Branzers wrote...
Why people are saying warp in ME1 was useless? On each insanity run I did, I probably used it about as much as I'm using it in ME2 as an adept... At the very least, once on almost every enemy. Anyway, on to the heat of the matter...
Many posters are failing to read or comprehend what the topic is about. Anyone can brute force their way through ME2 on insanity; the argument here is that the variety and fun-factor of adept in ME1 is almost completely gone in ME2, thanks to the global cooldown and harsher restrictions on biotics. It's one thing to say "the playstyle has changed," it's another to water it down to spamming one or two skills.
In ME1, an adept used every skill. No matter the difficulty level, an adept had a skill for each situation. Sure, when the difficulty rose, certain skills were relied upon much more, but I can't think of needing to spam the same thing over and over--and I'm going to do this from memory to make a point (if I forget a skill, I probably did not have much use for it):
Barrier: Before battles, always threw this up. Didn't help much against 1hko rockets from drones or turrets, so it wasn't completely failsafe like immunity but aided considerably to overall survival.
Warp: This completely ate through anything's defenses and I believe stopped pesky regeneration, too. This was basically reserved for the strongest and most dangerous enemy on the field at any given moment. Because drones were not affected by biotics (aside from warp and stasis), this was mostly used offensively to make them die ASAP. Any other time, it was used to make killing quicker.
Stasis: Bastion made this extremely overpowered (being able to kill a thresher maw on foot without immunity and not to mention complete lockdown of the final boss) but I believe stasis should not be blamed for those oversights; the bosses should have had more vigorous resistances against it. While I think stronger enemies resisted stasis to some extent, after being fully upgraded with cooldown modifications, their resistances no longer really mattered. Adept in ME1 was lockdown. This aided significantly to it. Mages in Dragon Age had access to force field which did the same thing and the game was not broken (partially because you could not use it in situations where it would be OP). Arcane Warrior, on the other hand, was OP all the time, but that's another story...
Singularity: There's not much to say on this. Everyone loved using it, and it was a blessing for people like me who took the shotgun because I didn't care about having to aim perfectly. It should be noted that this did not work on everything, which brings me to...
Lift: When other players were considering creating a character with a bonus skill, I remember arguments over what skill should be taken. There were equal parties arguing for singularity, lift, barrier, warp, and stasis. Throw, not so much, but I'll get to that in a moment. Lift, I believe, was one that most people ended up agreeing to take because of it's ability to lock down almost anything otherwise resistant to singularity like colossi. Whatever the case, lift was useful and helped crowd control with singularity and stasis working their magic somewhere else on the playing field.
Throw: This skill was situational, but like any great situational skill, it was very dependable. Part of the brilliance of ME1's gameplay system (even if it wasn't as visceral/polished/whatever-shooter-term-goes-here as ME2's) is that when difficulty scaled upward, biotics did much less damage--so much less damage that adept did not depend on biotics for damage any longer. However, each skill's properties managed to keep them far from useless. Throw did not do much damage at all on insanity. Instead, it became the failsafe skill you would always depend on when your heavy hitters were still cooling down. Group of charging enemies and no singularity available? Throw 'em! Turned around and saw something sneak up on you? Throw it! See a ledge and something near it? Throw him! Something's been lifted far too high? Get rid of it for good!
Unity and carnage (for me) where the other two that were used frequently. Whatever I have forgotten I officially declare a failure since I did not use it enough to remember it. I'm pretty sure I've covered everything--that is a testament to useful skills.
On a side note, this is intimately linked to the ridiculous "thermal clip" system in ME2. I enjoyed tweaking the attributes of my weapons--should I sacrifice heat sinking for more power? Should I use this ammo instead of that ammo? Even skillwise, part of the fun for me in ME1 was using carnage whenever I had the chance--it was an always-there heavy weapon attack that did not depend upon finding scattered amounts of special ammo. Many could argue that heavy weapons are very fun in ME2, but relegated solely to bosses/difficult enemies thus sucking away some of the fun. Those restrictions may be necessary, but at the very least, keep the thermal clip system but allow weapons to dissipate heat like in ME1, too. Also, I have yet to finish my insanity run in ME2 (after completing it on normal once already) and have no clue if grenades still exist. They were marginally useful in ME1 but with such little expendable ammo, you could not really rely on it or afford to go crazy with them... Heavy weapons now fall under the same category. Part of the fun in RPGs is having to think harder for boss battles, not just have a "kill it" button. Sure, it's a player's choice to stockpile ammo, but giving players a "nuke it" button (literally for Cain) is just unnecessary. At the very least, grenades in ME1 were horrible to aim and did not home in on their victims.
