268 réponses à ce sujet

[CmnDwnWrkn]

IAMREALITY wrote...

Apl_J wrote...

IAMREALITY wrote...

For the most part, BioWare has already created balance. Some are supposed to be stronger, some are supposed to be support. And the argument is faulty to begin with. Because we DONT see the strongest gun overwhelmingly used nor the strongest class. Until we do, there really isn't a problem.

So you don't believe Infiltrators dominate Gold? You don't believe an Infiltrator is simultaneously better at weapons than the soldier while still being the best class to complete objectives and revive with?

You're not getting it. They are SUPPOSED to be better. That is their role. It would only matter if the game was competitive; i.e. I always kill you cause I'm an infiltrator and you're not. But that's not what this multiplayer is. This isn't cod. Instead we have a co-op game where there is a team of 4, each with potentially different and unique traits and capabilities, played by people with different skill sets, where the goal is to have the whole be greater than the sum of its parts.

Some may play a role as damage dealers, others as support, some as tanks, some as a component of a tag team aimed at decimating with biotic explosions, and others as protectors etc. Not all roles require the same traits or capabilities. They're not supposed to. They're specialized. Infiltrators have that damage because it is their role to cause it. It makes sense. But what really is the point is that if this objection you have was such a problem, then you would see an overabundance of a character or weapon, and the reality is you just simply don't. Why? Because people enjoy the game in different ways. Players are as diverse as the options available to them. People have the role they enjoy playing and pick a character and weapon to suit it. Your concern in reality has no merit.

And tell me, if this was so overpowering, then why are the fastest runs done often with biotics?

The problem is, the classes really don't have these well-defined roles.  Almost every class is a "damage dealer" at this point, with the exception maybe of the Engineer.  That's more of a support class.  I would argue that it's inappropriate for an infiltrator to be a huge damage dealer.  That's really a class that should be more of a supporting, situational class than a heavy damage inflictor.

[Apl_Juice]

To expand on CmnDwnWrkn's post:

If, in fact, Infiltrators are meant to be crazy powerful damage dealers, then what are soldiers supposed to be? Damage too? So why are Infil's better at a Soldier's job while being able to do many other helpful things at the same time?

Its like being a jack of all trades, except you're the damn messiah of all trades.

Modifié par Apl_J, 01 juin 2012 - 07:19 .

[GodlessPaladin]

Apl_J wrote...

thanks, but I was more looking to get comments. More understanding on both sides is the only way to get BioWare to actually look at the arguments with any sort of serious deliberation.

This is exactly what I said.  It's hard to imagine how Bioware can sort out meaningful feedback from the community from all the shouting and trolling. 

CmnDwnWrkn wrote...
The problem is, the classes really don't
have these well-defined roles.

  Indeed, the Infiltrators are actually great support characters in addition to damage dealers.  Proximity Mine, Cryo Blast, Tactical Scan... and of course the utility functions of Cloak itself.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 01 juin 2012 - 07:26 .

[Major Durza]

The reason I oppose nerfs almost everywhere I see them is because I saw what happened to the Battlefield Series. Bad Company 2, and to a MUCH greater extent BF3.

If you think people demand nerfs here, you would stand in awe of what is the "Battlelog" forums. Nerf-calls for almost every aspect of the game exist there, and a good deal of them were taken seriously. I cannot think of a weapon that has not been nerfed at some point or another in the games development, I remember the game after release and it is COMPLETELY unrecognizable when compared to what it is now. I loved BF3 when it came out, and I hate it now. They dodn't fix bugs, they just "balanced" and made every gun equally useless.

Before their second patch, it was very common to see Infared scopes on weapons. no zoom, just IR signatures on enemies. Second patch, they nerfed it beyone usefulness. They poured muddy water into the scope, and now I have yet to see anyone use it since a week after the patch, once they figured out that DICE made that attachment from useful to utter garbage.

Most glaring example is the foregrip nerf(foregrip adds a 20% aimed accuracy penalty). Why? Because not enough people were using bipods with their carbine rifles! (mount a bipod for a 20 round clip, good idea?)

