23 réponses à ce sujet

[LuckyBullet95]

So, with next generation of Mass Effect officially in development as of March this year and my major tenure of ME3 firmly behind me, I thought I'd look towards Mass Effect: Next (as I will be calling it from here on out).

The Basics

First of all, I have to say that there is in fact almost no changes required to the core gameplay of ME:Next from ME3. The reason Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer was so successful was because the gameplay, underneath all the bugs and nuances was fantastic. It offered enough diversity to remain fresh for over a year and half for most of the original players (this was in thanks to the impeccable timing of DLCs) and also did a great job offering a range of different gameplay option.

The melee of ME3 is the best of any MP game in existence (in my opinion), you could argue that some games that are dedicated to melee (such as Condemned) quite possibly did a better job but that was obviously going to be the case. Mass Effect also offered great synergy through the use of biotic and tech combos and, whether or not the mechanics of RHA, RC and other things were intended or not these helped in allowing players to either play defensively and camp, or play offensively and spawn rush. The gunplay itself was also great, though did suffer from an incredible amount of balancing issues with each new DLC bringing a power creep which, whilst not exactly welcoming did manage to keep the metagame fresh.

The game was also very accomodating for a range of overall team playstyles allowing players to camp together, attack aggressively as lone wolves, become a roaming death squad, speedrun every map or even roll solo and, unlike other Horde-Based PvE there was a clear cut feeling of improvement. I remember going from being scared of ATLASes in the demo, to running Gold frequently during the first month (mostly camping and, yes, I was a FBWGG farming scrub before Team AreleX), to playing highly aggressively and speedrunning and eventually became more than capable of carrying most games and solo (though I only actually soloed Plat once for the Lone Wolf banner because I don't really enjoy it).

Horde Mode

As noted in the basics, BioWare did a great job of nailing down every key aspect of gameplay, so I would be content with BioWare just copy and pasting the code from Mass Effect 3 to Mass Effect Next. That's not to say that's all that could be done. There are some glaring issues, such as bugs (most obvious of which being the Missile Glitch) and bad enemy design (overreliance on stunlock to make Geth a threat) and BioWare would obviously need to change up the enemies, maps and weapons (ME:Next will be set 30 years after ME3 so it's fair to say that at least the common/uncommon weapons would be out of commision by the time ME:Next takes place), but the core gameplay is there for them to modify, and it's not like no other game has ever recycled gameplay *cough*every multiplayer game ever*cough*. Oh yeah and give us 6 or 8 player teams,

Player vs. Player

One of the most sensitive issues in Mass Effect Multiplayer is the integration of PvP in Mass Effect. I for one would hate to see a traditional, mainstream PvP implementation for Mass Effect but I do believe that, in a limited capacity Mass Effect could be made to work as a PvP using the same style of MP used by Left 4 Dead, Natural Selection and the Alien games. That is: One team plays as bad guys (in this case let's just go with the Geth for ease of explanation), whilst one team plays as the good guys (in this case council and terminus races). The first team pretty much know that they don't stand a chance, they will usually die quickly and be respawned as a different unit, however the second team could not respawn (though they could revive one another). The round would end when everyone on Team B is killed. The next round the roles would be reversed and it was Team A's turn to be the overpowered good guys and Team B's turn to throw themselves at them. Highest score at the end would win. A very fun version of PvP with a lot less emphasis on competition and more emphasis on generally screwing around. It could work, I mean everyone had reservations about ME3's PvE but look how successful that turned out to be.

Co-op Mode

I'm not saying integrate co-op into the main campaign, it could work but then again, it would only be three player and would probably be a cakewalk judging by how easy ME3 Insanity is once you've played Gold for 3 weeks. I'm saying that (and again I'm taking inspiration from L4D) BioWare could implement a 4 to 8 player co-operative story-based mode chronically the events of Mass Effect that are too short/minor to be made into a standalone title. The events of the First Contact War or the Morning War are both well documented throughout the original trilogy but that doesn't mean we couldn't re-live them. In my mind there would be between a half-dozen and ten stories, each,relatively shorter (none lasting any longer than the shortest L4D chapters) each being told from the perspective of one race.

The Turians would be playable during the First Contact War, the Quarians during the Morning War (I imagine it would be similar to Halo:Reach's endgame levels), the Krogan during the Rachni Wars, the Salarians during the Krogan Rebellions etc. Heck you could even put in a chapter where you play as the Protheans during the last days of their cycle when they fight to get Javik into cryogenic stasis, it's not exactly common practise to make standalone sci-fi titles that do not concern humans, and I doubt BioWare would want to create one so it's not exactly an event that is going to be further explored given the disconnection of ME:Next from the previous trilogy's Reaper War arc. It would be an interesting way of offering 6-8 hours of co-operative gameplay that actually matters as far as lore is concerned.

