110 réponses à ce sujet

[Ghost Of N7_SP3CTR3]

Why y'all hate the Kobra Missiles?

I love to use them,but hate looking at that unsightly thing on my back for the whole game.

[coldflame]

My verdict after comparing DAMP DLC to ME3MP DLC..

 

ME3MP =

DAMP =

[Dekibra]

I love to use them,but hate looking at that unsightly thing on my back for the whole game.

 

there are ways to make it vanish you know

[twiffer]

Promotions, with the way they worked in this game, was a pretty intimidating feature to go through for a lot of new players. I'm hoping they change the way the promotion system works in the next game (if there is one), so that it doesn't count towards you characters base stats. There should be a threshold to how good a specific character can be when running through the difficulties; with new items of higher ratings alluding to higher difficulties. Back in ME3, the damage you did was normalized and scaled up; depending on the difficulty. I imagine this made it much easier to balance the game, since you had fewer variables that needed accounting.
 

I always thought that promoting a certain character X number of times should have given you an item (be it a weapon, armor, or accessory) specifically for that character; and with unique abilities that compliments them.

 

not just new players, but players who don't have the time to invest in the grind of SP and MP. 

 

my frustration with DAMP (of which my wife well knows) springs from having really wanted to like it. a co-op dungeon crawler? sign me the hell up! a co-op dungeon crawler where i feel like i can be two-shotted by any scrub archer unless i've invested 200-300 hours of grinding? **** right off with that. couple that with the fact that it's a dungeon crawler with 4 dungeons and no ability to choose the faction you face? 

 

i don't play much above threatening...i gravitated toward silver in ME3MP (though tending more towards gold toward the end of regular playing). and that's fine. i'm completely cool with that; i'll never have the time to become a l33t player. but, alas, sticking to threatening in DAMP seems to consign you to a life of building your collection of highland dirks. 

 

still, it is gear more than anything that drives me made. rare and unique are meaningless when the weapons are also leveled. i loved the hell out of gift of the mountain father at the point i got it in SP. in MP, it should not be purple. i dunno, make the low level uniques orange or something. or, take a cue from ME3MP and allow them to be improved. have one @ level 8 or 9 (i forget what it is) and get another? it improves the level. make purple mean something beyond an all too common cruel tease.

[MagicalMaster]

sign me the hell up! a co-op dungeon crawler where i feel like i can be two-shotted by any scrub archer unless i've invested 200-300 hours of grinding? **** right off with that.

 

Could you explain what you mean by this (assuming you mean things like Wraiths and Red Templar/Venatori Marksmen)?  Especially as you talked about playing on Threatening -- I've never had that experience except when taking an Archer into Nightmare (we had been doing Perilous and the host switched it to Nightmare without me noticing -- was literally taking 40% of my life per arrow due to like 10-15 promotes total at that point, worse gear, and no Barrier provider).

 

Or perhaps could you explain how you hoped to see health work in DAMP?  Part of the "problem" is the existence of items that can let you heal 10-40%+ of your life per kill you make or abilities like Death Siphon which heal 10% of your life no matter who kills an enemy.  Then throw in other items that let you heal 1% heal per hit, items and abilities that generate nearly 2% (of your max life) in Guard (or more) per hit and Barriers which absorbs thousands of damage.  This winds up meaning that losing small amounts of health isn't dangerous at all since it can be healed right back up.

 

Now, I'm not saying I think the current system/design is perfect or ideal or even good...but in the current system a random scrub archer doing 2% of your life per shot would be pretty meaningless when *you* can often one or two shot him and heal 10%+ of your life.  I will agree that prior to HoH or HoK items some rogues (like the Archer) feel like paper without a Barrier provided and are extremely gear dependent (and I wish that wasn't the case)...but basically all mages/warriors and some rogues definitely don't feel like they're ever getting remotely two shot by a random scrub archer (unless doing Nightmare or beyond in bad gear, even with zero promotions).

 

DAMP just has a massive arms race in terms of defensive, healing, and CC abilities/items that means enemies have to do a lot of damage in order for death to be a risk.

[Vortex13]

This may seem kinda nitpick-y when compared to game mechanics and RNG structures, but one thing that I found to be incredibly annoying with DAMP, after all the previously mentioned items was how each agent was a pre-established character. On paper, the idea sounds really interesting; a former dragon cult member, a Dalish Keeper, an Antivian Necromancer? Awesome! But in practice the 'characterization' only served to push me away from the gameplay.

