24 réponses à ce sujet

[Abraham_uk]

I would like to start off by saying that my thoughts are NOT the be all and end all of this discussion.

So many people go on the internet with the attitude "It's my way or the highway".

 

This is disrespectful because: A we all have different views, B there often is no "right" answer and C we can get stuff wrong.

 

So with that (probably unnecessary) disclaimer out of the way, here are my two cents.

 

 

 

When Insanity is fun for me:

Spoiler

 

1. Enemies use a combination of tech, biotic and combat powers to debuff and annihilate the player: If the player can potentially use a power, so can an enemy. I loved the Mirror Matches in Citadel DLC. Clone Vanguard Shepard was my favourite. I would like more of that, but why limit it to a few powers. Why not go full gambit with all of the tech, biotic and combat powers being used for Insanity!?  
    
2. Enemies have abilities outside of the tech, biotic, combat trinity: For example, the Banshee has the "jump" ability, the "screech" ability and can briefly shield itself from damage. By learning how the Banshee fights you can gain the upper hand and slaughter it. This process was a lot of fun for me.
    
3. Enemies have some psychological tactic that will directly affect the player: That banshee scream sends chills down my spine every time. The laser beams and the wall jumping from geth sappers can cause me to panic. Melee units in a battle field and grenades being thrown can cause me to dart out of cover into a really dumb decision that gets me killed.
    
4. Enemies have great synergy: I loved the way that Engineers in Mass Effect 3 had the ability to repair Atlas Mech and their own turrets. In addition they can deploy those turrets. Canibals could feed of dead allies to become stronger (if only it made a difference) and Marauders could buff allies (if only they had more hit points for this to make a difference). However synergy doesn't always mean "hey look I have this useful ability to aid allies".
   
   Take Mass Effect 2. The Collectors had soldier type units to make sure you were in cover, then had husks to make sure you stay out of cover. To make things worse they had the Praetorian to make sure staying in cover was a bad idea and staying out of cover was a bad idea. To make things worse Harbinger has to come along and possess a unit. The end result is that you're rushing around the battlefield trying to avoid every unit whilst vanquishing them quickly.
    
5. Enemies are adaptable: If I were to say "I want better AI" that would be lazy and obnoxious. What I like is adaptability. So here are a few examples. If you are from a far, soldier units are using their assault rifles but if you close in soldier units will switch to shotguns. If you have shields up, engineers will send out their drones and overload your shields, but if your shields are down they will use missile projectiles such as incinerate or cryo blast to dispatch you. If you are behind cover biotic foes will use shockwave to stagger you out of cover and operatives will use flash bangs. If you are out of cover a sniper or rocket trooper will make mince meat out of you. If you are behind cover too long, enemies will start closing in with either shotguns or melee attacks.
    
6. Different types of units: The Reapers have to be my favourite in terms of variety. You have your mob units (husks), flesh eating soldiers (cannibals), tanky soldiers (marauders), heavy artillery (ravagers) and psychological warfare (banshees). To me this mixture of units was a lot of fun to fight. I found Cerberus and Geth to be a little too much like the mercenaries from Mass Effect 2 even though they do have a few interesting units. The Collectors in ME 2 and ME 3 however are my all time favourite because of the variety and the fact they get me panicking every time.
    
7. Game encourages you to use a variety of abilities: I love it when you're using a variety of guns, powers, melee, running, staying behind cover etc to overwhelm your opponents. I love it even more when the game encourages this type of behaviour.
    
8. Mix up the roles: I love the idea of having a mixture of: medic, debuffer, crowd control, engineer, nuker, assassin, buffer, tank, melee fighter etc. These mixture of roles can affect the order in which you kill enemies. Do you go for the glass cannon nuker first or do you go for the one hit kills sniper? Do you go for the in your face tank first before they close in with a shotgun blast to the head, or do you go for the engineer who keeps repairing the Atlas Mechs? Enemies that have a mixture of roles force players to think.
    
9. Personality: Even within the same unit, no two soldiers are the same. In this example you are up against 4 soldiers with the same skill set. Let's say you have one soldier that favours assault rifles. One of them is all about the suppression fire. They send out rapid fire blitz to scare the player into cover before weeding them out with grenades. The other soldier is the hit and run type. They dart towards you, send of a few rounds in your direction before rushing back into cover. Then there is another soldier who will try to flank you at every given moment favouring their shotgun. The fourth soldier deploys both shield boost to restore allies shields and medi-gel to restore ally health all whilst trying to avoid getting shot. In addition each soldier has specific dialogue to their character as opposed to the generic "enemies everywhere" non sense from Mass Effect 1. Each soldier will have their own name, tactics, dialogue and own unique appearance. In addition the soldiers respond to each other both with their dialogue and battlefield tactics. So rather than having 100 of the same soldiers per level, why not have 10 unique soldiers per level?
    
