164 réponses à ce sujet

[Waltzingbear]

While I get where you're coming from your proposed solution is not what I'd call 'ideal'.

First of all you assume that ease of learning is directly related to the eventual difficulty, which it isn't.
No class is substantially better than the other, it is only relatively easier to learn some of them, especially if you played it before at lower difficulties. I'm not sure that learning to play an Adept would be harder than to play as a Soldier if both start with no former experience of the game at Insanity.
Gee I'm getting tired of saying this..

Changing the world according to the class is a bad idea. A good design needs to be consistent, and the same rules should apply no matter what class you're playing with. The balance should come to the classes and enemies around that principle.

Biotics and Tech powers have defenses that can counter them; it doesn't make enemies stronger or classes that rely on those powers weaker, it only adds a new dimension to combat that the player needs to overcome or 'adapt' to, in order to do the same things he did before.
The problem is that unlike Biotics and Tech, Combat or simply put 'bullets' don't have the same sort of mechanism to counter them, so you don't have to overcome anything in order for them to be effective.

Just boosting the HP for example is a very cheap answer to that. It would be an equivalent of saying "oh biotics are overpowered in ME1, let's just add invisible walls around so that players couldn't toss them"

A good design would be to add another layer of defense that would specifically restrict the Combat powers; let's say adding a piece of armor to an enemy that will drastically reduce the effectiveness of bullets, positioned in a way that would require the player to change his tactical approach or 'adapt' in order to do what he does, and that's shoot things.
This wouldn't be a problem for an Adept for example, because an Adept once removing the shields of the enemy can just use his powers which are not affected by that armor piece.

An excellent example of that is The Shadow Broker fight. He holds a shield that blocks everything that hits it, and hides behind it so the player can't just pop out of cover and shoot him as he normally would (what's more each cover is only temporary). The player needs to adapt.
Each class has a way to deal with him but no one has the upper hand (supposedly). An Adept can use Singularity to make him stagger and drop his shield; a Soldier can make him stagger too but has to aim carefully at his exposed parts.

I have the full confidence that BioWare is already aware of everything I wrote here.

[Ghost Warrior]

I don't have problem with insanity,but the entire system of shields/armor. It's a cheap way to classify enemies. It's all about who is harder to kill based on his amount of armor/shields.

Bosses in LotSB were a nice change - Vasir still required standard tactics to be defeated,but at least they introduced an enemy with charge. Shadow Broker fight was perfect,we definitely need more of that kind of approach in ME3.

Modifié par Ghost Warrior, 08 mai 2011 - 02:32 .

[Elvis_Mazur]

Ok, I will jump in the thread because I don't want to read all the comments and I feel I should add something here, so:

ME2 Insanity depends a lot on how you know the battlefield and enemies movements. Take for example the boss fight against the Heavy Mech in Freedom's Progress. If you enter in a building at the left side of the battlefield, you pretty much won because the Mech can't enter there and you have a good cover to protect you. The same happens in Horizon. Plus, in the Collectors ship when you are ambushed, you die a lot because there isn't enough cover and the enemies attack from almost everywhere.

It was poor design because it allows you to cheat the AI instead of actually using your skills in combat.

With that said, I hope that ME3 will be different in such aspects.

[Ghost Warrior]

@PetrySilva
So you think the battlefield is the problem? Well,BioWare already said they are working on it.

[Bozorgmehr]

CajNatalie wrote...

All right, that's true, but as you seem to be hinting at in with your 'some classes' parts, Insanity doesn't make the player have to raise their game equally for all classes.

It's hard to quantify what would be considered 'raising your game' for each class, so I wouldn't expect this to be easy to achieve at all, and very easy to screw up with, as they did in ME2.
Either the gun-centric classes have it too easy, or power-centric classes have it too hard. Doesn't matter which way it is, either way it's an imbalance in how some classes step up and others don't.

