23 réponses à ce sujet

[DanishGambit]

I preferred the enemy tactics in ME1 because they seemed more varied. Some enemies relied on DPS, some on trying to debuff and limit the player's tactics and others on crowd control. They even moved around in a way that other players might move.  Not only did this add different challenges to fights but also gave the enemies personalities of their own. In ME2 and ME3 I found that the main tactics most enemies used were to overwhelm the player with DPS, barriers and to attempt to move the player around. You were never in a position in which you couldn't do what you wanted unless a YMIR mech was staring at you or a banshee was chasing you.

 

I think the next ME game should give the enemies better ways of defending themselves. One only needs to play as a vanguard to realise that guns aren't really enough to stop someone like Shepard. I was surprised that all of the enemies just threw themselves at you every fight and didn't really care about what you could do. Combat engineers use turrets which do slow you down but they're really just another DPS challenge and I think ME3 had way too many of those in the form of primes, banshees, praetorians and especially harvesters. 

 

Why not give the enemies back abilities like sabatoge, dampening, and push? Asari were somewhat overpowered with stasis and push(?) because they made the player immobile and there was no defense to them but I think the enemies need abilities like that which force the player to change their strategy and find different ways to approach a situation. 

 

But the biggest feature was that the tactics went with the lore. Asari had dangerous biotics, Krogan were huge and would run you over if you got too close and Salarians made all your stuff not work. I think this is one of the things that gave ME1 it's charm.

[Vazgen]

I agree, one of the main things that made Mass Effect 3 easier is the lack of enemy caster classes. Mass Effect 2 had those but to a very limited amount. Enemy biotics, snipers and engineers were a trouble in Mass Effect 1. In ME2 their functionality was reduced to Incinerate/Drone/Warp. Snipers were introduced back in ME3, but they were of no consequence until Citadel DLC where they could actually kill you. 

Reapers had Banshees who filled the role of enemy casters and every sequence with 2+ Banshees was quite difficult.

Bringing back enemy biotics and engineers will do a lot to improve combat difficulty. 

 

I remember getting tossed around by enemy biotics on Chairman Burns mission - that experience needs to come back!

[SNascimento]

Enemies didn't have tatics in ME1. They randomly moved around the battlefiled, used badly design powers and sometimes just plain run at you. 

[RoboticWater]

I agree, one of the main things that made Mass Effect 3 easier is the lack of enemy caster classes. Mass Effect 2 had those but to a very limited amount. Enemy biotics, snipers and engineers were a trouble in Mass Effect 1. In ME2 their functionality was reduced to Incinerate/Drone/Warp. Snipers were introduced back in ME3, but they were of no consequence until Citadel DLC where they could actually kill you. 

Reapers had Banshees who filled the role of enemy casters and every sequence with 2+ Banshees was quite difficult.

Bringing back enemy biotics and engineers will do a lot to improve combat difficulty. 

 

I remember getting tossed around by enemy biotics on Chairman Burns mission - that experience needs to come back!

Disruptive powers are nice, but getting flung to the ground or locked up in stasis just ruined the flow of combat for me. 

 

I can get behind the idea of powerful snipers or any other encamped weapon installation (turret, rocket launcher, etc.) because they can force you around the battlefield and divert your fire. Powers like sabotage and dampening would still work because they force the player to switch weapons or start using more powers.

Something Boiware haven't done extensively are enemy buffers; things that repair damage, block flanking, and disallow powers within an area around them. 

 

I think the other problem lies within level design. IIRC, many levels were pretty straight forward; you constantly face the enemy head to head. If more encounters focused on the player working their way around a strong enemy encampment or dealing with an enemy approaching from multiple sides (and multiple levels), then players will have to think a bit more to win.

 

Close quarters combat should also be a lot more dangerous. I'm not sure about other classes, but Vanguard charge and slam was nearly unstoppable. Though I'm not too fond of the Banshees' insta-kill melee attacks, I'd like to see greater risk in breaching enemy lines.

