177 réponses à ce sujet

[Bozorgmehr]

Dave666 wrote...

As usual we agree on the problem Boz, I agree having Singularity being reliable and working on all enemies (depending on evolution of course) is critical, after all the whole point of the Adept is Crowd Control, so if you remove that then the Adepts is just a gimped Soldier and not what I and many others would like to play.  Personaly I'm for having the Heavy versions of powers able to bypass defences (but only with effects not damage).  

Imagine using say Heavy Pull on an enemy with a Shield on, it lifts the enemy but obviously not for as long as it would if you had that enemy's defences down, now imagine if you could throw a warp at that pulled enemy, and it triggered a warp explosion which instead of doing loads of damage simply threw his friends (who also have protections) on the ground so that they have to go through the 'getting up' animation.  You have effectively controlled that crowd, but not done much damage.

Or imagine if Heavy Singularity was strong enough to even stagger YMIR sized enemies.  I've said before and I hold to the idea that if Singularity simply had a duration instead of a 'x enemies before dispelling', then you could throw it at an area and control that part of the field, remember that you still have to kill them and you can only have one Singularity at a time so if that group has friends you still have to deal with them shooting at you.

The Adept to me should be about locking down the field, controlling the enemies, limiting their movements etc.
 
There are loads of ways that Biotics could be used without it being overpowered, all it takes is a little imagination on the part of Bioware.

Agreeing on what the problem is - is crucial. Without, no one would know where to start

I agree with Singularity should be a potent power against enemies with protection. I, however, don't think other powers should be able to bypass defenses at all. Your Heavy Pull (or Throw) example sounds good, but there are a couple of important issues I think you might have overlooked. First of all there are ledges, although Pull doesn't inflict any (significant) damage - Pulling an enemy of a ledge kills that enemy. This means you can simply Pull those two Scions of their platforms during the DCS ambush; the same can be done to all other Collectors, including Harbinger.

Having some (evolved) powers affecting defenses makes the other possible evolutions not really interesting, plus it's not of much use on lower difficulty settings.

Those powers also reduce the importance of Singularity, which is only really effective against non-health bars. Anyone playing below ME2 Hardcore only has to use Singularity against Elites and Bosses (the only enemies who always have protection).

There are no valid alternatives to the system currently in place without severely impacting gameplay. I rather keep things the way they are now, make Singularity a reliable (and maybe a little more potent) power, add Stasis to the Adept power-loadout so they'll have multiple CC powers available to be used againt protected enemies (no damage bugs / bonuses though). The best way to increase the usefulness of powers such as Pull, Throw and Shockwave is an interactive environment imo:

The ability to destroy (some) cover, to throw explosive containers at enemies, to destroy other parts of the environment (like having a (weak) wall collapse on enemy positions) etc. would not only make combat much more dynamic and enjoyable, but it also increases the ways in which one can use powers. This would increase the utility of (biotic) powers on all difficulty levels and it solves the most import problem a lot of folks have with biotics on HC/Insanity. I don't think the main issue is being able to use Pull on an protected enemy, but the fact that when fighting starts, a power like Pull cannot be used (really) effectively straight away. When it can be used (although not directly on enemies) would put an end to most complainers; and messing with your surroundings can also provide CC - destroying cover or tossing stuff at enemies will distract em or maybe some will get stuck (briefly) when they got hit by a container or something.

[termokanden]

I just don't see them as gimped.

On the other hand I think the Mattock/Widow soldier is overpowered. The difference is that I don't think that should be the baseline experience. It makes insanity far too easy. I would also personally enjoy the soldier class more if it required more knowledge and usage of different powers to succeed.

[Dave666]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

Dave666 wrote...

As usual we agree on the problem Boz, I agree having Singularity being reliable and working on all enemies (depending on evolution of course) is critical, after all the whole point of the Adept is Crowd Control, so if you remove that then the Adepts is just a gimped Soldier and not what I and many others would like to play.  Personaly I'm for having the Heavy versions of powers able to bypass defences (but only with effects not damage).  