I do not want to see this happen to ME3 multiplayer. I do not wish to see another nerf like the Falcon. I want weapons to be useful, not novelties. I don't want to look at the Krysae and say, "Cool weapon, loads of fun. Not going to use it, its utterly useless".
Drastic nerfs are not good for the game. Nerfs should be very small. For instance, if the Krysae did not benefit from Tactical Cloak it would be balanced, yes? Isn't it tac cloak damage bonus what making the thing absurdly powerful?

[gethinych]

Beerfish wrote...

classes have to be balanced more than the weapons. I see a bigger disparity of people getting high scores playing certain classes rather than people using certain weapons. Often it is a class that lets you make use of a certain weapon and that combo can make things look unbalanced weapon wise when in fact the class is just as much to blame.

Exactly.  Some classes get passive AR or SMG bonuses.  Well whoop-di-doo.  Infiltrators get SR bonuses AND/or massive damage bonuses on any decent weapon in the game.

Great OP, by the way.  And the class synergies make it all even more complicated.  So I'm not sure what to suggest other than NERF ALL THE SWARMERS!!  Hate those things...

[GodlessPaladin]

gethinych wrote...

Great OP, by the way.  And the class synergies make it all even more complicated.  So I'm not sure what to suggest other than NERF ALL THE SWARMERS!!  Hate those things...

Just because the question of balance is complicated doesn't mean it can't be answered to some degree or other.  There have actually been some pretty sound suggestions for balance changes hidden throughout these forums that have been lost in the hysteria.

[Apl_Juice]

Major Durza wrote...

The reason I oppose nerfs almost everywhere I see them is because I saw what happened to the Battlefield Series. Bad Company 2, and to a MUCH greater extent BF3.

If you think people demand nerfs here, you would stand in awe of what is the "Battlelog" forums. Nerf-calls for almost every aspect of the game exist there, and a good deal of them were taken seriously. I cannot think of a weapon that has not been nerfed at some point or another in the games development, I remember the game after release and it is COMPLETELY unrecognizable when compared to what it is now. I loved BF3 when it came out, and I hate it now. They dodn't fix bugs, they just "balanced" and made every gun equally useless.

Before their second patch, it was very common to see Infared scopes on weapons. no zoom, just IR signatures on enemies. Second patch, they nerfed it beyone usefulness. They poured muddy water into the scope, and now I have yet to see anyone use it since a week after the patch, once they figured out that DICE made that attachment from useful to utter garbage.

Most glaring example is the foregrip nerf(foregrip adds a 20% aimed accuracy penalty). Why? Because not enough people were using bipods with their carbine rifles! (mount a bipod for a 20 round clip, good idea?)

I do not want to see this happen to ME3 multiplayer. I do not wish to see another nerf like the Falcon. I want weapons to be useful, not novelties. I don't want to look at the Krysae and say, "Cool weapon, loads of fun. Not going to use it, its utterly useless".
Drastic nerfs are not good for the game. Nerfs should be very small. For instance, if the Krysae did not benefit from Tactical Cloak it would be balanced, yes? Isn't it tac cloak damage bonus what making the thing absurdly powerful?

To answer your last question: yes, it seems the Sniper bonus is what pushes Krysae over the line.

But I have said thi, and I'll say it again: No one wants more Falcons. No one is getting what they want out of nerfs, not even the people that ask for them. There's too much whining, trolling, flaming, and plain ole' stupid here on BSN for BioWare to make any use of the few GOOD threads.

[Apl_Juice]

double post.

Modifié par Apl_J, 01 juin 2012 - 07:29 .

[Magicman10893]

Apl_J wrote...

kevchy wrote...

Magicman10893 wrote...

The reason I am opposed to nerfs (and by extension "balance") is because when Bioware nerfs something they nerf it into oblivion. The Falcon was cool, then they nerfed it so hard the only way to get any use out of it was to equip it with Disrupter/Cryo ammo. The nerf combined with the glitch that made it fire blanks made it almost completely obsolete.

The Quarian Infiltrator was awesome with her Sabotage, then the AI hacking portion of it got nerfed into being virtually useless. The backfire and bonus to tech damage was nice and people started going back to QI, but then they nerf that side of it to.

The recent patch turned the Kishok into a waste of space, granted that was more of a bug fix rather than an actual balance update, but you can still see the trend here.

