177 réponses à ce sujet

[tonnactus]

kstarler wrote...

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?

In this tread: "all other tech powers 1,5 shields" .
Incinerate is a tech power.

Modifié par tonnactus, 13 mai 2011 - 09:09 .

[kstarler]

Dave666 wrote...

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

This is true, and according to real world logic, it should be able to float everything that isn't tied down. This is one of those areas where I'm happy to take gameplay over lore, because I do feel that Singularity was terribly overpowered in ME1 (as were many, MANY other abilities across all classes as you pointed out earlier), but to me it feels about right in ME2. My comment is in regards to following in game logic, where it does not really act exactly like a black hole or quantum singularity.

[kstarler]

tonnactus wrote...

kstarler wrote...

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?

In this tread: "all other tech powers 1,5 shields" .
Incinerate is a tech power.

Perhaps I am misreading "All Other Tech Powers," but that would generally indicate to me that all powers other than those listed above have the added bonus. With that said, Incinerate still only does base damage against Barriers according to the Gameplay Data thread. I think I'll boot up ME2 when I have a chance this evening and see if I can't test Incinerate and Reave vs. Shields.

[Dave666]

kstarler wrote...

Dave666 wrote...

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

This is true, and according to real world logic, it should be able to float everything that isn't tied down. This is one of those areas where I'm happy to take gameplay over lore, because I do feel that Singularity was terribly overpowered in ME1 (as were many, MANY other abilities across all classes as you pointed out earlier), but to me it feels about right in ME2. My comment is in regards to following in game logic, where it does not really act exactly like a black hole or quantum singularity.

Agreed, though personaly I think that they toned it down a bit too much, the radius in ME:1 was rather massive, but then so were the maps.  If the maps are larger in ME:3 then I hope that the radius is increased to reflect this (though not to ME:1 levels).  

Thanks by the way, its gratifying to see that someone read that, it really does bug me when people use that argument. 

[termokanden]

tonnactus wrote...

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.

But the difference doesn't outweigh what you get in return. You deal much more damage and can take much more damage.

Modifié par termokanden, 13 mai 2011 - 09:33 .

[The Spamming Troll]

Bozorgmehr wrote...

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.

using throw near a ledge, when a ledge is available to be used, is an adepts one shot kill. that IS the adepts OSOK, like the infiltrators in the widow, and the blahs is the blah blahs.

there wouldnt be a point to evolving a power if its not going to be effective.

if singularity is left as is, which it wont with evolved powers, i wouldnt be so upset if the overall class becamse as consistantly effective when trying to use it.

sorry but playing an adept and being the ultimate CCing possible character in the entire galaxy, i dont throw gas cans at people. you gotta be kidding me. the vangaurd can eat people alive, and you want my adept to throw gas cans???

i cant continue.

[kstarler]

kstarler wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

kstarler wrote...

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?

In this tread: "all other tech powers 1,5 shields" .
Incinerate is a tech power.

Perhaps I am misreading "All Other Tech Powers," but that would generally indicate to me that all powers other than those listed above have the added bonus. With that said, Incinerate still only does base damage against Barriers according to the Gameplay Data thread. I think I'll boot up ME2 when I have a chance this evening and see if I can't test Incinerate and Reave vs. Shields.

I know this is off topic, and I apologize, as this is actually a pretty good thread thusfar. Just on the quoted topic, I tested it and there is virtually no difference between Incineration Blast and Area Reave when it comes to stripping shields. The only difference that I noticed is, because Incineration Blast does 170 damage while Area Reave does 160, it took me 16 Reaves to strip a Geth Prime's shields and only 15 Incinerates (makes perfect sense, since Incinerate does 150 more damage in that many uses, which is almost exactly one extra Reave). I will update this post once the video is uploaded to youtube. Please continue with the discussion regarding Singularity.

EDIT: Here's the link. www.youtube.com/watch

Modifié par kstarler, 14 mai 2011 - 06:25 .

[Kileyan]

All this arguing about who wants "I win" buttons for biotics and so on.