Imagine using say Heavy Pull on an enemy with a Shield on, it lifts the enemy but obviously not for as long as it would if you had that enemy's defences down, now imagine if you could throw a warp at that pulled enemy, and it triggered a warp explosion which instead of doing loads of damage simply threw his friends (who also have protections) on the ground so that they have to go through the 'getting up' animation.  You have effectively controlled that crowd, but not done much damage.

Or imagine if Heavy Singularity was strong enough to even stagger YMIR sized enemies.  I've said before and I hold to the idea that if Singularity simply had a duration instead of a 'x enemies before dispelling', then you could throw it at an area and control that part of the field, remember that you still have to kill them and you can only have one Singularity at a time so if that group has friends you still have to deal with them shooting at you.

The Adept to me should be about locking down the field, controlling the enemies, limiting their movements etc.
 
There are loads of ways that Biotics could be used without it being overpowered, all it takes is a little imagination on the part of Bioware.

Agreeing on what the problem is - is crucial. Without, no one would know where to start

I agree with Singularity should be a potent power against enemies with protection. I, however, don't think other powers should be able to bypass defenses at all. Your Heavy Pull (or Throw) example sounds good, but there are a couple of important issues I think you might have overlooked. First of all there are ledges, although Pull doesn't inflict any (significant) damage - Pulling an enemy of a ledge kills that enemy. This means you can simply Pull those two Scions of their platforms during the DCS ambush; the same can be done to all other Collectors, including Harbinger.

Having some (evolved) powers affecting defenses makes the other possible evolutions not really interesting, plus it's not of much use on lower difficulty settings.

Those powers also reduce the importance of Singularity, which is only really effective against non-health bars. Anyone playing below ME2 Hardcore only has to use Singularity against Elites and Bosses (the only enemies who always have protection).

There are no valid alternatives to the system currently in place without severely impacting gameplay. I rather keep things the way they are now, make Singularity a reliable (and maybe a little more potent) power, add Stasis to the Adept power-loadout so they'll have multiple CC powers available to be used againt protected enemies (no damage bugs / bonuses though). The best way to increase the usefulness of powers such as Pull, Throw and Shockwave is an interactive environment imo:

The ability to destroy (some) cover, to throw explosive containers at enemies, to destroy other parts of the environment (like having a (weak) wall collapse on enemy positions) etc. would not only make combat much more dynamic and enjoyable, but it also increases the ways in which one can use powers. This would increase the utility of (biotic) powers on all difficulty levels and it solves the most import problem a lot of folks have with biotics on HC/Insanity. I don't think the main issue is being able to use Pull on an protected enemy, but the fact that when fighting starts, a power like Pull cannot be used (really) effectively straight away. When it can be used (although not directly on enemies) would put an end to most complainers; and messing with your surroundings can also provide CC - destroying cover or tossing stuff at enemies will distract em or maybe some will get stuck (briefly) when they got hit by a container or something.

I think part of the problem is that they replaced Lift with Pull and the way they implemented it.  Pull should do just that, pull enemies towards you, not lift them as well.  It should litterally be the opposite of Throw.  Now if they brought back Lift and it only lifted them straight up and we then used Pull to pull them off a ledge that sounds fair to me.  Thats quite a bit of work involved and we deserve to be rewarded with insta-killing an enemy.

I disagree on you with the whole no powers but Singularity should work through protections though, I want to be using my Adepts abilities (even if they have less effect) not using my guns almost as much, if I wanted to focus on gun use I'd choose a different class.

Your bit about using Throw to throw explosive canisters at enemies sounds great on paper, but you and I both know that what works on paper doesn't always work in practice.  How well can we aim our Throws?  Theoretically we can do that in ME:2, its just pot luck if we manage to actually hit anything.