And as a result of "balacing", we see the same damn class over and over again with the same damn weapons loadout with the same damn build.

It's already boring enough as it is.

But that's not what anyone asked for. Everything the usual pro-balance people asked for either was a slight buff (GodlessPaladin's Eagle thread comes to mind) or was ignored. As it is now, no one is getting what they asked for. 

Also, QI apperently did need a nerf. There was an oversight that allowed Sabatoge to stack. With 4 QIs, you could quickly deal tens of thousand points of damage. However, I do agree they did this in a way that hurts all the QIs.

The way I saw it was that the QI was overspecialized to a fault. Sabotage completely wrecked Geth because they could all be hacked, was okay against Cerberus because you could hack the Atlas or the Turrets, and was useless against Reapers because they don't have a synthetic enemy. That seemed balanced to me. Load up with 4 QI on random and you have a 1 in 3 chance to either be a complete wrecking ball or be a gimped Infiltrator (I say gimped because they effectively only have 2 powers that do anything).

Maybe there was an oversight, I am not sure, but their meddling basically made the Quarian pointless. I think a slight nerf to how many targets can be hacked at once was in order, but to the extent that they nerfed the QI was just uncalled for.

[GodlessPaladin]

neteng101 wrote...
[*]I like the diversity and variety in the game.  Too much balance to me leads to sameness and uniformity...

  This idea results from a misunderstanding of what balance does.  The opposite is actually true:  Balance causes differences to stand out and become more meaningful. 

Balance creates meaningful choices and promotes a variety of playstyles and encourages the use of all weapons, since they would each present their own unique tradeoffs and each maintain a useful role.  By contrast, imbalance means that you never see anyone using Eagles or Incisors. 

There is absolutely no reason that a gun cannot maintain a unique niche while still being comparably effective to other weapons.  By contrast, if weapons are unbalanced, guns often lose their niche due to being completely overshadowed by other options, removing meaningful choice.

I hate rock, paper, scissors type games.  A counter for everything.  Its far too one dimensional.

Rock paper scissors is far from the only way of introducing balance with meaningful tradeoffs between options to a game, and thinking of balancing as occurring purely in these terms does an injustice to the vast range of options available to designers.

Balance of a "crutch" type weapon just kills
the whole intent of the weapon, ie. to provide some sort of alternative
weapon for less skilled players.  Who is anyone of us here to judge
other players?  Just let them have fun in the game too, and use a weapon
that helps them if they feel they need to.

  There is no need for "crutch" weapons in a game with selectable difficulty.  As another poster said, difficulty levels do not exist so that you can decide how many credits you feel like earning in a match, they exist so that you can choose how difficult you want the game to be.  Why would you think that it was intended for you to choose the difficulty of the game in your gun loadout screen?

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 01 juin 2012 - 07:40 .

[Apl_Juice]

Heri wrote...

People don't want balance because the vast majority of online gamers these days are spoiled little children who think they deserve everything in the world and should put forth little (or preferably no) effort to obtain things.

It's so funny reading all the anti-nerf posts, because they all essentially boil down to "I like being overpowered and being able to kill things with no skill, leave my gun alone".

These are I'm sure the same people who spend all their time in FBWGG farm groups because their only purpose in playing this game is to amass as many credits as possible so they can have a leet manifest to show off.

It's the same phenomenon that's happened in WoW. I first started playing in 2005, and back then the best gear was only obtainable through endgame raiding. It required time and effort to get, and was a suitable reward considering what you had to go through. Fast forward to today, where a lot of really good gear is obtainable for little to no effort. Why did this happen? Because the massive influx of small children into the game (I'm guessing the CoD/BF crowd) resulted in whining and more whining and even more whining until Blizzard caved and made it stupidly easy to get geared because the kids didn't actually, you know, want to do WORK to obtain things.

This is the exact same thing going on here. All of the "me first" generation has been frothing at the mouth because now they can faceroll their way to victory even easier, so they can earn those precious creds. Never mind that the Krysae is stupidly overpowered and trivializes the game even on gold - they want their money dammit, and gameplay be damned.

It's a problem with our society in general - everyone wants instant gratification, nobody actually wants to work for anything any more (hence the housing crisis where idiots were buying houses they actually couldn't afford, because they didn't actually want to have to work and save their money). It's really quite disgusting.

