364 réponses à ce sujet

[crimzontearz]

it was a general statement not aimed directly to ammo powers per se.

that said gameplay can be altered and improved upon without spitting in the face of the established lore and story, it's what separates a good developer from a great one. Accepting small slip-ups and unnecessary compromises only leads to bigger ones being made/proposed because it's OK apparently.

[RoboticWater]

Firesteel7 wrote...

I do believe that if we didn't have the rock paper scissors style of gameplay we would not need ammo powers. ME1 could get away with mods because they did not give the weapon an advantage over a defense. Now, both ammo and powers are geared to destroy a single kind of defense, meaning the soldier needs them to stay playable on insanity. If defenses were back to ME1, then by all means we could have ammo mods, but with the current combat system, the soldier could no longer be one of two jack-of-all trades classes..

Yes they did, some of them at least. Armor peircing rounds were good against geth because of their high shields and low health, incindiary was always good against flesh, and a few others did some things like this as well but I can't think of them. Reguardless, the RPS gameplay is an improvement because it involves more tactics. Before every mission I though "Blue suns=shield Blood pack=armor, ok who would be best to take these people out."

Modifié par BlahDog, 17 décembre 2011 - 05:31 .

[RoboticWater]

crimzontearz wrote...

it was a general statement not aimed directly to ammo powers per se.

that said gameplay can be altered and improved upon without spitting in the face of the established lore and story, it's what separates a good developer from a great one. Accepting small slip-ups and unnecessary compromises only leads to bigger ones being made/proposed because it's OK apparently.

While that is true, they didn't have any better ideas at the time and as many of you have probably figured out, it's hard to come up with this stuff. I admit that other things could have been done but the new things work and make a tiny scatch in the dented car door that is Mass Effect lore. 

It's also ture to say small slip-ups lead to bigger ones but you need to take into account the fact that ME 2 was an overhaul in gameplay, meaning big changes and unfortunately some losses. ME 3 on the other  hand, is keeping the general gameplay and is now just tweaking and so far i have not seen anything that contradicts ME 2.

Modifié par BlahDog, 17 décembre 2011 - 05:32 .

[eye basher]

In ME1 the ammo mods were worthless i've never used them there's no point with or without them you can kill everything the same way in ME2 the ammo powers actually help.

[Jog0907]

crimzontearz wrote...

it was a general statement not aimed directly to ammo powers per se.

that said gameplay can be altered and improved upon without spitting in the face of the established lore and story, it's what separates a good developer from a great one. Accepting small slip-ups and unnecessary compromises only leads to bigger ones being made/proposed because it's OK apparently.

I dont see the change to ammo powers as such a huge deal that spits in the face of the lore, I see it as a change made because of an understanding of the neccesities of the medium in which you perform as a designer (what truly defines IMO a great developer/designer), they may have changed many things in regards to the weapon system but by doing so greatly enhanced the gameplay, an integral part of a great videogame (check the gameplay/class forum for me1 and 2, it shows how much more adaptable and replayable me2 gameplay was in comparison to the first)

That to me is preferable to a developer staying stuck in a mechanic that seemed interesting that they cant conceive the importance of improving it or in the case of mass effect removing them, what a great designer knows is that sometimes the preferable choice is to simply eliminate or make drastic changes to things that didnt work with the vision you had for the game (vision =/= "lore").

Modifié par Jog0907, 17 décembre 2011 - 05:40 .

[crimzontearz]

yes those big changes were made to reel in the shooter crowd and not the classic RPG crowd (which even reviews pointed out). To make it more clear how this was shoved our way here's an example. Thermal Clips pissed a lot of people off, many asked for a hybrid system for the next game between TC and cooldown weapons (others ,like me, suggested an active cooldown system). But it turns out that in the original game the system was already a hybrid between TC and Cooldown weapons but testers just never used TCs and just relied on cooldowns....so they just REMOVED cooldowns altogether....what does that tell you?

other modifications point to it to...Squaddies turned into simple turrets with no real progression, armor relevnce became a joke, squaddie customization wasthrown out of the window.....and apparently wearing nipple belts in combat became a good idea