A good analogy of why this would be damned near impossible to implement is this:

I'm sure at some point you've played pool/snooker.  Have you ever tried to ricochet your shots?  Cue ball hits a ball and that ball hits another and its the third ball that we're trying to aim at a target (the pocket).  Now imagine that the third ball is moving. Unless you're a pool player extrordinaire you don't stand a whelks chance in a supernova of actually hitting it, let alone getting it to go where you want it to.

One change to me (to the game difficulties rather than the Adept class) that makes sense is Shields, they're Kinetic Barriers designed to deal with fast moving projectiles (bullets), so realistically shooting at them should take forever and a day to bring them down.  Overloading the Shields emitters and bringing the Shield down however makes sense.  Imagine if the gun centric classes had to worry about Shields just as much as the power centric classes and had to specifically bring someone along to deal with them.

Modifié par Dave666, 13 mai 2011 - 02:31 .

[Ahglock]

kstarler wrote...

Ahglock wrote...

I don't even buy it for Ymirs.  Do Ymirs have the ability to see cloaked targets, can you not charge certain enemies in the open field, do you lose damage bonuses against certain enemies from AR, can enemies ignore Tech armor, are there targets drone does not work against?.  Why, is the adepts class power singled out for this form of unreliability.  

I'd imagine it is for gameplay balance, as otherwise you end up with what you had in ME1, which was ridiculously overpowered. Also, I don't buy the other powers argument, with the exception of AR, which works against everything in the game, because it's basically all the Soldier has that is useful. TA and Charge can be used on a YMIR, but unless you are quick to get back to cover or have the skills of Kronner, you're going to end up dead pretty quick. Cloak is special because it's not a damaging power like the others, so it's kind of in its own catagory. However, I will go so far as to say that Heavy Singularity should indeed stagger larger enemies, even if the duration is drastically reduced.

Well then they suck at balancing.  You can charge spam a Ymir to death on insanity, is it really that big of a deal that a adept oculd pin them for a short time.  You can use cloak to basically be immune to the Ymir and take it out no problem, sure these are buffs not powers used on the Ymir but the effect is the same.  Drones work on Ymirs perfectly fine, why is it game play balanced for the engineer to CC a Ymir with full defenses, but the CC class can't.  

I don't want to get into the general defenses vs biotics argument since that gets played out to often as is.  But specifically with singualrity which as desgined is supposed to stagger through defenses it gets an extra layer of gimp that the other classes don't have to deal with.  And the specific on point example is Drone, the engineer's class power is also a CC power it just can move arounf and distract any enemy, it doesn;t get the not vs dogs and Ymirs gimp.  

[Dave666]

Ahglock wrote...

kstarler wrote...

Ahglock wrote...

I don't even buy it for Ymirs.  Do Ymirs have the ability to see cloaked targets, can you not charge certain enemies in the open field, do you lose damage bonuses against certain enemies from AR, can enemies ignore Tech armor, are there targets drone does not work against?.  Why, is the adepts class power singled out for this form of unreliability.  

I'd imagine it is for gameplay balance, as otherwise you end up with what you had in ME1, which was ridiculously overpowered. Also, I don't buy the other powers argument, with the exception of AR, which works against everything in the game, because it's basically all the Soldier has that is useful. TA and Charge can be used on a YMIR, but unless you are quick to get back to cover or have the skills of Kronner, you're going to end up dead pretty quick. Cloak is special because it's not a damaging power like the others, so it's kind of in its own catagory. However, I will go so far as to say that Heavy Singularity should indeed stagger larger enemies, even if the duration is drastically reduced.

Well then they suck at balancing.  You can charge spam a Ymir to death on insanity, is it really that big of a deal that a adept could pin them for a short time.  You can use cloak to basically be immune to the Ymir and take it out no problem, sure these are buffs not powers used on the Ymir but the effect is the same.  Drones work on Ymirs perfectly fine, why is it game play balanced for the engineer to CC a Ymir with full defenses, but the CC class can't.  