To me the problem was many of the most interesting powers couldn't be used until the bad guy was nearly a burst from a SMG away from death anyway. Yeh slightly more than a burst on harder difficulties but stay with me.

edited:) hit post button during typing........

All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health. I always felt like once the armor and shield were down, the target was pretty much dead, and not much purpose in using some of the funner powers that won't work until defenses are down.

Just saying if a bad guys lifespan was a bit longer without shield and armor, all the cool powers that require no defenses might have more use, and be more fun to use.

Modifié par Kileyan, 14 mai 2011 - 02:30 .

[Dave666]

Kileyan wrote...

All this arguing about who wants "I win" buttons for biotics and so on.

To me the problem was many of the most interesting powers couldn't be used until the bad guy was nearly a burst from a SMG away from death anyway. Yeh slightly more than a burst on harder difficulties but stay with me.

edited:) hit post button during typing........

All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health. I always felt like once the armor and shield were down, the target was pretty much dead, and not much purpose in using some of the funner powers that won't work until defenses are down.

Just saying if a bad guys lifespan was a bit longer without shield and armor, all the cool powers that require no defenses might have more use, and be more fun to use.

I've said something similar in the past.  However this thread is actually about Singularity and its a genuine thing.   Singularity doesn't work at all on some enemies and is unreliable on the rest.  Have a look through the thread and you'll see what I mean.

Modifié par Dave666, 14 mai 2011 - 02:34 .

[Ahglock]

kstarler wrote...


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.

I'm not a video maker(if I were I could post my taking one down with a claymore/charge and incidental squad fire), but here is one where with charge and guns and yes he uses teammates, but someone takes down 2 ymirs.  

As for cloaking I guess I rarely get all my squadmates killed, but even then you can unload quite a few shots with your SMG before cloak wares out.  

I just don't think you need to remove targets from what your class power works on in order to balance things.  The stagger is good, but it isn't game stopping.  All forms of singularity should work on all targets, I can see things like the ME2 end boss being exceptions since they aren't really on the battlefield.  

Modifié par Ahglock, 14 mai 2011 - 02:35 .

[kstarler]

Ahglock wrote...

I'm not a video maker(if I were I could post my taking one down with a claymore/charge and incidental squad fire), but here is one where with charge and guns and yes he uses teammates, but someone takes down 2 ymirs.  

As for cloaking I guess I rarely get all my squadmates killed, but even then you can unload quite a few shots with your SMG before cloak wares out.  

I just don't think you need to remove targets from what your class power works on in order to balance things.  The stagger is good, but it isn't game stopping.  All forms of singularity should work on all targets, I can see things like the ME2 end boss being exceptions since they aren't really on the battlefield.  

No worries, I was just looking for any video link showing charge spam, which you provided. I kind of figured that was what you meant. Anyway, I want to reiterate that I agree; in regards to some specific enemies, Singularity is more or less useless, except maybe for using a nearby mook to warp-bomb that enemy type. I agree that Singularity should do something to larger enemies, at least as far as the heavy version of the power goes.

My personal hope is that we'll see Singularity affecting inanimate objects, and these will be able to hit enemies as they fly around, doing some pretty good physics damage. That seems like it would be fun and give Singularity an additional way to strip defenses, even against enemies that it may not be strong enough to lift/stagger.

[Kileyan]

Dave666 wrote...

Kileyan wrote...

All this arguing about who wants "I win" buttons for biotics and so on.

To me the problem was many of the most interesting powers couldn't be used until the bad guy was nearly a burst from a SMG away from death anyway. Yeh slightly more than a burst on harder difficulties but stay with me.

edited:) hit post button during typing........

All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health. I always felt like once the armor and shield were down, the target was pretty much dead, and not much purpose in using some of the funner powers that won't work until defenses are down.

Just saying if a bad guys lifespan was a bit longer without shield and armor, all the cool powers that require no defenses might have more use, and be more fun to use.

