310 réponses à ce sujet

[SalsaDMA]

AlanC9 wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

Games like Deus Ex and Fallout: New Vegas would beg to differ. Again, proper integration and gelling of RPG and Shooter elements does not necessarily mean in the fashion ME1 went about things. And, again, even if one considers ME1 to have as you put it directly "mediocre combat system and bad TPS system" ME2 has a mediore and bad RPG system." And yet it's okay in that case. TPS elements aren't allowed to suffer, but RPG ones can.

To be perfectly honest, ME2's combat system is mediocre and bad as well, really.

And here we get into that nasty personal taste problem. I found ME2's combat to be not only superior to ME1's but obviously so. Not even close. So we simply don't agree on what makes good combat, full stop.

(Unless your position is that ME1 sucked even harder than ME2, but I don't think that's the case.)

Edit: which is not to say that some other kind of combat system couldn't have worked in ME2. But most of the proposals for putting in more "RPG" combat have the unfortunate side-effect of making Shepard not know how to use his weapons properly at the start of the game.

True, it IS about personal taste in this regard.

But the thing is, I played first ME1, and then I played ME2 without playing other games between them. Both games felt great and I was just happy. Then I played another shooter game (can't even remember which one now) and came back to plow another of my ME1 saves through ME2 and.... the combat part of the game just felt crap compared to what I had just been playing. I especially remember being faced off by the un.natural feeling of artificial invisible walls blocking me from moving certain places, and in whole the control scheme just felt clumsy, restrictive while the combat itself felt boring and repetitive.

It's called perspective, really. Playing a few other games around the block to 'feel' how things are done there, and then comming back and 'feel' how things are done in ME2, and it just feels sloppy, imo. Had it been a non-ME title with the same actual gameplay, I would have ditched it in a few hours because of boredom. That's why I feel it heavily relies on the story to survive as entertainement. It's also while I am disheartened to hear that they seem to be going even further into the depths of trying to be a generic shooter instead of building on the one strength the game actually had.

[SalsaDMA]

Eurhetemec wrote...

 It's not like AD&D - you roll to hit because the game doesn't want to simulate the enemy movement and behaviour precisely - in ME there's no need to do that, because the enemy movement and behaviour ARE being simulated precisely!

I would hardly call movement without the ability to duck, go prone, climb, get stuck on invisibe walls and so on for 'simulating precisely' how people would move in an actual enviroment.

[Icinix]

ME3 looks like the first ME game that I actually want to play the combat - as opposed to just ploughing through it to get to the dialgoue / choice / character upgrade screens etc.

The Character level up seems to have more in line with progression for a persons particular play style - as opposed to the generic everyone ends up the same as ME2.

I just think the whole thing (depsite some clearly shooter focused marketing) is really looking like hitting the nail on the head. Like, epic glorious, nail head hitting. Yeah.

So yeah, sure the marketing may be shooter focused inspired - but the game itself appears solid.

[SalsaDMA]

Eurhetemec wrote...

A good example of how adding randomness in an already-complex game is bad can be found in Alpha Protocol - the first game to try to "rip off" the Mass Effect formula, and it was disasterously bad.

We'll have to disagree here. I bought Alpha Protocol on a sale because of all the flak it had gotten, but when I actually got it and played it I felt it was just as good an experience, if not better, than the ME series. Some of the areas it even pushed innovation where ME series still felt stale.

What Alpha Protocol lacked was post launch patching to fix the flaws and bugs it had (I don't think it got any patches at all, to fix any of the issues it had). As a game design, though, it was a gem marred by a hurried production schedule.

[SalsaDMA]

AlanC9 wrote...

Eurhetemec wrote...
EA aren't out to "get" BW. They want them to make a profit. DA2 didn't sell nearly as well as DA:O, so that means less profit, so why worry? DA2's problems were more the result of an 18-month dev cycle than anything else.If it had had two years, I think we'd have seen a far better game.