Miscellaneous Changes

Outside of new game modes and the obvious implementation of different enemies, maps, classes and possibly objectives, there are a few notable changes that could be made to the general multiplayer experience:

1) Option to turn off Aim Assist. For the love of God, aim assist in ME3 is horrendous, it can help in close quarters yes, it's why quick scoping is possible but if you are more than a few feet away from an enemy you are more like to snap to a Swarmer than a Marauder. An option to turn of Aim Assist isn't difficult, such code exists in every video game title ever made, why it wasn't in ME3 astounds me.
2) Offline Mode. I don't think I need expand on this. Offline mode is great for system link/local/solo play and offers the opportunity for anyone you recommend to buy the game to try out MP,
3) More customisation. I never actually understood why the overall customisation of MP characters is not up to par with Shepard. I'm sure the alien races had something to do with it (a Salarian can't exactly why the human Death Mask) but they have had to create turian, asari, salarian, quarian, krogan and batarian armours before for enemies, surely in the next installment they could modify these to be customisable on such characters with relative ease. Just saying that a little more appearance customisation can go a long way, even if face customisation isn't included. I can't stand the Batarian armour, very few colour schemes work for them.
4) Dedicated servers. This is an unlikely occurence but, in ME3, every important process is done locally on the host processor and then fed back to the server for validation and then to the clients. Lag can prove to be a major issue in this game and has done. Disconnects, lag spikes, freezing and most notably Charge-related glitches are not only common but sometimes gamebreaking (Vanguard glitch) or can screw the player over (Magnet sync-kills)  Server side processing could, whilst not solving such issues, at least bandaid them. That being said, EA is pretty hung up on it's longer lasting franchises, such as Battlefield 4 to concern themselves with what isn't actually a broken multiplayer. It's possible, but I wouldn't put it past EA to not #, and even if it does happen you can't really place any stock into servers given how badly some (dedicated) servers perform (Gears of War: Judgment springs to mind here).
5) An (overcomplicated) idea to better use an RNG based system.

Conclusion

So, those are the thoughts that have been buzzing around in my head since the middle of last year. You can probably tell that I am very bored right now with little else to do. Anyways, if anyone reads this far here's an 8 minute video where one British guy chronicles the innerworkings of a grenade before blowing stuff up (including a building filled with explosive barrels) whilst another British guy films it in slow motion.

Have a nice day.

Modifié par LuckyBullet95, 08 novembre 2013 - 10:18 .

[IllusiveManJr]

I had a dream ME3 had single player co-OP recently. Was disappointed upon waking up.

[Beerfish]

1) Co-op mode much like we have now except with a far more robust matching system that can take into account real world geography and have more of a boolean approach being able to have everything but, ANDs, ORs.

2) A PVP mode (which I would probably not play too much if at all.) It would have to be a totally separate menu choice. I think this is unlikely however as it brings a whole new list of problems into the game and on forums.

3) Space battle mode. Multiplayer with space ships, same 4 person squads but instead of choosing races and classes you chose ship types and custom make them much like you have gear and consumables for characters and weapons.

[Salarian Jesus]

5 starred for the Slow Mo Guys. Will read the rest later.

Modifié par kaxas92, 08 novembre 2013 - 05:07 .

[DisturbedPsic0]

No mention of the RNG store? Keep the packs the way they are, but all the ability so a rare weapon costs X amount to buy straight up (and the same for common/uncommon/ultra rare). Allow players to buy the consumables they want. I hate wanting to play a shotgun character and not having any shotgun amps. I have friends who have 255 Cryo Rounds IV and no Incendiary III or IV and they keep getting Cryo Round IV (even though when the game resets they go back to 255, essentially wasting that pack). That's the kind of stuff that needs to (and I'm betting will) get ironed our for the next game.

Modifié par DisturbedPsic0, 08 novembre 2013 - 05:47 .

[LuckyBullet95]

DisturbedPsic0 wrote...

No mention of the RNG store? Keep the packs the way they are, and make it so a rare weapon costs X amount to buy straight up (and the same for common/uncommon/ultra rare). Allow players to buy the consumables they want. I hate wanting to play a shotgun character and not having any shotgun amps. I have friends who have 255 Cryo Rounds IV and no Incendiary III or IV and they keep getting Cryo Round IV (even though when the game resets they go back to 255, essentially wasting that pack). That's the kind of stuff that needs to (and I'm betting will) get ironed our for the next game.