 

Aside from agents having utterly bare boned characterization (which is shocking considering this is BioWare we are talking about) and only repeating the same scant few lines of dialogue over and over and over again, we were stuck with kits that have an aggravating personality. I know that when I first jumped into DAMP, I was excited to play the Keeper; her power list looked like it fit perfectly with my play-style; unfortunately, I had to listen to her smug responses about how much better the Dalish were compared to everyone else. Sure, I could turn down the speech volume, but when a solution to a gameplay element is 'turn it off' you know you have a problem.

 

MEMP had blank-slate characters, they only said short phrases that didn't distract from the battle and would complement the other members of your team. Things like "Nice Shot!" "Hostiles Incoming!" "Thank you!" and the wave completion cheer of "For Thessia!" or "For Tuchunka!" These lines fit with the action that was happening on screen; you didn't have a member of your team asking if the others have tried that ham they had at camp the other day, or if they could find that cave with the glowing lichen again in the middle of a beat down drag out fight. We didn't have to listen to the Krogan soldier opine about the Genophage, or the Ex-Cerberus operatives talk about human superiority because it detracted from the action and made it feel like you actually didn't have control over your character. You could fill in the blank with whatever you thought would work for your character's backstory (if you were so inclined).

 

Speaking of that, the MEMP kits themselves allowed for a greater sense of 'ownership' than the DAMP agents. Want to be a Turian in hot pink armor? Go ahead! Whereas in DAMP you are limited to picking a limited selection of outfits, with no control over the color of said outfit (you just have to craft all the armors and hope that one is something you like). Also, since the different armors provided differing levels of protection, you would naturally want to equip the outfit with the best AC, which of course would limit your choices. I know that I really liked Luka's default outfit, but unless I wanted to give up protections I wouldn't use it over her over higher level armors.

[Ghost Of N7_SP3CTR3]

there are ways to make it vanish you know

I always hide my rocket,that was the first thing I did in the vid.

That was also a heavily modded gold match,,,something that would be nice to be able to do in DAMP.

[Dekibra]

I always hide my rocket,that was the first thing I did in the vid.

That was also a heavily modded gold match,,,something that would be nice to be able to do in DAMP.

 

aah... yes, good times - landed in a modded lobby by accident once... I lol'd and then died from the 100 abominations crawling over me ^^

[MagicalMaster]

This may seem kinda nitpick-y when compared to game mechanics and RNG structures, but one thing that I found to be incredibly annoying with DAMP, after all the previously mentioned items was how each agent was a pre-established character. On paper, the idea sounds really interesting; a former dragon cult member, a Dalish Keeper, an Antivian Necromancer? Awesome! But in practice the 'characterization' only served to push me away from the gameplay.

 

Aside from agents having utterly bare boned characterization (which is shocking considering this is BioWare we are talking about) and only repeating the same scant few lines of dialogue over and over and over again, we were stuck with kits that have an aggravating personality. I know that when I first jumped into DAMP, I was excited to play the Keeper; her power list looked like it fit perfectly with my play-style; unfortunately, I had to listen to her smug responses about how much better the Dalish were compared to everyone else. Sure, I could turn down the speech volume, but when a solution to a gameplay element is 'turn it off' you know you have a problem.

 

For what it's worth I prefer the established characters over the blank slates -- it helps make things feel more varied when each character is distinct initially.  I don't have to "headcanon" that the Keeper and Arcane Warrior have a very different view of the world or something, it's an already established fact.  Switching from elf mage to elf mage is more than just an ability/gender swap.  And, frankly, I think most people would agree with me on this.  It's not that I think you're *wrong* -- we're literally talking about personal preference here -- but rather that most people appreciate the mental shortcut of not having to imagine personalities for the characters in the first place since we're talking about 12-16 different characters here.  If you're a person whose favorite part of an RPG is character creation and deciding their backstory/personality and so on then you'd obviously feel differently...but I preferred Shepard and Hawke to the Warden.  And I think even the 2871282179241 times the ham is mentioned is endearing in its own way.

 

That said, I can completely empathize with liking a character's abilities/class but hating their personality and/or looks.

[Beerfish]

BioWare dropped the ball big time when they did not flesh out the mp characters at skyhold in the sp game.

 

1) Would have been to flesh out the characters a bit, pay homage to mp ala the last dlc for mass effect.

2) If they were done well enough they would have perhaps made some sp only players more interested and this willing to try out mp.

