60 réponses à ce sujet

[Jestina]

termokanden wrote...
Well you can make shotgun infiltrators work so I can't completely agree with this.

If I go that route, i'd be better off as a vanguard. I haven't bothered importing any of my infiltrators just because they seem to be stuck with the sniper rifle crutch now and are not the tech/soldiers. they used to be.

[termokanden]

Jestina wrote...

If I go that route, i'd be better off as a vanguard. I haven't bothered importing any of my infiltrators just because they seem to be stuck with the sniper rifle crutch now and are not the tech/soldiers. they used to be.

Just a different playstyle. Besides, you can probably do awesome things with the upgrade to fire powers without decloaking.

In any case, I agree that the downfall of the SMGs has hurt the versatility of the class some extent.

[Leon Zweihander]

That's the problem with SMG's in this game, ammo is a non-issue for both SP and MP. The purpose of SMG's as a backup weapon is moot when you're literally picking up heat clips every few feet, they really went overboard with the ammo imo. And if you do need a backup weapon the Vindicator fills the same role as SMG's and outclasses all of them with dps, range and accuracy.

[termokanden]

Ammo isn't all there is to it. I don't think a reasonable player should normally be running out of ammo in any case.

SMGs should have their niche in the game. They need to be best in some situation, not just some crappy weapon you only use if you run out of ammo.

[Jestina]

SMG's def. need a fix for sure. Vindicator was my favorite AR in ME2 but now that I seem to be stuck using it on EVERY class...not liking it as much. I used smg's with engineers, sentinels, and infiltrators in ME2...but I guess the developers want every class to be using assault rifles now which tends to be a boring time...with my engineer looking just like my soldier. I never used the sniper rifle as my main weapon with infiltrators...smg's for up close fights and sniper for supporting. Now I guess you are stuck going the shotgun route...which feels like vanguard without charge, or just being a sniper.

[ashwind]

imo... SMGs are just useless now. Assault Riffles simply blow them away. The only advantage SMG has is that it is close to weightless and is meant to be a backup weapon when you run out of ammo but that had never happen... so... .. . useless.

[godlike13]

The only advantage SMGs have over assault rifles are thier wheight and RoF , which makes sense.

Modifié par godlike13, 05 avril 2012 - 03:02 .

[JaegerBane]

ashwind wrote...

imo... SMGs are just useless now. Assault Riffles simply blow them away. The only advantage SMG has is that it is close to weightless and is meant to be a backup weapon when you run out of ammo but that had never happen... so... .. . useless.

I think the point is that they're supposed to offer assault rifle-like performance when you're carrying an assault rifle that doesn't really function like a traditional one, like the Saber or the Particle Rifle (something like the locust for the former, Hurricane for the latter to help at short range).

Obviously if you're carrying an Avenger or a Phaeston or something then there's just no point. But, to be honest, that was clear from back in ME2. The only difference was that the choice of which guns to use was taken out of the player's hands back then.

[onchristieroad]

Loved my Locust in ME2, but SMGs are sadly useless now. As an Adept I was just walking around with the Particle Rifle, but even that was moot with the absolutely ridonculous amount of heat packs lying around.

[Fortack]

JaegerBane wrote...

I think the point is that they're supposed to offer assault rifle-like performance when you're carrying an assault rifle that doesn't really function like a traditional one, like the Saber or the Particle Rifle (something like the locust for the former, Hurricane for the latter to help at short range).

They should have provided a decent alternative to assault rifles. But, like many other things, the weight system messes things up:

Ideally, the choice should be between; 1) carrying specialist weaponry - like a powerful (heavy weight) sniper rifle and a light weight SMG as backup and/or CQC weapon. Or 2) using a medium sniper rifle and a medium assault rifle or shotgun.
Despite the obvious shortcomings of ME2's weapon system, it did this right. An Infiltrator could focus on OSOK sniping with the Widow, or use a versatile setup with the Viper and an AR/ shotgun to mix things up.

IMHO the weight system would have been a great addition if it gave all classes a fixed encumberance number - not the option to travel with one or five guns regardless their weight (it doesn't make sense to have Shep running around with the Widow and Claymore when you read their descriptions, that's simply not possible).
This would combine the good of the ME2 system with the freedom (for all classes) to use their own weapon setup.