I think the ME2 approach works rather well. Insanity is never really tedious, enemies can still be killed quickly. The problem is its effect on classes. You're absolutely right that defenses have major impact on classes that rely on powers, which have to be use directly on enemies, because defense block most effects. This is not really the case with weapons, Soldiers and Infiltrators can one-shot normal enemies on Normal and Insanity (Widow). Problem is, I consider OSOKs critical to being a sniper, so I wouldn't want to take this away. A little more emphasis on specializing, so you need specific upgrades, gear or damage boosting powers to allow OSOKs would be great though.

Ghost Warrior wrote...

I don't have problem with insanity,but the entire system of shields/armor. It's a cheap way to make classify enemies. It's all about who is harder to kill based on his amount of armor/shields.

How is this different compared to the common fantasy rpg elemental systems? You have enemies who are vulnerable to ice, but immune to fire damage and vice versa. In ME2 you have specific powers and weapons that are highly effective against certain defenses and enemies whilst other abilities are not (really effective). However, the moment defenses are breached battlefield conditions have changed and other powers can be used which are highly effective against enemies who've lost their protection.

classifying enemies is simple, but adding more hitpoints is a much cheaper way to 'make things harder', like Waltz explained above.

[SpockLives]

While I think Adepts need a slight power boost on Insanity, I haven't had any real problems with any other class. Vanguard Insanity runs are incredibly fun.

If you ask me, Insanity on ME2 is darn-near perfect. (With the exception of that accursed skycar crash, fight the reinforcements section of LotSB. Almost lost my mind trying to beat that with an Adept.)

[Da Mecca]

The way I see it should be

Armor: Reduces damage from weaponry

Kinetic Shield:No health damage from weaponry, susceptible to biotics

Biotic Barrier: Biotics have no effect, warp damages the barrier, weapons have no effects but damage the barrier.

Armor should never have been a defense layer, but a modifier. That's giving the enemy an unfair advantage.

[The Spamming Troll]

CajNatalie wrote...

AK404 wrote...

I'd have
to agree on ME1...except for the "Marksman makes pistols OP" thing.
Once you got that with an Infiltrator, screw sniping, just pop Immunity,
pop Marksman, blow stuff up. And on the Vanguard? Pop Barrier, pop
Marksman, blow stuff up. And the Soldier...?

You get the point.

Well considering how they killed pistols in ME2, I'm not going to complain about Marksman.

I
would dearly love to see Pistols restored to glory on par with the
Assault Rifle again... or near enough to make them a viable alternative.
It
had advantages and disadvantages compared to the Assault Rifle in
ME1... now it's all disadvantages... sub-machineguns are even worse.
I sometimes have to overheat an SMG to capacity and pop a clip to do any significant damage with it.

i
agree with alot of things your saying but i think pistols should only
be secondary weapons for your character. i dont want the carnifax to
have the best DPS in ME3. i want an AR to do that.

Bozorgmehr wrote...

For me, games should be easy to play and (relatively) difficult to master. ME2 Insanity works like this (for some classes) which is good imo. Can it be improved? Yes, and it should - but the concept behind the ME2 approach is solid. Complicating things a bit >>> giving enemies more hitpoints.

i really think the concept is terrible. its a horrible way to create challenge by giving me something that doesnt even fit in the game. thers numerouse other ways and BETTER ways to give me challeneging gamplay rather then asome kind of false mechanism that makes no snese to me or my character trying to use heavy throw. in order to challenge us, bioware took away our characters soul.

designers: how do we make this game harder?
developer: lets just take away their abilities!
designer: but isnt that why we made this game, for the abilities?
developer: nobody will notice!
designer: ok, then.
developer: herp derp!

id rather see ME3 have a mechanism that prevents gunplay from happening, not one that prevents me using my abilities. thatd would be awesome!

Modifié par The Spamming Troll, 08 mai 2011 - 03:18 .