I've said something similar in the past.  However this thread is actually about Singularity and its a genuine thing.   Singularity doesn't work at all on some enemies and is unreliable on the rest.  Have a look through the thread and you'll see what I mean.

Apologies, I posted in the wrong thread.

I'll add my thoughts to singularity, lift, throw and any gravity affect.

I won't pretend to understand how shield work vs biotic gravity affects so I will not comment.

I will talk about how silly it is to have to take down armor to be able to use biotic gravity affects. Why does a metal suit of armor protect someone? A biotic can lift a marble pillar, a peice of metal. I'm sure they could lift and throw and empty suit of armor at will, so why can they suddenly not lift a suit of armor just because a person is wearing it?

To add to the topic, I've found singularity seems to not work once a bad guy has been affected by it once. By that I mean they bounce off it or get throw out, then they proceed to take cover inches from it for the duration and act like it isn't there.

[Ahglock]

Oh one more thing on the reliability front I hope they fix and for all biotics. The bug where a unprotected target glows blue but is otherwise unaffected by the power. I can't count how many times that got me killed.

[Froozie]

Singularity is the best thing ever.

"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTR"-singularitied
*shoots harbinger in the face while he staggers around like an irishman*

That is all.

[tonnactus]

Kileyan wrote...


All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health

To be honest: Neither shepardt nor enemies should have an healthbar at all.(except krogans maybee)
Two common layers,shields and armor,and after those are down,combatants should be death.(it would be only a technical difference,but no one take more then one or two bullets after those things are down)

[The Spamming Troll]

tonnactus wrote...

Kileyan wrote...


All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health

To be honest: Neither shepardt nor enemies should have an healthbar at all.(except krogans maybee)
Two common layers,shields and armor,and after those are down,combatants should be death.(it would be only a technical difference,but no one take more then one or two bullets after those things are down)

i agree. this is why i dont think we need a HUD in the ME games anymore. my health is shown by distorted noise and huge red veins across my screen. i dont need a bar in the lower right showing me what means nothing.

enemies dont need bars either, just show their shiels as actual visual cues mush like seeing a vangaurd in barrier or a enemy in tech armor. its be much more immersive and much more satisfying looking at the enemies im shoooting instead ofthe bar floating above its head.

Modifié par The Spamming Troll, 14 mai 2011 - 07:46 .

[Kileyan]

tonnactus wrote...

Kileyan wrote...


All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health

To be honest: Neither shepardt nor enemies should have an healthbar at all.(except krogans maybee)
Two common layers,shields and armor,and after those are down,combatants should be death.(it would be only a technical difference,but no one take more then one or two bullets after those things are down)

Nitpicking, call it whatever you want, the state in which a person, robot, whatever can be affected by powers. That state should last longer, IMHO.  I'm fine with your example but then what do they do with all the powers that only affect things once all their defenses are gone, and nothing is left but health?

[Dave666]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

Kileyan wrote...


All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health

To be honest: Neither shepardt nor enemies should have an healthbar at all.(except krogans maybee)
Two common layers,shields and armor,and after those are down,combatants should be death.(it would be only a technical difference,but no one take more then one or two bullets after those things are down)

i agree. this is why i dont think we need a HUD in the ME games anymore. my health is shown by distorted noise and huge red veins across my screen. i dont need a bar in the lower right showing me what means nothing.

enemies dont need bars either, just show their shiels as actual visual cues mush like seeing a vangaurd in barrier or a enemy in tech armor. its be much more immersive and much more satisfying looking at the enemies im shoooting instead ofthe bar floating above its head.

Gawd no!  Can you imagine trying to play an Adept in ME:2 if the enemies had no Health/Protections indicator?

Shoot, shoot, shoot, tries pull, damn still has protections!, shoot, tries pull again, what?  Still? Shoot, tries pull, oh you're f*cking kidding me! Shoot, tries pull, FINALLY! About f*ucking time!

[Black Raptor]

Biotics should have a long cooldown but work through armour and shields.

[The Spamming Troll]

Dave666 wrote...