I agree to a point, many people (on both sides) are just ignorant. However, I try not to use this in an argument, seeing as that's when it devolves into "Well I counter your point, I also want to add in this insult too".

It gets annoying to sift out the actual info from the bickering.

[neteng101]

Apl_J wrote...

If, in fact, Infiltrators are meant to be crazy powerful damage dealers, then what are soldiers supposed to be? Damage too? So why are Infil's better at a Soldier's job while being able to do many other helpful things at the same time?

I can answer this.

Soldiers are grunts, front line troops and yes, a bit more expendable.  You're talking the difference between army troopers and Navy SEALs...  infiltrators are elite shock troopers.  You can't make them perfectly equal...  that's like asking for the Cerberus trooper to be the same as the Centurion and Nemesis.  Or Geth troopers to be equal to hunters/pyros.

Does that mean there's no room to play a soldier?  Not at all, you're the grunt out there.  You may get killed more because you're drawing aggro from the enemy, but can you still put out some hurt on them.  You might have to work a bit more and settle for less score.  But a member of the team nonetheless...  and a class available for those who want a bigger challenge than just the difficulty levels in the game, by playing the role of the "underdog".

[OccamSansRazor]

There will always be a best, an optimal, or a cookie-cutter. It's the nature of the beast, the only way to get true absolute balance is to give everybody the exact same thing. We can all agree that would be boring, so we have to sacrifice a little balance for variety.

Nerf the best gun and the #2 becomes best. Nerf that gun and the next one on the chain becomes best/overused. Buff the worst gun and the 2nd worst is the new trash, the chain keeps going until it is buffed to overpowered and it needs to be knocked down.

It's a scenario that can't be won.

[gethinych]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

gethinych wrote...

Great OP, by the way.  And the class synergies make it all even more complicated.  So I'm not sure what to suggest other than NERF ALL THE SWARMERS!!  Hate those things...

Just because the question of balance is complicated doesn't mean it can't be answered to some degree or other.  There have actually been some pretty sound suggestions for balance changes hidden throughout these forums that have been lost in the hysteria.

Oh, for sure.  (Many of your own, for starters!  I lurk in many a thread, and you have a great philosophy when it comes to balance.  (I'm also with you on the 'on paper/in theory' thing...))  Too complicated for me, though!  (Apart from the swarmers: toadally srs about that.)

[GodlessPaladin]

OccamSansRazor wrote...

There will always be a best, an optimal, or a cookie-cutter. It's the nature of the beast, the only way to get true absolute balance is to give everybody the exact same thing. We can all agree that would be boring, so we have to sacrifice a little balance for variety.

Nerf the best gun and the #2 becomes best. Nerf that gun and the next one on the chain becomes best/overused. Buff the worst gun and the 2nd worst is the new trash, the chain keeps going until it is buffed to overpowered and it needs to be knocked down.

It's a scenario that can't be won.

This again?  Basically, the argument that "you can't make it perfect, so it's futile to try to improve it."  By that "reasoning," the scientific method should never have been implemented, because the scientific method never establishes absolute proof, just continually revises and improves theory.

Balance doesn't need to be perfect.  It just needs to be improved and refined to the best of a designer's ability.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 01 juin 2012 - 07:49 .

[Beerfish]

neteng101 wrote...

Apl_J wrote...

If, in fact, Infiltrators are meant to be crazy powerful damage dealers, then what are soldiers supposed to be? Damage too? So why are Infil's better at a Soldier's job while being able to do many other helpful things at the same time?

I can answer this.

Soldiers are grunts, front line troops and yes, a bit more expendable.  You're talking the difference between army troopers and Navy SEALs...  infiltrators are elite shock troopers.  You can't make them perfectly equal...  that's like asking for the Cerberus trooper to be the same as the Centurion and Nemesis.  Or Geth troopers to be equal to hunters/pyros.

Does that mean there's no room to play a soldier?  Not at all, you're the grunt out there.  You may get killed more because you're drawing aggro from the enemy, but can you still put out some hurt on them.  You might have to work a bit more and settle for less score.  But a member of the team nonetheless...  and a class available for those who want a bigger challenge than just the difficulty levels in the game, by playing the role of the "underdog".