The RNG store exists for a reason, microtransactions are the reason DLC, as annoying as the store is it's a neccessity unless you want to spend £8 every time a new DLC would be (which would divide an already average sized playerbase even more). Trading and selling of consumables should be an options yes, I know I could easily give some Disruptor or Cryo away to a friend for 5 SMG IIIs. However the idea of being able to (accurately) by your way to Level X weapons is a little discerning. If microtransactors actually had immediate access to the Krysae X upon release it would be "unfair" (speech marks because of it being co-op) and I'm not a fan of rewarded bad players just because they have money to waste. Maybe allowing a player to get a Rank I weapon outside of the RNG could work. There's only about 25% difference in performance up to X so it gives you an accurate feel for the weapon. Maybe they could open up an actual store in-game for players with maxed rares who could buy single weapons for something like 250k creds but giving guaranteed top-band weaponry to new players with money isn't going  to create a playerbase as skilled as ME3s.

A player can, and many have come to rely on certain weapons/kits (Acolyte, TGI Harrier) to succeed at Gold/Plat and it can make the game stale for those players. Back when I was farming FBWGG I almost never went away from Melee GI, BW SI and Claymore Soldier and it showed, I stagnated until the speedrun videos came up and I decided to play more aggressively and gained confidence in a great variety of kits and everything escalated from there.

[Wizard of Ox]

The absence of grammatical and syntactic errors is the only true hurdle I see.

[Nitrocuban]

tl;dr
and NO PvP pls

[DisturbedPsic0]

LuckyBullet95 wrote...

DisturbedPsic0 wrote...

No mention of the RNG store? Keep the packs the way they are, and make it so a rare weapon costs X amount to buy straight up (and the same for common/uncommon/ultra rare). Allow players to buy the consumables they want. I hate wanting to play a shotgun character and not having any shotgun amps. I have friends who have 255 Cryo Rounds IV and no Incendiary III or IV and they keep getting Cryo Round IV (even though when the game resets they go back to 255, essentially wasting that pack). That's the kind of stuff that needs to (and I'm betting will) get ironed our for the next game.

The RNG store exists for a reason, microtransactions are the reason DLC, as annoying as the store is it's a neccessity unless you want to spend £8 every time a new DLC would be (which would divide an already average sized playerbase even more). Trading and selling of consumables should be an options yes, I know I could easily give some Disruptor or Cryo away to a friend for 5 SMG IIIs. However the idea of being able to (accurately) by your way to Level X weapons is a little discerning. If microtransactors actually had immediate access to the Krysae X upon release it would be "unfair" (speech marks because of it being co-op) and I'm not a fan of rewarded bad players just because they have money to waste. Maybe allowing a player to get a Rank I weapon outside of the RNG could work. There's only about 25% difference in performance up to X so it gives you an accurate feel for the weapon. Maybe they could open up an actual store in-game for players with maxed rares who could buy single weapons for something like 250k creds but giving guaranteed top-band weaponry to new players with money isn't going  to create a playerbase as skilled as ME3s.

A player can, and many have come to rely on certain weapons/kits (Acolyte, TGI Harrier) to succeed at Gold/Plat and it can make the game stale for those players. Back when I was farming FBWGG I almost never went away from Melee GI, BW SI and Claymore Soldier and it showed, I stagnated until the speedrun videos came up and I decided to play more aggressively and gained confidence in a great variety of kits and everything escalated from there.

I know it exsits for a reason, and the reason is bad. I bet people will spend money if they know what they're going to get, as opposed to a crap shoot.

Like I said, don't remove the RNG aspects as it exists now, but add the ability to buy what you want for a higher price. People like me, who have logged 600 hours in this game and still aren't close to maxing their manifest is ridiculous. People who have max Cryo IV ammo and keep getting it is ridiculous. People who love shotguns, but can't get shotgun amps is ridiculous. Why should they have to play with SMG's with Cryo ammo if they don't want to? Because people kick them for using lower level amps and ammo since it's all they have and they find those classes and guns fun.

Conversely, maybe let players level up guns by using them. Let them unlock ultra rares by doing challenges with the other guns in that category. Complete 5 shotgun challenges to unlock the Wraith. Complete the Wraith challenge to unlock the Venom (or something along those lines). I know a ton of players who quit the game because they couldn't level up guns because of the RNG. Players play games to have fun, and not being rewarded, or not seeing actual progress to what you want is frustrating and makes players quit. I unlocked the Saber the week the game came out, it was my first ultra rare. I've played nothing but Gold and Platinum for the past year and I still only have it at level II.

