290 réponses à ce sujet

[AldarionnEB]

Do you feel there is enough of a spread of different classes to satisfy a variety of play styles?

Currently there is a good mix of classes. I am not opposed to more, but I feel you have all of your bases covered for different styles of play.

Do you feel that any one particular strategy or play style outshines the others?

I feel that several sets of play styles outshine the rest.

First of all, Biotics are extremely powerful, though less so against Banshees since their energy shield seems to block Biotic Explosions, but against other races they are extremely powerful. Even with the reduction in range, a team working together with 3-4 biotic players will usually do better than just about any other setup.

Infiltrators are easy to use and a very forgiving class, and there are a selection of weapons that make them a natural choice for newer players, and an extremely powerful choice for veterans. The Geth Plasma Shotgun on 360/Playstation 3, the Claymore on PC, and the Krysae/Valiant/Black Widow on any platform all give Infiltrators a massive toolbox of extremely powerful weapons made more powerful by Tactical Cloak. The issue is, if you nerf Tactical Cloak, Infiltrators lose the one thing making them competitive. A significant loss to Tactical Cloak's damage bonus would put my Infiltrator from the top of my play list to the bottom unless there was a general buff to their other abilities in order to bring them in line with the other classes and still make them interesting. Weapon damage is basically all they have right now, so take that away and similar classes with more refined abilities will outstrip them easily.

Tech classes seem to be on the other end of the spectrum. Tech Bursts can be powerful if used correctly, but not anywhere near the power level of Biotic Explosions. The only Tech classes I can play with any efficiency are Salarian Engineers (Disruptor Ammo + Energy Drain for tech bursts), Geth Engineers (Hunter Mode + GPS + Turret for crowd control and utility) and Turian Sentinels (Overload + Tech Armor for crowd control/survivability). Most of the other Sentinels lack the ability to contribute to the team in a meaningful way (Krogan/Vorcha are no-power melee monsters, which makes them very solo-oriented. Batarians have a slow cooldown stasis equivalent but otherwise focus on weapons and solo style play, and Humans are basically Asari Adepts with Tech Armor, so they don't fit as "tech classes".) while the other Engineers are lackluster compared to their other class variations (Male/Female Quarian Engineers are laughably useless compared to their Infiltrator counterparts, and Human Engineers fall short of the Geth/Salarian.)

Soldiers tend to also fall on the opposite end of the power scale, particularly because Infiltrators do their job better. The Turian Soldier and the Batarian Soldier do extremely well because Marksmanship makes a number of the current SMG's into bestial death dealers, and Ballistic Blades is basically an area stun-lock machine combined with a Geth Plasma Shotgun. Krogan on the other hand can get more damage than their Sentinel counterparts in melee, but neither build is particularly good on higher difficulty. Human Soldiers can do decent Sniper builds, but Infiltrators will ALWAYS be better, and Vorcha Soldiers are outshined in every way by Vorcha Sentinels because a choice between Carnage and Cluster Grenades is no choice at all.

One anomaly to point out is the Vanguard, which probably has the largest range of useful to non-useful races/builds. Human Vanguards are notorious for dominating the field on low difficulty, and getting destroyed on high difficulty, but once you take Half Blasts, learn some restraint, and shove them in a team specializing in Biotic Detonations, they are definitely top-tier. Phoenix Vanguards offer some of the most engaging and powerful close-range play that I've seen in a class so-far and completely outshine their Adept counterparts, and the rest of the races fall somewhere in the middle. Drell are pretty much the opposite of Phoenix (Adept easily outshines Vanguard) as are Asari, though not as much. Krogan Vanguards have the potential to be the most effective of the melee builds, or would if their Rage talent actually worked at all. Currently Geth Infiltrators steal that show.

Overall I would say that there needs to be a general re-balancing of the various combos (Tech/Biotic/Weapon Damage) so that equal results can be achieved by players wanting to use any of the three. There needs to be some re-balancing between Infiltrators/Soldiers, and between Tech/Biotics in general to bring all three of them in line, because currently groups working for Biotic Combos will always do better than those working for Tech Combos, and individuals playing Infiltrators will always outshine individuals playing any other class if they know what they are doing. I don't think a SIGNIFICANT change in any one area is necessary. Just a general re-balancing.

We try to keep in mind this is about team play with a well-rounded team, of course.