It may mean less profit. I figure this is probably true, but I'm not absolutely certain. With a short dev cycle the game is cheaper. 

I think this is the issue more than anything else.

If producing mediocre or bad games is more proftiable than producing good games, then that would be the logical conclusion to follow as a company interested in making money. Especially if there is a financial instability that makes it even more important to maximize profits at the sake of everything else.

[RPGamer13]

Pshaw.  Borrowing from other games I think can only make it better.  I'm not much for shooters and so I can't complain if it feels more so-called 'action-adventurey', it would be a vast improvement over what we got in Mass Effect 2.

Icinix wrote...

ME3 looks like the first ME game that I actually want to play the combat - as opposed to just ploughing through it to get to the dialgoue / choice / character upgrade screens etc.

I agree with you there.

Though the first game was still far more enjoyable on the combat level than the first.  Mostly because you could use whatever powers you had and not have to wait for cooldown that affected every other ability.

[SalsaDMA]

In Exile wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...
Bioware made ME.
EA made ME2. 

Which one is the more valid?

We can do this another way.

Rowling wrote Harry Potter.
Multiple directors filmed Harry Potter.

Which one is more valid?

You don't get it both ways.

This comparison is incoherent. A real comparison would be if Rowling sold the Harry Potter IP to someone else, and then that person had her write a new Harry Potter novel. The same team designed ME2 - but the IP switched hands when Bioware became a subsidiary of EA. 

Anyway, you're really wrong about Bioware ever working on what you consider RPGs. They were a major player in the trend away from what you think RPGs are. Just look at BG II to NWN (removing the PC's party), NWN to KoTOR (simplified mechanics & cinematic story along with the inability to kill NPCs, etc), and KoTOR to JE/ME. 

Are you claiming that the development team is the same? That there haven't been changes to the composition of the team of devs/writers?

Cause if you are making that claim, you would be in error.

[CuseGirl]

"cliche shooters" as if there are infinte ways to fire a gun.....last I checked, Mass Effect is a shooter with great dialogue in between, nothing more.

[Lumikki]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Are you claiming that the development team is the same? That there haven't been changes to the composition of the team of devs/writers?

Cause if you are making that claim, you would be in error.

Are You claiming that they changed development team and "most" dev/writes after EA buyed Bioware?

Modifié par Lumikki, 26 juillet 2011 - 02:31 .

[sp0ck 06]

Gatt9 wrote...


Here's your problem.

Bioware made ME.
EA made ME2.

Which one is the more valid?

We can do this another way.

Rowling wrote Harry Potter.
Multiple directors filmed Harry Potter.

Which one is more valid?

You don't get it both ways.
.

What?  EA did not "make" ME2 any more than New Line Cinema "made" Lord of the Rings.

[AlanC9]

SalsaDMA wrote...

True, it IS about personal taste in this regard.

But the thing is, I played first ME1, and then I played ME2 without playing other games between them. Both games felt great and I was just happy. Then I played another shooter game (can't even remember which one now) and came back to plow another of my ME1 saves through ME2 and.... the combat part of the game just felt crap compared to what I had just been playing. I especially remember being faced off by the un.natural feeling of artificial invisible walls blocking me from moving certain places, and in whole the control scheme just felt clumsy, restrictive while the combat itself felt boring and repetitive.

It's called perspective, really. Playing a few other games around the block to 'feel' how things are done there, and then comming back and 'feel' how things are done in ME2, and it just feels sloppy, imo. Had it been a non-ME title with the same actual gameplay, I would have ditched it in a few hours because of boredom. That's why I feel it heavily relies on the story to survive as entertainement. It's also while I am disheartened to hear that they seem to be going even further into the depths of trying to be a generic shooter instead of building on the one strength the game actually had.

Hmmm...... I have no way of actually knowing the persepctive I'd have since I haven't played a new shooter since The Orange Box.. OTOH, since I liked ME2's combat much better than ME1's I doubt we'd have identical responses.

