32 réponses à ce sujet

[birch-L]

I love the concept of comboing a string of biotic abilities on a target, its a satisfying and brutal form of combat, but is really limited by how using one biotic abilitie triggers the cooldown of ALL ablities(How does that make sense again?), making it pretty much impossible to combo powers unless you have 2 biotics on your squad and use both of their cooldowns.

TL;DR version.
Cooldowns limit the fun of playing as a biotic and powers should have seperate cooldowns..

[Alamar2078]

I could see if you used a biotic power [Singularity, Warp, whatever] takes a small toll on your body and it takes time for your body to recover. The severity of the toll [cooldown] depends on the power used. While not perfect I can see it.

On the other hand I find it harder to explain [other than balance] why using a Biotic power locks out your Tech powers.

[iTofu]

I seem to remember the books stressing the difficulty of continuously performing biotic attacks, so I suspect that was the thinking behind making it one timer. I'm sure it's also a lot easier to create effecient code for one timer.

I agree that tech and biotic powers would make more sense on seperate timers, but it is what it is.

Certainly, the timers will be more forgiving when you aren't carrying a full load of guns, unlike the demo.

Modifié par iTofu, 16 février 2012 - 06:18 .

[Vapaa]

The forced loadout gives crappy CD, go around with only a pistol (like the Earth level) and you can go around biotic-comboing the ennemies as hell

[Colintastic]

Buddy, just wait until you can choose your weapons load out and you don't have to carry 4 weapons. You can get your global cooldown to be something like 2 seconds. In ME1 they were separate, but all like 30-40 seconds long.

With a 2 second cooldown you don't really ever need to fire your gun. In the intro level as an adept basically all I did was singularity warp combo. It's totally viable.

Modifié par Colintastic, 16 février 2012 - 05:49 .

[111987]

birch-L wrote...

I love the concept of comboing a string of biotic abilities on a target, its a satisfying and brutal form of combat, but is really limited by how using one biotic abilitie triggers the cooldown of ALL ablities(How does that make sense again?), making it pretty much impossible to combo powers unless you have 2 biotics on your squad and use both of their cooldowns.

TL;DR version.
Cooldowns limit the fun of playing as a biotic and powers should have seperate cooldowns..

Responding to the bolded; it actually does make perfect sense if you read the Codex on Biotics, or any of the books. Biotics can only use a few attacks at once before becoming exhausted to the point of being unable to move. Since this obviously wouldn't be a good idea, a global cooldown is a much better idea. If you use a powerful Biotic attack, it should drain your energy and you should need a little time to recover.

So that's why it makes sense. Would it be more fun if they each had seperate cooldowns? Maybe. But when you upgrade your Biotics and don't take so many weapons, the cooldown will be reduced significantly and combos will be much easier to pull off.

[TeamLexana]

birch-L wrote...

I love the concept of comboing a string of biotic abilities on a target, its a satisfying and brutal form of combat, but is really limited by how using one biotic abilitie triggers the cooldown of ALL ablities(How does that make sense again?), making it pretty much impossible to combo powers unless you have 2 biotics on your squad and use both of their cooldowns.

TL;DR version.
Cooldowns limit the fun of playing as a biotic and powers should have seperate cooldowns..

Going by the demo, if u don't carry a bunch of guns around, u will have crazy short cooldowns so don't worry.

[SirBrass]

birch-L wrote...

I love the concept of comboing a string of biotic abilities on a target, its a satisfying and brutal form of combat, but is really limited by how using one biotic abilitie triggers the cooldown of ALL ablities(How does that make sense again?), making it pretty much impossible to combo powers unless you have 2 biotics on your squad and use both of their cooldowns.

TL;DR version.
Cooldowns limit the fun of playing as a biotic and powers should have seperate cooldowns..

Agreed, but the most aggregious thing is that your squadmates have about 1/2 the cooldowns for ALL their powers than you do, at any class.

What's worse is for the vanguard class, whose bread and butter style is to soften targets (use of squadmates and weapons, usually), then charge in for the melee and/or shotgun and/or smg finale.  I LIKE nova and think it's a great addition to the vanguard toolbox, but the 25 second cool down with a max cooldown reduction to 19 seconds (as seen in the demo if you browse the tree and do the math) with NO additional cooldown reductions available through fitness or class ability is a totall buzzkill on the vanguard class as a whole.  One simply cannot survive that long when wading into the fray and must play more like an adept or a limited soldier.  That kills the class as a unique class.

I'd complain about lag between commands and the kinect responding, but I figure if that's an issue then simply map your "if I need to use this, I REALLY need to use this NOW" powers to one of the 3 mappable buttons.

Anyway, I've played with soldier class.  Cooldown for "bread and butter" power is acceptable.  Same with sentinal.  I need to play as adept, infiltrator and engineer as well to see how well they do, though.