The Spamming Troll wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

Kileyan wrote...


All that needed to be done IMHO was to reduce armor and shield and increase health

To be honest: Neither shepardt nor enemies should have an healthbar at all.(except krogans maybee)
Two common layers,shields and armor,and after those are down,combatants should be death.(it would be only a technical difference,but no one take more then one or two bullets after those things are down)

i agree. this is why i dont think we need a HUD in the ME games anymore. my health is shown by distorted noise and huge red veins across my screen. i dont need a bar in the lower right showing me what means nothing.

enemies dont need bars either, just show their shiels as actual visual cues mush like seeing a vangaurd in barrier or a enemy in tech armor. its be much more immersive and much more satisfying looking at the enemies im shoooting instead ofthe bar floating above its head.

Gawd no!  Can you imagine trying to play an Adept in ME:2 if the enemies had no Health/Protections indicator?

Shoot, shoot, shoot, tries pull, damn still has protections!, shoot, tries pull again, what?  Still? Shoot, tries pull, oh you're f*cking kidding me! Shoot, tries pull, FINALLY! About f*ucking time!

no dawg! enemies with protections would have those protections shown as "tech armor" or "barrier" or some new armor anhancement animation needed to provide a visual for an enemy with protection. all enemies without shown protection are prone to all abilities. ME2 already handles most visuals like this as is, plus we have the floating bubble overhead. why not try to remove the floating bubble and show it on the character instead?

Modifié par The Spamming Troll, 14 mai 2011 - 10:38 .

[Dave666]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

no dawg! enemies with protections would have those protections shown as "tech armor" or "barrier" or some new armor anhancement animation needed to provide a visual for an enemy with protection. all enemies without shown protection are prone to all abilities. ME2 already handles most visuals like this as is, plus we have the floating bubble overhead. why not try to remove the floating bubble and show it on the character instead?

Because not everyone has humongous HD TV's, thats why not.  Remember that sometimes you're figting an enemy from quite a distance and you might not even be able to see such details, which for some people would basically mean that there are litterally no indicators for enemy protections.  I have no problem with a toggle in the options menu, but I definately don't want them to remove it completely for everyone.

[The Spamming Troll]

i know the levels are supposed to be larger but you cant use abilities beyond any distance you couldnt see an enemies protections anyways.

you actually like seeing the floaty bars? what about shepard and squads heatlh being shown on screen? thats not really needed as well. id think itd be alot more imersive without heatlh bars and itd add a flavor to ME2 combat besides enemies using biotics or techs.

Modifié par The Spamming Troll, 15 mai 2011 - 01:11 .

[JaegerBane]

Ahglock wrote...

kstarler wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

That singularity didnt work on fenris mechs,varren and those fire spiting insects...

Was that actually intended(dumb as hell,but who knows) or does Bioware didnt pay enough money for their testers?

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), it is a little silly that it doesn't work on fenris mechs and varren, and I hope that they change/fix it for ME3. Personally, I hope that this was simply an oversight, rather than a design choice.

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.  

This is a good point, Aghlock. I'd never thought about it like this, but you're right - every other signature power is never rendered totally ineffective purely by the type of enemy on the field. There are situations where certain powers won't work, such as major boss encounters like the Maw, but that's primarily down to level design. YMIRS are not major bosses, and hence there is no good reason why they're immune to Singularity's normal effect on defended targets. I mean, even Scions are affected by it.

[JaegerBane]

Dave666 wrote...
Boz?  Why do you always jump to that conclusion?  The point I was trying to make is that Tech and especially Combat remained just as effective in ME:2 as they were in ME:1, Soldiers have AR, Vangards have Charge (which while technically a biotic ability acts more like a combat one), Infiltrators have Cloak etc.  The Tech users have abilities like Incinerate that can destroy Armor and Health in one shot.  Hell even the Sentinel which is supposed to be a hybrid of Tech and Biotics ended up getting a Tech ability as its signiture power.

Biotics simply haven't kept up. I have no problem with the idea of rebalancing classes if Bioware feels that its needed, but I do have a problem when the classes are not balanced equally.