Edit: though I suppose we could still match up if ME1 was being carried by the story elements too, though ME1 would need more carrying since it has worse combat and other crappy elements.

Modifié par AlanC9, 26 juillet 2011 - 02:53 .

[sp0ck 06]

*post removed

Modifié par sp0ck 06, 26 juillet 2011 - 02:56 .

[AlanC9]

 sp0ck 06, was that maybe a post for that other thread

[sp0ck 06]

AlanC9 wrote...

 sp0ck 06, was that maybe a post for that other thread

haha oops.

[this isnt my name]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Eurhetemec wrote...

A good example of how adding randomness in an already-complex game is bad can be found in Alpha Protocol - the first game to try to "rip off" the Mass Effect formula, and it was disasterously bad.

We'll have to disagree here. I bought Alpha Protocol on a sale because of all the flak it had gotten, but when I actually got it and played it I felt it was just as good an experience, if not better, than the ME series. Some of the areas it even pushed innovation where ME series still felt stale.

What Alpha Protocol lacked was post launch patching to fix the flaws and bugs it had (I don't think it got any patches at all, to fix any of the issues it had). As a game design, though, it was a gem marred by a hurried production schedule.

I bought AP on sale. It was superior to ME1 in terms of gameplay imo.
Timed dialouge felt better than the wheel, guns were done better, ME gun powers didnt do much for me, here chain shot was useful, and they had different effects e.g shotgun charged gives a knockdown, while AR is increased aim.
It had more ways to play, stealth, shooting, setting traps and dialouge. ME1 didnt have as much flexibility with playstyle. The choices damn I didnt even think how much effect some of them would have or even that they would be referenced. I findit odd people can hate alpha protocal, but like mass effect 1, when AP is superior, most of it may be oppinion but choice and consequence is amazing. It should have got atleast an 8. As for bugs 2 in an entire playthrough. AI just needs work and they fix bossfights it wouldhavebeen a 9.5.

Story dosent have any good twists though. Except 1 I found so far, but its only a certain ending.

[Eurhetemec]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Eurhetemec wrote...

A good example of how adding randomness in an already-complex game is bad can be found in Alpha Protocol - the first game to try to "rip off" the Mass Effect formula, and it was disasterously bad.

We'll have to disagree here. I bought Alpha Protocol on a sale because of all the flak it had gotten, but when I actually got it and played it I felt it was just as good an experience, if not better, than the ME series. Some of the areas it even pushed innovation where ME series still felt stale.

What Alpha Protocol lacked was post launch patching to fix the flaws and bugs it had (I don't think it got any patches at all, to fix any of the issues it had). As a game design, though, it was a gem marred by a hurried production schedule.

Well, I've never met a game so bad it didn't have fans, that's what I'll say. I bought AP on pre-order, I was very excited about it, and I found it to be lacking in every possible way except dialogue, which was roughly on-par with ME1. I'd love to hear what you thought was innovative about it (beyond the dialogue, because that's so subjective), because to me, it felt like a PREDECESSOR to ME1.

It wasn't just "bugs and flaws", either - the basic design of the combat was extremely poor and unrewarding, and made the combat feel extremely fake in a way I hadn't seen for years in a game. The stealth simply didn't work very well, and substituted for "real" stealth (a la Splinter Cell) with "Magic Invisibility" stealth a la World of Warcraft. I understand there's an argument along the lines of "I'm **** at stealth games so it's 'role-playing' for magic stealth to work!", but when, as it did, the magic stealth lets you do stuff that's totally physically impossible, that's not a good argument. On top of this the game was poorly paced and, sorry to say, had graphics which made it look more like an high-end PS2 game than a modern game.

