Thanks Lazuli, SynheKatze, Curunen, C-Dawg, Captain Crash, and others. I honestly didn't think my post would receive much agreement.
I would like to note that Mass Effect is the first shooting game I have ever seriously played and was always a powers-focused player rather than someone who was weapon/aim-focused. When I first came to ME2 I was frustrated with the resistance system on higher difficulties, but eventually my firing, aim, and timing with weapons improved over time. So while I originally disliked the resistance system regarding biotics, I eventually came to the conclusion that this was not as much of an issue as I originally had thought.
RyuujinZERO wrote...
*cough* Guys, I hate to break the worry-fest...
But ME3 biotic powers *don't* work like ME2 biotic powers (and tech powers). It's already been confirmed that control effects in ME3 have a reduced form when hitting protected foes.
For example cryo blast will snap freeze unprotected foes and increase their vulnerability like it did in ME2 however if you hit a protected foe, that foe will have their movement speed reduced for a short period whereas in ME2, the cryo blast would've piddled on their protection but otherwise been entirely ineffectual.
If this was the same general method for how Throw, Pull, Shockwave etc worked with resistances I think it would be great. Perhaps the enemy with shields is knocked down but would not take double damage from weapons/kinetics/warp (as with Pull) nor is thrown through the air (Throw, Shockwave, Slam) for additional damage. I mainly just feel that the temporary stagger needs to be a bit longer and they should inflict more resistance damage.
Aumata wrote...
Why can't anyone ever understand it is a gameplay mechanic. There are mods that are active with out the kinetic barrier off. The armor goes out the window when you have animals that are resist powers without the explanations of the armor upgrades. Just a gameplay mechanic can we move on now.
In terms of armor suits, the shields, armor repair systems, and kinetic dampeners all use the same power source, and thus can still be damaged in the same manner. Overwhelming shields or damaging the armor will cause these power systems to fail. In terms of large creatures or animals with natural armor, It is simple: Heavier enemies are more difficult to biotically lift or throw because they have more mass. They have LESS MASS after you shoot pieces of them off (represented by armor bar damage), and therefore are easier to lift with biotics.
Captain Crash wrote...
Curunen wrote...
Darkstar Aurora wrote...
In terms of "why" biotics do not effortlessly bypass resistances:
*snip*
I like this. Very succinct explanation.
Edit: oops, same thing quoted 2 posts in a row, sorry! (but it's worth it)
I like it too, however the problem often is when you get any enemy into just its health meter (which is when Biotics become effective) then the fight is almost over anyway. Depleting the health bar is very fast and its often just as quick to shoot the enemy as it is to use a power.
I was disappointed I was using my adept virtually as a soldier for much of ME2. It is very easy to do. Im not asking that the adept suddenly become overpowered, but I think a greater effect needs to be felt of armour and shields sometimes.
The thing is health is actually
more difficult to deplete than armor/barriers/shields. Your standard weapons as an Adept deal +50% more damage to protections, or +100% with the shield piercing/armor piercing upgrades. By contrast your weapons only deal normal damage to health. The same applies to Warp damage (x2 to armor/barriers/biotically lifted enemies, or standard damage versus health).
From my experience, as an example Collector Drone on Insanity (30th level) seems to have about 500 points of health and 500 points of barrier (I reverse calculated/estimated these values using Warp’s listed damage, upgrades, and multipliers vs. barriers, etc). It will take twice as long to deplete its health with weapons than it did to deplete barriers unless you follow up with a debilitating biotic power.
It is FAR more effective to shoot of their barrier with an upgraded Submachine Gun and follow with Pull to finish them off. The SMG upgrades give you +100% extra damage versus barrier and the Pull effect gives you +100% extra weapon/biotic damage against health
By contrast if you use your cooldown on barrier damage via Warp then try to finish off their health with weapons you will take twice as long for you powers to recharge, twice as long to bring down their health, and you will be subject to return fire the entire time their health is exposed.
Zakatak757 wrote...
What is the difference between shields and barriers? Canon-wise.
Do barriers only stop kinetic energy, while shields stop radiation energy aswell (lasers/phasic rounds)?
I am going to go for a longer and more elaborate explanation than is probably needed, but I wanted to reinforce general understanding overall.
Barriers and Shields are both mass-effect fields that raise mass in a given area. They create a localized and temporary dark energy effect where mass is increased, which essentially functions as a high gravity area. By “gravity” I mean in the sense of slowing down and holding matter in a single point in space, not in the things-falling-downward planetary perspective. Any moving object that moves into that field is halted assuming its mass is not too great, and thus it’s momentum and kinetic force is lost. Technically ANYTHING moving and that has mass can be halted by a mass-raising field, provided that there is enough power generating the field to stop it. That can be a bullet coming at a soldier caught by a temporary shield projected in front of her, or the soldier herself can be caught by a temporary shield projected behind her if she is subject to forced movement (biotics). It can also be used to halt anything else with mass, such as tech power mines, plasma (incinerate), wireless radio signals (AI hacking), or radiation because all of the above have mass, and individually these particles have have mass than a bullet (for those of you about to scream about how the Codex says “kinetic barriers do not protect against temperature, radiation, etc” please scroll read the to the last paragraph first then please rejoin the discussion here)
Dark energy mass-raising fields are created by electricity flowing through element zero. Biotic barriers and tech shields differ only in HOW they are created, and that difference also governs how they are actually “damaged” and why certain powers are more effective.