This notion of "having something as a last resort but not being able to use it constantly" IS adept in ME2, particularly on insanity. And it's far worse in several ways. Before I continue, I do feel a properly played adept in ME1 is unstoppable, as is anyone else with immunity. Tech specialists got the short end of the stick, IMO, but this discussion is not about that.
Adepts are now at the mercy of global cooldown. Locking down a battlefield, as any good crowd controller has learned, involves the entire battlefield. This is not rocket science. A battlefield implies multiple battles. Multiple battles involve multiple lockdowns required. Multiple lockdowns require multitasking. Global cooldown that emphasizes the spamming of two skills over and over does not encourage multitasking, let alone even allow variation in playstyle.
If I recall correctly, BioWare's argument for global cooldown was to 1. keep the pace of battle constant and 2. be forced to think about using one skill over the other to make more strategic decisions. On paper, these reasons are fine. In execution, they fall flat for adept. Sitting around to wait for all of your skills to recharge after using one of them does not help the pace of battle. It involves waiting around unless you feel like shooting. Since adepts are quoted to "not have to fire a single shot," there is a flaw in logic. Either the pace of battle is disrupted or adepts must use guns regardless. I am just poking holes in this reasoning. And as for thinking about using one skill over the other--it's simple. It's a choice many adepts make on insanity. They choose to use warp and singularity over everything else. In that regard, reason number 2 is just peachy. Although I would argue spamming the same thing over and over is not necessarily making strategic decisions. It's quite mindless actually.
To me it seems like global cooldown was implemented as a response to wanting to make cooldowns in general much faster to prevent waiting around. This backfired on adept so much it's not even funny. Like everyone else, I was so hyped to use a pull and throw combination on someone helpless but I don't have time to waste my cooldown on messing with a single enemy when I could be using that cooldown for a more effective skill. This is a failure compared to ME1's adept. I don't care if that's rude to say but it misses the point of adept in ME1. Global cooldown kills multitasking. End of story. Adept skills were originally designed around individual skill cooldowns. There is no way around this. Transferring them to this new global cooldown system is unnatural. And really, I've played many MMOs and NONE use global cooldown--it's always individual. If someone bothers to learn more skills, they should be able to use them. Certain skills making global cooldown quicker or slower, like warp preventing you from using other skills longer than the cooldown from pull for example, is naturally going to encourage spamming the less risky skill in most situations. In fighting games, poking with weak attacks is much safer than using heavy, slow attacks unless there is an opening to exploit. But we find this isn't the case in ME2. We do not use pull instead of warp on insanity. We spam warp. Why? Well, aside from thankfully having limitless ammo, something the old ME1 system would have alleviated for all classes instead of the stupid heat cartridge crap, we have another issue to deal with...
All of our biotics only work on defenseless enemies. Only warp and singularity for some odd decision or another work on everything else, likely made by the same person who thought a dinky floating drone would not be affected by a massive gravity warping field in ME1. Sure, the logic behind armor/barrier/shields is theoretically sound. I love in ME2 that I need to rely on my teammates more than the god mode adept was in ME1. But that's not the point. What reason do I have for these flashy new skills when they are useless most of the time on insanity and even in lower difficulties--just because a skill actually CAN work most of the time in normal does not guarantee you will be using it... I am not as experienced with ME2 as others who are complaining about the very same issues, so correct me if I'm wrong, but let's investigate ME2's adept now:
(Stasis: To begin, this is inexplicably gone from battles in ME2. No one asked to have bastion able to shoot through this field again, but it was a handy tool for crowd control that is now gone completely. Did L5 implants implement the same backwards technology that weapons have now or something?)
(Barrier: Not a part of adept's regular arsenal now, but the disturbingly efficient protection that ME2's new cover system affords makes any shielding needs laughably unnecessary now. On another side note, whenever people ask about taking their advanced training skill, defensive ones are often ignored which is another game balance issue this new gameplay system failed to accomodate.)
Singularity: Beginning with the crowning jewels that are class specific skills, we have singularity. Of course, not all of these skills were created equal; we have cloaking on one end and charge on the other end. Singularity lies somewhere in the middle, in my opinion. This has its uses, but those uses had to be discovered through trial and error. Attempting to do damage with this on armored targets is idiotic, but keeping them in place for a little bit is better than having it not do anything at all. I feel like this has become more of a trap ability than the centerpiece of adept skill builds as it was in ME1. It serves as a handy warp detonation, but when I have something trapped with this, I end up shooting 99% of the time to prevent an untimely dissipation and getting caught off-guard during cooldown. Despite being pretty nerfed, this skill has its purpose and I have no serious qualms with it. I would rather we have a long cooldown on this skill and have it work the manner it did in ME1 and use a revamped stasis to freeze or, at the very least, slow down armored enemies. Having yet another skill would be a bad idea, though, considering the simplification of the skill upgrade system and lack of skill points... Too bad, right? Hopefully soldiers get another type of ammo to learn in ME3 so every other class can have enough points to learn an additional skill. This is the truth as I see it now; forgive me if it seems coldhearted to say something like that.
