33 réponses à ce sujet

[ioannisdenton]

Hey guys Lets talk the ideal Difficulty in ME:A (anyone noticed that there is an  "EA" in ME:A name? LOL ), not the various difficulty levels but the difficulty overall.


I will first talk about my experience with bioware games in general.
Please note that i do not consider myself a pro at all but more like an experienced seasoned gamer.
I find ALL bioware games really enjoyable to play but only on the hardest setting ; on all dragon age i always enable friendly fire as it really enhances the combat in these games. in my point of view Dragon age games benefit very much with friendly fire(try it guys) it becomes from a mindless button mashing to a somewhat thinker's strategy combat game. My fight today with Fiona with the trials on(i ll get into trials later) was exciting to say the least. I lost may times but eventualy it paid off as i got better in my tactics.
So hardest difficulty for me as if i play any bioware game in anything less that nightmare OR insanity the combat becomes pretty much boring as i find myself mahing mindlessy buttons.
And this is my gripe: I want the difficulty cramped up. I want more strategy. I want to utilise the abilities in a more thoughtfull manner than "hey this is on cooldown , lets press it". There are so many cool abilities that ammount to "lets press this button cause its on cooldown)

Mass effect3 was TOO easy even on nightmare apart from some areas (attrium fight). I think this was due to ability trees beeing SO overpowered (double pulls with minimal cooldown??? really??)
Dragon age Inquisition was also too easy after some point , however they made the game really great with the addition of trials (level  scalling , promoted beefed up enemies etc, half XP etc). DaI really needed the Trials. i am so happy for this addition.

Me2 and Da2 were way better in the difficulty experience for me. But not for the right reasons

Part of what makes bioware games easy is that the enemies have only a small amount of underpowered abilities whereas our main character and companions have bombastic abillities. 
All the difficulty setting does is just cramp up the Health points and damage of the enemies.
This has to change for the better. Put some more complex AI tactics or give the enemies t more abilities to use that are actually useable by our main character.
An example of this is in Me2 (which as i mentioned is more difficult than me3) vanguards enemies... they just shotgun you and occasionaly they throw a weak singularity. Enemy engineers were better designed though.
And no ,fighting biotic enemies in Me1 was no fun.

EDIT#2 :
What do you guys think?
Do you like the difficulty curve in bioware games?
What would you like in ME:A?
Would you like the OPTION of friendly fire?? i certainly would.
Would you like to see level scaling or atthe very least the option  to set it on or off? (i really really do)
What about cover? destructible?  In ME2 you pretty much spent entire battles in the same cover!
What about powers and thier effects? 
What about weapons and their effects? Me2 had it best with fastfiring weapons for shields and slowfiring for armor.
Please Bioware consider people with disabilities also.

[sortiv]

Good topic. In general, enemy AI is one of the trickiest and resource intensive things a game can deliver. It takes lots of time to develop, and lots of resources to execute real time. It would be great if real, authentic difficulty came from perfect enemy AI, but it would also be great if immersion came from perfect writing, and acting, and photo realistic graphics. But that's not possible.

 

That said, in general I prefer lore specific difficulty, which can tend to fall on the easier side of things in ME 1-3. I made a topic about it for ME2. And I was actually able to edit the coalesced file in ME2 to make it happen and enjoyed it. Essentially I just want difficulty to be a part of the immersion, and not break the experience for me. Naturally, on later playthroughs I want the crazy insane hard difficulty too, but that's not my main experience. 

[KainD]

I personally like clutch over tactics, because I like fast phased combat. I wish there was an option to boost the difficulty of surviving without making enemies harder to kill at the same time. ME3 Multiplayer Platinum difficulty while playing a powerful class, with a powerful weapon X and full IV amps loadout kinda achieves this feeling - I oneshot enemies, enemies oneshot me if I mess up - fun. 

[ioannisdenton]

Plus that endless run mechanic in me3 borrowed from CoD did not help either. With that said Me3 combat was the best for me while the most resourcefull was Me1 and Me2 coming after

[ioannisdenton]

I personally like clutch over tactics, because I like fast phased combat. I wish there was an option to boost the difficulty of surviving without making enemies harder to kill at the same time. ME3 Multiplayer Platinum difficulty while playing a powerful class, with a powerful weapon X and full IV amps loadout kinda achieves this feeling - I oneshot enemies, enemies oneshot me if I mess up - fun. 