10. Variety of Objectives: Go here shoot this, go there shoot that? Why not have more objectives? Hacking, driving a vehicle against a clock. Repairing stuff. Perhaps you need to rescue a bunch of civilians. Maybe you are preventing an assassination. Maybe you are going into a building to gather intel and using stealth to avoid combat altogether. Perhaps you are piloting a ship without any weapons and somehow trying to avoid getting hit whilst being in the middle of two warring factions shooting at each other. Maybe your objective is to use plat forming to perform a series of well timed jumps and sprinting to reach a wounded soldier to perform first aid. Rather than press a button for first aid you have to administer it via a mini-game. Then you have to carry the wounded soldier to safety all whilst avoiding hostile soldiers and escaping a building on fire.

 

When Insanity is not fun for me:
​

Spoiler

1. Too many hit points for enemies combined with weak sauce dps from player character: So you're hitting a foe repeatedly to take them down, whilst the foe takes you down in one hit. This can make higher difficulties tedious.
    
2. Enemy Immunities: These are actually an excellent idea. Having the odd foe who is immune to certain powers and certain elemental can force players to mix things up a little. Stop spamming warp or trying to rag doll foes or maybe stop trying to overload and incinerate everything in sight. However if you have too many then the game ends up discouraging power users making shooting and melee the only way to go.
    
3. Too many mobs: Adding more enemies does make the game more difficult. However I feel this tactic is better suited towards Online Multiplayer (which was a horde mode) or zombie games. Mobs in the end encourage "nuke" type of builds where success is all Area of Effect and Damage Per Second. This can make a lot of builds and a lot of tactics less useful.
    
4. Your allies could be more helpful: I often pick allies purely on their powers. I would like allies to adapt to enemies, use cover but also move around the battlefield trying to outwit enemies. Also if Shepard can go up to an ally and revive them, it would be nice for allies to have the same said ability.
    
5. The only way to beat me is to grind! It's good to know that your attacks deal zero damage because you're not a high enough level. Facing an enemy that is 2 or more levels above you should be exhilarating. The game never intended you to take on this virtually impossible level 30 enemy, but you somehow pulled it off at level 10 on insanity. Truly you are awesome!  If an enemy is too high a level, don't make it impossible to kill said enemy. Make it challenging instead.
    
6. One Hit Kills: I have a love hate relationship with these. (Not literally. I don't love them or hate them). I love it when an enemy such as a phantom or banshee has said ability, however it is possible to avoid them. What I detest is when there is a one hit kills attack that you can do nothing about. I'm not fond of "death" spell from Final Fantasy for that reason. A new addition I'd like to bring to the table is the chance to get out of a one hit kills animation. If there is a timed button press required (that doesn't have a button prompt on screen) this would be pretty nice. I do like the fact that if an ally kills the phantom or banshee during the one hit kills animation, it is cancelled.
    
7. Long and drawn out battles: These are a great idea if there are very few encounters in a game. However if there are over 200 encounters and each one takes half an hour, this feels more like padding. For me, higher difficulties are exhilarating if they are short and sweet. So if a battle is 5 minutes long and requires quick reflexes that is far more fun than a 30 minute battle with enemies that can take lots of hits.
    
8. Unimaginative Boss Battles: Sadly I don't have much in the way of advice on how to spruce up a boss battle. I don't personally think video games need them. However here is one type of boss battle I am not too fond of. Keep hitting the enemy till it dies. To me a good boss battle works like a puzzle. You have to figure out how to kill it. Then you have to mix up your tactics using a variety of abilities, weapons and tactics to over come the fight. Or at the very least have an interesting way of defeating the boss.
   
   My favourite boss was the Twin Witches in Orcarina of TIme. You have to use your mirror shield to deflect ice attacks to the fire witch and deflect fire attacks to the ice witch. Then you must hook shot your way to the downed witch to hack away at it. In this battle you're using at least 3 different items and you have to act quickly in order to win.
    
9. Kill Fest: Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex and Dishonoured are interesting games as they offer pacifism as an option. Don't want to go killing enemies? Why not stealth through the gun tooting sections avoiding all combat and use dialogue options to avoid fights? Whilst that option might never be available for a Mass Effect game, if the only objectives are to kill stuff, the game becomes stale.
   