I don't get how you can fairly implement a trading system unless there's no limits. Meaning SMG Amp I for AP IV is ok. I don't see how you balance it otherwise unless the trade is the same level for the same type of equipment. Meaning level III weapon amps can only be traded for level III weapon amps, and level IV ammo can only be traded for level IV ammo.

LuckyBullet95 wrote...
If microtransactors actually had immediate access to the Krysae X upon
release it would be "unfair" (speech marks because of it being
co-op) and I'm not a fan of rewarded bad players just because they have
money to waste.

To respond to this in particular: I'm not a fan of not rewarding people with money at the expense of punishing those playing the game. News flash: people with money get what they want with less effort. It's the way of the world. I don't care if the people I play with have high level weapons. Why would I? It's a coop game.

Modifié par DisturbedPsic0, 08 novembre 2013 - 06:37 .

[Cyonan]

I would rather not have PvP of any sort, personally. The balance of what the players have will just mess it up too much and that's not what Mass Effect is supposed to be about anyway.

I wouldn't mind seeing a revamp to the progression system of the manifest either. It can still be a lengthy grind and RNG loot is something that's been in many RPGs, and as somebody who has played WoW for a long time I know all about RNG loot which enjoys trolling you, However, the card pool has gotten so large now that a new player starting out can end up having a very difficult time getting that one weapon or character that they want.

I'd feel like that would affect characters more than weapons, as we all wanted to play as our favourite species from the Mass Effect universe.

[Cirvante]

Cyonan wrote...

I would rather not have PvP of any sort, personally. The balance of what the players have will just mess it up too much and that's not what Mass Effect is supposed to be about anyway.

I wouldn't mind seeing a revamp to the progression system of the manifest either. It can still be a lengthy grind and RNG loot is something that's been in many RPGs, and as somebody who has played WoW for a long time I know all about RNG loot which enjoys trolling you, However, the card pool has gotten so large now that a new player starting out can end up having a very difficult time getting that one weapon or character that they want.

I'd feel like that would affect characters more than weapons, as we all wanted to play as our favourite species from the Mass Effect universe.

I agree with the first part. PVP balancing will inevitably mess up the powers and weapons for PVE. The last game where I remember that happening was Defiance. Their PVP quickly turned into a bunny-hopping shotgun/detonator gankfest. And a lot of their weapons were nerfed into uselessness for PVE as a result.

Also, don't enable jumping EVER! People WILL start bunny-hopping and that's annoying as hell.

Regarding the store system, there have been some really good ideas. For once, it could be tied to challenges, that would require you to use a certain weapon/kit for a while before a stronger weapon/kit of the same type gets unlocked. Another idea was that you could freely choose which weapons and equipment/consumables to buy, with the first weapon upgrade being quite affordable and stronger upgrades getting progressively more expensive. 

It's a terrible concept when players like prostheticlimbs have 22 UR upgrades left and still no Lancer (except for rubbing it in her face - sup climbs? ).

[LuckyBullet95]

@disturbedpsic0 Actually the reason is fine, it's a common reason for having an RNG-based store and the overall procedure has never failed. It's not be an ideal solution but when you can't risk paid DLC dividing a small playerbase it's the next best thing. If you delete every bit of DLC you own and search for a game you will not find ANYONE. That is not a good thing, granted that is mostly because the DLC is free and there would be more people who hadn't paid for it had it not been, but it's still a notable issue. Our playerbase is too small for paid DLC to be causing compatibility issues and therefore separating the community.

On people spending money if they know what they are getting: The game was supported by microtransactions throughout it's active life and there was never an issue of finance, so it's not as if people aren't paying real money for RNG, a few weeks a go there was a guy who spend 300 USD nad got... quite a bit actually, I can't be bothered to find the thread but it shouldn't be too hard if anyone's interested. I'm not saying make it so that there is nothing you can buy for a price, but just limit. The difference between Gun I and Gun X is generally not all that much. The only guns that see improvements on a large scale tend to be beam weapons (anything with infinite ammo) and a select few other weapons (Typhoon now that it has fixed recoil, Harrier/Talon/Single Shot weapons due to the higher spare ammo capacity) and even the most of those guns are Plat Viable at I (though you might be hugging the ammo crates or requiring a secondary weapon in some cases).

As for rich people getting access to everything early, that is happening in this very game. If you have enough money to spare you can max your manifest without so much as pressing the RT button. What I'm talking about is giving said people instant access to those weapons at X, without really even supporting the community. If you can just got and spending 1,000,000 credits on 10 Harrier upgrades, then could do that, pay for said credits and then never look back. You could then throw it on your TGI and never even so much as need to pick up a different gun, use a different kit, or even improve at the game. The reason no game has ever given players the best equipment at the start of the game is because it removes any challenge at that level and so the gradual increase in skill isn't present. It's like Shepard having a Venom (bearing in mind how powerful it is in SP) and every power maxed during the tutorial, except the end-game of MP is so much tougher.