[RoboticWater]

crimzontearz wrote...

yes those big changes were made to reel in the shooter crowd and not the classic RPG crowd (which even reviews pointed out). To make it more clear how this was shoved our way here's an example. Thermal Clips pissed a lot of people off, many asked for a hybrid system for the next game between TC and cooldown weapons (others ,like me, suggested an active cooldown system). But it turns out that in the original game the system was already a hybrid between TC and Cooldown weapons but testers just never used TCs and just relied on cooldowns....so they just REMOVED cooldowns altogether....what does that tell you?

other modifications point to it to...Squaddies turned into simple turrets with no real progression, armor relevnce became a joke, squaddie customization wasthrown out of the window.....and apparently wearing nipple belts in combat became a good idea

Before I dispute anything, when you say "original game" do you mean original Mass Effect 1 or original Mass Effect 2? 

Assuming it's Mass Effect 2, they took it out so people would rely less on their gun and rely more on their powers. If players didn't even need to use TCs then it's safe to say that they probably didn't need to use powers very much.

I prefer that squad members have just powers rather than a full tree that I don't really care about. In ME 1 I just invested the points I into what I wanted and then auto leveled my team from there. In ME 2 it was much more to the point, you said "I want to invest in these powers because they will help me with X and Y". Squad armor customization was a step backwards but shepards armore customization made up for it. Though I would like to see better squad customization in ME 3. And as I've said before the strap armor is only there to portray Jack's character.  

Modifié par BlahDog, 17 décembre 2011 - 06:00 .

[crimzontearz]

mass effect 2, originally, had a hybrid system...which never made it to the final game

[didymos1120]

crimzontearz wrote...

mass effect 2, originally, had a hybrid system...which never made it to the final game

No, not "originally".  It was just something they experimented with.

[alex90c]

didymos1120 wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

mass effect 2, originally, had a hybrid system...which never made it to the final game

No, not "originally".  It was just something they experimented with.

Being that pedantic really isn't necessary.

[crimzontearz]

semantics, Didymos

the result is what counts and its implications

[jasonsantanna]

Calinstel wrote...

Jog0907 wrote...

Not at all given how it is unknown just how difficult it is to handle such ammo changes. You cant assume that is easy but can assume it has its difficulty given how many just learn to handle one or two modifications, instead of all.
Thats why I used the engineer and adept as an example since it shows that n7 cant teach every skill available even to special forces, but it still teaches a high number of them (you also see that most basic troopers cant learn all the ways to mod ammo in a battlefield, at most they get one), you are simply assuming that ammo mods is easy and can be taught to anyone in bootcamp when the game clearly shows the opposite and that is that you need above average soldiers in order to manage active ammo modding instead of just using default weapon settings.

In ME1 there was an entire economy centered around mod manufacturing.  And we all know that manufacturer on the whole, cater to the lowest common denominator.  At least for the lesser expensive items.  This would make any mod easy to use in a weapon as is a self contained module.  If the weapon had a slot for mods, the mod would just slide in and become available.
Now, since ME2, BW caused a galactic recession due to everyone now just scanning a mod and then using it without paying.  But this is besides the point.  Sorry.  The mods in ME2 are now so sophisticated that only highly trained personnel can use them?  That honestly makes no sense.
The mods, at least in the 'basic' form, IE the 1st level of ability in the magical powers skill tree, should be there already as any militarily trained person would be given an introductory course at the least to each type. 
As you can see.  I am not saying that Shepard would be fully trained in all mods but he/she would have at least a working knowledge of all of them.
Techs would devote their advanced studies in their fields of choice, choosing areas they excel at to improve.  Same goes for Biotics, they would know about the other biotic attacks but may have not have aptitude to use them but would have received the same basic weapons training as the soldier.

P.S.  @Jasonsantanna:   To expect an omnitool to constantly 'create lasers' for cryo, 'biotic fields' for warp, 'phosphorus (whutevah) for inferno, really works for you?

I 'm cool with the idea because its Sci Fi ,its not real, we can argue anything like how everyone who has biotic powers not be able to use every biotic power, or everyone has omni tools how come eveyone can't use tech powers , or how come enemy engineers can use attack drone and tech sheild but Shep has to be either a Sentinel or Engineer to use either or . . . its a game not everything is going to be explain to an economic or scientific explanation . . .