   I do love the fact you can engage in dialogue with lots of NPC's. I enjoy the hacking mini-games. I enjoy exploring in Mako (and even in Hammerhead). I love romances. I love exploring the galaxy in the Normandy. I even enjoy planet scanning in both ME 2 and ME 3. Heck I really enjoyed both Samara's loyalty mission and Thane's loyalty mission because it gave me a break from killing lots of things. The mini-games in Citadel DLC were a lot of fun too.
   
   So many people want to get rid of romances, mini-games and side activities. I'm not sure if they realise that without these Mass Effect becomes a kill fest.
    
10. Health Regeneration: I like the idea of both sides having limited consumables to revive and heal allies. However I'd rather limit health regeneration to vorcha. I also like how warp and fire element stops the regeneration. This is interesting. However what is not so fun is having the player character and allies be able to restore their health by staying behind cover for 4 seconds. It is equally annoying if enemies can pull this off too. I make an exception for vorcha as this is the point of having vorcha.

 

What are your personal "Do's" and "Don'ts" of difficulty?

[Abraham_uk]

What ideas do you have for Insanity Difficulty?

[KaiserShep]

I thought the Shepard clones in the Armax Arsenal Arena were a good start, especially on insanity where they can seriously wipe you out. I got a taste of what those weak ass NPC's were experiencing. They were quick, and evaded attacks just like Shepard could, and didn't mess around when it came to melee, unlike basic Cerberus mooks with their little taser sticks. 

[Kaibe]

I like those ideas quite a lot.

[Sartoz]

                                                                          <<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>>

 

Good ideas.

 

Certainly combat in ME:A will consist of new Powers and abilities from both camps.  What you propose is risky, if implenented at this time in the game's development cycle. I'd be happy if the AI controlling my squad does a decent job, keeping them under cover and use their skill to max effect, including  the use of 1st aid.

 

Tougher combat is to be expected, according to a Bio tweet.  I'm unsure why they are implementing a "tougher" oponent, unless its a Boss fight or the need to play Co-Op against a Boss in the SP game. ... a SP+MP cross combat of some sort, that Bio alluded to. The latter may add some zest for players that enjoy MP combat.

 

Let's hope that one or two of your proposals gets into the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cyonan]

The mirror match was a lot of fun, and I'd love to see more enemies using player abilities against us. Other than that, some random notes off the top of my head:

 

> Nova was a fun and interesting idea, but was highly exploitable to become immune to damage. You need to be careful about immunity frames, especially if you're going to allow animation cancelling.

> The power spread of some factions was really weird. Phantoms and Turrets made up 90% of the threat on Cerberus. The player should be worried when a Guardian gets up close, rather than thinking "oh look, free kill".

> Sync kills. All they really achieved in Mass Effect 3 was punishing melee builds.

 

I'd also say they should be careful about stacking modifiers. Specifically in Mass Effect 3 MP, certain kits could stack so much damage reduction that they took no damage at all. There was also certain kits that could stack multiplicative damage multipliers to start dealing absurd amounts of damage, which lets them slaughter most enemies before they ever get the chance to be a proper threat.

[capn233]

In general, enemies able to use similar powers to the player would be a good start.  In ME1 you could be hit with Warp, Throw, Sabotage and Damping IIRC.  In ME2, that was somewhat scaled back to Warp, Incinerate, Combat Drone and Harbinger's biotic attack.

 

One thing that I am not particularly fond of, but is almost certainly going to be used, is an enemy HP modifier for each difficulty resulting in scaled up HP.  Not that I am 100% opposed to the idea, but it shouldn't be the predominant difference between modes.  It makes weapon balancing more difficult across modes, and turns some enemies into giant bullet sponges.  ME1 may have suffered more from this than ME3, compounded by the frequency of enemies using "Immunity" on that mode.  They should consider altering other factors such as enemy accuracy and the speed at which they will acquire the player and the team.  I don't know why these variables were lumped into one place in ME3 and not modified in the difficulty handler.

 

If shieldgate and healthgate make a return, they should consider a larger reduction in gate times for Insanity.  There should also probably be a hard cap on player damage reduction that is well below 100% actual.  In DAI defenses are capped at 80%, so some people at Bioware probably realize this already.

 

Duration penalties for abilities should exist and be highest on Insanity, and against more elite units.

 

It might be worthwhile to explore making defense layers actually meaningful again and limiting the ability of effects on protected targets (more in line with ME2), especially if combos are back.

 

As an aside while on defense layers, roll back to unified "kinetic barriers" as the shield protection layer generated by suits of armor, and make "Barrier" a biotic bonus.  The split made some sense in ME2, and little sense in ME3 given how powers became more generalized anyway.