What also buzzkills the vanguard is NO health regeneration (unless that is part of armor mods, which we saw items for but NO mods allowed in demo, which was a gross oversight, since we haven't seen this system since ME1 and we REALLY should have an opportunity to try it out and report results to bioware before launch), which makes using nova really dangerous to survivability with such a class-killing cooldown time after using charge.

I can understand not wanting to make the vanguard class a class which trumps the others, but seriously, doing so by killing it with obscene cooldown times stacked with a global cooldown really kills the class as a whole.  If we wade into troops with charge, we need to then be able to retreat out in like manner with strengthened shields that will hold at least until we reach cover and can catch our breath and let our squadmates wade in and keep them busy.... or have charge recharged so we can "retreat" by charging in on a lone enemy.

Also, give us back warp and take out shockwave (one of the most useless powers out there).  ME1 was great with vanguard b/c you could lift then toss.  In ME2, someone else could pull an enemy and you could then charge them and have the same effect but with 2x the awesomeness.  Here, you just die.

The big thing is that other classes don't feel this unfairly unbalanced against the player, but balanced overall (like sentinel... keep it like it is, it's workable in a similar way to the way it was in ME2... VERY good).

Let me illustrate another way.  In the demo level 1, recharge is insanely low (and good) for your powers even at level 1.  I was still struggling on hardcore... and that's not a bad thing, but my tactics were those of a vanguard.  It WORKED.  The cooldown rate for biotic charge was appropriate for such a playstyle.  Get to the "actionpacked" level, and I'm castrated with a 25-19 second cooldown on ALL powers save nova when I charge.  Forget the playstyle I thought I could have and am used to having for that class in ME1 and ME2.  Controler nearly ends up thrown against the wall.

[TeamLexana]

That's because for some weird WTF reason weapon weight has a bearing on cooldowns. Heavier you are, longer cooldowns. Hence why in the first mission when you have just a pistol then like one other gun later on the cooldowns are very short then in the much later in the game mission the game saddles you with many guns and now your cooldowns are much longer. Lesson? Don't carry more guns then you need.

[SirBrass]

Actually, that makes sense from a game mechanics and balance standpoint. From the standpoint of biotics really taking the wind out of you, that works too. THink about it. Do you recover faster with alot of hardware strapped to you, or when you're only in lightweight, breathable athletic apparel?

Also, if you're heavy on lots of guns and heavy on the fast biotics, you're going to have a balance issue.

Too bad I didn't hear of this till now. ANd I was pissed that I only had the slow-as-hell Evicerator shottie instead of my preferred vanguard weapon of the scimitar. Some CHOICE as to armament in the demo would've been nice, even if it was a restricted choice, like evicerator or m23, m9 or m4, m3 or m5, and m96 or m8, or choice to not use any. I would've gone with m9, and m23 only if those were the options. Heavy melee can take the place of the slow, powerful shotgun blast. As an intermediate, the fast firing scimitar or average rate katana can fill the roll of "crap, I need to blast this guy NOW!" after using nova, or taking down turrets.

[TeamLexana]

SirBrass wrote...

Actually, that makes sense from a game mechanics and balance standpoint. From the standpoint of biotics really taking the wind out of you, that works too. THink about it. Do you recover faster with alot of hardware strapped to you, or when you're only in lightweight, breathable athletic apparel?

Also, if you're heavy on lots of guns and heavy on the fast biotics, you're going to have a balance issue.

Too bad I didn't hear of this till now. ANd I was pissed that I only had the slow-as-hell Evicerator shottie instead of my preferred vanguard weapon of the scimitar. Some CHOICE as to armament in the demo would've been nice, even if it was a restricted choice, like evicerator or m23, m9 or m4, m3 or m5, and m96 or m8, or choice to not use any. I would've gone with m9, and m23 only if those were the options. Heavy melee can take the place of the slow, powerful shotgun blast. As an intermediate, the fast firing scimitar or average rate katana can fill the roll of "crap, I need to blast this guy NOW!" after using nova, or taking down turrets.

I thought the person that told me was messing with me at first, lol. I don't know, I just think it's a weird game mechanic, esp since BW seems to want to simplify for the FPS crowd but the weapon weight mechanic seems really complicated to me. Oh wells, on the bright side, short ass cooldowns! YAY! lol

You can play with weapons on the MP portion when it becomes available assuming you don't have Battlefeild 3 - which I don't, I have to wait till the 17th I think.