[didymos1120]

alex90c wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

mass effect 2, originally, had a hybrid system...which never made it to the final game

No, not "originally".  It was just something they experimented with.

Being that pedantic really isn't necessary.

Posting here at all really isn't necessary, but we do it anyway.  Also, people around here have a habit of claiming that anything they don't like the final version of wasn't the "original", as if that makes it less legitimate and makes whatever system/piece of concept art/etc. that they happen to like better more legitimate.  It's kind of annoying.

[Jog0907]

crimzontearz wrote...

yes those big changes were made to reel in the shooter crowd and not the classic RPG crowd (which even reviews pointed out). To make it more clear how this was shoved our way here's an example. Thermal Clips pissed a lot of people off, many asked for a hybrid system for the next game between TC and cooldown weapons (others ,like me, suggested an active cooldown system). But it turns out that in the original game the system was already a hybrid between TC and Cooldown weapons but testers just never used TCs and just relied on cooldowns....so they just REMOVED cooldowns altogether....what does that tell you?

other modifications point to it to...Squaddies turned into simple turrets with no real progression, armor relevnce became a joke, squaddie customization wasthrown out of the window.....and apparently wearing nipple belts in combat became a good idea

I cant understand why anyone who likes classic rpgs would buy me1, the series from the beginning was conceived as a hybrid not as something to cater to a dubious definition of rpg (knowing this myself that I got me1
not thinking it was a classic rpg, because it never seemed for that to be bw vision I got it expecting a nice story with well done combat, the last of which I didnt got in me1).

In regards to your tc/cooldown point I've seen it many times but have yet to see proof by you that a majority of
developers and testers were against a more conventional ammo system. So Icant say that it was shoved my way when from my point of view it was replacing a gimmick with a more conventional ammo system that allowed
greater gameplay design, something more in accordance with bw vision for the combat (dynamic and adaptable instead of stand and spam with no punishment for poor marksmanship or bad cover usage)

In me1 there was no customization of squaddies, it was a simple linear improvement, worse than the me2 system that even if it is much much simpler it still allows more synergy with the class you play trough
customization with heavier more noticeable effects based on skills selected.

Modifié par Jog0907, 17 décembre 2011 - 06:00 .

[crimzontearz]

I am ok with a shooter/rpg hybrid....I am not ok with the shift that happened that put more emphasis on the shooter component. Squad custmozation (including armor and weapons) went the same was as inventory....it was axed out completely instead of being fixed. But apparently this is all being taken care of in ME3

hell even Christina Norman achowlnedged the existence of this shift and the fact it was a bad move

[jasonsantanna]

you can also use today's tech as example not everyone has the best computers or knows how to use every program installed, I'm a manager at work and some supervisor over me can't / don't know how to use all the programs on our computer network , everyone is not going to be proficient in everything ,even thought it maybe available to them . . .
And as I said earlier as far as getting the ammo powers to work for your squad members . . . think of it as blue tooth transfer if your in range you can sync it to that persons device out of range of that device they don't get it. . .its a simple explanation it just sucks to some because ME1 gave you the abilityto use ammo mods and then it changed to what we have as ammo powers now had we never had that effect in ME1 ppl wouldn't be having this discussion now . . . maybe

[Jog0907]

crimzontearz wrote...

I am ok with a shooter/rpg hybrid....I am not ok with the shift that happened that put more emphasis on the shooter component. Squad custmozation (including armor and weapons) went the same was as inventory....it was axed out completely instead of being fixed. But apparently this is all being taken care of in ME3

hell even Christina Norman achowlnedged the existence of this shift and the fact it was a bad move

The shooter component received more focus in me2 because of how poor it was in me1, squad customization for me wasnt removed it was conceived in a more appropiate way, as I said me1 didnt have proper customization it was more of a linear improvement, even if you could only pick weapons and skill for squaddies in me2 that selection still had a bigger effect in how they performed and synergized with you than the lots of fake customization me1 had.