 

All for really not a big investment.  You have the character models, a few short convos of banter by the writers.  The day they wee doing the mp voices they could have added more lines for recording.

 

Opportunity missed.

[Vortex13]

For what it's worth I prefer the established characters over the blank slates -- it helps make things feel more varied when each character is distinct initially.  I don't have to "headcanon" that the Keeper and Arcane Warrior have a very different view of the world or something, it's an already established fact.  Switching from elf mage to elf mage is more than just an ability/gender swap.  And, frankly, I think most people would agree with me on this.  It's not that I think you're *wrong* -- we're literally talking about personal preference here -- but rather that most people appreciate the mental shortcut of not having to imagine personalities for the characters in the first place since we're talking about 12-16 different characters here.  If you're a person whose favorite part of an RPG is character creation and deciding their backstory/personality and so on then you'd obviously feel differently...but I preferred Shepard and Hawke to the Warden.  And I think even the 2871282179241 times the ham is mentioned is endearing in its own way.

 

That said, I can completely empathize with liking a character's abilities/class but hating their personality and/or looks.

 

 

See I could like the pre-established characters if they had more, well 'character'. Shepard was great because he/she had a character that you could see had depth to it; the agents in DAMP are just caricatures of a single phrase, like 'snooty elf mage' or 'bloodthirsty warrior woman'. The thing that really bothers is not so much that the characters have a personality it's how little personality they have.  The DAMP agents feel so underwhelming when comparing them to BioWare's penchant for strong character development. The game Evolve has greater depth and nuance to it's various hunters and it s a game that puts MP ahead of story.

[MagicalMaster]

Shepard was great because he/she had a character that you could see had depth to it; the agents in DAMP are just caricatures of a single phrase, like 'snooty elf mage' or 'bloodthirsty warrior woman'.

 

Did Shepard actually have depth of character by default, though?  I mean, you literally chose things like whether (s)he was a War Hero, a Sole Survivor, or Ruthless.  As well as the Spacer/Colonist/Earthborn part.  And then determined Paragon or Renegade ideology (or mix).  Yes, Shepard is a lot more developed than a complete blank slate (due to things like voice acting alone) but it was often more about less choices (but each choice meaning more).  And you could play him as a caricature if you wanted (several caricatures, really).

 

I wonder if the the fact that you never choose dialogue options with the DAMP characters is really part of the "problem" for many people -- less about prior development and more about controlling development.  And the Reaver is a lot more than just a "bloodthirsty warrior woman," for example -- despite making comments like how her sword arm is getting twitchy some of her other comments indicate there's a lot more to her.  I'm not saying she's the most fleshed out character in the world with pages of backstory or anything, but she's not the generic "ARGH ME ANGRY ME SMASH" brute type.

[twiffer]

Could you explain what you mean by this (assuming you mean things like Wraiths and Red Templar/Venatori Marksmen)?  Especially as you talked about playing on Threatening -- I've never had that experience except when taking an Archer into Nightmare (we had been doing Perilous and the host switched it to Nightmare without me noticing -- was literally taking 40% of my life per arrow due to like 10-15 promotes total at that point, worse gear, and no Barrier provider).

 

Or perhaps could you explain how you hoped to see health work in DAMP?  Part of the "problem" is the existence of items that can let you heal 10-40%+ of your life per kill you make or abilities like Death Siphon which heal 10% of your life no matter who kills an enemy.  Then throw in other items that let you heal 1% heal per hit, items and abilities that generate nearly 2% (of your max life) in Guard (or more) per hit and Barriers which absorbs thousands of damage.  This winds up meaning that losing small amounts of health isn't dangerous at all since it can be healed right back up.

 

Now, I'm not saying I think the current system/design is perfect or ideal or even good...but in the current system a random scrub archer doing 2% of your life per shot would be pretty meaningless when *you* can often one or two shot him and heal 10%+ of your life.  I will agree that prior to HoH or HoK items some rogues (like the Archer) feel like paper without a Barrier provided and are extremely gear dependent (and I wish that wasn't the case)...but basically all mages/warriors and some rogues definitely don't feel like they're ever getting remotely two shot by a random scrub archer (unless doing Nightmare or beyond in bad gear, even with zero promotions).

 

DAMP just has a massive arms race in terms of defensive, healing, and CC abilities/items that means enemies have to do a lot of damage in order for death to be a risk.