 

I hesitate to say it, but perhaps it is time to consider adding in friendly fire for the higher difficulties.  There probably wouldn't be as many problems as with DAI given how different abilities are with regard to area of affect(much smaller in ME than DA), but this would also be a decent way to limit the utility of combos if they make a return (which seems extremely likely).

 

Another aside regarding combos, it would be nice if physics based combos could return a la ME1 and ME2; eg Lift/Pull -> Throw.  It was satisfying in those days to be able to toss around enemies as opposed to going Michael Bay on any enemy that looks at you.

 

Combos should also not scale in damage across difficulties.  There is no compelling reason that they should be the sole damage type that does not suffer from increased enemy hp scaling.

[LordSwagley]

I like the idea of firefights being more quality over quantity. I remember discussing the idea of fighting smaller but more intelligent and tougher squads a few months ago and your post perfectly summed up my thoughts. Firefights should each feel unique and challenging (think Brothers in Arms or military simulators) where small-squad tactics matter and each firefight is intense and rewarding as opposed to spraying hordes of bullet-sponge mooks in-between objectives. I felt alot of the cerberus fights on insanity did a good job of doing this in ME3.

[StealthGamer92]

Umm...same as now? It's done pretty good at present imho.

[MGW7]

Give the enemies cooldown based powers, and variable weapons as said. And rather than just scaling damage scale the cooldown, weapon switch speed, and factors other than damage, such as long range weapons being more accurate, charge based guns faster charging, aoe weapons bigger, and only short range weapons significantly more lethal based on raw damage. 

 

The best example is me2 harbinger, on low levels he was a tough guy with a gun, on the higher levels he was a storm of biotic death, who didn't actually shoot at you as much.

[Bourne Endeavor]

Be mindful of what your new additions bring. Biotic explosions were a great concept, but their sheer lack of balance rendered them a somewhat poor execution. Instead of instancing the game, they trivialize it. So I would like to see this scaled back. Nova suffered a similar problem. What possessed Bioware to beef up arguably the most destructive class in the trilogy is beyond me. Either way, limit the use of invulnerable frames. 

 

Enemies could use something of an overhaul. Too often I found they either didn't pose any challenge or just became damage sponges. Brutes tried to walk the fine line, however by the time they're introduced as a semi-common enemy, you'll be mowing them down with ease. So while I don't necessarily like HP modifiers, I do think DPS and health need to be addressed. A big factor though will be AI tactics. I want to see enemies who dodge powers, try to flush you out of cover or even try to pick off your teammates if it makes sense. Halo's done a decent job in this department.  

[Catastrophy]

No time dilation.

 

Combined Arms tactics.

 

Distinct resistances of different defences (armour, barrier, shields, health) against certain attacks (bullet, ap, biotic etc.).

 

A clear indication of what needs to be done.

[countofhell]

The importance of enemy armour gear, firearms and biotic/tech powers depends on the nature of the mission.

For infiltration, defensive or attack missions the enemy use different Kit's that most fit for the current mission.

- enemies with similar skills as N7 elite or higher, more skilled and advanced enemies.

- no tutorial on the highest difficulty level.

- no destination mark allowed during and between missions.

- no minimap

- more XP need for level up, however highly skilled enemies death = huge XP boost.

- as the player stays longer in the already cleared area more enemies will spawn, enemy reinforcements will attack the player.

- no character leveling limit, however the player can start only on level 1 character on the highest difficulty level this means NG+ insanity is only accessed by NG insanity. Of course everything carries over from that difficulty level.

- saving is not allowed during missions on hardcore and insanity, autosave function is not accessible on both highest difficulties however the game does autosave before every mission.

[Schmonozov]

Perma-death

[Abraham_uk]

Perma-death

 

I think the idea of an "Ironman" difficulty higher than insanity could be done.

 

Ironman:

Ironman mode is similar to Insanity but with even tougher enemies who fight more aggressively. Unlike other difficulty settings, upon death all save files under said career will be deleted from system.

[Navasha]

Giving enemies unique skills and abilities that are only used under insanity would go a long way.   No one could then claim that "so-and-so" enemy ability is over-powered since those abilities wouldn't exist in the easier difficulties.  

 

Those that like to play insanity would enjoy the challenge of overcoming those special abilities and those that don't like it don't have to suffer through those abilities.  

[rashie]

I think the idea of an "Ironman" difficulty higher than insanity could be done.

 

Ironman:

Ironman mode is similar to Insanity but with even tougher enemies who fight more aggressively. Unlike other difficulty settings, upon death all save files under said career will be deleted from system.

