344 réponses à ce sujet

[Embrosil]

Seifer006 wrote...

yeah, I completely agree with you on the whole squad mates problem of Mass Effect 1,2. Especially what you said in ME2. No matter what difficulty you play on, the squad mates "rarely" offer any help. It's almost pointless of having him/her in your team

For ME1 I disagree. If you use your team mates wisely, the ARE really helpful. No problem of taking down thresher maws or Geth walkers. Especially later in the game.

I however agree with ME2. The only exception is taking Garrus and Krios, giving them the Incisor sniper rifle and you do not have to fire a single shot in any mission. Well I agree that this is due to the Incisor being OP, but you can do it.

What really makes me mad in ME2 is that squadmates are unable to change weapons by themselves according to a situation. So they attack a far away enemy with a shotgun instead of switching to a rifle and vice versa. It worked (more or less) in ME1.

Modifié par Embrosil, 26 septembre 2011 - 06:35 .

[Chala]

Mmm Now that the OP mentions it...
That's true, I've never saw the team as something useful... To be honest I only used them as cannon fodder/distraction or directly I didn't care of their existence.
That's something that they need improve, but also it's not something that annoys me so much like to put it as a n°1 priority on the to-do list. Mostly because I haven't realized of this problem until I saw this thread.

[Terror_K]

suprhomre wrote...

What exactly is your problem with Mass Effect 2's combat?

Aside from the overall design of it (much of which is more of a level-design issue and an overall lack of diversity) and the fact that it's pretty much the same thing over and over, the fact that it seems so hamfistedly jammed into the game rather than moulded to suit it. It just doesn't really integrate with the RPG side of things well at all, IMO. Quite simply, the TPS combat doesn't feel connected enough with the RPG side of things. They just ripped a bunch of factors that work in TPS games and suit them well and stapled them onto an RPG and hoped it worked. At least that's how it feels to me. And when any integration was done it was more of the rest of the game that shifted to suit the TPS aspects instead of the new elements being adapted to suit the existing ones.

On top of it all, the TPS stuff is just plain and simple and adds nothing fresh or new to the formula, and doesn't even take full advantage of what's there. It's just the basic, common TPS elements and that's it. No more. Nothing else. It's TPS bread without butter, jam or anything else. So what we have is something that doesn't even really compete with the best pure TPS games either because they at least have more to them. The Gears series does a far better job because it uses all the elements of TPS combat to their full advantage and it makes the gameplay come alive. Epic know how to not only make TPS combat fun, interesting, tactical and varied, but how to properly integrate non-TPS elements into the gameplay as well without deviating from that core gameplay to the point where it changes it. Look at the various situations, puzzles, bossfights, etc. that Gears offers for example outside of just "taking cover, shooting, running to next cover or cutscene" and you'll see what I mean. ME2 had little more to it than that. It was TPS combat at its most base and presented in such a flat, linear manner. The only thing ME2 had over the likes of Gears was the powers/abilities, and technically that's an RPG element when you get down to it (and an incredibly shallow and overly combat-focused one at that).

KingDan97 wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

Again though, it is if all you're going to do is copy'n'paste the gameplay mechanics across without properly adapting them to suit the style of game you're making. You can't just rip pure TPS combat mechanics and jam them into a non-pure TPS game and just have everything work and remain properly functional. It may solve some of the issues your game had before, but it just ends up causing new ones instead as well. That's one of the problems ME2 had with its combat: it just went "monkey see, monkey do" instead of properly moulding the mechanics to suit the RPG nature of itself.

"Again though, if all you're going to do is account for friction in physics problems above the subatomic level without measuring to friction cooefficient to the 10th significant digit just to suit modern approaches to physics. You can't take a theory that is known to work within the domains of eath and apply them to an earth like planet and expect that it will work for your new rover. It may be a better baseline than none at all but it still might not work, so don't try."