I think part of the issue is that unless you have a group to play with, everyone just takes whichever class will give them the highest personal DPS. There should be some impetus for a group of players to meet randomly in a lobby, and make a team that will work well together. Most people just don't tend to trust random people they meet on the internet though, and sometimes with good reason.

As an aside - since you mentioned team-play with a well-rounded group, I would like to bring up the question of the current lobby system and it's lack of integration with XBox Parties. Many games allow a party to queue together for a match, but ME3 has a clunkier system of integrating party members. Private lobbies make this somewhat easier, but if you don't have enough people to fill up a party you ultimately have to make the room public, or risk not having a replacement if a random person leaves the group. However, if the game is public and, say, a glitch happens that requires the Host to leave (IE an un-killable enemy), or a party member disconnects, he can re-join the group, but almost always a new player will be added in his spot within seconds.

Personally I think adding an in-game option for the host to make a game public or private on the fly would solve these issues and would not be hard to implement. If a party member loses their connection or the Host has to drop in order to re-start the wave (in the case of the above-mentioned glitch) the new host should get a message asking if they would like a random replacement, or if they want to change the party options from private to public. Something along those lines.

Anyway, sorry for the novel! I am really enjoying the game for the most part, and aside from the few imbalances and bugs that need fixing, things seem to be running relatively smoothly. Nice work, BioWare!

[Admiral DarkSpawn]

class:Asari Justicar/Adept Qurain Engineer/ Infiltrator Krogan Soldier

[Gashie]

I'm now fond of keeping all my classes at level 20 and making the different races within a class have different builds to complement a range of random teams. So pretty much all the classes get even playtime. Only problem is I want to experiment with some new builds but run out of respec cards.

[Fang92]

I like the Human Infiltrator and Engineer classes. Keep fire off me in two different ways, and also provide support in different ways.

Modifié par Fang92, 16 juin 2012 - 09:02 .

[Psycho Pisces]

I cycle through them all, but mostly I've been playing QFI with a krysae just for fun on bronze... anything higher than bronze I switch back to a Widow.  

I typically sit at the 2nd or 3rd rank and offer covering fire with that rocketsniper.   Keeps me amused, keeps people alive, an no ones yelled at me otherwise. 

When I do promote a class, I typically start playing that class exclusively for a bit.  (I promote after getting all those blasted character cards).  The last class I played was Engineer... Started w/ Gethingeer lvl1, GPS and GSMG looking for bronze... Tossed into gold and came in 3rd in damage.   Great stuff.  

If they fixed vanguard though, I'd probably play my kroguard the most. 

[Dokteur Kill]

I play every class, but not every sub-class. 

Adept: mostly one of the two asari classes.
Soldier: mainly Batarian (haven't gotten Vorcha yet), some Krogan and Turian.
Engineer: Geth and Salarian. Haven't gotten Quarian Male yet. Quarian Female and Human are fun to play on bronze after promoting, but "meh" on higher difficulties. 
Sentinel: A class I have a hard time getting to work on gold with the exception of the human (who is basically an asari adept with tech armour). I like the Krogan sentinel, but I have a hard time getting him to do enough damage on gold.
Vanguard: Mostly Krogan and Asari, rarely above silver. I know the human novaguard can be highly effective, but the "Aaahaaaaa!" shout gets so much on my ****** that I can't get myself to play it.
Infiltrator: Geth and Salarian. Human on lower difficulties. Might play around with human more now that I have the Valiant.

Derek Hollan wrote...

So, a quick couple of question out to everyone:
 
Do you feel there is enough of a spread of different classes to satisfy a variety of play styles?

Yes, but not on every difficulty. Some of the classes just don't dish out enough damage to be effective on gold. Or at least it's hard to get them to do enough damage without some luck with the store.

Do you feel that any one particular strategy or play style outshines the others?

Yes and no. What can really outshine the others on Bronze (*cough*vanguards*cough*) can be really tricky to play on gold. Biotics that can reliably set up explosions and infiltrators tend to be the way to go for gold, but I'd say that's not because they're too powerful, but rather because they're the main ones that are powerful enough.

On the one hand, you have the power-based classes, whose damage output is practically independent of what weapons they have available. The asari adept, drell adept, human sentinel, the combination of asari justicar and anyone with throw, and (in the right hands) the (human) vanguard. On the other hand, you have the infiltrator, human soldier and turian soldier, whose powers enhance weapons damage and give them a high damage output from even moderate-level weapons.