 

i'm talking about when i started playing. when armor was just pretty clothes to wear and not something that actually helped mitigate damage. when the katari was still supposed to run into the fray, but did not generate guard on each hit. when guard felt like it was essentially meaningless. when AW ruled the land with a mighty spirit blade. i also said "feel" which it important when using hyperbole to make a point. 

 

regardless, i still don't have stuff like HOK rings. it's better now, than when i had to rely on the -700% drop rate for cotton (and variants) to get any HOK. i'll be the first to admit that i am a scrub who needs to l2p. but i'm never going to run nightmare. i want to just have fun and even when playing with friends, spending the match as a corpse is not fun. ME3MP seems to have a higher fun factor for the casual scrub; DAMP expects more devotion before it rewards you.

[MagicalMaster]

i want to just have fun and even when playing with friends, spending the match as a corpse is not fun. ME3MP seems to have a higher fun factor for the casual scrub; DAMP expects more devotion before it rewards you.

 

What difficulties is that happening on?  Perilous?  On what character?  Perilous is equivalent to Gold, more or less (though tempted to say Gold was more between Threatening and Perilous)...which "casual scrubs" in ME3MP weren't doing either.  DAMP also expects more teamwork than ME3MP in terms of things like Barriers, CC, taunting, tanking, etc.

 

I played ME3MP on launch for a long time but I only started DAMP about a month ago.  I think one of the easiest ways to lessen potential frustration initially is to pick either a non-gear dependent class or a class with innate healing (like Elementalist, Reaver, or Necromancer).

[ParthianShotX]

You started a month ago and are contributing meaningfully on Nightmare?  What are your stats and what are you playing?  What kind of gear are you using?  What are the stats on the other members of the team  you typically run NM with?

[twiffer]

What difficulties is that happening on?  Perilous?  On what character?  Perilous is equivalent to Gold, more or less (though tempted to say Gold was more between Threatening and Perilous)...which "casual scrubs" in ME3MP weren't doing either.  DAMP also expects more teamwork than ME3MP in terms of things like Barriers, CC, taunting, tanking, etc.

 

I played ME3MP on launch for a long time but I only started DAMP about a month ago.  I think one of the easiest ways to lessen potential frustration initially is to pick either a non-gear dependent class or a class with innate healing (like Elementalist, Reaver, or Necromancer).

i started DAMP before they began buffing/nerfing anything. casual, not n00b. your experience does not include what turned me off of DAMP. the only thing that has pulled me back in the tantalizing promise of a being rewarded with a lock of varric's chest hair once this five part challenge is done.  

 

moreover, there is still the glaring problem of having a dungeon crawler with 4 dungeons. there is the inherent problem of item leveling negating the classification of rare & unique (unless you let multiple drops improve the item level, ala ME3). there is the supreme annoyance of being unable to select faction (seriously, i would actually choose to be a templar if i knew i would be facing demons). many of the issues stem from technical reasons; such as using weapon assets from SP (where, as mentioned, a lvl8 or 9 unique is meaningful). others (faction choice?) are just baffling.

 

i completely get that new maps in DAMP are harder to create than in ME3MP. offering a horde mode: protect a village, defend a keep, fend off an ambush at your camp in the woods...these would allow for smaller, simpler maps to pad out the selections. not to mention the wealth of locations and assets that could be poached from SP. have some MP missions to tie up loose ends, take care of what the inquisitor left unfinished. let us run through swamps and forests and across plains. send a squad to kirkwall, or one of the other free cities, to hold fast against a rift until the inquisitor can arrive to close it...there are so many possibilities for more places to play in.

[MagicalMaster]

You started a month ago and are contributing meaningfully on Nightmare?  What are your stats and what are you playing?  What kind of gear are you using?  What are the stats on the other members of the team  you typically run NM with?

 

Added trial to library July 18th, also out of town for a week during the past month.  I've been told I'm meaningfully contributing by players who I doubt would be lying about that and I had to duo most of zone 3 FC against Darkspawn one game after the third person died (couldn't find a fourth at the time and no PUG joined), so I'm reasonably sure that counts (and no, we weren't hiding at the bottom of the ladder).  That said, I'm not a PromotionLord who can charge up the staircase on zone 4 FC as an Archer solo (and my computer is not good enough to run FRAPS plus DA:I).