[Fordtransit]

Playd insanaty adept sentinel solider engineer. Now i guess next is vanguard and sentinel. Every class needs, i guess different part of you brain to be active.

On insanaty, never go with imported me2 character. No other problem, but huge amount of protection to strip starting from first fights. Huge amount of time needed.

I really like the game. BUT on insanaty there are few things id like to point out:

1. You update, enemy update, you never really get eny real advantage. Standard pistols and smg- feels like water guns. Firepower pack is good to have, but still. Shaddy guns at start is big party spoiler.

2. Armour and shields. Dropping all the times. My style is to play clean, keep squad alive and fight shield up al the times. If they are not up, it feels like i am doing something the wrong way. On insanaty sentinel is just sitting and waiting for powers cooldown toooo long. Patience, patience, patience.

3. Looks. I am male. Good looking squad is nice to have, on ship, on mess hall, its nice. I would not mind, if girls wear nothing at all, while onboard Normandy. But having bear skin in outer space/ spaceship combat ? Armor string bikins? Whaaat?? Looks realy out of place, especially on insanaty. I think they really need combat gear and helmet. Breather aparatus does not cut it, the eyes are exposed. Looks too .. exposed. So bikinis for Normandy sun deck and combat gear for combat. And keep the fraking helmet on. You need it!

4. Patience, patience, patience.Or ammo powes vs powers?
Up beafed shield armor barriers are quit a bit to tear down, even with warp exlosions.
And if singularaty lifts enemy to roof, he shouldd not be coming back with a half life bar . He should be dead. Same thing with pull and warp. You kick someone with 700 newtons and he just stand up and continues fighting?
You hit someone wiht hevy warp/explosion and he loses half of life? LIke "ouch i have a half of my brain and internal organs destroed on celluar/microscophical level, well i fight this Sheppard dude and then ill go to Infermary theyll patch me up... Hmm?
I think if someone is smashed to wall with brute force - he shold be dead, If someone flyes throu the whole map on ceiling level he, should be dead, If someone is hitted with hevy warp or warp expolsion he should be dead. Not half dead.

5. Fighting concept. You cant route enemys. You have to kill every single one. Like you kill 10 out of 20 mercs. You would think the rest starts to have ideas about leaving the place. Buy then, they see that they are doing something "wrong" because they are dropping and Sheppard dude keeps pushing. NO. They fight to the end for they next paycheck. Really?? I think routing option should be there. At some point enemys should flee - and i mean mercs. Collectors and harbinger are different kind of boogie - they fight because they are no more than machines, drones, with no individualaty.

6. Close combat. Dont realy like to melee, but sometimes you have to. But is there all well suited out, if you granade launcher does less damage then kick to quad?? I really dont like using hevy weapons either. But kicking the enemy with fist is faster way to kill the enemy then hewy singularaty and warp exlposions? So Shep s karate kid? With this logic Grunt should be deadliest squaddie around just kicking the hell out of enemy engineers, adpts and vanguards. Is this really the right way? Kicking wins over singularaty on lethalaty?

[Xx_-Crow-_xX]

Nathan Redgrave wrote...

 I'll be honest, I'm the kind of gamer who tends to prefer the baseline or "normal" mode over upper-tier difficulties, my primary aim being to relax and have a good time rather than to, er, "enjoy" pulling my stubble out in frustration. That said, sooner or later I'm going to tackle those higher-level difficulties for no better reason than to finish off my Achievement checklist, and I'd rather that frustration--when I choose to face it--be the fun kind, rather than the abominably tedious kind.

Insanity mode, and even Hardcore mode to a lesser extent, has always been the bane of my existence in Mass Effect. In the first game, which is mainly stat-based, this turns the game's headless-chicken syndrome into a frustrating exercise in trying to do some real damage to the enemy lest the spam the hell out of their defensive abilities and completely undo what damage you DID manage to pull off since the last time they were in range of a decent attack, assuming your squadmates didn't butt in and position themselves between you and what you're shooting at, which they tend to do at least once every fifteen seconds. -.- The upshot being that it takes no effort at all on the enemy's part to kill you, but enemies take forever to finish off because they are all immensely stupid yet immensely durable. And can practically one-shot you, making the issue of breaking cover long enough to do significant damage a pain in the ass.