I don't want to get into the general defenses vs biotics argument since that gets played out to often as is.  But specifically with singualrity which as desgined is supposed to stagger through defenses it gets an extra layer of gimp that the other classes don't have to deal with.  And the specific on point example is Drone, the engineer's class power is also a CC power it just can move arounf and distract any enemy, it doesn;t get the not vs dogs and Ymirs gimp.  

I'll be honest (and obviously this is merely my opinion) I think Bioware messed up with the Engineer in ME:2, to me the Engineer and Adepts should be masters of controling the battlefield, but in completely different ways.  

The Adept should be about controling the enemies themselves, physically moving them, impeding their movement via Biotics etc.

The Engineer should be about controling the battlefield itself.  What I mean by that is actually being able to interact with the terrain, closing and locking doors, opening other doors, locking off avenues of attack and controling where the enemies can and can't move, basically when played well the enemies should only be able to come at you from a direction that you want them to and at the pace that you want them to, want them to move slower?  Put more obstacles in their way. Faster? Remove obstacles.

As it currently stands the Adept and Engineer do much the same things in much the same ways, they control the enemies themselves.

[termokanden]

I think the idea of opening and closing doors ("cracking" terrain basically) is pretty cool. Would love to see that. But it needs specially designed levels to be useful, and they ALL need to be that way.

I also don't agree that they "messed up" engineers. They could be more different from Adepts for sure, but compare them to Engineers from ME1 and you'll see that they have improved massively.

[Ahglock]

Yeah, environment control is cool, but unless you design every fight with that in mind it would make the engineer useless in those fight. I am not sure I'd say the engineer is messed up, but it seems to be less focussed that other classes. The vanguard can be played in multiple ways but it has a clear focus. The engineer has wildly divergent abilities and doesn't seem to have as clear of a focus. Are you the defense stripper, the Crowd Controller what?

[ComputerEnthusiast]

The Engineer should be about controling the battlefield itself. What I mean by that is actually being able to interact with the terrain, closing and locking doors, opening other doors, locking off avenues of attack and controling where the enemies can and can't move, basically when played well the enemies should only be able to come at you from a direction that you want them to and at the pace that you want them to, want them to move slower? Put more obstacles in their way. Faster? Remove obstacles.

I like your statement, too. You just reminded me of the old new thing, tech mine (old in ME1, possibly  new in ME3). As the combat in ME3 is faster, and enemies will try to make you out of cover by either rushing you or tossing a grenade, if engineer could deploy tech mine to slow them, then it would be great.

Modifié par ComputerEnthusiast, 13 mai 2011 - 04:54 .

[Dave666]

termokanden wrote...

I think the idea of opening and closing doors ("cracking" terrain basically) is pretty cool. Would love to see that. But it needs specially designed levels to be useful, and they ALL need to be that way.

I also don't agree that they "messed up" engineers. They could be more different from Adepts for sure, but compare them to Engineers from ME1 and you'll see that they have improved massively.

I dunno, I'm torn on that one really.  In ME:1 the Engineer was about disabling the enemies with Tech, they could render guns useless, prevent enemies from using abilities and kill them faster by basically instantly removing their shield.  The Adept was all about floating enemies in the air and leaving them as sitting ducks.  Both affected enemies, but in very different ways.  In ME:2 the Engineer is no longer about disabling enemies, but controling them instead, Cryo Blast freezes enemies, Incinerate gets em doing the 'fire dance', Drone controls one enemy, AI Hacking remained the same.

Like I said though its just my opinion, I'm certainly not claiming it as a fact or anything like that.

[termokanden]

People keep saying infiltrators in ME2 are gimped soldiers. My problem with engineers in ME1 is very much the same. They seem like gimped infiltrators to me. It's not like ME2 either where you at least have a unique class skill. Infiltrators even do more damage with tech attacks than engineers, and they have Immunity. Not even remotely fair.