 

Stats are something like 35/30/35 (though more like 32/25/31 last time I did chain NM running).  Mostly play (on NM) Reaver or Elementalist, also played Assassin, Hunter, and Keeper.  Gear depends on character, but all purple.  Got all 10 stat necklaces except Cunning, 200 health belt, 10% crit/20% crit damage/10% HoK/ability rings usually (only one 10% crit ring so far but 2+ of crit damage and HoK rings).  Armor is best for all classes, either dragon weapons or better for all classes.

 

Stats on other members wildly varies -- sometimes I have 140+/140+/140+ people, sometimes people similar to myself, and sometimes people between the extremes.

 

If that surprises you so much, keep in mind I am a Mythic raider in WoW and pretty "hardcore" when it comes to approaching video games (in terms of attitude, not in terms of time spent).  I founded my own guild which is competing for top two night guild in the US since, at the time, there were no serious two night guilds.

 

moreover, there is still the glaring problem of having a dungeon crawler with 4 dungeons. there is the inherent problem of item leveling negating the classification of rare & unique (unless you let multiple drops improve the item level, ala ME3). there is the supreme annoyance of being unable to select faction (seriously, i would actually choose to be a templar if i knew i would be facing demons). many of the issues stem from technical reasons; such as using weapon assets from SP (where, as mentioned, a lvl8 or 9 unique is meaningful). others (faction choice?) are just baffling.

 

I agree that being able to "level" rares or uniques would be a much better system, but you can still ignore that and be just fine overall.  Just pretend colors don't exist and look only at item stats.  The funny thing is apparently Bioware added in more lower level unique items (like the level 10 Longbow of the Griffin) in patch 9 to give people with worse loot scores better potential items...even though a level 20 white bow would massively outclass the level 10 purple bow.  I guess people were complaining about seeing nothing interesting for a long time...now people are complaining about the change.

Faction should be selectable, yes, especially with the new Darkspawn faction.  ME3's system of XP bonuses for random map and/or random enemy selection was much, much better.  That said, Templar is good against all factions, not just demons (though it's best against demons).  Wombo combo destroys clusters of enemies.

[ParthianShotX]

Based on my observation of newer players, I'd have to say you're something of a special snowflake and that you're observations and experience are not shared by the majority.

[lJustAlexl]

snip

 

The most unusual thing there is acquiring the items you have in that short amount of playtime. I mean I know RNG is RNG, but...you may want to play the lottery the next chance you get.

 

That said, if you're regularly running with players with over 200 promotions, that's an advantage the wide majority of players will never enjoy. Since they don't use these forums, they wouldn't even know how to find players like that.

[Proto]

With the introduction of dragon weapons, improved loot tables and most importantly the armor boost, the early stages of this game are not even comparable to what it was like early on. And that's a great thing.

 

Progression is much quicker now, even promotions come quicker due to increased XP from higher difficulties and faster clear times in lower difficulties. The armor boost and easy accessibility to top-end weapons aid in that.

 

What MagicalMaster is describing seems perfectly reasonable. RNG is RNG. Though, accessories are all you really need out of chests nowaday and they have little impact. Weapon upgrades provide HOK and most of the top-end weapons have it stock. Gone are the days that a Superb HOK ring was an absolute game-changer.

[Beerfish]

How long does it take to build up a good loot score I wonder?  I'm still totally mystified by that whole business.

[BiggyDX]

How long does it take to build up a good loot score I wonder?  I'm still totally mystified by that whole business.

 

I only know that the maximum loot score (20) can be achieved by obtaining 10,000 items. That comes out to about 2.4Mil (if we're going by the old Large Chest standard).

 

1 Large Chest = 5 items

1200 gold per large chest

240 gold per large chest item * 5 = 1200 gold

[Beerfish]

I must be at the highest level as I've been a loot pack rat from early on.

[TheThirdRace]

That said, if you're regularly running with players with over 200 promotions, that's an advantage the wide majority of players will never enjoy. Since they don't use these forums, they wouldn't even know how to find players like that.

We do PUG occasionally.

Using a headset increase your chances 100...00000% to be added to our friend list. A laptop microphone bleeds out ambient noise crazy, don't use it unless you're nice enough to use push to talk.

Asking questions about the game mechanics and equipment also increase your chances considerably.

Behaving like anything but a total retard is also a great way to make it there.

It's not rocket science, but the majority of players don't even bother... Those that do bother generally get a place on my friend list right away.

[lJustAlexl]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, you guys are all extremely welcoming. It's that, as you say, most players just aren't invested enough to try and reach out. It's unfortunate.