132 réponses à ce sujet

[Soja57]

 @RedCeasar97
I guess ammo powers are the best way to go for combat classes and the Soldier class. Concussive Shot is an okay power, but if it was replaced with my "Discharge Blast" power from my Quarian Female Soldier thread (in sig), it would be a lot better. Adrenaline Rush fits well with the Soldier. The only power to change would be Frag Grenades if everyone can use grenades. Since everyone has grenades, we can make the Soldier the grenade specialist with the use of a new power, which is essentially a modified version of Multi-Frag Grenades.

Grenade Launcher
Toggle on to modify grenades so that they can be launched from your omni-tool gauntlet instead of being thrown. These grenades split into mini-grenades from your gauntlet like a shotgun pattern (just like Multi-Frag Grenades), allowing it to deal massive damage over a wide radius. Unlike Multi-Frag Grenades, these grenades don't detonate on impact, but rather act like traditional grenades that bounce before detonating. Toggle off to revert to traditional grenades.

Base Stats:

Mini-Grenades = 3 (number of mini-grenades launched, uses only one grenade)
Mini-Grenade Damage = 60% base grenade damage (can stack mini-grenade damage to deal massive damage)
Mini-Grenade Radius = 60% base grenade radius
Cone Angle = 90 degrees (wideness of shotgun pattern)

Evolutions may include:

-Increase mini-grenade count by X
-Increase mini-grenade damage by X%
-Increase mini-grenade radius by X%
-Reduce cone angle of grenade spread, allowing you to concentrate mini-grenades at longer ranges
-Mini-grenades instantly detonate on impact instead of bouncing like a traditional grenade
-Mini-grenades stick onto surfaces and detonate when an enemy is within close proximity, deals bonus damage if a mini-grenade sticks onto an enemy

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Just an idea. Adding this toggle-able power does not interfere with the Soldier's cooldowns for his two class-exclusive powers. It makes the Soldier the equipment specialist, in that he can use all ammo powers, gain massive boosts to weapon effectiveness, and gain benefits to grenades. One thing I would like to note is that like the Engineer passive, the Soldier would get a unique passive to grenade like inferno grenade. This inferno effect would apply to both the traditional grenade and the Grenade Launcher power.

@billpickles
Yeah, I know that there are some balancing issues of the specializations I proposed. But that's not the point, the point is to present an example of how "special" specializations can be, including weapon training, grenade evolution, and unique bonuses to powers.

Modifié par Soja57, 27 novembre 2013 - 02:56 .

[TheMyron]

The grenade "power upgrades" should affect things like capacity and radius only. The internal ingredients (frag, flashbang, incendiary, thorian gas, etc.) should be "tweakable"* like ammo powers.

*You know how whenever you select a special ammo for you gun? Shepard's hand seems to "tweak" a knob of something.

[Soja57]

TheMyron wrote...

The grenade "power upgrades" should affect things like capacity and radius only. The internal ingredients (frag, flashbang, incendiary, thorian gas, etc.) should be "tweakable"* like ammo powers.

*You know how whenever you select a special ammo for you gun? Shepard's hand seems to "tweak" a knob of something.

Grenades are difficult to handle in terms of fitting them into the game. I don't think every class should have access to every grenade type, as it removes the uniqueness of each class, especially when combined with a bonus power. For example, a Soldier can equip Energy Drain as a bonus power and Inferno Grenades for grenade type. With this, he can strip all of the various enemy defenses almost comparable to an Engineer, along with massive weapon damage boosts.

On one hand, grenades serving as powers solves this problem because it's either the grenades are a bonus power or they fit in the arsenal (Adept carrying biotic grenades). But grenades as powers doesn't really make sense either, because any soldier can throw pretty much any kind of grenade, regardless of specialization in biotic, tech, or combat training.