I disagree because other classes and races make FAR better take damage grunts than soldiers.  And it is not a fun class to play when your sole role is meat shield.  Soldiers by their very nature should be big damage dealers but they are not.  Regardless of how you want to paint it when some classes are chosen a huge drastic amount more than others then there is a bit of a balance problem.

[Apl_Juice]

OccamSansRazor wrote...

There will always be a best, an optimal, or a cookie-cutter. It's the nature of the beast, the only way to get true absolute balance is to give everybody the exact same thing. We can all agree that would be boring, so we have to sacrifice a little balance for variety.

Nerf the best gun and the #2 becomes best. Nerf that gun and the next one on the chain becomes best/overused. Buff the worst gun and the 2nd worst is the new trash, the chain keeps going until it is buffed to overpowered and it needs to be knocked down.

It's a scenario that can't be won.

Agreed to a point. I've mentioned a baseline numerous times, but it isn't just a single line, its a zone. There will always be a best, but if every choice is close enough to compete, then the best isn't so absurdly far ahead.

Modifié par Apl_J, 01 juin 2012 - 07:48 .

[whateverman7]

I'll start by saying good job thread starter at having a civilized discussion about the balance issue...with that said: i think all this balance talk is bs....are there issues with the game? yes, but balance isnt one...reasons i think this balance talk is bs:

1. the game is already balanced....everything in the game(weapons, classes, characters) has pros/cons....yes, some things out perform others, but there is no perfect anything in the game, because everything has pros/cons...the key is figuring out those pros/cons and adjusting your play style to them...but many of community dont do that...they wanna play the same way no matter what they're using, and when whatever A doesnt perform/work like whatever B, they scream it's unbalanced, and something needs a buff/nerf

2. people using the same builds, weapons, characters isnt a sign of unbalance, it's a sign of the community being sheep....and the community has no one to blame but themselves....it seems all the constant threads and vids talking about what build works on gold, what weapons are deemed good/bad, etc., has caused the community to use those, and those alone....the only time they change is when there is a new concensus from the community about what's good/what works....so blame yourselves, not the game for you seeing the same things over and over in games...

3. all this balance talk is really a cover for supposed good players egos being threatened...i say that cause even though people say ego isnt a factor, the main people screaming for balance are the supposedly good players.....the ones that brag about how high a score they can get, how fast they can clear gold matches, how they solo, etc....now that players deemed not as good have a chance of doing the same feats, those feats dont look as impressive....also, those supposedly good players arent dominating games like they once were, which is another ego shot....now, i'm not doubting players, i'm just saying dont dance around what the real issue is....and that issue isnt balance

[GodlessPaladin]

Beerfish wrote...

neteng101 wrote...

Apl_J wrote...

If, in fact, Infiltrators are meant to be crazy powerful damage dealers, then what are soldiers supposed to be? Damage too? So why are Infil's better at a Soldier's job while being able to do many other helpful things at the same time?

I can answer this.

Soldiers are grunts, front line troops and yes, a bit more expendable.  You're talking the difference between army troopers and Navy SEALs...  infiltrators are elite shock troopers.  You can't make them perfectly equal...  that's like asking for the Cerberus trooper to be the same as the Centurion and Nemesis.  Or Geth troopers to be equal to hunters/pyros.

Does that mean there's no room to play a soldier?  Not at all, you're the grunt out there.  You may get killed more because you're drawing aggro from the enemy, but can you still put out some hurt on them.  You might have to work a bit more and settle for less score.  But a member of the team nonetheless...  and a class available for those who want a bigger challenge than just the difficulty levels in the game, by playing the role of the "underdog".

I disagree because other classes and races make FAR better take damage grunts than soldiers.  And it is not a fun class to play when your sole role is meat shield.  Soldiers by their very nature should be big damage dealers but they are not.  Regardless of how you want to paint it when some classes are chosen a huge drastic amount more than others then there is a bit of a balance problem.

A point of order:  Soldiers are chosen more than Infiltrators according to the most recent Bioware data-mining statistics I've read.  And the soldier classes actually are pretty good at dealing damage after the IMPROVEMENTS TO THEIR BALANCE.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 01 juin 2012 - 07:52 .

