Terror_K wrote...
Not really, because the weapons are too individual and there aren't enough of them, and the choice is always obvious. The Widow and the Viper for instance perform and behave completely different, they're almost like two different weapon types. Do you honestly weigh up the situation ahead of you when choosing these weapons, or do you pick one that "feels the best" to you and pretty much stick with it every time. There's no stats, no additional effects. There's no varied version of the Widow with one that does more damage but has poor shield bypass, another that has good shield bypass and less damage, or one that's better vs. certain enemies than others. You have to go to a completely different weapon for variation, and when you do it's obvious why.
To be honest, I thought that when the change was made in ME2 to more varied weapons the Sniper Rifles category should have just become a broader category of "Rifles" especially considering the few that no longer act like proper sniper rifles.
In ME2, weapon choices were not obvious. The fact they they do differ so much affects the way you engage in combat and how you build your class skills. A Widow Infiltrator will find cryo ammo not very useful and most would be better off spending points in AP/warp ammo so they can specialize in being a sniper. A Viper is excellent with cryo ammo as it guarantees freezing per shot, and this frees up a slot for SG or AR as their weapon specialization and bonus power, which essentially makes them completely different builds and playstyles.
This effect happens with all the classes. Look at the strategies section for the build variations, and compare them to ME1 build variations.
True, that there were only 2-3 choices in each category, but because of the fact that they differ so much that the choices are more meaningful than choosing between one weapon that is slightly different than another, which is what you originally said you don't like. And because the gun category types already offer +armor or +shield/barrier properties, it makes you think about using your complete weapon setup as opposed to using just one gun.
Another thing with weapons that are 'slightly' different is that it's harder for you to master combining them with powers because you're never really sure how about the performance of the gun. If you picked up a slightly less powerful Claymore-ish weapon, you're not as sure about one-shotting a goon, and therefore you can't really make long-term strategies. The more randomness of your abilities and attacks are, the less you're able to plan ahead, and then that's where the game becomes nothing more than a stupid shooter because you're doing is reacting, not planning.
And yes, the Viper does more damage against shields than the Widow.
Aside from all the in-your-face pop-ups and interfaces, there's the research/upgrade system that just does all the work for you without any real input in a completely linear fashion, allowing you to god-mod every item you have far too easily. There's no trade-offs or downsides, it's all just clicking the same button over and over as you find the upgrades as it maxes out everything without the player needing to use a single grey-cell. There's the condescending messages on the loading screens, the annoying "Press and Hold (F) to end mission" prompt that won't go away, and the unsubtle "Mission complete" screens. The weapon descriptions tell you with no subtelty "This weapon is great at this. Use it for this!" It treats you like you've never played an RPG before with its overall design, and hides stats and other info in case it scares players away. The game feels like a constant tutorial from beginning until end, and like it's putting you in a high-chair with a bib as it spoons gameplay into you going, "here comes the RPG elements! Zooooom!" The whole thing is like a children's book.
In ME1, weapons have 3 slots, armor have slots, there are 7 characters and they carry 4 weapons each. If you are doing an analysis of player UI actions here's the breakdown of maximum tasks players did after every mission:
1) Conversations with Squadmates x 6 times
2) Manage armor x 7 = times
3) Manage armor upgrades x 2 slots x 7 = 14 times
4) Manage weapons x 7 x 4 weapons = 28 times
5) Manage weapon upgrades x 3 slots x 7 squamates x 4 weapons = 84 times
6) Manage omnitools for Shepard / Kaiden / Garrus / Tali / LIara = 5 times
7) Manage bioamps for Shpard / Kaiden / Liara / Wrex = 4 times
8) Manage grenade upgrades
9) Go to Requisitions Officer to see new items. If I don't like the stuff, I reload until I do.
10) Sell stuff that I deem to outdated or duplicated.