I agree that me3 bringing back those elements in a proper way is great news but I still dont consider the decisions made in me2 in regards to those areas to be bad.

Modifié par Jog0907, 17 décembre 2011 - 06:12 .

[RoboticWater]

crimzontearz wrote...

I am ok with a shooter/rpg hybrid....I am not ok with the shift that happened that put more emphasis on the shooter component. Squad custmozation (including armor and weapons) went the same was as inventory....it was axed out completely instead of being fixed. But apparently this is all being taken care of in ME3

hell even Christina Norman achowlnedged the existence of this shift and the fact it was a bad move

Indeed there were some bad moves taken but overcompensation is a common thing in sequels and TBH ME 2 never failed in any way, it stayed true to the most important things but it did lose some important things along the way. ME 3 hopes to bring the best of both back, the RPG of ME 1 and the gameplay of ME 2 and I really hope it succeeds in that. And as much as some may hate it, TCs and ammo powers improved combat, in the eyes of the majority, so they are returning along with the RPG featues.

Modifié par BlahDog, 17 décembre 2011 - 06:15 .

[crimzontearz]

I do too BUT if people keep justifying everything with "it's just a game" or similar crap then no, ME3 will just be another shooter with dialogue choices

[RoboticWater]

crimzontearz wrote...

I do too BUT if people keep justifying everything with "it's just a game" or similar crap then no, ME3 will just be another shooter with dialogue choices

I say it's just a game keeping in mind that Bioware would do nothing to destroy the RPG features in Mass Effect fully. I give them some slack, not a lot, but enough to improve the gameplay in a reasonable sense.

Modifié par BlahDog, 17 décembre 2011 - 06:19 .

[crimzontearz]

also...Tc may have improved combat flow to make it more "shootery" but an active cooldown system would have too...without breaking the lore so needlessly

[Firesteel]

BlahDog wrote...

Firesteel7 wrote...

I do believe that if we didn't have the rock paper scissors style of gameplay we would not need ammo powers. ME1 could get away with mods because they did not give the weapon an advantage over a defense. Now, both ammo and powers are geared to destroy a single kind of defense, meaning the soldier needs them to stay playable on insanity. If defenses were back to ME1, then by all means we could have ammo mods, but with the current combat system, the soldier could no longer be one of two jack-of-all trades classes..

Yes they did, some of them at least. Armor peircing rounds were good against geth because of their high shields and low health, incindiary was always good against flesh, and a few others did some things like this as well but I can't think of them. Reguardless, the RPS gameplay is an improvement because it involves more tactics. Before every mission I though "Blue suns=shield Blood pack=armor, ok who would be best to take these people out."

I did not really feel the armor piercing/anti-personelle fell into the same catagory as ammo powers due to the fact that they were not defense based, and both types of enemies were in each main mission. Another reason I did not equate them to ammo powers is that the ammo powers are changed depending on the actual enemy, not the enemy type for the most part. For example, anti personelle ammo on Garrus's recruitment mission would work for almost all the waves of enemies, but Inferno/Disruptor must be changed depending on which wave. I'm not complaining here, I'm just pointing out the differences. Also, the original fire based mods did DOT to every enemy, not just organics, which means either the synthetics are made of some ridiculously durable material now, or the Inferno rounds somehow lost effectiveness over two years. I'm not saying I disagree with the ammo powers, I think they make the soldier a good swiss army knife class, and fit it quite well. I do not, however, see how the current combat system is any better than ME1's, minus the horrendous AI. I remember somewhere that Christina Norman said people were complaining about how it wasn't clear why your powers were not affecting some enemies. I think it's pretty clear you have to invest a lot into lift to be able to pick up a walking tank.

I like to think the ammo powers have to do with what one's omnitool enables inside the guns. We can assume now that all guns are built with or come with the parts required for cryo, inferno, disruptor, etc. But you need to know how to specifically enable them on the fly. I also like the idea of clearance, where soldiers are the most experienced with guns and therefore have the clearance to use more volitile types of ammo (ammo powers)

[didymos1120]

Firesteel7 wrote...
 Also, the original fire based mods did DOT to every enemy, not just organics, which means either the synthetics are made of some ridiculously durable material now, or the Inferno rounds somehow lost effectiveness over two years.