[SirBrass]

Simplification for fps-only crowd is soldier on action mode. For those of us who like to play tactically, there's all the other classes on roleplaying with hardcore or insanity

For ME3 to stay unique, it has to be a thinking-player's story-driven game.  That means well-integrated, but sophisticated mechanics.  They kind of nerfed that in ME2 by taking out customizable weapons, but gave us a bit of a bone with customizable armor (I never used any of the other preset armors... they sucked compared to what I really liked about my customizable armor pieces.... THOSE were fun), and also tossed us a bone by introducing class-powers like charge, adrenaline rush, making singularity an adept's class power, etc.  Good move on their part.  THough I miss abilities like overkill, marksman, assassination, and carnage (carnage was awesome for us vanguards who sometimes needed that long range heavy blast, or to initially soften up crowds without going to pistol for marksmanship).  I can deal with that, though.  ME2 struck a good balance.

I came to the franchise late (with ME2 on PS3... then I finally got a 360 and played ME1 on there, traded in ME2 for PS3 and picked up ME2 for 360), so I never got to try the ME1 and ME2 demos, so I don't know if they were as unrepresentative of the gameplay intracasies as it seems here.

Modifié par SirBrass, 16 février 2012 - 07:13 .

[TeamLexana]

SirBrass wrote...

Simplification for fps-only crowd is soldier on action mode. For those of us who like to play tactically, there's all the other classes on roleplaying with hardcore or insanity

Good point, lol.

[themaxzero]

birch-L wrote...

I love the concept of comboing a string of biotic abilities on a target, its a satisfying and brutal form of combat, but is really limited by how using one biotic abilitie triggers the cooldown of ALL ablities(How does that make sense again?), making it pretty much impossible to combo powers unless you have 2 biotics on your squad and use both of their cooldowns.

TL;DR version.
Cooldowns limit the fun of playing as a biotic and powers should have seperate cooldowns..

Just wait till you can throw off all those crappy guns and run light. With a few -recharge items and upgraded (lighter) weapons I reckon my Incinerate/Overload CDs should be sub 1 second.

May even make a ghetto pet class with Sentry and Drone.

Basically OP ME3 will be the first time Biotic's and Techies can actually use their primary skills as their main attacks instead of just being weaker Soldiers. I think Soldiers may actually end up a little UP.

[LexXxich]

Once upon a time, in ME1, all powers had separate cooldowns. Those were around 30-40 seconds by default, and you could make them lower by upgrading certain skills, choosing certain advanced class and equipping better biotic amps/omnitools. At maximum upgrades it would reward you with being able to run certain powers like Barrier indefinitely.
There was a problem with that system - a lot of people used all available powers at the start of the fight and then had to wait for them to recharge. Sure, one could space out the power usage (and biotic ones were fairly strong to not require spamming). But Bioware made a decision to up the pace of combat, and in ME2 introduced shared global cooldown that was much lower than separate cooldowns ME1 had. It led to some other issues for power-based classes, but Soldier gameplay was unaffected or even improved, so now ME3 is stuck with that model.

[SirBrass]

LexXxich wrote...

Once upon a time, in ME1, all powers had separate cooldowns. Those were around 30-40 seconds by default, and you could make them lower by upgrading certain skills, choosing certain advanced class and equipping better biotic amps/omnitools. At maximum upgrades it would reward you with being able to run certain powers like Barrier indefinitely.
There was a problem with that system - a lot of people used all available powers at the start of the fight and then had to wait for them to recharge. Sure, one could space out the power usage (and biotic ones were fairly strong to not require spamming). But Bioware made a decision to up the pace of combat, and in ME2 introduced shared global cooldown that was much lower than separate cooldowns ME1 had. It led to some other issues for power-based classes, but Soldier gameplay was unaffected or even improved, so now ME3 is stuck with that model.

The ME2 model is not entirely bad, but a return to ME1-like cooldowns WITH global cooldown kills power-based gameplay.

However, if that is fixed by smart regulating of mods and amount of weapons, then I'll be okay.  Taking the vanguard model:  high risk, high reward.  If you are primarily a gunner, then long cooldowns are okay, just use your guns.  But if you're running powers, you've got your powers and their effects to improve your survival and deal hurt to the badies in ways guns alone won't do.

Let me use another example from an entirely different game:  TIE Fighter.  The most awesome ship for me there was the Missile Boat.  Normally with the starfighters missiles were your "use rarely" trump cards, and you used lasers mostly.  THink of that like soldier class/ gunner playstyle.  However with the MB, you began dumping and even DUMBFIRING missiles (in lieu of lock if you got close enough b/c you could be incredibly fast if you dumped all beam energy to engines, and had shields set to moderate recharge).  THe single itty bitty laser you had was good for finishing off already near-slagged badies and taking down missiles fired at you if you couldn't evade the lock.  Not used much.  Kind of like adapt-style play, or vanguard.  But it was a tradeoff.  Instead of having the awesome gunpower of a TIE-Defender (2 Ion cannons, and 4 linked laser cannons and a decent missile loadout of around 16 missiles), you got one gun, but 4 missile bays, with 40 adv missiles per outboard rack and 20 adv missiles per inboard rack and the ability to have differing payloads in either.  The tradeoff was reduced gunplay, and you had to be strategic b/c the only way to get more when you ran out was to call for resupply, and that took time or left you vulnerable.