11) Manage skill points
Compare this with ME2:
1) Conversations with Squadmates x 10 (Kasumi and Zaeed excluded)
2) Conversations with Crew x 5 (Joker, Engineer Donnelly, Kelly, Chakwas, Gardner)
3) Manage skill points
4) Check for upgrades status
5) Check for squadmates status / swap outfits x 12
6) Research available upgrades
7) Manage weapons x 12 squadmates x 2 weapon slots
8) Manage weapons for myself (4 max weapon slots + Heavy Weapon)
9) Manage armor pieces for myself
10) Manage casual outfit
In other words, ME2 was structured so that you're using most of your brainpower on performing actions and choices that matter. There was less middle-management and red tape you had to get past in order to do the things you want to do. When you're upgrading stuff in ME1, for the majority of the time you were looking at stats and see which number is higher, there is nothing 'deep' about this. Upgrades are gonna upgrade. You want micromanage every tiny detail, I can propose the idea of tweaking your omnitool with the following sliders:
- Damage output
- Duration
- Area effect
- Controller chip
- Elemental damage boosters
- Battery cell
- Eezo generator
- Neural interface optimization
Sounds great, right? I love tweaking stuff, some of the games I've played the most are Borderlands, Forza, and Armored Core. I know how loot, customization, tweaking works, I know the joy of it. But in Mass Effect, they are secondary features that help the gameplay, but can also bog down if they go overboard. Mass Effect is not a game where the strategy is to upgrade your way to victory. It's an action RPG, it wants you to focus on the story, the combat in real time, and not spend the majority of your playing time number crunching. I love this stuff, but I also know what the overall vision of a creative entity and what fits into it and what doesn't. You may want to feel like a god with 50 powers instantly at your disposal, and for certain games it will work, but for others it won't. The reason for that is way beyond mechanical things like loot and ammo clips.
So if you think a deep RPG consists of micromanaging items that aren't very meaningful, then you believe in a game where it rewards you with grinding, and that's not what Mass Effect is going for. In ME, the puzzles are on the battlefield and on the worlds you interact with, not in the inventory screen and not in some menu interface existing on a level between the game world and your monitor.
Aside from the fact that there's no such thing as a non-combat skill any more and that's all the game is about, there's the fact that ME2 is barely any different: with so few powers you end up with only one skill neglected most of the time, unless you end up in one of those broken builds with leftover points to spend. With classes being forced to use all the weapons they can and thermal clips dictating the need to switch, you can't build weapon-specific classes like you could in ME1 (e.g. I had two different Vanguards in ME1: a pistol-wielding long ranger and a close-quarters shotgun wielder. Now they're both the same in ME2 since both use both weapons, and I can't choose to ignore or leave one behind due to arbritrary restrictions).
The different power evolutions aren't even that different: it's always just a case of the power being exactly the same, but simply "more damage or more defense" or "hurt single enemy or lots of enemies" or "up damage or up cooldown" Simply put, the powers don't actually evolve that much at all and don't become that different, despite the concept of branching powers being a nice one.
You can't break a character build beyond leaving yourself with leftover points. Poor builds in ME1 could make the game extremely difficult for you, especially in the middling sections. Almost no powers/skills in ME2 affect your ability to survive or handle a weapon, so you're always going to be great and investing points unwisely isn't going to bork your character or have you suffering at any point. Assigning points doesn't really matter that much because you're going to be just as combat capable simply using your weapons: it might simply take a bit longer.
I've just answered most of this in my first paragraph about character build variety.
But in regard to power evolutions, they do affect how you play. Area effect vs. more damage changes the role of the power. Passives like power duration affects drone, singularity, cryo ammo/blast, NS, dominate, AI hacking. My infiltrator uses Incinerate as a crowd control ability, not as a damager, so therefore I evolved to the area version, which affects enemy groups. On the other hand, my Engineer uses Heavy Incinerate specifically as a damager because I don't have a sniper rifle when dealing with heavily armored enemies. But when I'm fighting husks, I respec to Blast so I can strip multiple groups of their armor. Heavy Overload makes things explode, not good for CQC builds. These evolutions matter.
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