ME2 is a different kettle of fish, completely unbalancing itself by giving the enemy ridiculous amounts of shield and armor to make half of your powers completely useless at any one time, but at least your squad AI is slightly superior to that of a headless chicken. I actually find this somewhat easier to manage if only because of the utter predictability of the game, but then you have bullcrap like Harbinger's stupid "knock you out of cover and completely lock out player control just long enough for you to get completely annihilated" attack, and in a game where more than a second of exposure spells certain death, any enemy that can close distance with almost total impunity and stand practically an arm's length away raining death upon you is just not playing fair.

Since ME3 is going for the whole diversified-battlefield-and-aggressive-AI approach, I entreat BioWare to do one simple thing: make Insanity insane without relying on unbalancing everything to do it. Make it hard, but not because enemy health and the number of hits Shepard can take before dying are so disproportionately out-of-sync with each other. There are other ways to challenge players than ramping up all of the enemy's stats and calling it a day, dammit. >_>

 mass effects insanity mode isn't really that hard once you get into it but maybe thats because i'm a sentinel and can just use my sheild to get out of those situations but really i went through as a vanguard and it was pretty okay too as long as you make sure your looking at all your enemies making use of the squad powers and ability to move them and focus them on one enemy who is too strong like the engineer then you'll do well it just takes a little thought

[Aumata]

Da Mecca wrote...

The way I see it should be

Armor: Reduces damage from weaponry

Kinetic Shield:No health damage from weaponry, susceptible to biotics

Biotic Barrier: Biotics have no effect, warp damages the barrier, weapons have no effects but damage the barrier.

Armor should never have been a defense layer, but a modifier. That's giving the enemy an unfair advantage.

I agree to this.  Tech might have a limited effect on armor though.  But this makes since and easily balance the classes.  Plus adding mods that damages health even with protection on might help also.  Of course you need drawbacks.

[UBER GEEKZILLA]

ok i agree with OP about ME1 it was RETARDED on insanity, it was long, hard, boring, and frustrating.....needles to say i thought ME2 insanity was THE BOMB.. it was balanced, explosive, and challenging. i loved it very much

[CajNatalie]

I'm intruiged by the way things are going...

Suggestions to give variety in what is made less effective - including bullets?
Sounds good. That way all classes have to rethink their strategies in Insanity... it's balanced, and all classes still have variety in play experience.

Just as long as a Heavy Throw will always send a Varren or Husk flying (over 1000 newtons and just a tiny stagger?!)... biotic barriers should really be the only things offering complete nullification of biotic physics attacks.

Modifié par CajNatalie, 08 mai 2011 - 04:09 .

[Dr. rotinaj]

I've done a few playthroughs of insanity as an adept and I never felt that they were too weak. Enemy defenses never seemed like a problem, just bring the right squadmates and you'll be setting of warp explosions everywhere.

To me, Insanity is fine where it is.

[CajNatalie]

Setting off warp bombs just doesn't have the same feel of making everyone fly, though...

That was the most fun thing about being an Adept. You're a psychic!
Sending all the mercs in to the air and tossing them flying (not just knocking them on their back like what happens in ME2) is a hell of a lot of fun in Mass Effect 1, and still a little enjoyable in ME2, though less-so due to the increased gun-focus.

[hc00]

I dont understand, why would you try the hardest difficulty (which isnt actually that hard) and then make a thread whining about the fact you find it hard?!

What the ****?

Turn the damn difficulty down if you cant play it or arent enjoying it,

[CajNatalie]

It's not about it being hard, it's about it being imbalanced amongst the classes.

[Autoclave]

Normally people don't like greater difficulty being just "Now X does more damage and has more HP".