To be honest, I actually like the current ME3 system of handling grenades. The only grenades I don't particularly like are Frag Grenades and Sticky Grenades, as they aren't particularly unique and don't add much to the class's power arsenal. The Biotic and Tech Grenades are great though. My proposed system of handling grenades (every class can use a default grenade, but can unlock unique traits such as EMP or Cryo through passive and/or specializations) also tries to address these issues.

Modifié par Soja57, 29 novembre 2013 - 10:31 .

[TheMyron]

Soja57 wrote...

TheMyron wrote...

The grenade "power upgrades" should affect things like capacity and radius only. The internal ingredients (frag, flashbang, incendiary, thorian gas, etc.) should be "tweakable"* like ammo powers.

*You know how whenever you select a special ammo for you gun? Shepard's hand seems to "tweak" a knob of something.

Grenades are difficult to handle in terms of fitting them into the game. I don't think every class should have access to every grenade type, as it removes the uniqueness of each class, especially when combined with a bonus power. For example, a Soldier can equip Energy Drain as a bonus power and Inferno Grenades for grenade type. With this, he can strip all of the various enemy defenses almost comparable to an Engineer, along with massive weapon damage boosts.

On one hand, grenades serving as powers solves this problem because it's either the grenades are a bonus power or they fit in the arsenal (Adept carrying biotic grenades). But grenades as powers doesn't really make sense either, because any soldier can throw pretty much any kind of grenade, regardless of specialization in biotic, tech, or combat training.

To be honest, I actually like the current ME3 system of handling grenades. The only grenades I don't particularly like are Frag Grenades and Sticky Grenades, as they aren't particularly unique and don't add much to the class's power arsenal. The Biotic and Tech Grenades are great though. My proposed system of handling grenades (every class can use a default grenade, but can unlock unique traits such as EMP or Cryo through passive and/or specializations) also tries to address these issues.

I hope you have a good idea on how to deal with Zhu's Hope without killing the colonists. We can try "Snap Freeze" with the gas...

Plus Sticky Grenades (which do twice as much damage as frag) serve the purpose of Semtex, which is good against heavy armor like Brutes.

Modifié par TheMyron, 29 novembre 2013 - 10:48 .

[billpickles]

We can handle the colonists the same way we handle most NPCs in this "game about choices"...give them plot armor!

[Soja57]

TheMyron wrote...

I hope you have a good idea on how to deal with Zhu's Hope without killing the colonists. We can try "Snap Freeze" with the gas...

Plus Sticky Grenades (which do twice as much damage as frag) serve the purpose of Semtex, which is good against heavy armor like Brutes.

I guess I kind of forgot about the Anti-Thorian Gas Grenades. I think an alternative to these would be to melee the colonists (not heavy melee) or use cryo powers/grenades. When Shepard receives the dialogue option for what his squad should do, he can make his squad either shoot the colonists or only melee and use cryo abilities against the colonists. So if you freeze the colonists, the Thorian's control will weaken and the victim will faint afterwards. Or melee them to knock them out without fatally wounding them.

The only reason why I don't really like Frag or Sticky Grenades is because both grenades are very similar to each other. Sticky Grenades and its Proximity Trap evo could just merge with Frag Grenades:

Frag Grenades Evolution 5a: Proximity Trap
Grenades remain active and only detonate when an enemy approaches nearby, increase radius by 50%. Grenades armed as proximity traps but not detonated can be picked up by the player to restore grenade reserves.

Frag Grenades Evolution 6a: Sticky Grenade
Grenades stick to any surface on contact; deals 50% bonus damage to enemies that are "stickied". Great for taking down large, easy-to-stick targets such as Brutes and Atlases

Modifié par Soja57, 30 novembre 2013 - 12:36 .

[capn233]

The difference is that Sticky Grenades get buffed from your ammo power, whereas Frags cannot. If you merged them you should make an "Amplification" evolution that gives them a bonus from the active ammo power, as with CS.

Really this might be the best overall way to handle all grenades.

[Soja57]

capn233 wrote...

The difference is that Sticky Grenades get buffed from your ammo power, whereas Frags cannot. If you merged them you should make an "Amplification" evolution that gives them a bonus from the active ammo power, as with CS.