As for a trading system, I don't care, if you wanted them I'd gladly hand over 100 Cryo IV... My friend Slim retired and sold his X-Box, over 100+ (usually 200+) of everything was just... gone. He had no need for 255 Shotgun Rail Amp IIIs. But he couldn't give them away to anyone.

@Cyonan

I get that, I wouldn't be bothered if PvP was never implemented, especially if both sides had access to the same powers. L4D's style basically would mean that one team would just play as the environment but with a smarter (non-AI) controller. It would be incredibly unbalanced, but it's kind of meant ot be. That being said powers such as Stasis, Lash and grenades would be fair too unfair even in that situation as would elemental/biotic combos. Just an idea.

@Cirvante

Again, I don't think it's a good idea offering the most powerful version of a gun as a guaranteed purchase for X amount of credits to players who have just unboxed Mass Effect 3 (possibly their first ever). Players can told get hooked on using a weapon and form an overreliance on it. Back in the early days of ME3, I was still an all-round bad gamer and far too often I found I was using some of the more potent kits and loadouts and as I said, I stagnated. If I had the Krysae X at that time (I don't know how many people remain on BSN that know of how disgusting it used to be), I'd have most certainly formed an overreliance on it, just like I had the Claymore, GPS and Black Widow. It wasn't until the early speedrun videos from zHHk's crew that I decided I wanted to play aggressively, and that was a bit of a wake-up call. I don't think I would have made it past that hurdle without Team AreleX picking up any of my slack but, with Bechter's help I managed to get better at the game, and I am now more than capable of carrying no matter the loadout (within reason, I wouldn't even bother carrying with a Predator wielding VolMer).

I don't know, maybe I'm just being a little overly cautious because of my own experience. It doesn't help that I also saw a significant dip in my skill-level during times of missile-heavy speedruns due to an overreliance on nuking 5,8 and 9. Maybe newer players deserve a little more credit but it is hard to argue with how many TGI Harriers or Reegar AIU are running around Gold and Plat (And usually getting butchered)..

[DisturbedPsic0]

LuckyBullet95 wrote...

@disturbedpsic0 Actually the reason is fine, it's a common reason for having an RNG-based store and the overall procedure has never failed. It's not be an ideal solution but when you can't risk paid DLC dividing a small playerbase it's the next best thing. If you delete every bit of DLC you own and search for a game you will not find ANYONE. That is not a good thing, granted that is mostly because the DLC is free and there would be more people who hadn't paid for it had it not been, but it's still a notable issue. Our playerbase is too small for paid DLC to be causing compatibility issues and therefore separating the community.

On people spending money if they know what they are getting: The game was supported by microtransactions throughout it's active life and there was never an issue of finance, so it's not as if people aren't paying real money for RNG, a few weeks a go there was a guy who spend 300 USD nad got... quite a bit actually, I can't be bothered to find the thread but it shouldn't be too hard if anyone's interested. I'm not saying make it so that there is nothing you can buy for a price, but just limit. The difference between Gun I and Gun X is generally not all that much. The only guns that see improvements on a large scale tend to be beam weapons (anything with infinite ammo) and a select few other weapons (Typhoon now that it has fixed recoil, Harrier/Talon/Single Shot weapons due to the higher spare ammo capacity) and even the most of those guns are Plat Viable at I (though you might be hugging the ammo crates or requiring a secondary weapon in some cases).

As for rich people getting access to everything early, that is happening in this very game. If you have enough money to spare you can max your manifest without so much as pressing the RT button. What I'm talking about is giving said people instant access to those weapons at X, without really even supporting the community. If you can just got and spending 1,000,000 credits on 10 Harrier upgrades, then could do that, pay for said credits and then never look back. You could then throw it on your TGI and never even so much as need to pick up a different gun, use a different kit, or even improve at the game. The reason no game has ever given players the best equipment at the start of the game is because it removes any challenge at that level and so the gradual increase in skill isn't present. It's like Shepard having a Venom (bearing in mind how powerful it is in SP) and every power maxed during the tutorial, except the end-game of MP is so much tougher.

As for a trading system, I don't care, if you wanted them I'd gladly hand over 100 Cryo IV... My friend Slim retired and sold his X-Box, over 100+ (usually 200+) of everything was just... gone. He had no need for 255 Shotgun Rail Amp IIIs. But he couldn't give them away to anyone.