Re: randomness - the game made you essentially unable to hit the broad side of a barn with a gun you didn't have points in. ME1 did a similar thing. In neither case did it make for a better game - rather in both cases it made of hilariously unrealistic situations, where a supposedly highly trained special ops soldier literally couldn't hit a 1'x1' target from 5' away, because both games actively diverted bullets from where you were aiming at low/zero skill levels. That's not realism, and it's not role-playing. It's poorly-conceived design and totally unnecessary randomization/rolling.

I understand why some people like it - it had the potential to be better than ME1, because it did allow more different playstyles, and dialogue actually had more impact, but it was such a poorly put together package that it really failed as a game.

Modifié par Eurhetemec, 26 juillet 2011 - 03:53 .

[SalsaDMA]

[quote]Eurhetemec wrote...

It wasn't just "bugs and flaws", either - the basic design of the combat was extremely poor and unrewarding, and made the combat feel extremely fake in a way I hadn't seen for years in a game. The stealth simply didn't work very well, and substituted for "real" stealth (a la Splinter Cell) with "Magic Invisibility" stealth a la World of Warcraft. I understand there's an argument along the lines of "I'm **** at stealth games so it's 'role-playing' for magic stealth to work!", but when, as it did, the magic stealth lets you do stuff that's totally physically impossible, that's not a good argument.
[/quote]

Combat punished 'run and gun' style of fast paced shooters, and rewarded tactical play and actually taking time to line up your shots and aiming. I felt it was alot more rewarding, tbh, than the usual flickwrist games, especially as the game supported this somewhat slower playstyle well. I never ran out of ammo while playing, yet I heard people complain about this exact thing while also complaining about shots doing very little damage: proof that they never took the time to understand the combat system and just played it like a regular shooter, which it wasn't.

Stealth play did not consist of pushing the 'cloak' button. If you thought that, I can certainly understand why you had a bad time with stealth. Stealth play was about moving out of sight and try to be as noiseless as possible. The cloak button (or magic inivisibility, as you call it) was a combo of 'evasion' (which trigger if you got spotted while yet un-noticed, and gave you at max level 5 seconds of invisibility if you were about to be spotted) and 'shadow operative' which was a triggered ability you could use to get invisibility for up to 20 seconds at max level if you hadn't been spotted yet, and it went away as soon as you fired a weapon or made an attack. These were skills you usually used as last solutions, due to their cooldowns, and most of the time you should have been sneaking around in a crouched position.

[quote]Eurhetemec wrote...
On top of this the game was poorly paced and, sorry to say, had graphics which made it look more like an high-end PS2 game than a modern game.

Re: randomness - the game made you essentially unable to hit the broad side of a barn with a gun you didn't have points in. ME1 did a similar thing. In neither case did it make for a better game - rather in both cases it made of hilariously unrealistic situations, where a supposedly highly trained special ops soldier literally couldn't hit a 1'x1' target from 5' away, because both games actively diverted bullets from where you were aiming at low/zero skill levels. That's not realism, and it's not role-playing. It's poorly-conceived design and totally unnecessary randomization/rolling.
[/quote]

I disagree with thre pacing, especially as you chose it yourself, by choosing which theatres of operations to go for in which order after the initial starter area. I never had a complaint about the graphics either while playing the game, tbh. As for your comment on not being able to hit the broadside of a barn without points in a weapon, that is factually wrong. Points in weapons improved damage and gave you special skills with them. I still used my pistol as my 'stealth sniping weapon' on those playthroughs where I didn't invest points in it, And I was still lining up my shots perfectly and oneshotting people in the head with this tactic. Sure, it might take me longer to line up the shots between consequtive shots, but why would I go into battle involving several tagets without a weapon I actually trained in? If your complaint is that you had difficultoies if you didn't train in any form of combat, then I have no pity with you. The game was far more about punishing bad choices/rewarding good choices than ME2 was, and opting not to train in any form of combat as a secret agent sent out in hot zones on missions that include eliminating other people is just a plain bad choice.