And then you have the rest of the classes. The ones that don't really have high enough damage potential from powers, and that don't have anything which really enhances weapon damage. These are the ones that need looking into.

I think the most important things you can do for balance are fixing some of the most niggling bugs, and improving the less powerful classes. I really don't think any of the classes are too powerful at the moment. For the people who think there are overpowered classes in the game, give them a higher difficulty to play on.

So, my list of issues: 
Bugs: krogan vanguard rage not working, asari justicar power damage evolution not working, SMG ultra-light materials not doing anything, ballistic blades not firing over cover.

classes:
The Krogan soldier and sentinel really need some love. Their resiliency doesn't really help that much since they get stunned fairly easily and don't have a dodge move. Some stun resistance should be a minimum. And Incinerate and Carnage don't dish out enough damage to make them useful on gold. I've basically stopped putting points into incinerate, and started using my krogan sentinel as a pure weapons class with no regard for cooldown. Which works, but I'd like to have some reason to go with other builds.

Quarian female engineer: again, incinerate. At the very least, the added damage against chilled targets should actually work. Targets that can be frozen aren't the biggest threat on higher level difficulties anyway.

Tech powers could use a longer window for setting up combos. It would make a lot of the tech classes more comparable with the biotic classes.

And do something to make Singularity useful.

[Snowblind119]

1. Male Quarian Infiltrator
2. Turian Soldier
3. Batarian Sentinel
4. Krogan Sentinel
5. Salarian Engineer

[McKnight23]

60% Adept (AJ and AA)
25% Engineer (HE, MQE, FQE, SE)
10% Vanguard (AV)
5% Other (Vorcha Sentinel, Novaguard, & occasional infiltrators)

[XCPTNL]

Asari Adept
Geth Engineer
Quarian Male Engineer
Salarian Infiltrator
Geth Infiltrator
Asari Vanguard

I used to play some others as well but I don't really like most of them very much compared to the others I play. I would prefer to play the Quarian Female Infiltrator as my Sniper Char instead of the Salarian if she had Energy Drain to strip shields instead of Stickies or Sabotage. Actually I'm really sad the Female Quarians don't have Energy Drain like Tali and the Salarians ended up with it for some strange reason.

[Constant Motion]

HOW MANY classES DO YOU PLAY:

Approximate usage as percentages - won't quite add up to 100 when you add the now-and-then classes, but as a general rule...

Soldiers: Batarian 35%
Adepts: Asari 35% / Cerberus 10%
Engineers: 10%, split between Human Male, Quarian Male & Female, and Salarian.
Infiltrators: Seldom, but occasionally Geth.
Vanguards: Seldom, but occasionally Krogan.
Sentinel: 10% split between Batarian and Turian.

This is mostly on silver.

I used to use Drell Adept 50% of the time, Asari Justicar maybe 20% of the time, Asari Vanguard 20% of the time, and Krogan Sentinel 10% of the time. Eventually, someone pointed out the Reave noise and while I was fine with it at first, I became more acutely aware of it as time wore on, and had to drop my beloved Drell. Even if it didn't bother me, it felt too much like going to the shops without any deodorant on. I know everyone can hear me, they know they can hear me, and it all felt very embarrassing. Alas. Now he's joined the N7 team in the sky - King Creole, we barely knew ye.

My brother, who sometimes borrows my account when he's back from uni for a few weeks, is the opposite. He generally plays bronze, and uses a lot of vanguards, soldiers and krogan. Plus the salarian infiltrator - loves the salarian infiltrator.



DO YOU FEEL THERE IS ENOUGH OF A SPREAD OF DIFFERENT classES TO SATISFY A VARIETY OF PLAY STYLES?

To an extent! But to take an example. I love engineers in concept. I love them in single player, I like the whole tech thing, I like the elemental powers... but I don't feel like they synergise that well with the rest of the battlefield. Bosses will be showered with biotic combos, so I know I'm just getting in the way of them. Soldiers, meanwhile, are better at taking out minor creatures than my human engineer will ever be, so I feel a bit like I'm getting in the way of them. And while I know it's about shaping the battlefield, and I know it's about decoys and combat drones and I really do enjoy the strategic aspect and I know individual score's effectively meaningless, I can't help but feel a little embarrassed every time I wind up at the bottom of the leader board. So many classes do so well on their own that the others feel like dead weight. So I guess I'd like to see teamwork and strategy better rewarded. A geth infiltrator, for example, is so efficient at demolishing the competition that the team never really needed my engineer's combat drone in the first place. It's only a minor quibble, though. We're basically good, I just think a few of the classes have got a lot more potential than they're currently capable of giving.