That is basically what you just said. No one in this thread is asking for controlling your squadmates to be removed by any stretch of the imagination. All that is being said is that if your product is lacking you should look at ways that it's being done better. No one is saying that we need the Gears of War AI ported directly into the game, but claiming that somehow, just because decent AI was in Gears of War that trying to give the AI in Mass Effect some form of survivability would be "copying" is just wrong, I'm sorry but it's not copying, Bioware was held to the same standards in it's shooter respects as any other TPS on the market and it's RPG elements based on the RPG market. Trying to justify the deficiencies in your game with a poor excuse of "Well, we didn't want to borrow elements because it wasn't the exact same game as ours" is a very poor defense if come ME3 all of my Squaddies are still running up to YMIR mechs on insanity and I'm forced to strafe around a chest so I can work him down using my powers.

To be fair, I was actually calling ME2 on its approach to combat and ripping the TPS elements from pure TPS games as a whole there, and not just specifically the A.I. Which to be honest, I don't think they did, since even Gears 1's A.I. is better than that of either Mass Effect game, and it predated both of them as is about 5 years old now. If Gears 3 has jumped ahead even further, then ME3 has a lot of sudden catching up to do, and I'll be very surprised if they manage it. We'll see if the devs realise what good A.I. actually entails or whether it's just a factor of enemies being tougher and more annoying. So few developers as it is realise the difference between actually being challenging with smart A.I. and just turning the enemies and A.I. into frustrating pounds of hitpoints that spill out of the walls and constantly flank you.

Modifié par Terror_K, 26 septembre 2011 - 07:14 .

[hangmans tree]

I obviously didnt read the whole thread and I may state the "obvious" andd dupe points already made.
Squad AI - I think that as a reputation goes they were badass. But whenever enemies, even as dumb as loki mechs, showed up then even badass ARCHANGEl was over his head
Yep, on my insanity run I knew the fight already started when my mates went down. Not to mention when I switched someone to sniping he/it stuck somewhere the cover...not shooting. Or rushed with a sniping rifle to the front line... and I really wished that Grunt could charge
Flanking? Non existent. Supressing? There is no option. Tactical? What? I had to spend all my tactical resources to revive my teammates. Giving constant orders was a must. After a time I was doing just fine without them. But is this fun? No. I just wished for some co-op from their part.

So, thats that about AI.

[AlexXIV]

Well the A.I. could use improvement. I mean they could just stop the squadmates from acting silly and getting themselves killed. If you're low on health, stay in cover damnit! Anyway ... I don't think you can compare ME to GoW in general, different genre. But they could improve the A.I., yes. For example they could let us choose companion behavior from careful to reckless.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 26 septembre 2011 - 08:23 .

[robarcool]

littlezack wrote...

robarcool wrote...


Yep. Leave higher difficulties for combat oriented players. It is always good to have fluent combat controls so that those who like it get more replay value by playing at higher difficulties. I started Fallout 3 and ditched it in 2 hours because of its absolutely junk combat. I was really enjoying that game before I realized I couldn't shoot one dog without spending a whole lot of bullets and half of them not hitting him. What a waste.

With VATS, you don't even really need to aim at anything...

Don't know man, I tried to use the vats system, but the only combat that works for me in games is real time combat.

[robarcool]

jreezy wrote...

robarcool wrote...

I am sorry about the spoiler, but considering how charged up the TC is about Gears 3 and trying to teach Bioware a lesson, I wanted to express that Gears 3 is really a fail in terms of story and I don't want Bioware to do that.

No offense to Gears of War but I agree that BioWare doesn't need to look at it for any story ideas.

Good, then we are on same page here.

Modifié par robarcool, 26 septembre 2011 - 03:43 .

[rolson00]

this is nothing to do with mass effect 3 and is classed as spam too

[Chris Priestly]

Peopel are suggesting features from GoW3 that they want to see in ME3. There is nothing wrong with that. However, if this becomes a thread to only discuss GoW3, it will be moved to the Off Topic forum.