Really this might be the best overall way to handle all grenades.

Hmm, I wasn't aware of ammo powers applying to Sticky Grenades. That would be a nice evolution for Frag Grenades, better than my Proximity Trap evo. Combine Amplification evo with Sticky Grenade for massive damage vs bosses (with the right ammo power).

Warp Ammo on grenades should detonate biotics, but at reduced effectiveness. Armor-Piercing's stats should directly apply to grenades. This means that AP ammo's cover penetration range allows AP Grenades to damage enemies through walls at certain thickness. I got these ideas from RedCaesar97's videos on Concussive Shot Rank 6 Amplification and the application of ammo powers.

[capn233]

I would not be in favor of combo proliferation, so Warp amplified grenades should mostly just have a bonus to barriers, armor, and then primed targets.

As for the AP idea, that sounds good. In the current game some grenades already damage through walls for no good reason, the main exception being Frags, which get blocked by cover. I think all grenades should be blocked by cover as a base stat, and the AP adding a bit sounds good.

[Soja57]

I guess I can see the issue with Warp-amplified grenades detonating biotics, interfering with more powerful biotic combos from squadmates.

With Frag Grenades having Amplification and Sticky evolution, the Infiltrator class will need a new power. I think the Infiltrator should get either Tactical Scan, Cain Trip Mines, or Recon Mine as a class-exclusive power. Inferno Grenade can stay as a bonus power, maybe even bring in MP-exclusive powers as bonus powers. Arc Grenades would be a good addition, don't know about Multi-Frags or Homing though. Having Inferno and Arc Grenades as bonus powers would give the Soldier new build possibilities while allowing other classes to access Grenades.

How to handle Adept Cluster Grenades and Sentinel Lift Grenades?

Modifié par Soja57, 01 décembre 2013 - 07:23 .

[capn233]

I am more concerned by the actual proliferation of combos rather than interfering with other combos when I made that comment. I think combos hijacked too much of the combat system in ME3. That's why in my first comment I talked about revamping them so that combinations of two powers weren't always an explosion.

You wouldn't really need to give Infiltrator a new power, they would just have the combat class grenade, but they would only be able to amplify it with Disruptor, Cryo or AP / Warp if they take those ammos as a bonus.

Soldier would get to choose from Incendiary, Disruptor, or Cryo grenades from his base class.

In an Amplification regime, you could imagine that combat grenades w/ Incendiary amplification take the place of Infernos. This is really only an issue possibly for Ash and James since Ash had Infernos but Disruptor Ammo, but James had frags and Incendiary ammo. If however you give them both combat grenades with an amplification evo, then it could be amplified by even squad ammo and it isn't a huge deal any longer. It would somewhat overlap with CS in a way, so that is something to think about.

For Adept and Sentinel you would give them Biotic Grenades and you could make Lift vs Cluster an evolution where Lift will float all unprotecteds in radius (or maybe max 3), whereas Cluster gives you 3 minigrenades. This would be a choice between CC/debuff (since combat mechanics should have damage taken penalty for ragdolled target), and direct multitarget damage.

[TheMyron]

So, Cryo Blast/Snap Freeze should cancel out Incinerate/Flamer rather than cause a Tech Burst?

[capn233]

TheMyron wrote...

So, Cryo Blast/Snap Freeze should cancel out Incinerate/Flamer rather than cause a Tech Burst?

Cryo Blast already doesn't detonate anything, and Snap Freeze isn't in SP.

[TheMyron]

Mordin wasn't a biotic, but he managed to throw a biotic grenade...

[Soja57]

 I've always been bothered by the shield gate for Shepard and enemies, and the health gate for Shepard. I don't really see the point of a health gate; I'm okay with a shield gate as long as it is handled well. Partial shield-gating makes sense, but the shield gate shouldn't block everything.