It is worth nothing that you are never actually attacking an enemies shields or barrier itself. Physical matter and baryonic energy cannot directly “harm” dark energy or affect mass-effect field. What you ARE doing is either:
* Overwhelming or sabotaging it’s physical power source/ability to sustain itself (with multiple weapon shots, overload’s EMP hitting power cells, concussive shots affecting biotic concentration, etc)
* projecting more mass than it can contain or “deflect”, i.e. heavy weapons.
* creating an opposing, mass-lowering dark energy effect. In the case of throw and pull versus shields this is not effective in lowering the shield bar significantly because the actual shields are temporarily created, and the bar only represents the power source creating them. Thus the temporary mass-lowering field of Throw is only counteracting/counteracted by a single temporary mass-raising shield.
Typically, a standard soldier’s combat suit has an array of shield emitters controlled by a combat VI program. This program creates temporary mass-raising fields and projects these fields away from the wearer when incoming projectiles are detected. The incoming projectiles are halted and their momentum is sapped by the high gravity field. They are then flung away as the field itself is projected away from the soldier before it dissipates.
Their hard suit has a power cell that is represented by a shield bar in the game HUD. That bar represents how much energy they have to generate temporary shields, NOT the integrity of some single constant barrier. Each impact drains the power cell since each impact requires a separate temporary field to be created in order to deflect it. Rapid-fire weapons deal more “damage” to the shield bar only because they are quickly overwhelming the emitter’s power reserves, requiring multiple fields to be generated at once. Overload and Disruptor Ammo deal more “damage” to shields, even if the tech mine (overload) or bullets (disruptor ammo) are deflected because they release an electrical current (or EMP) on impact which short-circuits the emitter system and thus damages the system’s ability to create shields.
When it comes to biotics who have barriers, the field is either sustained with minor concentration, or through a VI program in the biotic amp that assists in sustaining a kinetic barrier (or reflexively generating one due to incoming sensor data from your combat gear). Because barriers are generated by neuro-chemical electricity they are not subject to extra damage from Overload/Disruptor Ammo that shields are. However, powers like Concussive Shot are more devastating (x3.5 damage) because biotic barriers are sustained at least partially through concentration, and a concussive impact is hazardous to concentration. Meanwhile, Warp is a rapidly shifting asymmetrical mass-effect field that places molecular stress and damage on matter, and will be extremely painful for an organic and thus their nervous system will be too overwhelmed to be able to sustain biotic effects. By contrast, while Warp will still damage the hardware that generates shields as well, the generator itself does not “feel pain” and therefore is it overwhelmed by it and therefore it takes less damage.
The reason why the Codex states that kinetic barriers “only” work against incoming projectiles is because the specific VI program in your suit that governs shields is normally (ME1) only programmed to create temporary mass-raising fields that specific purpose. The reason it is only programmed for that specific purposed is because there was a separate statistic in ME1 armor (biotic/tech resistance) that also used mass effect fields and other tech to prevent you from being affected by powers. The fundamental physics principals and tech hardware that enabled ME1 armor to create shields are identical to the physics principals and tech hardware that prevented you from being moved by throw due to biotic resistance. The ONLY difference here is that
A) In ME2 they combined the onscreen representation of shields and biotic resistance together, with a single bar representing your suits power reserves for creating mass effect fields, both for shield generation and for counteracting biotics physics forces.
The ME1 codex was only referring to the shield system in its kinetic barriers/armor entries, there was separate lore text in individual armor upgrades (Shock Absorbers, Hardened Weave, etc) that explained how they could use element zero and mass raising fields to block biotics. Likewise, the reason why it states “kinetic barriers cannot block temperature extremes, gases, or radiation” is NOT because mass-effect fields cannot block them, it is because the codex entry was specifically referring to shields. Anything with mass and motion can be halted by a mass-raising field, and the less mass it has the more easily it’s movement can be halted.
In short, anything that has mass and is moving can have its movement blocked by a sufficiently powerful barrier or shield, the only limitation is the mass of the object and the available element zero/electrical energy of the system or individual that creates the field itself. The only difference between a tech created shield and a biotic barriers is the power source that creates them and the unique vulnerabilities and energy limitations each source has.
Modifié par Darkstar Aurora, 05 octobre 2011 - 12:29 .
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