Fact is i really enjoyed MP in me3 but it made the SP to look even more easy...

[KainD]

Fact is i really enjoyed MP in me3 but it made the SP to look even more easy...

 

It's kinda a combination of:

1) Being able to pause.

2) Having tons of powers to use due to controlling 3 characters at the same time. 

3) Mostly not being flanked properly, due to linear level progression.

[SNascimento]

3) Mostly not being flanked properly, due to linear level progression.

I reckon that is an incorrect assessment. A lot of people will say FEAR has the best AI in any shooter, and will talk how much they flank you. And FEAR has a very linear level progression.

Overall the Mass Effect games are low of the scale of game difficulty. But they (ME2 and ME3 at least) are high in the scale of gameplay enjoyment, and that is what matter.

There are certainly many rooms to expand the gameplay we came to expect from a Mass Effect game. One of those aspects that I think is more subtle but very important is how enemies interact with your powers. That is, their defenses and the damage they take. I thought they found a simple yet effective way to do that in ME2, with enemy barriers, shields, etc... in ME3 they tried a new system that fared less well. That is an area that more than work needs a lot of creativity. So to come up with something cool and functional. 

[ioannisdenton]

I reckon that is an incorrect assessment. A lot of people will say FEAR has the best AI in any shooter, and will talk how much they flank you. And FEAR has a very linear level progression.

Overall the Mass Effect games are low of the scale of game difficulty. But they (ME2 and ME3 at least) are high in the scale of gameplay enjoyment, and that is what matter.

There are certainly many rooms to expand the gameplay we came to expect from a Mass Effect game. One of those aspects that I think is more subtle but very important is how enemies interact with your powers. That is, their defenses and the damage they take. I thought they found a simple yet effective way to do that in ME2, with enemy barriers, shields, etc... in ME3 they tried a new system that fared less well. That is an area that more than work needs a lot of creativity. So to come up with something cool and functional. 

and this is what i truly loved in Me2 combat. Submachines for shields and low rate of fire weapons for armor. Made sense and you really utilised your arsenal and powers. i had to change weapons in midcombat in order to overcome the situations while i ahd to find cover first.
Speaking of cover Me2 was TOO static in cover, all you had to do was to stay generally behind the same cover.
Me3 kinda fixed this with phantoms, banshees etc
You know what would be cool but at the same time troublesome? Some destructible cover. Maybe different materials get destroyed with differetn weapons.

[RoboticWater]

I reckon that is an incorrect assessment. A lot of people will say FEAR has the best AI in any shooter, and will talk how much they flank you. And FEAR has a very linear level progression.

Incidentally the AI in FEAR worked so well because of the tightly controlled level design. Here's a paper describing the system (it's long and doesn't dwell on level design much, but look under "Case Study: Applying Planning to F.E.A.R.", and "Complex Squad Behaviors," for some good tidbits).

 

The most the Mass Effect team would have to do to achieve a similar effect is add a few more areas of entry to each combat zone. Even without multiple entrances, FEAR's AI can still shine given proper cover and decent corridor design.

[SNascimento]

Incidentally the AI in FEAR worked so well because of the tightly controlled level design. Here's a paper describing the system (it's long and doesn't dwell on level design much, but look under "Case Study: Applying Planning to F.E.A.R.", and "Complex Squad Behaviors," for some good tidbits).

 

The most the Mass Effect team would have to do to achieve a similar effect is add a few more areas of entry to each combat zone. Even without multiple entrances, FEAR's AI can still shine given proper cover and decent corridor design.

And that's why being linear is not a bad thing. As with pretty much every aspect of games, it can be bad or good depending on how it's used. It doesn't matter if you have a huge world in a shooter if the AI can't explore it (I believe that was the main issue with Crysis 2). 

On a side note, one thing that I'd say helps to make FEAR's AI feel good is that the enemy are constant saying things. They say stuff like "enemy sighted", "he wiped out the whole squad", "suppressing fire", "granade out", "urghhh", etc... it gives a very good feeling to the combat, and that's something ME2 did very well but ME3 seemingly forgot. 

I remember in Mars (which btw is one of the most tight and best gameplay segments of ME3) right after the train ride one of Cerberus centurions scream: "holy ****, that's Shepard". And that really adds to the atmosphere.. but unfortunallte that was the exception, not the rule. 