[JaegerBane]

Fortack wrote...
They should have provided a decent alternative to assault rifles. But, like many other things, the weight system messes things up:
<snip>

I don't think its the weight system per se - what messes it up is that the weights of certain weapons feel like they've been randomly determined rather than balanced against their stats. I mean, stuff like the Katana and the Scimitar are *incredibly* heavy for what they actually are - in my opinion they should have been the same weight as the Disciple. Things like the Argus and the Valkyrie are in this boat too - as heavy as serious firepower like the revenant and the particle rifle but not particularly different in capability to the Vindicator. Even the heavy pistols are in an odd state here - why they weren't offered ultralight materials too is good question as you can easily end up with small pistols weighing twice or three times what a submachine gun twice their size weighs - they're not really sidearms now.

Honestly, I think the devs just didn't think through the arsenal as a whole when assigning weight. The system itself is fine, its just the stats are an absolute mess.

[Athenau]

The problem with the weight system is twofold:

1. The max/min cooldown bonuses are too high. This trivializes recharge bonuses from skills and equipment, and makes balancing cooldowns difficult in general because the variance is so high.

2. The power/weight ratio is off for some weapons (pistols too high, too low for a lot of ARs and shotguns).

The fundamental idea isn't bad, but the numbers need tweaking. Kronner's Spectre difficulty mod goes a long way towards fixing this by capping the weight cooldown bonus to 100% and making weights uniform among weapon classes.

Modifié par Athenau, 05 avril 2012 - 12:44 .

[Praetor Knight]

JaegerBane wrote...

I don't think its the weight system per se - what messes it up is that the weights of certain weapons feel like they've been randomly determined rather than balanced against their stats. I mean, stuff like the Katana and the Scimitar are *incredibly* heavy for what they actually are - in my opinion they should have been the same weight as the Disciple. Things like the Argus and the Valkyrie are in this boat too - as heavy as serious firepower like the revenant and the particle rifle but not particularly different in capability to the Vindicator. Even the heavy pistols are in an odd state here - why they weren't offered ultralight materials too is good question as you can easily end up with small pistols weighing twice or three times what a submachine gun twice their size weighs - they're not really sidearms now.

Honestly, I think the devs just didn't think through the arsenal as a whole when assigning weight. The system itself is fine, its just the stats are an absolute mess.

It's interesting, that's for sure, to me it seems that the class builds were done independent of the weapon balancing, or maybe there were changes to the classes after weapons were balanced? Either way, I know I'd like a small tweak to improve what classes can carry, at least with the shotguns, like the Katana and Scimitar in particular as you mention.

[Fortack]

JaegerBane wrote...

Honestly, I think the devs just didn't think through the arsenal as a whole when assigning weight. The system itself is fine, its just the stats are an absolute mess.

This whole weight system crap is nothing more than PR material or similar BS. A perfectly balanced weapon selection doesn't change that. "Now the player can chose between using (an armory of) weapons to kill the enemy, OR focus on powers" might look good on paper and the advertising goons will love it, but it completely destroys gameplay. Leaving balance to the player is the dumbest thing any dev can do (and BW did just that with ME3).

Cooldowns and weapons are two of the most important features in (ME) gameplay. They should be fixed and restricted - that's what every respectable game does, hell, it's what devs are being paid for!
ME3 gives the player the option to have powers without a cooldown, to max every power in one playthrough, to buy pretty much everything you want in one playthrough, to use all weapons simultaneously (if you don't mind gimping yourself), there is unlimited ammo too, and using any power will cause an immense explosion wiping out everything.

I honestly can't remember playing a game with worse balance than ME3. And for what? To give the player "unlimited" customization "options"? Players are not going to select junk when spectre gear is available. Even Skyrim, which - like all Bethesda games - has horrible balance is way ahead of ME3. In Skyrim you have to grind and exploit glitches to play in godmode, and even then you have to make choices about what power, weapon, armor or whatever you're going to use.

Yeah, I know, I got a little out of control here

Seriously though: restrictions = balance. No restrictions = a mess.
The fun thing about customization is to work within the limitations of the system. It's about making choices. ME3 lacks anything of the sort. It's bad enough that your plot decisions have no impact whatsoever, but BW has done the same thing to gameplay.

[PnXMarcin1PL]

I like That cerberus smg, its pretty neat

[JaegerBane]

Athenau wrote...