I said a lot more than just upgrading weapons, and I gave several different scenarios to do it. Not sure why you're only focusing on the microtransactions. Let me put it this way: I know the thread you're talking about with the guy who spent a ton of money on packs. That's one guy and $300. If people knew they could spend 10-20 bucks and get the Harrier X, I guarantee more than 30 people would do it. They'd make a lot more money. So if money is the issue I think there's a chance for it to be even more profitable.

Secondly, if someone only wants to play TGI Harrier, so what? They paid for the game, they can play it how they want. Not everybody gets collectables or goes for achievements either. Not everyone enjoys everything the game has to offer. Punishing the rest of us to make them see more of the game is a strange argument if that's the one you're making.

There needs to be some kind of visual progression towards what you want to get, whether that's letting them buy upgrades (make them expensive, I don't care) or getting upgrades through challenges. Players need to see they're making progress, or have the ability to progress in the areas they want or they leave. If they leave, there are no microtransactions taking place, which isn't going to help.

Modifié par DisturbedPsic0, 08 novembre 2013 - 08:34 .

[Jaded4Chaos]

I don't have much to add other than I'd like to be able to join people. I had loads of fun playing with Tchocky but then all of sudden we could never connect. Especially if he was already in another lobby. None of my IRL friends play this game.

RNG is another. I'll just say it puts off a lot of casual players. I still have a Talon III after a year and half.

[jamdjedi]

you can't have PvP in a PVE/Coop game.. the Best PvP games-Eve, Shadowbane, DaOC were BASED around PVP so they always balanced PVE by balancing PvP first then working their way backward.. COH was a GREAT PvE game. as soon as PvP was added.. every class was affected because of how they could be used in PvP.. mind you CoH was already out for well over a year when PvP was added...that was the beginning of the end for that great, great game..

I'd LOVE PvP but ME4 would have start out with PvP powers/abilities designed around PvP in order for that to work, otherwise it wouldn't

[Supreme Leech]

Too long, didn't read. Bio Wear/EA doesn't take suggestions or recommendations from fans. They make the games, they decide how they want to make them. You may as well have kept your ideas for yourself. Stop trying to desperately force your ideas on a multibillion dollar company.

[HeroicMass]

XFG-65 wrote...

Too long, didn't read. Bio Wear/EA doesn't take suggestions or recommendations from fans. They make the games, they decide how they want to make them. You may as well have kept your ideas for yourself. Stop trying to desperately force your ideas on a multibillion dollar company.

You definitely weren't around for the "Balance all things" group when the game first came out.  Many of the suggestions that were fleshed out in that group ended up coming about in balance changes.  For what it is worth, Bioware does listen to their fans and act upon responses to their product.  It is one of their best qualities in my opinion.

[BullWinkl3]

I also agree with a lot of what has been said. I wouldn't like to see any P vs P, the coop play style is what has made this game so great. I wouldnt want them to mess with that. A change to the RNG system would need to also be done, its way too difficult to get the weapons and weapon mods I want. whether its a player trading system or including the ability to buy specific items, a change here is definately needed...

[LuckyBullet95]

@Disturbedpisc

The same reason why no one has mentioned 80% of the OP, the replies would be too long. I'm focussing on the microtransactions because the issue with the store is that it is far to RNG based but it needs to be RNG based for microtransactions to be profitable. If you want a more in-depth response:

Buying Weapons Freely

Whilst, yes it would still support Mass Effect: Next financially, I still have concerns about people not quite developping their skills further, which isn't a bad thing by all means but the feeling of accomplishment of completing Silver, Gold and soloing for the first time is a great thing, one that might not happen. Judging by the overall skill exhibited by most players using the more powerful kits on Platinum far too commonly I doubt any of them could solo Gold, which again isn't a bad thing but there is a certain sense of accomplishment to the feat as I'm sure you felt for first completing a Gold team game.

Also there's the additional sense of progress and accomplishment you get from maxing your manifest slowly over time and in the act of getting but a few URs (and even Rares) a month managed to drag out the freshness of the game. I got bored quicker after the Reckoning DLC then I did after the Retaliation DLC and whilst Retaliation did offer more content (including a new enemy archtype) and it was just generally older probably played a part in that, it was also due to the fact that I managed to get all the URs of Reckoning fairly quickly, and that was with the introduction of the promo weapons to UR pool and so I used them all quite heavily over a shorter amount of time and they became just another weapon rather than the shiny new toy. So RNG based buying does also offer a slow introduction to the weapons which I believe increases the overall freshness of the game and sustains set freshness of a greater amount of time.