[sjsharp2011]

I reckon that is an incorrect assessment. A lot of people will say FEAR has the best AI in any shooter, and will talk how much they flank you. And FEAR has a very linear level progression.

Overall the Mass Effect games are low of the scale of game difficulty. But they (ME2 and ME3 at least) are high in the scale of gameplay enjoyment, and that is what matter.

There are certainly many rooms to expand the gameplay we came to expect from a Mass Effect game. One of those aspects that I think is more subtle but very important is how enemies interact with your powers. That is, their defenses and the damage they take. I thought they found a simple yet effective way to do that in ME2, with enemy barriers, shields, etc... in ME3 they tried a new system that fared less well. That is an area that more than work needs a lot of creativity. So to come up with something cool and functional. 

Exactly and to me that's what I probably like most about Bioware's games that they're not super difficult to get to grips with. Sometimes I find games are too difficult for their own good and not enjoyable to play at all. I think Bioware generally get their difficulty settings just about right. Yes the final fight with Corypheus in DAI could have been made a little more challenging than it was I suppose but in general terms I find the rest of DAI to be close to perfect in terms of difficulty for me but then I usually play most games on their easiest or relatively low difficulty settings because of my disability and I would get major frustrated if things were made too hard.

[Sidney]

I usually play at normal because higher difficulty usually isn't harder, enemies aren't smarter they just take more abuse so instead of doing xyz 5 times to win I have to do xyz 10 times.

Really until more difficult means other than it takes more buckets to kill I'm not too concerned with difficulty.

[SNascimento]

I usually play at normal because higher difficulty usually isn't harder, enemies aren't smarter they just take more abuse so instead of doing xyz 5 times to win I have to do xyz 10 times.

Really until more difficult means other than it takes more buckets to kill I'm not too concerned with difficulty.

That's pretty much what every game does. Some implement some different kind of behavior and/or abilities, but mostly it's just more health and bigger damage output. 

And to be fair to ME2 and ME3, both have more than just health and damage. ME2 gives enemies a layer of defenses which asks of you new strategies, while in ME3 enemy behavior change a bit... enemies will throw granades more often and dodge virtually all projectile power you throw of them (which is not very effective since you can just use your squadmates', hence my very first post here). ME1 however, just make enemies painfully harder to kill by giving them more health... gotta love immunity! 

[Sanunes]

One of the problems with BioWare games when it comes to difficulty is that we have a squad the game needs to maintain as well, so it limits what the game can do with the resources when it comes down to AI.

 

To me there are a few ways to improve the difficulty in any BioWare game from my experience is a combination of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3's multiplayer.  I think having the different layers of protection and how powers and weapons react to them differently was a great idea, unfortunately I found Insanity to be boring because almost every enemy felt the same because they were all protected the same way.  Now with Mass Effect 3 I think upgrading units would be a good idea as well based on the difficulty, so instead of grunts being the most common unit on all difficulties they are upgraded with more advanced units that have access to more powers, abilities, and weapons.

[ioannisdenton]

Exactly and to me that's what I probably like most about Bioware's games that they're not super difficult to get to grips with. Sometimes I find games are too difficult for their own good and not enjoyable to play at all. I think Bioware generally get their difficulty settings just about right. Yes the final fight with Corypheus in DAI could have been made a little more challenging than it was I suppose but in general terms I find the rest of DAI to be close to perfect in terms of difficulty for me but then I usually play most games on their easiest or relatively low difficulty settings because of my disability and I would get major frustrated if things were made too hard.

You know they really should implement various options for people with disablilities IN ALL GAMES like change the button layout (ps4 luckily has it), a narrative mode, maybe voice controls

[ioannisdenton]

One of the problems with BioWare games when it comes to difficulty is that we have a squad the game needs to maintain as well, so it limits what the game can do with the resources when it comes down to AI.

 

To me there are a few ways to improve the difficulty in any BioWare game from my experience is a combination of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3's multiplayer.  I think having the different layers of protection and how powers and weapons react to them differently was a great idea, unfortunately I found Insanity to be boring because almost every enemy felt the same because they were all protected the same way.  Now with Mass Effect 3 I think upgrading units would be a good idea as well based on the difficulty, so instead of grunts being the most common unit on all difficulties they are upgraded with more advanced units that have access to more powers, abilities, and weapons.