Warp: If one word describes adept in ME2, it would be "warp." Sad, too. At least it's more exciting to use this time around, right? I'm all for having something that is an honest-to-goodness biotic "attack" that does damage. It's more than I could say for ME1. But...I have guns for damage and I have guns that do armor damage, too. Actually, guns in ME2 are so much nicer that I really don't need warp to do damage at all. What's that you say? "But what about running out of ammo?" Well, how about we have our heatsink cartridges that speed up weapon recharging and weapon heat cooldown like in ME1 to alleviate that? Back to warp, why do I need to have a direct damage skill that curves around something? I can already curve throw or pull around to bring enemies out of cover and just shoot them, can't I? Oh, right. They have resistances that block it. Damn.
Pull: This is basically lift, but unlike lift, this is now almost always useless. Like many other people, I was looking forward to casting things off into oblivion with the advertised lift+throw combo. But now I rarely get that chance. It's a fancy finishing move when no other enemies are around for open sky areas that are actually somewhat uncommon in ME2. Nothing more. More often than not, I am busy using my precious cooldown slot for a warp. And another warp. And another. And then a singularity. And then.............................another warp.
Throw: The only change they made to this skill was add cooldown. Mastered throw in ME1 was a field AND strong AND reliable all the time. It was "my trusty throw," that elementary "force push" that wasn't spectacular but something you could fall back on when the going got rough. Sure, throw in ME2 seems to have a little more oomph, but I challenge anyone to find an adept on insanity in ME2 saying anything good about this skill.
Shockwave: What I would like to know is, even without any resistances whatsoever, who would bother wasting their cooldown time to knock a group of defenseless enemies down momentarily while a singularity or pull would probably last longer?
(Reave/Domination/Anything else: I won't get into discussion about these. I honestly do not think any particular class should NEED another skill to become more functional. This should ONLY be the cherry on top, a "bonus" and not a requirement.)
I give up. This post won't change anything. But tl;dr version is that I agree with complaints leveraged against the new system for adepts. The new battle system is nice but some things just did not translate well. I wouldn't feel so strongly about this if I didn't care about the series and wanted to see it be everything it absolutely could be. There is no denying that ME1 and ME2 are a cut above most other games that come out.
I just feel many design decisions for ME2 threw the baby out with the bathwater, really. Adding in a million new romances that sometimes did not make sense and still no m/m and very little f/f. Adding in more places to visit but keeping them constrained and small (the new town areas are a joke; I have heard nothing but complaints about the sense of grandeur and mystique and scale the Citadel has lost by being limited to such a tiny mall). Having planet scanning instead of the mako, something that could have been refined but something I thought was absolutely necessary in conveying the soul-crushing emptiness of space and to emphasize preciousness of life and the importance of Shepard's mission. Having a strange way of handling inventory to no inventory at all. Having overall world continuity and charm with elevators and certain quests only to be replaced by jarring loading screens and a mission complete summary. Going from a meticulously crafted mystery filled with plot twists and a genuinely sympathetic enemy to ME2's "Dragon Age Origins in Space" storyline schematic (which is an entire discussion on its own, trust me)... Obviously people never wanted ME2 to be ME1 or ME1.5, but there were too many changes that do not sit well with lovers of the first game. I happen to be one of the few who consider nearly every change a detriment, but that is neither here nor there.
I hate shooters and ME1 absolutely surprised me. Adept made it playable for me. Every other complaint I have against ME2 is just fluff and opinion. But I genuinely believe there is a problem with adept's conceptualization this time around. Unless I am convinced otherwise, I feel it's absolutely necessary to at least consider the complaints being leveraged against some of ME2's gameplay choices, particularly regarding the adept since it's so close to my heart.
I don't have time to proofread this so I apologize if I'm rambling or incoherent. 
Awesome post. ****ing awesome. I am glad I took the time to read it through. You should really think of sending a modified one to the developers. I think when we get people in here who want to argue the adept is "still good" we can point them to this. We should just make a new topic, and put this as the first post. Change the title, and that way we won't get so much flak for outright calling Biotics useless. Although I doubt the moderators or the devs will allow it.
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