The problem with the weight system is twofold:

1. The max/min cooldown bonuses are too high. This trivializes recharge bonuses from skills and equipment, and makes balancing cooldowns difficult in general because the variance is so high.

2. The power/weight ratio is off for some weapons (pistols too high, too low for a lot of ARs and shotguns).

The fundamental idea isn't bad, but the numbers need tweaking. Kronner's Spectre difficulty mod goes a long way towards fixing this by capping the weight cooldown bonus to 100% and making weights uniform among weapon classes.

Precisely. I don't necessarily mind having a bit of weight variance across the weapons in different classes i.e. I definitely don't want uniform weights across all ARs for instance, its when you have a basic shotgun that almost weighs as much as the best assault rifle in the game - thats the kind of thing that makes the system fall apart.

Your point about the Max/min cooldown bonuses is also a good one - ultimately where you have a situation where you just can't balance powers properly as the bonuses for taking only one weapon etc are stupidly high and the penalties for taking 3+ weapons are totally ridiculous - it just doesn't feel like a system that went through much testing.

I actually do like the weight system. ME2's system of tying weapon types to classes was a *horrible* idea as it basically meant the player had no input whatsoever. It spawned a weird system where we had copies of weapons designed purely to fit in preset weapons categories, it was rubbish. What has happned here is that its gone too far along to the other side of the scale and players basically make a choice between using more than a few guns and using powers - there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the system.

[JaegerBane]

Fortack wrote...
Seriously though: restrictions = balance. No restrictions = a mess.

I'm afraid it isn't that simple by a long shot, Fortack. Restrictions do not inherently create balance, all they do is prevent the player from doing stuff - the balance is achieved by making sure the player doesn't have it too easy while at the same time giving them plenty of room to customise. ME2 failed badly in this regard - the player was given a pathetic choice of variables of one extra weapon type (which until the DLC came out was basically assault rifles, as they were the only balanced choice) and one extra bonus power (of which some classes needed to take just to function properly). ME2 didn't ace this in any way - the speed that that the save editor came out after release is obvious enough proof of that.

On the other hand, there are restrictions in ME3 - the problem isn't whether they exist, the problem stems from them simply not being properly implemented. As Athenau says, the issue with, say, the cooldown bonuses isn't so much that you get them, its because the variance is too high to balance. Same with the guns - the concept of weight stats aren't the problem, its the weight stats of some guns have no correlation to the weapon itself.

The core concept of the system itself is fine - it needs refining, not replacing. I'd vastly prefer this system rather than ME2's the-player-has-no-say approach, as that kind of restriction is rare even in FPS and whatnot, let alone in RPGs.

[Feirefiz1972]

Playing as a vanguard i use the wraith shotgun and the tempest smg, moded with the extended clip and the right ammo power the tempest is able to take out an atlas with 2 clips and it weights almost nothing.

[CrazyCatDude]

I've always found the Locust to be the best SMG. It was easily the best in ME2, because it was basically a full up assault rifle in an SMG slot. In ME3, it remains the best for the simple reason that it's a full auto SMG with darn near zero muzzle climb. The Hurricane and tempest might do more damage per shot, but you can not keep them on target anywhere near as easily, which means you have to burst fire, or you end up missing a lot. Not worth it.

TL;DR Locust with High Caliber Barrel and Ultra Light Materials is a no brainer

[Jestina]

They've basically tried to implement open ended mechanics into a class based system...which doesn't work. Hence the mess we have now.

There's no shortage of ammo in this game...and caster types are never going to have that problem anyways. Sure, you can mod an smg to be almost weightless but there's still no point in even carrying one. You'd be better off spitting at the enemy than using an SMG in ME3. The purpose of putting smg's in ME2 was to give certain classes more bite, but now they've completely stripped away restrictions and didn't do anything to balance it.

[CrazyCatDude]

Jestina wrote...

They've basically tried to implement open ended mechanics into a class based system...which doesn't work. Hence the mess we have now.

There's no shortage of ammo in this game...and caster types are never going to have that problem anyways. Sure, you can mod an smg to be almost weightless but there's still no point in even carrying one. You'd be better off spitting at the enemy than using an SMG in ME3. The purpose of putting smg's in ME2 was to give certain classes more bite, but now they've completely stripped away restrictions and didn't do anything to balance it.