Upgrading Weapons based on usage

Commonly used in most PvP environment and a real option for use in Mass Effect (this is partly why I didn't mention it) though it would detract in part from microtransactions it would offer a more linear way of gaining access to weapons that wouldn't be as straight to the point as just buying them. It would also encourage use of the majority of less popular weapons in public games (when's the last time you saw a PUG used the Indra, which is actually a great gun) and would hopefully detract a little from the overly commonly used meta weapons since some people would use the other guns and realise that the Harrier, Reegar, Black Widow, Acolyte and Hurricane are not the only weapons that can kill enemies.

I don't see any direct issues with the system, at least I would if the playerbase was big enough to support the use of paid DLC, maybe it will be for ME: Next I know there's been quite a lot of playerbase surges since the original release of the game when it just those who had played ME1 and ME2. So it could be possible.

My (Overcomplicated) Solution

Just thinking ahead here as to what could be a decent solution. You could always make it such that N7 rating did not directly relate to promotional count and, instead acting as a basic level system. And then make it so that every 120 N7 points you gained you would get a free weapon and character unlock of your choice. This could be extended to being able to not select a weapon at 120 and at 240 select an UR weapon, or you could just have it all included at 120. Furthermore players could buy weapon upgrades a set amount of time for each weapon based on rarity outside of the RNG store. The RNG store would still remain of course to offer consumables, characters and weapons and serve as the microtransaction generator. The main system would be:

Common Weapons:

- Available in Recruit Packs
- Individual Weapon Upgrades not available.
- Not available as an N7 Reward

Uncommon Weapons:

- Available in Veteran Packs
- For each uncommon weapon you could buy up to 5 upgrades outside of the RNG store for 20,000 per upgrade. So if you had a Phaeston II from RNG unlocks you could upgrade it to a Phaeston VII provided you had 100,000 credits. However you could then not buy a Phaeston VIII unless it was from the RNG store.
- Not available as an N7 Reward

Rare Weapons:

- Available in Veteran Packs (low drop rate)
- Available in Spectre/Premium Spectre/Arsenal Packs.
- Not available in Reserve or Equipment Packs.
- For each rare weapon you could buy up to 3 upgrades outsides of the RNG store for 100,000 credits per upgrade. So if you didn't have a Claymore you could buy up to a Claymore III provided you had 300,000 credits. However you could then not buy a Claymore IV unless it was from the RNG.
- Available as an N7 Weapon Reward which are awarded every 120 N7 Ranks.

Ultra Rare Weapons:

- Available in Spectre/Premium Spectre/Arsenal Packs.
- Not available in Reserve or Equipment Packs.
- For each ultra rare weapon you could buy a single upgrade outside of the RNG store for 250,000 credits per upgrades. This means that you could upgrade a Javelin VIII to a Javelin IX provided you had 250,000 credits but then you could not upgrade from a Javelin IX to Javelin X
- Available as an N7 Weapon Reward which are awarded every 120 N7 Ranks.

Characters:

- Available in Common/Uncommon/Spectre/Premium Spectre/Reserve Packs.
- Not available in Arsenal Packs
- Not available to purchase outside of the RNG store.
- Available as an N7 Character Reward which are awarded every 120 N7 Ranks.

Gear:

- Available in Spectre/Premium Spectre/Equipment Packs.
- Not available in Arsenal or Reserves Packs
- Not available to purchase outside of the RNG store.
- Not available as an N7 Reward.
Note: You would not need to buy all X amount of ranks at once you could purchase a Claymore I, V and X outside of the RNG Store.

As you can see after every 120 N7 Ranks the player can choose one class and one weapon (none random) provided they are Rare or Ultra Rare in drop-rate. These would develop to 5x any given conumsable upon maxing your manifest. (So you could get 5x Incendiary IV every 120 N7 ranks, just because). The RNG store itself would see changes with Gear being guaranteed drops from Equipment Packs, Weapons being guaranteed drops from Asrenal Packs and Character being guaranteed drops from Reserve Packs. All three can be found in Spectre/Premium Spectre Packs (this rule also applies to all consumables). Certain consumables would be more heavily weighted to drop in certain packs with Ammo being more likely to be dropped in Equipment Packs, Weapon Amps being more likely to be dropped in Arsenal Packs and Armour Bonuses being more likely to be dropped in Reserve Packs. A second store would co-exist offering a set number of upgrades to each weapon (possibly unlocked through completing certain challenges).

[Cirvante]

LuckyBullet95 wrote...