[/quote]
I understand why some people like it - it had the potential to be better than ME1, because it did allow more different playstyles, and dialogue actually had more impact, but it was such a poorly put together package that it really failed as a game.
[/quote]

Again, in my opinion it failed far less than people claim it did. Personally I think alot of people got turned off by the tactical combat because they were expecting fast paced run&gun combat that didn't involve having to think at all. That works poorly in AP, and hence why the people trying that most likely got a poor experience. Because they played the game in a way it wasn't really made to be played. Angry Joes videoreview where he sits and shoots without aiming at all makes me convinced this form of behaviour is far the likely cause of the flak it got than anything else.

[SalsaDMA]

Lumikki wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

Are you claiming that the development team is the same? That there haven't been changes to the composition of the team of devs/writers?

Cause if you are making that claim, you would be in error.

Are You claiming that they changed development team and "most" dev/writes after EA buyed Bioware?

I'm not making any claims aside that there HAVE been changes in the team in regards to writers/devs.

You're free to try and dispute that if you want, but you are going to fall up short then.

edit: and you might want to notice the guy I answered in my quote (but which you handidly removed) that he was claiming the team is unchanged, which is factually wrong.

Modifié par SalsaDMA, 26 juillet 2011 - 04:38 .

[SalsaDMA]

AlanC9 wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

True, it IS about personal taste in this regard.

But the thing is, I played first ME1, and then I played ME2 without playing other games between them. Both games felt great and I was just happy. Then I played another shooter game (can't even remember which one now) and came back to plow another of my ME1 saves through ME2 and.... the combat part of the game just felt crap compared to what I had just been playing. I especially remember being faced off by the un.natural feeling of artificial invisible walls blocking me from moving certain places, and in whole the control scheme just felt clumsy, restrictive while the combat itself felt boring and repetitive.

It's called perspective, really. Playing a few other games around the block to 'feel' how things are done there, and then comming back and 'feel' how things are done in ME2, and it just feels sloppy, imo. Had it been a non-ME title with the same actual gameplay, I would have ditched it in a few hours because of boredom. That's why I feel it heavily relies on the story to survive as entertainement. It's also while I am disheartened to hear that they seem to be going even further into the depths of trying to be a generic shooter instead of building on the one strength the game actually had.

Hmmm...... I have no way of actually knowing the persepctive I'd have since I haven't played a new shooter since The Orange Box.. OTOH, since I liked ME2's combat much better than ME1's I doubt we'd have identical responses.

Edit: though I suppose we could still match up if ME1 was being carried by the story elements too, though ME1 would need more carrying since it has worse combat and other crappy elements.

ME1 was carrie dby the story as well, absolutely, but I disagree with the combat being worse. The AI was slightly dumber, but I found just as many cons as pros with ME1 combat compared to ME2 combat. I never understood what made them remove crouch from ME2 when it was present in ME1, for example. It just seemed beyond silly.

[Lumikki]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Lumikki wrote...

SalsaDMA wrote...

Are you claiming that the development team is the same? That there haven't been changes to the composition of the team of devs/writers?

Cause if you are making that claim, you would be in error.

Are You claiming that they changed development team and "most" dev/writes after EA buyed Bioware?

I'm not making any claims aside that there HAVE been changes in the team in regards to writers/devs.

You're free to try and dispute that if you want, but you are going to fall up short then.

edit: and you might want to notice the guy I answered in my quote (but which you handidly removed) that he was claiming the team is unchanged, which is factually wrong.

True, there is most the time some changes, but what you implyed was also wrong.

Invented example: If there would be 40 people working in ME1 and 35 of them works with ME2 and 5 was changed. It would be wrong to imply that because EA buyed Bioware, Bioware has different team working with ME2 because EA.

Modifié par Lumikki, 26 juillet 2011 - 04:48 .