[Genshie]

rolson00 wrote...

this is nothing to do with mass effect 3 and is classed as spam too

And you know what is ironic about this thread is that someone did the exact SAME THING for DEUS EX HUMAN REVOLUTION mechanics when it was released but for that case it was about stealth and upgrades when ME3 has already been shown that it has implemented stealth kills and even better upgrades then Deus Ex. I like certain game mechanics myself but I don't think they need to implement anything directly from another game. Bioware knows what they are doing and have experience in failure and success which has taught them a good fair amount of lessons on what to do and what not to do. And the whole improved A.I. has already been implemented, you can tell your teammates to actually stay where they are now and other things like go hide behind that box and stay there, and ect..


Sidenote: Also all A.I. have that little combat roll now. But from playing the demo several times the A.I. I can safely say has been improved. Of course this was only on one difficulty setting so I can not say anything beyond that.

[Quinnzel]

Mass Effect needs more Ice T (and 'Aw come on!')

[hitorihanzo]

Here's the great thing about Mass Effect: if you love story, great characters (which I do), it has that in spades! If you like action (which I do), it has that too. Some of us have been playing Gears Of War almost as long as Mass Effect, and are of the opinion that even though ME2 is probably the greatest complete game of our generation, Gears Of War 3 is probably the greatest third person shooter ever made. It is not as immersive, and the story is a tad lacking overall, not bad but
lacking. But as far as game mechanics go- it's damn near perfect. For anyone to claim BioWare can't learn anything from the Gears franchise is simply BSN snobbery.

[Ruud333]

jreezy wrote...

No offense to Gears of War but I agree that BioWare doesn't need to look at it for any story ideas.

Yeah, I love Gears as a series and I think #3 is brilliant, but the story, dialogue etc are not exactly it's strong points  

[Nashiktal]

I don't think bioware should directly copy, but they definitely learn proper tps mechanics from epic. As it stands now the combat is still Cairo shallow and plain.

[Terror_K]

hitorihanzo wrote...

For anyone to claim BioWare can't learn anything from the Gears franchise is simply BSN snobbery.

They can learn. But learning isn't simply ripping elements directly from Gears and slapping them into Mass Effect, which is what seemed to be the case with ME2. And, to be honest, seems to be the case from ME3 as well, which is saddening. That said, it's hard to tell entirely given that there's been little show beyond core gameplay and some basic customisation, which is kind of understandable given they're trying to curb story spoilers far more this time.

Still, I've seen little to indicate that ME2 is once again just a bunch of combat-only abilities and powers, and if anything the combat seems even more geared to pure TPS stuff than proper hybridisation and integration with the RPG side of things. The areas I've seen in gameplay videos still seem rather linear and one-dimensional with the sense of scale seeming to be almost purely aesthetic, and gameplay variety outside of a weak, unimpressive on-the-rails section fighting the same crab-tank type creature seen in every second action game released in the last five years or so seems lacking. That said, we haven't seen much beyond Sur'kesh, Earth and what could be Rannoch.

I guess the point I'm making is that the ME3 team could learn from Gears and could do a better job of while learning from it also adapting the TPS gameplay more in-line with that of an RPG instead of just forcing it unwieldingly into it ala ME2, but there's little evidence, IMO, to suggest they actually have. I guess we'll see.

[United_Strafes]

Why do they need to take a lesson? Is Mass Effect a bad game, and whoever said Gears were bad games?

[Gatt9]

United_Strafes wrote...

Why do they need to take a lesson? Is Mass Effect a bad game, and whoever said Gears were bad games?

Primarily because ME2's combat was downright abyssmal.  The AI is horribly braindead,  it goes to the point it's supposed to stand,  and stays there endlessly repeating the shoot/pause cycle regardless of what you do.  It'll never try and flank you,  never try and flush you out,  it'll never try to do anything.