[Vazgen]

Well yeah, it's supposed to break the flow of combat. The point is, whatever you can do, enemies can do as well, to some extent. There should be countermeasures like Damping, armor upgrades etc. that will allow the player to get the upper hand. However, not having any of those would make you weak against biotic/tech enemies. 

Take, for example, clones in Citadel DLC. They are surely tough, having such an enemy surrounded with mooks will present a challenge. On the other hand, not to make it a boss battle, like in Citadel DLC, longer universal cooldowns should be applied to biotics. Not only it will be true to the lore but also balance things out.

[Revan Reborn]

I do believe that enemies shouldn't just be pure cannon fodder, as virtually everything is in ME2 and ME3. At the same time, BioWare needs to be careful in regards to what tools they give enemies and how powerful they make them. Keep in mind that Shepard was supposed to be extraordinary and not get randomly killed by a vorcha in the Blood Pack. The new protagonist will also have skills and the talent to be an exceptional killing machine, so that story needs to be somewhat driven in the gameplay. There certainly needs to be more tactics for enemies, but not to the point where the experience is really punishing the player more than anything else.

[Cknarf]

Enemies didn't have tatics in ME1. They randomly moved around the battlefiled, used badly design powers and sometimes just plain run at you. 

Yep. Pretty much this.

[RoboticWater]

Well yeah, it's supposed to break the flow of combat. The point is, whatever you can do, enemies can do as well, to some extent. There should be countermeasures like Damping, armor upgrades etc. that will allow the player to get the upper hand. However, not having any of those would make you weak against biotic/tech enemies. 

Take, for example, clones in Citadel DLC. They are surely tough, having such an enemy surrounded with mooks will present a challenge. On the other hand, not to make it a boss battle, like in Citadel DLC, longer universal cooldowns should be applied to biotics. Not only it will be true to the lore but also balance things out.

IMO, stasis and push break the flow in a bad way. I can do something about an overheated weapon or longer power cooldowns, but I can't really work around total paralysis. The former forces me to change tactics, the latter stops me from engaging with the game at all. I'm cool with distributing powers equally among the player and the enemies, but it shouldn't get in the way of having fun.

[Vazgen]

IMO, stasis and push break the flow in a bad way. I can do something about an overheated weapon or a longer power cooldown (if only retreat), but I can't really work around total paralysis. The former forces me to change tactics, the latter means I can't engage with the game at all. I'm cool with distributing powers equally among the player and the enemies, but it shouldn't get in the way of having fun.

Stasis could work the same as player version - stop the target and make it immune to damage. The enemy can't spam it, casting Stasis will force them to recharge for quite a long time.

I'm sure there is a way to make it all work and keep fun. I don't like how enemies like Cerberus can't do anything about my squad when I can hack their turrets and Atlases, overload their shields, burn their armor, summon drones to distract them, throw turrets behind them etc. The enemies end up as just cannon fodder which is fun but unimaginative. Having caster enemies will make you focus on them first, like how you focus on mages in Dragon Age Origins.

[RoboticWater]

Stasis could work the same as player version - stop the target and make it immune to damage. The enemy can't spam it, casting Stasis will force them to recharge for quite a long time.

I'm sure there is a way to make it all work and keep fun. I don't like how enemies like Cerberus can't do anything about my squad when I can hack their turrets and Atlases, overload their shields, burn their armor, summon drones to distract them, throw turrets behind them etc. The enemies end up as just cannon fodder which is fun but unimaginative. Having caster enemies will make you focus on them first, like how you focus on mages in Dragon Age Origins.

I'm all for caster enemies, I just don't want them to have push/stasis specifically. If I'm not doing things, I'm not having fun, even if it's only a few seconds. I'd be fine with push if it triggered a short stagger effect, but anything longer (like full on ragdoll) and I'll probably get annoyed. 

 

Even if that power is technically balanced, it still feels cheap. I can overcome no shield regeneration or no reloads though quick thinking, but no amount of skill or tactics can get me out of stasis. I just have to sit there. Doing nothing.

 

I'm sure there are plenty of powers Bioware put in place of push/stasis: powers that push you out of cover, do AoE damage, teleport you around the level, etc.. I just don't want to see powers I can't immediately respond to.

