Press "A" To Revive -
Too many times have my friends and I been in the heat of battle and
needed to revive a fallen comrade in order to give ourselves a fighting
chance. However, we aren't always able to revive when we should have
been. Sometimes our avatars roll, or take cover, or stand there
dumbfounded as they are accosted by husks. When the "Press 'A' to
revive" text is shown, I expect to be able to do just that.
Reloading
while taking cover – I cannot being to describe how annoying it is to
fire a shot with the Mantis sniper rifle and then try to reload while
taking cover. You may be depending on your next shot to save your life,
but the weapon isn’t loaded because the avatar couldn’t do both actions
at the same time. Reloading while performing other actions is something
that you can do in several other games. It’s not even a difficult task
to perform in real life, either. The action of taking or leaving cover
should not interrupt reloading a weapon.
Instant XP - With so
much activity on the game servers, sometimes players are unintentionally
booted from their game. This is an understandable occurrence, but far
from ideal. This is especially a problem when you're about to finish
wave 10, and get the boot. You have no experience or cash to show for
the 20 minutes you just played for. Players would be considerably less
frustrated if the cash and experience were awarded even if you were
dropped from the game. Whatever the player earned at the point they were
booted should be available to them. There are lots of times that I
didn't level when I should have, and I've missed out on quite a few hard
earned credits due to the EA servers being "unavailable". I imagine
that the decision to give out experience at the end of the game was to
deter people from dropping out of the games early. Large multiplayer
titles like Gears of War and Call of Duty give out the experience when
it’s earned, proving that it is a viable option
Weekend Event
Rewards - I really like the weekend events. My friends and I routinely
meet up every weekend and try to contribute as much as we can to the
cause. What would make this experience just that much better is if the
reward turnaround was more prompt. When the mission report comes out on
the following Monday, that's when the victory and commendation packs
should be distributed. It will give the players that much more incentive
to check in earlier on in the week and play. When I feel like playing
multiplayer on Monday or Tuesday, I'm deterred by the fact that I don't
get to open the item packs I've earned. It seems insignificant, but I
assure you that it matters more to the players than you may realize.
XP
- I like that the experience is shared amongst all of the players. It
gives teams more cohesion, because no one is arguing over who stole
whose kills. While the multiplayer has been designed for 4 players, my
friends and I have become good enough now that some of us can beat
bronze on our own. I'm sure we aren't the only ones who can do that
either. I think that the experience and credits that are awarded should
reflect the difficulty of that task. For example, bronze seems to
average about 140,000 experience points and 15,000 credits, but it's
the same if I play by myself or with all of my friends. I see this being
accomplished in two ways. First, the baseline experience could be
directly proportional to the number of players in the party (ie. for 4
players, have the XP baseline at 130,000, but for 2 players bump it up
to 170,000). The second idea would be to add an award similar to the
"75 kills" or "3 waves survived" with the bronze level being 3 players,
and the gold one being for a single player.
Ghosting - In
several other multiplayer based games, when a player is dead for the
round, the camera can be anchored to the back of one of their team mates
OR they can "ghost" and control the camera themselves. This helps in
developing the strategy of the remaining teammates because the deceased
player can scope out the enemy's position and determine how many of them
are left.
Item Frequency - While the randomized item packs are
part of what make ME multiplayer so unique, the character training
upgrades should be removed once the player has maxed out on the
appearance upgrades. I have received the Drell Adept training 3 times
since I obtained all of the appearance options. The character training
is obsolete after this point. Just like how when a weapon is maxed out
at level 10, the characters in my mind, and the minds of my friends are
"maxed" when all possible options have become unlocked. Also, I don't
know anyone who uses they respec cards. No one accidentally puts points
into a skill they don't want to use. I feel that this is especially
redundant if the players are encouraged to promote their characters at
level 20, thus resetting the skill tree.
Item list - Because
part of Mass Effect is about unlocking weapons, there should be a single
interface where players can see all of the weapons and upgrades they
have unlocked. This will also help players gauge whether there are
additional upgrades to obtain. Keep the randomization of the items, but
help the players get excited about what's out there by offering the
statistics on all of the possible weapons. I for one would like to be
able to see the difference between the level 1 version of a weapon and
the level 10 in a direct comparison. I know they get better as the level
increases, but where does it improve exactly, and at what point does it
become the comparable to other weapons? This can also be used to
generate excitement about new upcoming weapons that would be released in
DLCs.
Stats tracking - another way to get the players more
involved would be to offer an interface where they can compare
statistics with friends. The medals that are awarded for kills and wave
survival are a good idea, but what if I want to know how many times I've
gotten the "75 kills" award, or which medals are available? It will
give players something to aim towards in the game. All of the
information is available on various web pages, but players shouldn't
have to leave the xbox in order to learn about these things. Stats
tracking is a very large part of the major multiplayer titles, and this
is definitely one place where Mass Effect could improve to give it the
extra edge. More detailed leaderboards would help players know where
they can improve. What is the record time for beating firebase white on
bronze versus the reapers? Who has the most grabs? Having the
leaderboards in game rather than on the Bioware forums will generate
more interest in them.
Single Player Assistance - The Mass Effect
2 Shadowbroker DLC allowed players to spend their campaign credits to
further different causes in the universe. I think it would be a good
idea if the player could choose to send their campaign credits towards
their multiplayer characters just as you can send the multiplayer
characters to become war assets. If you'd like to see that this doesn't
become abused, charge an in game service fee. Have it so that when
Sheppard wants to send money to the N7 program, he has to pay a 10%
service fee, or maybe have a randomized penalty for the transfer and
claim that the transfer was "hacked" by pirates, or some corrupted
individual took 50% of the credits for themselves.
Platoons -
This is an idea that I'm most proud of. It's something that none of the
other multiplayer games do (that I know of) and it would really give
Mass Effect an edge in the game market as well as contribute to its
uniqueness. The multiplayer for Mass Effect is all about teamwork, there
are team goals, and team awards. You can add to this by allowing
players to create their own platoons. As far as the story goes, this can
be worked in. In the real world military, individual squads have their
own traditions. You could bring this effect to the world of Mass Effect
to keep players even more involved in the game. N7 is a large body that
sends out these teams of 4 people to accomplish goals. Realistically,
they would most likely try to keep the same 4 people together to improve
efficiency and success rates since that's what the real life military
does. Players would invite their friends to these platoons, similar to
the unofficial clans that exist in the gaming community. The team would
decide on hierarchy (captains, sergeants, privates) and could create a
logo that would be added onto all members' armor teams would receive
bonus for playing together and could track their success rates against
other platoons. Teams could add a motto too if they so wish. Perhaps
there could be rewards that each team can save up for by pooling their
credits to buy item packs that would benefit all members. The team would
receive a ranking based on their skill level and average N7 level. When
this rank reaches certain milestones they can buy the reward packs that
were mentioned earlier.
Even instituting just a few of these
suggestions would help the Mass Effect experience grow closer to the
pinnacle of what it could be. If given enough care and attention, I can
see the ME multiplayer rivaling that of Halo or Call of Duty.
Modifié par Diablopunk, 06 avril 2012 - 11:28 .
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