DO YOU FEEL THAT ANY ONE PARTICULAR STRATEGY OR PLAY STYLE OUTSHINES THE OTHERS?

Biotic explosions. Which is a bit rich, coming from an Asari Adept fan, but while I'm quite good with her, the only reason I use her so much is because I'd always, in all my classes, struggled at killing Brutes 'n' Banshees, and so I decided to build myself a bespoke Boss-slayer. Biotic explosions are so efficient and effective at crushing everything that stands in my wake that I've ended up centralising my gameplay around the Asari Adept - which is a shame! I'd rather be getting mileage out of the Asari Justicar and Drell Adept I used to love, but because they're not as good at biotic explosions they're not as viable. As soon as you're using your biotic powers on anything stronger than your average mook, it becomes less a question of "what does this power do" and more a question of "how hard can we explode it?" Lash is a step in the right direction - a biotic power that's effective against Rocket Troopers, Phantoms and Hunters whether I detonate it or not is exactly the kind of thing I've wanted, and it's why I use the Cerberus adept a fair bit. But I'm locked into the Asari Adept far more tightly than I'd like, and that's exclusively because biotic powers are so many orders of magnitude weaker when they're not exploding.

[WaffleCrab]

I play all of them, makes the game less boring, and more diverse.

[MikeyV]

Derek Hollan wrote...

So, a quick couple of question out to everyone:
 
Do you feel there is enough of a spread of different classes to satisfy a variety of play styles?

Do you feel that any one particular strategy or play style outshines the others?

We try to keep in mind this is about team play with a well-rounded team, of course.

Cheers!

I hope it's not too late to respond to this, but I do there is a good variety of classes,  but that there's room for improvement, especially within certain classes. Adepts and Soldiers have always had a fairly varied power loadout. Engineers tend to have Incinerate and a distraction power (Combat Drone/Turret/Decoy) while Sentinels
have an armor power (Tech/Blade Armor and while not necessarliy an armor power per se, Bloodlust serves a similar purpose). Infiltrators and Vanguards, however, ALL share a "class power", Tactical Cloak and Charge, respectively.

What would be great is if future DLCs changed things up a bit for the latter 4 mentioned classes. Engineers that focus on offense, forgoeing the distraction for the ability to set off Fire/Cryo/Tech explosions, Sentinels, Infiltrators, and Vanguards who have powers like the current Engineers' distraction powers, that it is, functionally similar, but distinct. Cloaks that don't give massive damage boosts, Charges that don't recharge shields.

I posted in a topic a few days ago with an idea for the Cloak: Total invisibility from enemies, and stun enemies that were focused on the player when they cloaked. An idea for the Charge could be something as simple a huge damage reduction boost.

Simple changes can fundamentally change the way a class is played. Two out of the 6 classes have embraced that idea, at least somewhat. Infiltrator and Vanguard are still stuck where they've always been, though.


But wait, even after all of that, I didn't forget about the original topic! I used to play as a Salarian Infiltrator almost exclusively, as it allowed me to be a larger asset to my team than I could be with any other class. I would wreck enemies, complete objectives, and revive teamates with great efficency. In the last couple weeks I've been trying my hand at some of the other classes I hadn't used much, and I've been having a blast. The Vorcha and Pheonix are a lot of fun, and some of the older classes that I finally unlocked just before Rebellion was released are quite interesting as well. We usually don't do as well, but if we're having a REALLY off day, I'll go back to my trusy Salarian

[Moronic Anger]

i play vanguard fairly regularly, it's fun smashing things but i hate nova guards, kroguard for life!

[VII Revenant]

I play mostly Vanguard and Infiltrator. I used to play a lot with the Geth Engineer, but now I've switched to Quarian Male. Sentinel's probably my next most played class after those though.

[xcrunr1647]

I mix it up...mostly TSe/TSo or KSe. My u/u/g go-to class though is undoubtedly my Kroguard. I just really enjoy charging in and getting/holding aggro so my team can hammer away at the more dangerous targets unmolested.

Although it really cracks me up when I see a phantom/hunter/<insert dangerous enemy here> sneaking up behind one of our my sniper teammates...then I kill them in two or three seconds--and am back on the other side of the map listening to "stop it! you're screwing up my aim and making my scope shake" before they even realize I just saved their hides.