Honestly, no. Its better to have both available at the same difficulty level if doing one above insanity, but one of them without the permadeath setting.

 

Pillars of eternity did this with their trial of iron mode, the highest difficulty setting is available from the start allowing countless failures, but when creating a character there's also a switch you can press to enable permadeath.

[CHRrOME]

Well, you did a pretty good job describing an actual fair and not cheap way to implement a high difficulty level. I will have to agree.

Buffing the enemy and nerfing the player on higher difficulty levels is the cheapest way to make a game challenging.

 

In ME3 cerberus soldiers could snipe you down from all across the map with their crappy smgs if you choose Insanity. All of the sudden the incineration power of the enemy drones in ME2 deal massive damage against shields, when that's not supposed to be an effective way to deplete them. And why? just because the difficulty lvl buffed them so much that it pretty much broke every rule in the game.

[Nitrocuban]

Only like 10% of ME3 players finish the game on Insanity, spending a lot of time on a difficulty above Insanity is very unlikely. So we either get no or a very cheap Insanity+ mode.

I could imagine BW does do some sort of SP Platinum mode, just for fun and totally not balanced,  as reward for a New Game + Insanity run plus a freely customizable character to play around with.

You know, something like that modded Vanguard with Annihilation Field and Nova and stuff on Youtube, only that you gonna need all that OPness to stand a chance now.

[kajtarp]

Let's be honest. anyone regular gold level player will find single player insanity a cakewalk. maybe even silver level players. because i don't think single player insanity is harder then a multiplayer bronze match.

[Abraham_uk]

Let's be honest. anyone regular gold level player will find single player insanity a cakewalk. maybe even silver level players. because i don't think single player insanity is harder then a multiplayer bronze match.

I think multiplayer was always meant to be tougher than single player.

 

If anything, if the hardest multiplayer setting was easier than the hardest single player setting then then that mode would have no staying power.

 

The point of the mode is that you start off rubbish. You start with terrible gear, characters and player skill.

Everything improves. All gear and characters then later your skill will improve too.

 

 

If you had mastered Insanity and insanity was tougher than multi-player then what incentive would you have to play?

[kajtarp]

I think multiplayer was always meant to be tougher than single player.

 

If anything, if the hardest multiplayer setting was easier than the hardest single player setting then then that mode would have no staying power.

 

The point of the mode is that you start off rubbish. You start with terrible gear, characters and player skill.

Everything improves. All gear and characters then later your skill will improve too.

 

 

If you had mastered Insanity and insanity was tougher than multi-player then what incentive would you have to play?

 

of course, i agree. multiplayer has to be harder. I just meant that in multiplayer people learn a lot of stuff which makes the single very easy later. As you progress from bronze to silver to gold or platinum you learn lots of stuff about weapon mechanics, gameplay mechanics

 

Before playing the multi i didn't fully understand how the shieldgate or armor damage reduction mechanic works. But now i exactly know what weapon and mod i should use, what kind of stuff is needed for the various tech or biotic combos the gameplay offers.

 

I recently finished the single campaign with a soldier. I didn't use any OP guns from the DLC's. Two level 6 concussive shot with amplification using incendiary ammo took down a brute literally from full hp. 

 

I'm not sure bioware was thinking about that before the release of the game. 

[kajtarp]

 

 

What are your personal "Do's" and "Don'ts" of difficulty?

 

you have absolutely fair points. I have a few more.

 

1. First i hate when i am the target no matter what. Lets say there are a few enemies at various places spread out in a room. I have my squadmate infront of them. Literally infront of their nose. Still, every single enemy is focusing on me instead of attacking the closest and biggest threat, or they are completely ignoring my squadmate and start to charge towards me. in me2/3 that happened quite often. One nice example is the Armax Arena mirror match. 

 

2. following point 1, when my squadmates are doing nothing. Even tough i am primary target all the time they still doesn't deal damage.

 

3. of course the opposite is also true. in mass effect 2 having garrus and zaeed with their mantis sniper rifles literally obliterated enemies on their own. i could sit back and just watched how they killed every enemy except heavy mechs.

 

4. I'd really like opponents with various tech combat and biotic powers. For example fighting Vasir in the Shadow Broker DLC was quite fun. I'd love more vanguard enemies charging at me, enemy soldiers using adrenaline rush etc etc. Enemies with flashbang grenades were fun in the Kasumi DLC. The mirror match was a nice example, but having many problems you or me already mentioned. 

[Dubozz]

me2, da2 1.0 insanity was fine, insanity w/o immunities = character will roflstomp everything

[Wulfram]

More varied enemies are good no matter the difficulty