[DanishGambit]

Yeah the problem with push and stasis was that they took control away from the player and there was no defense to them. A combo of push and a sniper shot was often game over. A similar problem is geth stunlock which can be an automatic down for a lot of characters. They brought back some types of enemy tactics with things like seeker swarms, the improved nemesis, geth cloaking, marauder buffs and collector webs but most of them didn't bother the player too much.

 

Balancing biotics for the player and the enemies seems hard to do though as most of them are probably overpowered if used on the player. In ME1 these powers didn't work if you had a barrier up but I'm not sure if that is enough to allow enemies to use them.

[MrFob]

I'm all for caster enemies, I just don't want them to have push/stasis specifically. If I'm not doing things, I'm not having fun, even if it's only a few seconds. I'd be fine with push if it triggered a short stagger effect, but anything longer (like full on ragdoll) and I'll probably get annoyed. 
 
Even if that power is technically balanced, it still feels cheap. I can overcome no shield regeneration or no reloads though quick thinking, but no amount of skill or tactics can get me out of stasis. I just have to sit there. Doing nothing.
 
I'm sure there are plenty of powers Bioware put in place of push/stasis: powers that push you out of cover, do AoE damage, teleport you around the level, etc.. I just don't want to see powers I can't immediately respond to.

I tend to agree with this. IIRC, there was an interview with some devs after ME1, where they mentioned that in early builds the enimies did have all player powers but most biotics had to be removed to keep the player "in the game".
 
What I could see is something where the player has a means to counter such effects. Say the PC gets locked up in stasis,, he can't move but he can use his own biotic/tech power to free himself. Or say you are caught in a singularity, it could actually still be a cool sequence if you could still shoot (maybe with a different camera angle or something like that).
One thing I like in ME1 was that the enemies could overheat my weapons. While it was really annoying, it did force me into a situation where I had to suddenly change my own tactics in response. That's how enemy powers should ideally work. Same thing goes with e.g. Tela Vasir in LotSB who could charge somewhere unexpected (well, the first time at least) and force you to change positions. Stuff like that would be welcome.
 
Anyway, I do think BW needs to be extremely careful with powers that limit the players capability to act. After all, the game is all about you, the player, doing things.

[KrrKs]

I agree that powers like stasis, that take you completely out of the game are way to frustrating for enemies to have them.

But being trapped in a Singularity field (or pull, etc) -together with Mr. Fob's suggestion would be actually fun to see once in a while.

 

Also, as per ME2 -so for most part of the Shepard trilogy- biotics and most tech powers have a very limited or no effect on protected/shielded targets. So the same should apply to enemy versions, limiting the effects.

[Vazgen]

Singularity with being able to shoot should be like this: Video 

[cap and gown]

Enemies didn't have tatics in ME1. They randomly moved around the battlefiled, used badly design powers and sometimes just plain run at you. 

 

I completely agree. ME1 combat was totally uninteresting tactically, and losing control of your character made this even worse. I think ME2 did a fairly decent job, particularly with the engineers who had both drones and incinerate. I thought ME3 could have had more casters, though not physics casters unless it only resulted in a stagger, not losing total control like in ME1. More casting like that would be cool, but the clone was a bit ridiculous with no cool downs.

[Nitrocuban]

When you think about Citadel DLCs final boss fight, you may realise this can be fun but also very frustrating.

That's a thin line BW has to balance on.

[Vazgen]

When you think about Citadel DLCs final boss fight, you may realise this can be fun but also very frustrating.

That's a thin line BW has to balance on.

Imagine Citadel DLC boss fight with reasonable cooldowns and no medi-gel for the clone. 

[L. Han]

It's quite hard for a shooter to have any in-depth combat. There isn't much art in aiming a gun and pulling the trigger compared to sword fighting or pole arms.

 

The closest shooters that had any interesting tactical stuff was the ghost recon games. The interesting tactical stuff were mostly coming from gear preparation, weapons customization, and team strategy and tactics.

 

So I guess my suggestion would be to add more pre-mission planning and briefings. Although I am aware that this might ruin a lot of the mystery and immersion if you know exactly what you are going up against.