[neteng101]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

Balance creates meaningful choices and promotes a variety of playstyles and encourages the use of all weapons, since they would each present their own unique tradeoffs and each maintain a useful role.  By contrast, imbalance means that you never see anyone using Eagles or Incisors.

Really?  I've used the Incisor, and I've seen topics that the Eagle ain't so bad.  Choice is just that...  your talk of balance results in sameness, which is terribly boring.  Weapons should exist on a scale of not so good to great (pathetic and godly is when there is a real balance issue).

There is absolutely no reason that a gun cannot maintain a unique niche while still being comparably effective to other weapons.  By contrast, if weapons are unbalanced, guns often lose their niche due to being completely overshadowed by other options, removing meaningful choice.

You remove the choice of using a lesser weapon by doing exactly what you describe there.  I get the concept, one which I just do not agree with.  You need to have some weapons that excite people more when they receive them, all weapons are on the same plane and have their own niche uses, then there will be a lot less attraction to continue unlocking stuffs.

Rock paper scissors is far from the only way of introducing balance with meaningful tradeoffs between options to a game, and thinking of balancing as occurring purely in these terms does an injustice to the vast range of options available to designers.

Yes, it certainly does.  But by making everyone weapon have its niche and equal levels of relative effectiveness, you've just created this rock/paper/scissors type choice.  You're limiting the options to the designers and to us players, that sometimes want to use a weaker weapon.

There is no need for "crutch" weapons in a game with selectable difficulty.  As another poster said, difficulty levels do not exist so that you can decide how many credits you feel like earning in a match, they exist so that you can choose how difficult you want the game to be.  Why would you think that it was intended for you to choose the difficulty of the game in your gun loadout screen?

The difficulty level doesn't compensate that some people lack certain skills.  A bad sniper that can't aim well is better off with a weapon like the Krysae, regardless if they're playing on Bronze or Gold.  The weapon/crutch helps these folks.  To deny them that, is just a selfish act.  We can choose not to use this weapon if we don't like it.

No one should try to dictate how others play the game.  Using balance as an excuse for that is exactly one of the reasons people seem so anti-nerf in return.

[Mevanna]

GodlessPaladin wrote...
There have actually been some pretty sound suggestions for balance changes hidden throughout these forums that have been lost in the hysteria.

Yes, sadly many... sometimes I wish they could make separate forums. You know, one for people to whine and flame, and one for constructive feedback and educated discussions

[GodlessPaladin]

neteng101 wrote...

GodlessPaladin wrote...

Balance creates meaningful choices and promotes a variety of playstyles and encourages the use of all weapons, since they would each present their own unique tradeoffs and each maintain a useful role.  By contrast, imbalance means that you never see anyone using Eagles or Incisors.

your talk of balance results in sameness, which is terribly boring.

In other words, you just ignored everything I said outright and repeated your original conclusion.  Since it's the same thing I responded to originally, here's the same response again.

Your argument creates a false dilemma.  The idea you're promoting results from a misunderstanding of what balance does.  The opposite is actually true:  Differences exist independently of balance.  Balance causes differences to stand out and become more meaningful. 

Balance creates meaningful choices and promotes a variety of playstyles and encourages the use of all weapons, since they would each present their own unique tradeoffs and each maintain a useful role.  By contrast,
imbalance means that you never see anyone using Eagles or Incisors. 

There is absolutely no reason that a gun cannot maintain a unique niche while still being comparably effective to other weapons.  By contrast, if weapons are unbalanced, guns often lose their niche due to being completely overshadowed by other options, removing meaningful choice.

There is absolutely nothing about balance that causes sameness in any respect other than *incentive to use a choice.*  And if the incentive to use choices are all on a comparable footing, differences become more meaningful and variety is encouraged and rewarded rather than reduced.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 01 juin 2012 - 08:01 .

[Apl_Juice]

GodlessPaladin wrote...
As another poster said, difficulty levels do not exist so that you can decide how many credits you feel like earning in a match, they exist so that you can choose how difficult you want the game to be.

This is sort of a tangent but I really love this, as it leads into another problem I have with the addictive nature of the game. People are playing games just to use the store, not to play the game. The fact that this makes everyone even more obessed with efficiency sort of leads back into this argument, though!