I'm not even sure it's biotics in general - I think it's more that the Adept's biotics haven't kept up (or at least some of them).

Throw and Pull are fine, as their blindingly fast cooldowns and interaction more than makes up for their inability to work through defences (Heavy Throw is even pretty effective against shields, as it recharges so fast after upgrades you can basically spam it). Warp is just fine as it is (particularly in cooperation with Pull).

On paper Shockwave is fine on the lower difficulty levels, but as someone pointed out, there are limited situations where Shockwave's massive AoE is actually worth it's cooldown in comparison to Area Pull, and of course we have the issues with Singularity with it's unreliable effects and bizarre list of targets it can't affect.

If you look at the bonus powers, there's plenty of incredibly potent Biotics. Reave is patently nuts (essentially combining the effects of Warp, Area Pull and low-level Unity into one sniper-esque insta-blast of doom) and Stasis largely does everything the Singularity was supposed to do in ME2. Dominate is disproportinately effective given the style and gameplay of the game, and the number of organic opponents. Even the rather basic Slam allows instant Warp Bombs.

To be honest I've often wondered whether Reave should have been given to the Adept instead of Shockwave. It's a lot more useful and no more redundant than the Throw/Shockwave situation, slotting quite neatly into the Adept's need for a long range, one-shot AoE damage ability.

Of course, bonus powers can be taken by anyone, so it leaves the Adept in an odd situation of being the weakest biotic when purely considering class powers (thanks primarily to the Vanguard's charge being as amazing as it is and the Sentinel having significantly better cooldowns).

I'm currently testing a run through with a heavily modded 'biotic god' Adept (partially as an experiment, partially for ME3 post re-modding back to something legitimate and partially because I fancied an all-DLC run through ). It's essentially an Adept with 4 bonus powers - Barrier, Stasis, Warp Ammo and Reave. I think it's quite telling that, while Pull, Throw and Warp are getting used just as much as any other Adept run I've made, I'm using my bonus powers significantly more than I'm using Shockwave and Singularity. Mainly down to the simple fact that they're more reliable.

As I said at the beginning, that's a pretty sad indictment of what is supposed to be a class's signature ability. Bioware, I hope you're taking note of this thread, as there's a lot of good stuff coming out from the posters

Modifié par JaegerBane, 15 mai 2011 - 09:16 .

[JaegerBane]

Kileyan wrote...
I will talk about how silly it is to have to take down armor to be able to use biotic gravity affects. Why does a metal suit of armor protect someone? A biotic can lift a marble pillar, a peice of metal. I'm sure they could lift and throw and empty suit of armor at will, so why can they suddenly not lift a suit of armor just because a person is wearing it?

I would assume that this is related to the custom upgrades seen in ME1. There's mention of a number of things, such as element zero microcores specifically set up to counteract the physics effects of biotics via artificial mass increases (so someone hit by an effect that would normally pick them up and smash them into a wall is merely staggered).

So, to answer your question, the reason they can't lift the aformentioned suit with someone in it is because the person switched on their combat exoskeleton

It's not really a great reason and it doesn't make any sense as to why such a defence stops being frozen in near absolute zero or set on fire, but as a reason for a balance, I'm willling to let it lie. I do think Bioware need to put a little more effort into their 'balancing' reasoning, though - I can understand thermal clips on a machine gun, but not on a Sniper Rifle that limits them to ten shots.

To add to the topic, I've found singularity seems to not work once a bad guy has been affected by it once. By that I mean they bounce off it or get throw out, then they proceed to take cover inches from it for the duration and act like it isn't there.

I've noticed that too. However, it doesn't seem to happen regularly, which implies to me that it's a bug. While i'd rather that they remove bugs like this as much as the next guy, it's not really the focus of this thread. I'm sure you'll have seen all those wonderful bugs where totally frozen or Pulled enemies freely march around and shoot as if they weren't effected, but still act as if they've been affected when shattered or blown up with Warp.