[cap and gown]

Imagine Citadel DLC boss fight with reasonable cooldowns and no medi-gel for the clone. 

 

I think the medi-gel was fine. I think a more reasonable cool down was in order, though.

[RoboticWater]

It's quite hard for a shooter to have any in-depth combat. There isn't much art in aiming a gun and pulling the trigger compared to sword fighting or pole arms.

 

The closest shooters that had any interesting tactical stuff was the ghost recon games. The interesting tactical stuff were mostly coming from gear preparation, weapons customization, and team strategy and tactics.

 

So I guess my suggestion would be to add more pre-mission planning and briefings. Although I am aware that this might ruin a lot of the mystery and immersion if you know exactly what you are going up against.

I disagree. Though it may seem like shooters tend towards mindless shooting galleries these days, shooters are still quite in-depth. Take a look at Wolfenstien: The New Order; at a glance, it merely looks like a crazy rampage. Often, it is, but there's a lot of complexity and decision-making going on regardless. Ammo limits force the player to constantly switch their weapon to appropriately match the circumstances. Health limits make the player to plan each attack; running out too early or too late can quickly lead to being overwhelmed. Level design encourages the player be creative and thoughtful; be too reserved and the enemy gains the upper hand, act rashly and possible get cornered. A game doesn't need to have RPG-like commands and powers to have tactics. A shooter may look simple in all the chaos, but there's a lot of thinking going on behind the scenes.

 

The problem with Mass Effect is that the levels and enemy design poorly facilitate those kind of moment to moment decisions. We're generally thrust into corridor-like environments with little opportunity to change approach. Without enemy casters to sabotage our equipment or divert our attention and complex environments to test our spacial awareness, combat can easily devolve into simply point and shoot. It also doesn't help that our companions are little more than glorified power slots.

 

However, I agree with your suggestion. Levels should allow the player more time to observe the battlefield beforehand and set up his or her squadmates in appropriate positions. That combined with more environmental hazards and enemy diversity would aid immensely with tactical diversity. 

[SNascimento]

The problem with Mass Effect is that the levels and enemy design poorly facilitate those kind of moment to moment decisions. We're generally thrust into corridor-like environments with little opportunity to change approach. Without enemy casters to sabotage our equipment or divert our attention and complex environments to test our spacial awareness, combat can easily devolve into simply point and shoot. It also doesn't help that our companions are little more than glorified power slots.

 

However, I agree with your suggestion. Levels should allow the player more time to observe the battlefield beforehand and set up his or her squadmates in appropriate positions. That combined with more environmental hazards and enemy diversity would aid immensely with tactical diversity. 

ME2 and ME3 combat, especially ME2 or harder difficulties, is hardly just point and shoot. 

And we did have enemy caster that sabotaged our weapons in ME1, but instead of offering any kind of tatical depth, all they did is bore you and make combat needless longer. 

[KrrKs]

About enemy tactics: The most fun I had playing a shooter was actually in the STALKER games. In the larger levels present there, (humandoid) enemies actively try to flank the player. At the same time, they don't know your exact position if they don't see you.

Early game that resulted quite often in a sort of hide and seek shoot/flee. If the next ME had that sort of enemy AI it would really be great!

[goishen]

Stasis could work the same as player version - stop the target and make it immune to damage. The enemy can't spam it, casting Stasis will force them to recharge for quite a long time.

I'm sure there is a way to make it all work and keep fun. I don't like how enemies like Cerberus can't do anything about my squad when I can hack their turrets and Atlases, overload their shields, burn their armor, summon drones to distract them, throw turrets behind them etc. The enemies end up as just cannon fodder which is fun but unimaginative. Having caster enemies will make you focus on them first, like how you focus on mages in Dragon Age Origins.

 

 

It would certainly make the sentinel more attractive with throw on fast cool down.

 

I tend to agree.  Let's take a look at the boss fights that had this in both ME2 and ME3.  The only two that I can think of are the spectre at the middle of the LotSB, and the other you in the Citadel.  In my mind's eye, this makes these fights difficult and fun.

 

I mean, hell, even if you give the bosses biotic powers.