Engineers needed more than just Neural Shock to make them worthwhile. In ME2 they have a better selection of tech powers than the Infiltrator, and Drone gives them a unique and very powerful crowd control ability.

[Ahglock]

Yeah I hated that about the engineer is ME1.

[Mightyg]

Well since you can equip any weapon now, I'm sure they'll focus more on making the class powers definitive.

They definitely should adjust the way biotics function, which I think they are. Making partial resists if the enemy is still armored/shielded. partial physics resist when shielded as far as duration the power lasts, armor = weight, reducing the force you can pull/knock/throw them.

Still think a dual global cooldown would be ideal as well, allowing 2 powers to be used in succession. Would make things like freeze/throw combos easier to do/allow you to use it more often. Would also let you take advantage of more of your teammates powers.

[tonnactus]

I agree with this. While I can understand why it wouldn't work on the klixen (they seem to be pretty large, roughly the size of a YMIR mech),

Singularity works on scions,sometimes even two of them.
Why it should work on klixxen?

[tonnactus]

Ahglock wrote...



I don't even buy it for Ymirs.  Do Ymirs have the ability to see cloaked targets, can you not charge certain enemies in the open field, do you lose damage bonuses against certain enemies from AR, can enemies ignore Tech armor, are there targets drone does not work against?.  Why, is the adepts class power singled out for this form of unreliability.  

Thats right,but singularity isnt the only power that is unreliable sometimes.Combat drone didnt work on geth hunters.(not a big problem,but still)

Why not giving enemy engineers the option to decloak infiltrators? Use a poison to disable adrenaline rush and/or increase the cooldowns for it?

All classes should have weak points that enemies could use,not just two of them.

[tonnactus]

Bozorgmehr wrote...
 Warp works on both armor and barrier, Incinerate is only effective against armor.

Not true, its 1,5 against shields and barriers.

[tonnactus]

termokanden wrote...

I also don't agree that they "messed up" engineers. They could be more different from Adepts for sure, but compare them to Engineers from ME1 and you'll see that they have improved massively.

There was nothing improved except that enemies couldnt use immunity anymore. Nothing the Mass Effect 2 engineer has comes even close to sabotage.

[tonnactus]

termokanden wrote...
 Infiltrators even do more damage with tech attacks than engineers, .

The engineer,with maxed hacking and the agent spec could use tech abilities far fore often then the infiltrator.(even with ai-hacking)
Also were was the option to play as a medic,an support class.Something like this didnt exist in Mass Effect 2.

[lazuli]

tonnactus wrote...

termokanden wrote...

I also don't agree that they "messed up" engineers. They could be more different from Adepts for sure, but compare them to Engineers from ME1 and you'll see that they have improved massively.

There was nothing improved except that enemies couldnt use immunity anymore. Nothing the Mass Effect 2 engineer has comes even close to sabotage.

...in terms of cooldown time!  Ba-zing.

[DieBySword]

tonnactus use the edit button man

Anyway biotic powers should work in some extent on enemies with armor/shield/barrier because as it stands the only fun use off biotic ability for CQC is to target husks en masse

If you want to lift someone if they have only helth lift them for max time, if they have armor too then reduce the duration and if they have a bonus shield or barrier then dont lift them but stager them for a while or something.

[tonnactus]

lazuli wrote...



...in terms of cooldown time!

Of course.With operative,two med-exoskleletons,a good omnitool and maxed ai-hacking it had almost zero cooldown...

DieBySword wrote...

tonnactus use the edit button man

Sorry,i am a little tired at the moment.

Modifié par tonnactus, 13 mai 2011 - 07:27 .

[termokanden]

tonnactus wrote...

termokanden wrote...
 Infiltrators even do more damage with tech attacks than engineers, .