Even the sections where it appears to be aggressive is just it moving to it's scripted location where the Dev's guessed most people would be.  You can see this in those sections where you're facing a YMIR,  and get yourself killed several times in different places,  it'll always move along the exact same path,  with all of the other units moving along the exact same path,  to the exact same position,  every time. 

Sometimes it's even worse,  such as the section in Omega's apartments where you get ambushed with your side of the field having a two level structure.  Move up to the top of the structure,  a couple of the "Dogs" will come up,  and everyone else will stand around on the first floor in their positions.

I actually considered countering Phaedon and Spiffysquee's videos by getting my allies killed,  and then leaving my shepherd crouched behind cover for an hour while the AI just endlessly repeated it's animation loops shooting at me when they could never hit me.  It actually works,  I discovered this one day when I got a 20 minute phone call while playing and left the console running.

[Epic777]

^^ Still an upgrade from ME1

[LeVaughnX]

A quick reply to this thread.

During my current run of Mass Effect 2 I came across the ONLY reason that makes me put Mass Effect 2 down; the fuc*ing A.I. screw-bugs. Let me explain what occured, where, when, etc.

I'm doing an Insanity Run and the first spot the A.I. retard bug appeared is during Mordins Recruitment Mission. Zaeed and Miranda were told to move behind cover; Miranda ran behind cover and crouched instead of engaging cover, thus making her not only IGNORE TARGETS but when she did fire a shot it was directly into the wall she used for cover (same went for her powers). Zaeed on the other hand stood inside a doorway then moved about two inches into the room and froze. He shouted ""CAN'T MAKE IT"" or ""GONNA NEED A LIFT"" as I kept trying to get him to find and engage in cover. Eventually they both died and I was forced to clear the room out alone; very hard...

Second time it occured; Archangels mission - basement run - took the left hallway (the smaller one thats tight quarters) second. During this walk I had to go around a corner to meet my doom at the hands of a flamethrower who would not move. Zaeed would not go around the corner and engage cover, so he jumped in the flamethrowers path and died while I spent nearly half an hour trying to kill it on my own.


The A.I. needs fixed, badly....

[Tony Gunslinger]

Gatt9 wrote...
Primarily because ME2's combat was downright abyssmal.  The AI is horribly braindead,  it goes to the point it's supposed to stand,  and stays there endlessly repeating the shoot/pause cycle regardless of what you do.  It'll never try and flank you,  never try and flush you out,  it'll never try to do anything.

Even the sections where it appears to be aggressive is just it moving to it's scripted location where the Dev's guessed most people would be.  You can see this in those sections where you're facing a YMIR,  and get yourself killed several times in different places,  it'll always move along the exact same path,  with all of the other units moving along the exact same path,  to the exact same position,  every time. 

You're really far off. Scripted routes, shoot/pause cycles, not flanking?

For the record, everyone here should know that Gatt9's sole experience with playing Mass Effect 2 is one (count: 1) playthrough with a Soldier using the Mattock on normal difficulty. Even GoW's AI is pretty brain-dead on normal. So crank up the difficulty and see if your claims still hold up.

Sometimes it's even worse,  such as the section in Omega's apartments where you get ambushed with your side of the field having a two level structure.  Move up to the top of the structure,  a couple of the "Dogs" will come up,  and everyone else will stand around on the first floor in their positions.

Not sometimes, it's the only time. That part of Mordin's mission is still a training exercise, so it's supposed to be set up as a basic combat excerise, where the layout looks like this:



So therefore on lower difficulties that area is supposed to allow to you try different approaches; you can flank or you hang back and defend. And if you actually played on the harder difficulties (which you didn't), Krogans will spawn and charge you up the stairway. Quit trying to sound like you know what you're talking about.

I actually considered countering Phaedon and Spiffysquee's videos by getting my allies killed, and then leaving my shepherd crouched behind cover for an hour while the AI just endlessly repeated it's animation loops shooting at me when they could never hit me. It actually works, I discovered this one day when I got a 20 minute phone call while playing and left the console running.