Insanity mode in ME3 took this far, having 100% shield gate. No matter how strong of a sniper rifle you have, you can never kill a Cerberus Centurion in a single shot, even if the sniper rifle could one shot a fully-armored Ravager. While I understand it as a balancing factor for sniper rifles "one-shotting" enemies in ME2, that is not a good approach to balancing sniper rifles. All it seems to achieve is severely nerf sniper rifles and making shotguns even more godly.

From what I understand, shield gate was given to Shepard in order to reduce the frustration of one-hit deaths in ME1, such as Geth Snipers. I guess I can understand, but I'm not really a fan of the current shield gate; Shepard can take multiple Atlas rockets and/or Ravager cannons to the face, but a mere grenade instantly kills Shepard. It also somewhat trivializes health and shield upgrades on higher difficulty modes; since enemies deal a lot more damage, most of the time the only thing saving your life is the shield and health gates. I guess this is an issue of difficulty levels as well.

How should shield gates be handled for both Shepard and enemies, and the health gate for Shepard? 

Modifié par Soja57, 03 décembre 2013 - 08:40 .

[capn233]

Yes the point for both Shepard and enemies is to limit the number of one hit kills, but they have to be discussed separately since they do not work the same way.

First up is Shepard's gate system. The issue is not so much that he has gates, it is the gate duration in SP. Since you are on PC you should go into the difficulty handler and either turn them off, or reduce the duration to 0.01 (or run my mod ) and see how that changes the game. Personally I think that is probably the single biggest change to difficulty that you can make. Basically on Insanity the default 0.1s gate time of 0 damage pass through allows enough time to get gated and find cover, whereas the very small gate durations basically just limit 1 hit kills.

On the other side of the coin, the game wasn't designed for any high damage units to one-shot Shepard, although they were designed to kill Shepard with a single firing cycle. Look at most of the high damage units: Prime Cannon is a 3 shot burst, Ravager is a 3 shot cycle, Atlas was originally 3, Phantom likes 3 shot bursts, etc. Atlas rockets as well as Rocket Trooper missiles are really just to punish you for being out of cover extended amounts of time by staggering you so other things can kill you. Nemesis likewise is to punish you for being out of cover by busting your shields so other units can drop you.

IIRC Shepard had shieldgate in ME2, and didn't in ME1. Really it depends on how you want to balance enemy attacks and the combat system in general. In ME1 although rockets and snipers could potentially one-shot you (especially early), nearly every class comes with a defensive power that may prevent this, especially when leveled up and combined with decent armor (immunity and barrier). Also most enemies didn't do all that much damage, except via special attacks. The ME1 system relied more on volume of enemies that took a long time to drop, with a few exceptions (Husks and Creepers had high damage melee range attacks, although they were easily CC'd).

Regarding health and shield upgrades in ME3, although the numbers don't go up all that much, there are a lot of random sources of DR floating around, which make your effective shields and health go up. The most important is obviously cover, which gives 90% DR in the frontal cone, and removes the 40% damage taken penalty that you have walking around out of cover, which is a fairly generous swing. Additionally you get 4s DR from charge, every class can Fortification, Barrier or Defense Matrix, and dodging, melee, etc can all give DR. In the current state of the game there is probably too much DR available (since they bumped Tech Armor and Fortification).

In any event, I think Shepard should have at least a very short duration shield gate to limit one-shot kills. Health should not have a gate and should only regen with a talent, armor module, or medigel, making medigel more valuable. You would have to balance enemy damage and attacks based on that and based on the encounters that are in the game.

Moving on to enemy shieldgate, personally I don't think it needs to exist, but if you are basically only using it to balance high damage snipers then it should be a high, but not 100% gate such that the high damage rifles can kill protected units with headshots if you have the right spec and ammo. 100% gating but with one-shot ammo doesn't work because in that scheme you can bodyshot protected units for one-shot kills and so you don't reward headshots. At least that is what I think after trying that balance scheme in the game.