The engineer,with maxed hacking and the agent spec could use tech abilities far fore often then the infiltrator.(even with ai-hacking)
Also were was the option to play as a medic,an support class.Something like this didnt exist in Mass Effect 2.

With two Medical Exoskeleton X and a proper omnitool, the cooldown is low enough. And then infiltrators can become Commandos and deal insane damage with pistols.

[tonnactus]

termokanden wrote...


With two Medical Exoskeleton X and a proper omnitool, the cooldown is low enough.

I played both classes,even an infiltrator with the operative spec.There is still a noticable difference.In Wrex Armor Mission,most of the mercs could switch weapons after a sabotage.Didnt matter.I could shut down their other weapons immediatly too.

[kstarler]

Ahglock wrote...

Well then they suck at balancing.  You can charge spam a Ymir to death on insanity, is it really that big of a deal that a adept oculd pin them for a short time.  You can use cloak to basically be immune to the Ymir and take it out no problem, sure these are buffs not powers used on the Ymir but the effect is the same.  Drones work on Ymirs perfectly fine, why is it game play balanced for the engineer to CC a Ymir with full defenses, but the CC class can't.  

I don't want to get into the general defenses vs biotics argument since that gets played out to often as is.  But specifically with singualrity which as desgined is supposed to stagger through defenses it gets an extra layer of gimp that the other classes don't have to deal with.  And the specific on point example is Drone, the engineer's class power is also a CC power it just can move arounf and distract any enemy, it doesn;t get the not vs dogs and Ymirs gimp.  

I'm not questioning whether what you posted about charge is true, but could you PM me a video link or forum link of charge spamming a YMIR? I'm not familiar with that tactic, and would be interested to see how it is done. But cloak making you immune to a YMIR? Well, for one shot that is true, but the YMIR will still track you while cloaked if your squad mates are dead, and I imagine that it would require quite a bit of cover usage and patience. In this regard, let me say that I think YMIR's are too "stupid," meaning it is far too easy to manipulate cover to trivialize YMIR fights for all classes, Adept included.

I will grant you that Drone is more powerful as a CC power than Singularity is, but Singularity has added benefits against other enemy types that Drone doesn't have, so I would argue that, overall, those two powers are balanced. I will agree that against YMIRs specifically, Singularity it weak. As I stated previously, I would be all for giving Heavy SIngularity the ability to stagger protected YMIR mechs.

Just to reiterate, my original comment was in regards to Singularity not affecting Klixen because it doesn't affect YMIR mechs, and that the two are roughly the same size, so it makes sense according to ME2 mechanics. I do not necessarily endorse that as a correct game balancing technique, I was simply pointing out the potential logic behind Singularity not affecting Klixen.

[kstarler]

tonnactus wrote...

Singularity works on scions,sometimes even two of them.
Why it should work on klixxen?

Scions are shambling, two legged, and most likely top-heavy creatures. Seems logical to me that it would have a greater effect against them.

EDIT: Also,

tonnactus wrote...

Bozorgmehr wrote...
Warp works on both armor and barrier, Incinerate is only effective against armor.

Not true, its 1,5 against shields and barriers.

Are you saying that Incinerate does 1.5x against shields and barriers as well? If so, can you sight a source, because according to this thread here, it does only 2.4x damage against armor?

Modifié par kstarler, 13 mai 2011 - 09:03 .

[Dave666]

kstarler wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

Singularity works on scions,sometimes even two of them.
Why it should work on klixxen?

Scions are shambling, two legged, most likely top-heavy creatures? Seems logical to me that it would have a greater effect against them.

I can understand this argument up to a point, but the thing is, Singularity is in effect creating a gravity well, its taking a point say a single air molecule and increasing its mass, then increasing it again and again and again and so on, so that the mass becomes so dense that it exerts a gravitational force, its basically a miniature black hole and I don't care how low your center of gravity is, if one is placed above your head its gonna pull you upward. 

Bugger me! I managed all of that in one sentence? lol