Sounds like what they've done with ME3.  Fewer guns, lighter armor for decreased cooldown.  Gotta play smarter, not harder.  Tradeoffs.

I just hope they've balanced them.  From what folks are telling me here, it gives me hope for the vanguard (and explains why combat mastery doesn't offer cooldown bonuses, while sentinel does... the sentinel will probably be running in heavy armor and using tech armor.... so he'll NEED the cooldown bonuses of his class power).  ANd it makes sense (think back to ME1 and armor weight restrictions for the power/combat classes and light armor only for the power-only classes) too,

[Crimson_red]

Colintastic wrote...

In the intro level as an adept basically all I did was singularity warp combo. It's totally viable.

That was a lot of fun, very smooth and easy, I look forward to exploring the Adapt in the main game with control over my weapon loadout.... keep it light and easy, just enough for the combat animations.

[Onpoint17]

I enjoyed playing the Adept in the demo as a envisioned the character as an almost "pure" caster (even with the long cool downs). I used only the Predator pistol to finish off enemies that survived the biotic combos with Liara. I hope I'll be able to play this way in the full game having only to carry a pistol and use biotics as my primary weapon.

[sp0ck 06]

birch-L wrote...

I love the concept of comboing a string of biotic abilities on a target, its a satisfying and brutal form of combat, but is really limited by how using one biotic abilitie triggers the cooldown of ALL ablities(How does that make sense again?), making it pretty much impossible to combo powers unless you have 2 biotics on your squad and use both of their cooldowns.

TL;DR version.
Cooldowns limit the fun of playing as a biotic and powers should have seperate cooldowns..

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Equip only a pistol or SMG an you'll be throwing biotics out every 2-2.5 seconds.

[birch-L]

I didnt have a clue that weapon weight had an effect on cooldowns, Thanks for the info everyone.

[SirBrass]

birch-L wrote...

I didnt have a clue that weapon weight had an effect on cooldowns, Thanks for the info everyone.

This is one reason why I say that Bioware FAILED miserably on the SP demo.  By not really communicating this well in the demo, BW is giving gamers a false impression that will negatively impact their first impression of the game and may negatively impact sales and acceptance by new players who are not already committed to the franchise.  That is also a failure of their stated goal to make ME3 accessible to new players.

[sp0ck 06]

SirBrass wrote...

birch-L wrote...

I didnt have a clue that weapon weight had an effect on cooldowns, Thanks for the info everyone.

This is one reason why I say that Bioware FAILED miserably on the SP demo.  By not really communicating this well in the demo, BW is giving gamers a false impression that will negatively impact their first impression of the game and may negatively impact sales and acceptance by new players who are not already committed to the franchise.  That is also a failure of their stated goal to make ME3 accessible to new players.

its true, the SP level doesn't give a fair picture of what combat is like AT ALL.  Once you get into the MP you'll see how it really is.  As an Adept player I know I'll be equipping only a pistol or SMG and barely using it.  

[Rane7685]

iTofu wrote...

I seem to remember the books stressing the difficulty of continuously performing biotic attacks, so I suspect that was the thinking behind making it one timer. I'm sure it's also a lot easier to create effecient code for one timer.

I agree that tech and biotic powers would make more sense on seperate timers, but it is what it is.

Certainly, the timers will be more forgiving when you aren't carrying a full load of guns, unlike the demo.

I think balancing is the issue here. Separate cooldowns would be sick for a sentinel but an adept would be nicely screwed (with the epic cds atm in salarian he is already). The idea is for the classes to be balanced. Separate cds for tech and biotics would advantage the sentinel greatly

[SirBrass]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

SirBrass wrote...

birch-L wrote...

I didnt have a clue that weapon weight had an effect on cooldowns, Thanks for the info everyone.

This is one reason why I say that Bioware FAILED miserably on the SP demo.  By not really communicating this well in the demo, BW is giving gamers a false impression that will negatively impact their first impression of the game and may negatively impact sales and acceptance by new players who are not already committed to the franchise.  That is also a failure of their stated goal to make ME3 accessible to new players.

its true, the SP level doesn't give a fair picture of what combat is like AT ALL.  Once you get into the MP you'll see how it really is.  As an Adept player I know I'll be equipping only a pistol or SMG and barely using it.  

And by having the MP locked for several days while the demo is at its height of hype, this is going to screw them badly except by the core demographic who wants to desperately believe that BW didn't screw the pooch.

You know, hardcore geeks like us .  It still hurts BW b/c they would like to expand the appeal of ME3 to more than just us.