However, if you are designing the game from the ground up then I would just drop sheildgate on enemies altogether to move back to a more ME2 style protection system, and use weapon protection multipliers. You would give most SR's either a simple 1x shield multiplier or a penalty, but then a decent headshot multiplier so that they can drop protected basic enemies with a headshot out of the box (as all enemies would have protections...), but need the right setup and ammo to drop mid-tier protected units. One-shot kills on Phantoms probably wouldn't happen at all, and don't really need to happen in SP since there isn't Gold type Phantom spam. On the very large units shield gate doesn't matter a whole lot so there wouldn't be much of a difference.

[TheMyron]

On the Galactic Map, all existent star clusters should be visible, with a special color on the ring to indicate whether or not travel is possible to that location...

Within each cluster, all existent solar systems should be present as well.

I agree that the percentages that came with ME2 and ME3 should be shown so that the players can keep track to where they have been before.

Thoughts?

[RedCaesar97]

TheMyron wrote...
On the Galactic Map, all existent star clusters should be visible, with a special color on the ring to indicate whether or not travel is possible to that location...

Within each cluster, all existent solar systems should be present as well.

I agree that the percentages that came with ME2 and ME3 should be shown so that the players can keep track to where they have been before.

Thoughts?

The percentages lets you know if you have visited all planets in that system/cluster, so keeping that from ME2/ME3 is good.

I prefer the ME1 system of travel. No more moving a ship icon around the map, just a target that you can move around the galaxy/system/cluster quickly.

[RedCaesar97]

For powers, I like the ME3-style of letting you put points into whatever powers you want without having to put points into other powers first, which was also something you had to do in both ME1 and ME2.

And as long as you had the power unlocked, ME2 and ME3 let you put points into all power ranks (if you had the points) regardless of current level. This sucked in ME1 where you may have had the points, but you could not rank up a power because you were not at the right level.

Modifié par RedCaesar97, 05 décembre 2013 - 12:09 .

[TheMyron]

RedCaesar97 wrote...



I prefer the ME1 system of travel. No more moving a ship icon around the map, just a target that you can move around the galaxy/system/cluster quickly.

It would be more realistic since you are the Commander, not the Pilot. But then again, who is launching the probes and sending out the "hail pings"?

[RedCaesar97]

I am still not sure if I like the ME2 style of evolutions or the ME3 style of evolutions. 

• ME2: Rank 1 unlocks the power, Rank 2 and 3 improves the power (sometimes by adding extra abilities to the power), Rank 4 provides a choice of evolutions.
• ME3: Rank 1 unlocks the power, Rank 2 improves one aspect of the power (typically cooldown, damage protection, or grenade count), Rank 3 improves a different aspect of the power, and Ranks 4 to 6 provide a choice of evolutions.

I like how Ranks 2 and 3 work in ME3 instead of ME2 by improving specific aspects instead of all aspects.
Not sure if I like a choice of one evolution or multiple choices of evolutions. Theoretically, the ME3 system should provide more varied builds; however the game mechanics and evolution choices mostly negated that theory. I have a hard time separating the ME3 game mechanics from the build options.

I am also not sure if 6 was too many evolutions or just the right amount of evolutions. Again, this has to do with me having a hard time separating the game mechanics from the build options. Also, most powers had at least 2 pretty useless evolution choices (such as the cooldown options on Throw or ), and/or poor options for competing evolutions (such as Damage versus Detonation on Warp). So I am wondering if 2 choices of competing evolutions would have been better, or 1 choice of four evolution options would have been better.

[TheMyron]

All powers should accessible at the same time like ME3, but upgrading should improve all aspect is a rather even manner like in ME1 and ME2.

[capn233]

I think it is "all of the above" in regards to power evolutions in ME3.

There are some evolutions that are hardly ever useful, and they get put apart from big damage bonuses or other things. Then add to the fact that you end up only ranking to the top to get some specific Rank 6 evolution (say Sniper Damage or Tech Vulnerability) and to max combo damage, and it doesn't matter what you took for the other evolutions really.

