Adept, for their ability to trivialize the husk encounters
and making harbringer a sad sad panda
( wide singularity makes him unable to move and sets him up as a
ripe target for you and your team mates weapons fire).
Also, aside from ammo powers and Adrenaline Rush,
the soldier does not have other (usefull abilities: Concussive shot does not count).
Using the argument that Adrenaline Rush allows you to breach defensive layers on
(normal/regular) enemies without any ammo power is moot as any class can do
that without ammo powers.
Vanguard, 1 shot kills (well most of the time, or 1 shot + a punch to the face).
Infiltrator sniper shot to the head.
As for the other classes, they weren't designed to perform 1 shot kills or super fast kills.
Mini bosses and Boss enemies are another matter, but still ammo powers
are not required to bring them down. They just make things easier.

I can see why some think soldier is easier early on as the class has a forgiving learning curve.
Took me a while to master the Vanguard, but once I got it down the class was in my opinion vastly superior to Soldier.

At the end of the day it comes down to your play style.

I agree and don't agree.

I have no problems with the Vanguard being powerful, even if it's harder to use. This is fine. At the end of the day, even if played to perfection, it actually shouldn't be more powerful than a Soldier or any other class. This would be good design. If it's even more powerful, then that's actually bad with respect to balance. Being harder to play actually shouldn't play a part in their potential power. It should only bring more personal satisfaction in the player for having mastered it.

I think what sparked me most to start this discussion is that I went from playing the Adept straight to the Soldier... and the difference is totally astonimical. I don't think I played the Adept poorly at all. I have also seen videos of people playing the Adept on insanity too. The truth of the matter is, when both classes are played well, the soldier is still vastly superior. This is bad with respect to balance, and has nothing to do with playstyle.

Obviously, someone's playstyle is going to affect how they play one class to a another, but the argument that I am making is that with a soldier, a person's playstyle is totally irrelevant. You will be more powerful and efficient than any playstyle using an Engineer or an Adept for example. I have played both of those classes... I couldn't muster the level of carnage that I can with a soldier. I just couldn't.

It's not that I couldn't beat the game with my Engineer - that's not at it all - I hardly ever died with her. But I would say that my survivability is higher with a soldier, my killing power is higher, my flexibility is better, my risk is less, and I don't even need to rely on my squadmates - I am essentially a one-woman show. This is bad.

I laugh at Harbinger when I am a soldier. It is a joke. I pretty much decimate everything.

[egervari]

Irrepressible wrote...

You realise 'playing those classes to perfection' is subjective right? For someone who likes to mention logic a lot you seem to be missing it right there, how exactly do you propose that one discerns what perfection is for each class? You can't, because perfection for one may (and almost certainly would be) different for another due to the vast amount of ways you can play each class and the varying levels of ability of the player.

As for a logical reason why Soldier is overpowered, see cedgedc's post above, essentially saying that the default class is easiest to ease new or casual players into the game, that's a perfectly valid hypothesis and not remotely unreasonable.

I am sure that the game designers must know (at least one would hope) how to setup the skills, weapons, powers, play-style, etc. to play the class to it's fullest potential. As a game designer, you should test all the edge cases and try and test all the ways the class can be played in your game to assess it's capabilities.

I mean, if you are designing the game mechanics, you should have a pretty good idea as to what would be the most effective way to play your game. And if you don't for some reason, then just play your game a lot - or get people who are really good at video games to break your game and show you these imbalances before you launch it.

In a game like this, there usually is a path you can follow that will get you the most power/success. This is what happens in an unbalanced game.

Besides, playstyle is not something that is fixed. I know I constantly try lots of ways to play a class, just seeing what is effective from what isn't. I don't just play a class and say, "It sucks because it's not powerful according to my playstyle". That is not it at all. I know that I have a wide-enough range of skill in video games that I can play a lot of playstyles.

Modifié par egervari, 04 avril 2011 - 06:01 .

[cedgedc]

Irrepressible wrote...

You realise 'playing those classes to perfection' is subjective right? For someone who likes to mention logic a lot you seem to be missing it right there, how exactly do you propose that one discerns what perfection is for each class? You can't, because perfection for one may (and almost certainly would be) different for another due to the vast amount of ways you can play each class and the varying levels of ability of the player.

As for a logical reason why Soldier is overpowered, see cedgedc's post above, essentially saying that the default class is easiest to ease new or casual players into the game, that's a perfectly valid hypothesis and not remotely unreasonable.

Agreed. I think that it is easier to achieve success with the soldier than most other classes. I submit however that you can reach that same level of success with any other class, provided you are skilled enough to do so. People rant and rave about sentinel in this thread. I am playing one right now and while I enjoy it, I had a much easier time on my vanguard, and got myself killed in situations where on my vanguard it woudln't have even been an issue.

I've watched videos of adepts using ability combos to anihilate groups of mobs at once. I have yet to see this from a soldier, personally.

Will it take more effort and skill to yield greater results with more intricate classes? Yes. Can you succeed just as well with any class in the game? Yes.

[DRSH]

I want Mass Effect 3 to be more insane on insanity than Mass Effect 2 is/was... I had to edit the coalesced so I could get a proper challenge... but the priiiiiizeee...

[egervari]

cedgedc wrote...

Will it take more effort and skill to yield greater results with more intricate classes? Yes. Can you succeed just as well with any class in the game? Yes.

If this were the reality, I would say the game is perfectly balanced. I don't think it is :/

[jamesp81]

Sentinel is the most broken class in the game. Goes like this:

Badguy: MUHAHA I took out ur shieldz
Player: Lol, tech armor stun and 50% shield regen
Badguy: Oh yeah, well have a heavy mech. Shieldz down ne way HAHAHA
Player: lol, no, emergency shielding upgrade to 50% shields
Badguy: WTF dude. Have a volley of missilez, now ur shields are gone!!!!!!!!
Player: lol, cooldown timer hit zero, re-activate tech armor back to full shields.

Badguy: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

Modifié par jamesp81, 04 avril 2011 - 06:19 .