I've found that to not be the case.  The new system adds a lot of flexibility, but there are good reasons to chose certain weapons types over others.  The SMG's provide tacticle flexibility in situations where the weight of a full up Assault rifle would gimp you, which is why they have the Ultralight Materials mod.  It's basically a way to give everyone the utility of an Assault rifle, while still allowing them to spend their weight allowance on a more specialized weapon.

[JaegerBane]

Jestina wrote...

They've basically tried to implement open ended mechanics into a class based system...which doesn't work. Hence the mess we have now.

This part, I definitely agree with. The impression I got from ME2 was that they were trying frantically to hold onto classes they developed while trying to repurpose them to be very different, and the result was near-total destruction of any real player choice in how their character played - you couldn't create something like a true biotic sniper for instance.

In ME3, they've totally swung back the other way and went nuts with player choice, but they went too far and we've ended up with a system that actually doesn't matter.

There's no shortage of ammo in this game...and caster types are never going to have that problem anyways. Sure, you can mod an smg to be almost weightless but there's still no point in even carrying one. You'd be better off spitting at the enemy than using an SMG in ME3.

While I can agree that SMGs tend to fall behind most other weapon classes and can appear pointless if you're carrying a weapon that largely covers the same ground (such as an AR or a shotty depending on what weapons you have and what SMGs you're looking at), this talk of SMGs being inherently useless regardless of what else you're carrying simply doesn't make sense. They damage enemies just the same as everything else. If you're not causing any damage using one then thats really the fault of the player.

The purpose of putting smg's in ME2 was to give certain classes more bite, but now they've completely stripped away restrictions and didn't do anything to balance it.

Actually, no, the purpose of putting SMGs into ME2 was to give classes an assault rifle without actually giving them an assault rifle, as, for some reason, Bioware felt only soldiers should start with them as they did back in the much more adaptable ME1. This didn't work, hence they brought in the locust.

The only difference now is that the game isn't forcing you to use them.

[raider_1001]

For me, SMG is a weapon you take when you only want high power cool down bonus. It is only useful as a last ditch weapon or finishing off someone at close range that survived the power bombardment.

I don't have the N7 pack so the only SMG worth taking is the Tempest. Given the very low damage per shot provided by all the stock SMGs, ROF is the only thing that mattered when choosing SMG. Locust just don't have enough DPS at mid-range to justify its low ROF and magazine capacity. I would consider the Hornet too, except that it is clumsy at close range for self defense, and it has too many overlaps with the lightweight Vindicator as a general purpose weapon.

Modifié par raider_1001, 05 avril 2012 - 05:35 .

[Stormbringer3]

Do people like a SMG or a pistol for Liara?
Thanks.

[Fortack]

JaegerBane wrote...

I'm afraid it isn't that simple by a long shot, Fortack. Restrictions do not inherently create balance, all they do is prevent the player from doing stuff - the balance is achieved by making sure the player doesn't have it too easy while at the same time giving them plenty of room to customise.

Yes, but that is not how it works in ME3. The ME2 version of Charge was great because of its fixed cooldown, it was neither too quick nor too slow. In ME3 its up to the player to either make themselves invincible or make Charge useless. The restrictions used in ME2 are key to make this ability (and class) work, ME3 has ruined this with its "customization" obsession. The system actually reduces customization because the Vanguard does NOT have the option to use multiple (decent) weapons. The popular ME2 Scimitar-Viper setup equals gimping your Vanguard's combat potential instead of giving it more options like it's supposed to be.

On the other hand, there are restrictions in ME3 - the problem isn't whether they exist, the problem stems from them simply not being properly implemented. As Athenau says, the issue with, say, the cooldown bonuses isn't so much that you get them, its because the variance is too high to balance. Same with the guns - the concept of weight stats aren't the problem, its the weight stats of some guns have no correlation to the weapon itself.

Indeed. Cooldowns ought to be left alone because they have a huge impact on balance. Weapons are another thing, I frankly don't see what they have got to do with cooldown. The connection the game makes is absurd. To balance weapons they should have given each weapon mass based on their performance, and every class a fixed number (with reasonable upgrade options through passive powers) to use for weapons. I believe Curunen proposed such a system a long time ago, and most of us loved his idea.

Here it is: social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/261/index/5644681/2#5647222

It's simple, effective, makes sense, doesn't interfere with balance, and presents plenty of customization options. It's 100x better than the thing Bioware tried to implement in ME3.