Less reliance on combos, better evolution choices, and a reduction in the overall glut of talent points may have resulted in more varied builds for ME3. That and really they needed a system more like ME1 where low level powers did not do much of anything to higher tiered units. This wouldn't tend to favor weapons as long as lower tiered weapons weren't particularly great against them either.

Getting back to ME2, I think it was one of their missed opportunities regarding the evolutions system. Krogan enemies are probably my favorite example... you can take area evolutions instead of heavy and still use them to CC Krogan. The game would be a little different if you had to have Heavy Pull or Deep Cryo Blast.

ME1 sort of had this built in since the power progression was pretty linear, and you could affect more varied enemies with powers like Lift. We don't need to go that extreme, but you can move back towards that system with Pull, where you incrementally gain lifting force and radius at Rank 1 and 3, then your evolution at 4 might be a bigger gain in force vs a bigger gain in radius. You can leave a Rank 5 choice between lift damage and a debuff, then for Rank 6 you could make an evolution that allows lifting shielded targets at the expense of lifting force, versus another big chunk of lifting force that would get you over the threshold to lift sub-boss characters (think Brute, possibly Phantom through bubble or a Cerberus YMIR variant, and a Destroyer for Geth).

[Soja57]

As the series progressed, it seems as though there is more focus on power damage than power crowd control. Example:
-biotics centered around physics -> biotics centered around biotic detonations.
-AI Hacking as primarily CC with hacked synthetic support as secondary damage -> Sabotage in ME3 gains backfire damage and massive damage buff to tech powers + its own backfire damage with proper evolution.

I think the same applies for Shepard and squadmates. In ME1, if you couldn't defend against crowd control powers like biotics, it made combat very difficult. It was a little extreme, but ME2 and ME3 takes it to the other end of the spectrum. The enemies focused more on suppressive fire from weapons (Atlas rockets, Cerberus Turrets, etc.) rather than on powers to "control" the player, which is essentially the opposite of what players do to enemies.

I do like how ME2 had enemy Combat Drones and Harbinger's Warp/Throw to knock players out of cover and Flashbangs to blind players. ME3 also has Centurions deploying smoke grenades, which I thought was a neat feature. More powers like these to "crowd control" players instead of insane biotics in ME1 and ME3's numerous forms of suppressive fire would be a great change.

Some great examples I would love to see:

Cryo Blast: Does not freeze the player, but rather slows down all of the player's movements, including rolling, reloading, and power animations. Projectile-based power.

Sabotage/Damping: Forces your gun to heat up, forcing you to manually reload (must press reload key/button). Unsure whether if this should eat up ammo or simply dump ammo in gun to reserve ammo instead. Also, in contrast to Seeker Swarms in the ME3 MP, this power does not cause a cooldown, but it causes all power cooldowns to be 2x longer for a short duration. Projectile-based power.

Modifié par Soja57, 07 décembre 2013 - 01:48 .

[capn233]

I could write a diatribe and almost did, but in general yes. ME1 had powers that were largely CC or debuff, with weapons doing the damage. ME2 switched some powers to defense damage to go with the new system and added one whole AOE combo. ME3 went Michael Bay with explosions everywhere and powers that don't do much in the way of direct damage, although there is still some decent CC.

I agree that there is room for enemies to use powers against the player and the squad. In ME1 it was largely Throw/Warp, Sabotage, Damping (IIRC). ME2 DLC at least had one enemy use Charge and Shockwave against you, albeit in modified forms. In the main game enemy tech was largely Incinerate and Drones, although Flashbangs were in DLC. Harbinger really was the only enemy to use biotics against you, and it was pretty similar to the Throw/Warp in ME1.

ME3 has nearly none of that, although they have stagger sources all over the place in other enemy attacks, which is interesting. I don't know if it was a question of AI resources, but in many places ME3 is very inefficient in the way it was coded, so it was probably possible to have more power enemy attacks if they would have cleaned up pathing, for example.