The problem is, if you make the enemies smarter, like trying to flank you, than there is really no reason NOT to hate it in the normal difficulty as it makes the game more interesting.

My only problem with insanity, is that shields go down in an instant regardless of how big they are. And then we have this 1 second invulnerability after shields are down before the HP starts to fall too. So you can have 250 shields, or 370, you still have the same 1 second out of cover time.

[soske aizen]

i dont know how u find it hard all insanity means is pop cooldowns more

[soske aizen]

how was me1 insane so frustrateing 2u guys if u turn off your teamates abilty use its a breez ..........tho the still get a hell of a lot of cheap shots

[Kaedan94]

Nathan Redgrave wrote...

javierabegazo wrote...

Did someone not get the memo that Insanity is supposed to be the most difficult difficulty setting in the game.....?

You know how there are two kinds of difficulty, "challenging" and "cheap?" This is kind of about that. Insanity tends to feel more like an exercise in patience than an actual challenge. When I die, I like to know that it's my fault, you know what I'm saying?

ME1 and ME2 both have different issues in this regard. One's about hilariously unbalanced stats; the other's about everything in the game being beefed up to hell and gone and God help you if you chose a class that specializes in powers.

I'm going to have to disagree here.  I played through with Adept on both Normal and Insanity... and I actually had more fun on Insanity than normal.  Also did it with Sentinel. 

If anything, I thought ME1's Insanity was too easy to be called Insanity, though I agree that instead of improving the AI, they just increased stats through the roof. 

As for ME2, I think they did a pretty good job.  They used a combination of using increased enemy stats and defenses with an improved AI.  And if I can beat insanity with Adept, I guarantee you that it can be beaten with any class, as long as you utilize your squadmates well.

Look to a game like Devil May Cry, though. The upper level difficulties don't just make it easier to die and harder to kill things--they change up what enemies you fight, when you fight them, how many of them you fight at once, and how they behave. In Mass Effect you fight the same number of the same enemies in all the same places except they have like 100x times the health and have all these protections and immunities, and they can kill you so incredibly fast that it never seems to matter how much health or protection you have.

That it's beatable isn't the point; it's more about whether or not it's any fun to get your ass handed to you.

If that even makes any sense.

To be honest, this is semantics.  They never change the enemies, just at what point you fight them.  And those "upgraded" enemies are pretty much the same  as their lesser counterparts, except that they do more damage and have more HP (there are a few exceptions).

But that is moot, because ME2 does the same thing.  Sure, the enemies might not look as varied as they do in DMC (there's a lot more variation between demons than Mercs and Robots).

What it really boils down to is what is "fun".  For me, Insanity in ME2 was fun.  For you it wasn't.  But was it not fun because of poor game design, or was it not fun because you didn't know how to react appropriately and plan appropriately?  Or some other reason?  You admitted that you rarely like to play difficult settings...  There is a reason  for that, and it's probably the same reason you don't like playing Insanity.

[Maderek]

ME2 on Insanity wasn't a whole lot fun most of the time because of the annoying enemy AI, the linear corridor level design, and Shepard being made of tin foil.

It was playable, but many of the levels in the game, like Garrus' recruitment, just felt like "Ugh, WHY AM I DOING THIS."

Oh, and I know people are going to say: "You're just not good enough, like me. 8)"

Modifié par Maderek, 09 mai 2011 - 04:44 .

[Mecher3k]

Lol really? I find insanity to not be that tough at all.

[weazelwogger]

"I'm the kind of gamer who tends to prefer the baseline or "normal" mode over upper-tier difficulties"
          - OP

Then your opinion isn't really relevant, is it?

ME2 insanity gameplay was superior -- ME1's was wretched.  With any luck they'll just tweak the AI and give opponents more varied behaviors.

[Chromie]

Mecher3k wrote...

Lol really? I find insanity to not be that tough at all.

This.