[Il Divo]

Gotta go with the general consensus. Alpha Protocol had plenty of potential (I especially liked the leveling set up), but there were too many flaws for me to regard it as a half-way decent game. It felt like an even poorer version of Mass Effect's combat.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

[Stanley Woo]

Let's try to keep this thread on topic, please. And related to Mass Effect. Thank you.

[AlanC9]

Meaning the dev team discussion is OT? I presume that whether or not Alpha Protocol combat would be a good fit for ME is on-topic.

Modifié par AlanC9, 26 juillet 2011 - 05:34 .

[Eurhetemec]

SalsaDMA - I'm not going to argue in detail, because you appear to want to argue about minutae of a game I played a long, long time ago, and haven't played again, but I will say this - that combat wasn't tactical. I made the perfect tactical decisions, but my guns failed to kill people with what should have been deadly shots, and this was particularly dreadful with the "boss" fights. The stealth was terrible and unpredictable (I say this as someone who was an expert as all three Thief games and Splinter Cell, thanks), and the "magic stealth" was crude cheat to try to cover this. That the stealth wasn't predictable also factored in to the level design.

The fact is, the game was poorly received, and I know you want to play "blame the players", but that's not fair - the game itself had serious, serious problems, and not just in the bugs. A lot of game design elements weren't properly thought through, and a lot of other ones just felt clunky or bad. Particularly the minigames, which were, amazingly, even less fun than ME2's minigames.

As for pacing, I think you're missing my point. Allowing us to choose missions etc. was fine - I'm talking about the pacing within those missions - the game didn't manage to maintain tension, frequently getting slow and boring just when it should have become exciting - a trait of virtually all Obsidian games, sad to say.

EDIT - Stanley Woo, first off, BioWare is awesome, and you guys do great work, but second off, what do you consider off-topic in a thread about whether ME games draw too little or too much from other games? Alpha Protocol is the first, and currently only game that is an attempt at the ME playstyle by another company (this is sure to change, I think), and commentary on it and it's systems seems more sensible and relevant to this forum than stuff like "OMG in this other game a guy had a big shield and now in ME3 a guy has a big shield! RIP-OFF!".

Modifié par Eurhetemec, 26 juillet 2011 - 05:39 .

[Terror_K]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Again, in my opinion it failed far less than people claim it did. Personally I think alot of people got turned off by the tactical combat because they were expecting fast paced run&gun combat that didn't involve having to think at all. That works poorly in AP, and hence why the people trying that most likely got a poor experience. Because they played the game in a way it wasn't really made to be played. Angry Joes videoreview where he sits and shoots without aiming at all makes me convinced this form of behaviour is far the likely cause of the flak it got than anything else.

I agree. I also think this is somewhat the case with ME1. Both were cases of games trying to be different, but people not liking the gameplay because the look and style suggested the standard TPS model, but this was not the case. Both had stats determining their combat, and thus both punished players who would run'n'gun and/or just expect early greatness using standard TPS tactics. It wasn't that the combat style was bad, it was that it was trying to be different, and a lot of the players didn't like that difference because of their expectations and experience with standard TPS games. They went against the grain, and in a time when shooter popularity is at an all-time high and 90% of the games out there with you holding a gun play pretty much the same it simply didn't pay off and was wrongly accused of being wrong and bad.

That's not to say the combat didn't have problems in these games either, such as broken elements and poor AI. But the combat itself is only bad if you're comparing it to and expecting it to be standard TPS combat. It wasn't and wasn't trying to be. At least not fully. Fallout 3 even suffered a certain degree of flak for similar reasons because it too incorporated a hyrbid RPG/Shooter system, though not as much because it wasn't as extreme. I still don't personally see ME1's combat as being bad for using a stat-based system because the system itself is bad, but I feel its biggest weakness is actually still the narrative and context: that Shepard is supposed to be the Alliance's best, an N7 and the first human Spectre. If we had started out as Private Gumby McNewbie then it would have been fine, but we weren't. If anything was ME1's failing combat-wise it was that the mechanic didn't suit the story we were given.