No, it just means they changed the game mechanics.  We can't reliably draw conclusions about how things would "really" work based on gameplay. Not that it matters because they still do DOT.  Read the power description.

[Bluko]

BlahDog wrote...

Bluko wrote...
That said it was nice to switch Ammo Powers on the fly, but honestly I hardly ever made use of it.  I mean who actually invests in more then one Ammo Power per Character? As Soldier I basically used Incedinary 90% of the time, and maybe switched to Disruptor against Heavy Shield opponents like YMIRs. I mean yeah it's nice I don't have to go digging through my inventory, but I dunno I really don't switch ammo that often.

What difficulty did you play on? Because they become very helpful on on insanity. Also, while changing ammo on the fly was not that important in ME 2 because it's missions only had one enemy specialization type, ME 3 seems to have much more diversity in enemies this time.

I haved played Soldier on Insanity trust me. Also Adept, which was even easier. And yes I'm talking about ME2, although granted it's sort of the same deal as ME1 just not as jarring. I've also played a bit as Vanguard/Inflitrator on Insanity as well but I don't find doing so anymore interesting.

My point still stands. Did anyone as a Soldier fully invest in two or more Ammo Trees? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

BlahDog wrote... 

The entire point of the soldier is not having these interesting abilities and just shooting things. IMO a "pain blocking ability" and a "speed increase ability" aren't that creative and don't offer more than adrenaline rush does already.

I know that. Look I don't expect Soldier to have any Biotics or Tech really. But I'd rather have no powers then ammo powers if that makes any sense.

I'm also aware that the two suggestions I offered aren't exactly great. I dunno Adrenaline Rush is kind of too good. Of course this is an inherent flaw with ME2 as you're expected to spam your "class Power" so they tend all tend to be somewhat OP in comparison to everything else.

BlahDog wrote... 

I'd like to hear them because I certainly can't think of anything interesting a soldier could do.

Well here's how I would have liked an ME2 Soldier Skill Tree:

Adrenaline Rush
Concussive Shot
Conditioning
(Increases Storm Speed/Boosts Melee Damage)
Runner: Unlimited Sprint (Constant)
CQC:Knock enemies down with melee attack (Constant)
Endurance
(Incease Ammo Capacity/Increase Health)
Resupply: Omni-Tool creates spare Thermal Clip*
Hardened: Temporary Immunity to "stagger" effects
Gunner
(Increase Weapon Damage/Reduce Weapon Draw TIme)
Marksman: 2x Headshot Damage (Constant)
Support: 2x Damage vs Armor/Shields/Barrier (Constant)
Combat Mastery
(Increase Paragon/Renegade Scores and Power Duration)

See key problem is Combat Mastery takes cares of way too many "stats" and this is true for all classes I'd say. This skill tree is always a no-brainer to invest in, and you pretty much have to. There also probably should have been actual "Speech/Influence" skill, but that's just me.

*Would make more sense especially were friendly A.I. actually constrained by same rules as player. Sadly all A.I. has unlimited ammo.

[Firesteel]

didymos1120 wrote...

Firesteel7 wrote...
 Also, the original fire based mods did DOT to every enemy, not just organics, which means either the synthetics are made of some ridiculously durable material now, or the Inferno rounds somehow lost effectiveness over two years.

No, it just means they changed the game mechanics.  We can't reliably draw conclusions about how things would "really" work based on gameplay. Not that it matters because they still do DOT.  Read the power description.

You got me there, I do remember the description of the inferno ammo mod is that it burns through any known substance (not in gameplay for obvious reasons)  and the new inferno ammo does not say this. I remember, possibly with fault, that the fire effect only works on organics or does negligable damage to synthetics.

EDIT: I know I'm comparing gameplay to lore/descripiton, but I thought that was an interesting discrepency that doesn't really make sense, as maxing out incendiary seems like it should  allow for DOT to synthetics, similarlry to how disruptor's maxed out ability can affect organics as well.

Modifié par Firesteel7, 17 décembre 2011 - 07:18 .