I find it suspicious, because there's already a video where a player did exactly like that, and given that all of your points have been either recycled hyperboles and talking points, outdated articles, or repeating your pretentious Gatt9's Law of RPGs, I wonder if all this time, you've been blowing up smoke because you never actually played the game.

[Tony Gunslinger]

LeVaughnX wrote...

A quick reply to this thread.

During my current run of Mass Effect 2 I came across the ONLY reason that makes me put Mass Effect 2 down; the fuc*ing A.I. screw-bugs. Let me explain what occured, where, when, etc.

I'm doing an Insanity Run and the first spot the A.I. retard bug appeared is during Mordins Recruitment Mission. Zaeed and Miranda were told to move behind cover; Miranda ran behind cover and crouched instead of engaging cover, thus making her not only IGNORE TARGETS but when she did fire a shot it was directly into the wall she used for cover (same went for her powers). Zaeed on the other hand stood inside a doorway then moved about two inches into the room and froze. He shouted ""CAN'T MAKE IT"" or ""GONNA NEED A LIFT"" as I kept trying to get him to find and engage in cover. Eventually they both died and I was forced to clear the room out alone; very hard...

Second time it occured; Archangels mission - basement run - took the left hallway (the smaller one thats tight quarters) second. During this walk I had to go around a corner to meet my doom at the hands of a flamethrower who would not move. Zaeed would not go around the corner and engage cover, so he jumped in the flamethrowers path and died while I spent nearly half an hour trying to kill it on my own.


The A.I. needs fixed, badly....

You mean this one?

www.youtube.com/watch

Yup, that is one of the few cheap-ass pyros in the game. And no, Gatt9's claim that the pyro AI follows a scripted path or that it doesn't flank is fabricated in his imaginary world where he's the King of Gaming.

Try this next time you're playing on insanity: isolate one enemy and one squadmate and see how they fare 1-on-1 with autopowers turned off. You'll see that your squadmate will win roughly 50% of the time. With autopowers turned on, your squadmate will win most of the time. Personally, I think these odds are fair.

The reason why GoW's squad AI are 'better' is because they're buffed up NPCs in order to advance the plot. Their AI is different than the enemy AI. All of GoW's story happens on the battlefield and it would break the flow of the storytelling if they die too much. Mass Effect is set up differently in that both sides have roughly equal abilities, and that's more apparent on the harder difficulties. If you want ME's squadmates to be able to dodge 100% of attacks, then the enemy AI will dodge 100% of attacks as well. And if that happens, then the whole game gets bogged down because you can't hit them.

You're also doing a lot of novice things on insanity. While you're sending your squadmates in front of you, you're likely just watching them and not giving them covering fire. Yes, you will get shot, but that's the point, so they won't get shot. You're also micromanaging them too much. You can't expect even a human squadmate to stop what they're doing and turn 180 degrees while they're getting shot up just because you tell them to.

In my playthroughs, my squadmates kill almost as much as I do and I hardly micromanage them. Here's a good basic guide on how to use your squadmates and powers:

social.bioware.com/38411/blog/2696/

Modifié par Tony Gunslinger, 27 septembre 2011 - 03:55 .

[Terror_K]

Epic777 wrote...

^^ Still an upgrade from ME1

I think this is debatable, and personally that it's hard to really say one was better over the other when it came to squaddie A.I. really. I do think that enemy A.I. in ME2 was slightly better than in ME1, but in both cases the enemies weren't partucularly bright. Squad A.I. is a tougher issue. I think that while the ME1 squaddies were more likely to do really silly things like standing in one spot shooting at a wall instead of an enemy and running back and forth in the same spot, they were actually a lot more capable and deadly than the ME2 squaddies were in combat and were just more helpful as a whole. I tended to feel like I was working with them and them with me playing ME1 and would more often direct them in different places, whereas in ME2 I tended to ignore them and almost forget they were there outside of cutscenes because they seemed almost superfluous.