@Cirvante

Again, I don't think it's a good idea offering the most powerful version of a gun as a guaranteed purchase for X amount of credits to players who have just unboxed Mass Effect 3 (possibly their first ever). Players can told get hooked on using a weapon and form an overreliance on it. Back in the early days of ME3, I was still an all-round bad gamer and far too often I found I was using some of the more potent kits and loadouts and as I said, I stagnated. If I had the Krysae X at that time (I don't know how many people remain on BSN that know of how disgusting it used to be), I'd have most certainly formed an overreliance on it, just like I had the Claymore, GPS and Black Widow. It wasn't until the early speedrun videos from zHHk's crew that I decided I wanted to play aggressively, and that was a bit of a wake-up call. I don't think I would have made it past that hurdle without Team AreleX picking up any of my slack but, with Bechter's help I managed to get better at the game, and I am now more than capable of carrying no matter the loadout (within reason, I wouldn't even bother carrying with a Predator wielding VolMer).

I don't know, maybe I'm just being a little overly cautious because of my own experience. It doesn't help that I also saw a significant dip in my skill-level during times of missile-heavy speedruns due to an overreliance on nuking 5,8 and 9. Maybe newer players deserve a little more credit but it is hard to argue with how many TGI Harriers or Reegar AIU are running around Gold and Plat (And usually getting butchered)..

You can't force players to try out every kit and weapon, only encourage them. This was mainly done through the challenge system. Players who only play gold/plat with a Juggernaut/AIU would do so regardless of whether the shop was RNG or an actual shop where you could chose what to buy (they'd need to unlock the character/gun, but that's not too hard even with the current system).

After a while there comes a point for many players where they try out new setups, be it for challenges or simply for the sake of trying out new things in order to keep the game interesting. Hell, I still do it and I'm having a lot of fun with it. What's problematic is when those players can't try out certain setups because the RNG shop has refused to yield them certain weapons or kits.

I believe that a combination of the two ideas I presented would be an interesting solution. You'd need to use a certain weapon or character to unlock more powerful weapons and characters, which you could then buy in the shop. And upgrading them would cost progressively more credits.

Players who buy ingame stuff with real money would still do so (though I imagine that more players would do it, as they could choose what to buy as opposed to RNG). So what if they buy the strongest weapons for themselves? They can use those weapons to play higher difficulties and earn credits for other weapons, which they'll try out eventually. If somebody refuses to play anything but a Spitfire-wielding Juggernaut (like that Thylawhatever guy) then that's his choice.

For example, I used to hate the Wraith. I cursed the RNG every time it gave me a Wraith upgrade instead of giving me my first Harrier. After trying it several times on different kits and always dismissing it, I finally managed to make it work one day. Now I really like it. Same goes for the Venom. I use the Harrier only rarely now.

Modifié par Cirvante, 08 novembre 2013 - 11:24 .

[SlimJim0725]

LuckyBullet95 wrote...



As for a trading system, I don't care, if you wanted them I'd gladly hand over 100 Cryo IV... My friend Slim retired and sold his X-Box, over 100+ (usually 200+) of everything was just... gone. He had no need for 255 Shotgun Rail Amp IIIs. But he couldn't give them away to anyone.

Still available by the way. 

[LuckyBullet95]

bump

[Felix_Teh_Kat]

Am I in the wrong forum, smells like campaign in here

[TheVanishedOne]

Horde Mode
Agree. Mass Effect 3 MP structure is absolutely awesome! ME:Next should be based on it. I've seen a lot of people complaining about stunlock but I had no problem so far whether BioWare nerf or buff enemy balance (even on Platinum difficulty). Any new weapon is welcome. 6 to 8 players would be a problem unless BioWare offer option of auto-respawn which is not a good idea.

Player vs. Player
The strength of armor and health in ME MP is very different from other FPS games. PvP systems would be so daunting on taking down a player where everyone can regen their shields, use gels to get up, etc. The result will be "whether a game WAVE will take very long up to 10~15 or will be very short 1~2 minutes because of the different players' skills inequity." If my prediction is correct, it won't be as much fan as you think.

Co-op Mode 
NO.... PLEASE NO!!!!! DEAR BioWare, DO NOT integrate Co-Op to the main campaign. That will definitely ruin the story. If a campaign scene is replay so many times, the main story of the Franchise would become cheaper and cheaper.

Other Changes
1. Don't know about consoles but on PC, it is a piece of cake.

2. Offline mode is not a good idea because enemies kill points, trophies, wave completions, etc. need constant update.

3. Character customization is secondary. BioWare needs to focus on combat experience first. Customization will eat Graphics and RAM unless BioWare doesn't care about players with earlier PC hardware.

4. No comment for dedicated server though. It's BioWare's choice.

5. No comment.
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Modifié par warriorsea, 10 novembre 2013 - 01:31 .