The problem with Me3 was that our squad and shepard were too overpowered. too much damage output with too much control, abilities like double pull - double throw biotic combos, constant charge -novas (i never spammed that combo), OP concussive shot were so powerfull they made other signature powers like singularity, adrenaline rush seem obsolete. A answer to that was to begin a character without import but that was out of the question since the nature of Mass effect is a single character across all playthroughs

[straykat]

I've said this elsewhere, but I think the only times difficulty really shined in the series is through a tight space on a map, mixed with getting swarmed. Like the Collector ship or Grissom academy. But even then, you get used to that on insanity too.

 

But if they could make everything like that, I'd be happy enough.

 

On the flipside, there's also the mirror matches and tough enemies like Maya and the Clone. There could be some of that too.

[shodiswe]

Me3 multiplayer was enjoyable tbh. Even if it was a repetable hordemode. But it feelt balanced and it had interesting variability in playable characters and abilities and tactics of gameplay.

[rashie]

At any rate the difficulty curve needs to stay more consistent throughout the whole game, having played adept, infiltrator, and soldier in all 3 the only one that really manages to pull this off somewhat is ME2, despite the more simplistic gameplay compared to 3.

[Helios969]

I would suggest that much of ME3's relative ease was due to the fact that after awhile you know every layout...what kind and where every enemy is going to spawn...and what tactics they will employ.  That is the root problem from where I sit.  If Bioware could develop a algorithm that tracked previous playthroughs and randomized layouts, enemies, and tactics that would go a long way.  ME2's difficulty I think is the cheap way to do it because it just arbitrarily makes every enemy more difficult with extra health, armor, and barriers...or extra waves.  And that's not fun, it's just tedious.

[Navasha]

As someone who has been gaming since the 80s, I can say honestly that difficulty of all games in general has seriously decreased over time.    Some of it surely is my years of experience, but every game now pretty much requires me to set it at highest difficulty to be satisfying.    Most of it, I am sure has to do with making the games enjoyable over a much wider audience.    Not everyone enjoys spending a few hours of reloading a game to get that thrill of satisfaction when you finally get past a truly difficult encounter. 

 

It can't be easy to design encounters that can be both casual and truly tactical nightmares depending on which difficulty setting the player prefers.    This is part of why I wish for games with more mod friendly designs.   Mods can go a long way toward elevating the difficulty of a game in great ways.   They can also do it to whatever level the player wants without compromising the game for those that enjoy a more casual stroll through the game. 

[Keitaro57]

I agreed with a lot of posts here :

*Various AI actions depending of the difficulty level.

*Map design allowing the enemy to flank us.

*I think that hip-high wall must not bring a full cover bonus. Only the shoulder-high must protect the player totally.

 

On the other side, I hope the easy mode will be really easy. Not as hard that the ME2 easy mode. I know there are a lot of good players here, but my little brother is handicapped and, while playing the trilogy, meet a living hell with ME2! On the other side, the ME1 and ME3 easy mode was really easy. Because of that, he doesn't want to try a second run. Casuals are not the only players that use the easy mode : some players use it because they are physically unable to play at a harder difficulty. And I can say that his specialized high school has the highest concentration of videogame fans I have ever seen...

 

There are other ways to upgrade difficulty : lower the cash income, lower the exp gain, shortrage of ammo, spawn of turrets, limited-time missions having less minutes before game over... In fact, difficulty is a totally build-in system of the game.

 

Some games, like Bayonnetta, made it well with the very high difference between the casual and the extrem level : from an one-button mashing to a cyborg arc-reflex requirement.

[Eleonora]

I think the difficulty on easy and normal modes should stay about the same. However, the difficulty on hard and nightmare/insanity modes should get cranked up a bit. Having "trials" like in DAI would greatly enhance the replayability and challenge as well.

Also, I'd love to see more battles like the Clone battle and the Armax arena mirror match. The Clone battle was fun, the Armax mirror match was insane and super challenging (on hard and insanity at least), but winning it was very satisfying.

[Capt_Kangaroo]

I love the fact that EA games are generally not Super hard. I absolutely hate it when a game is soooo difficult that it becomes frustrating.., that's when the game stops being enjoyable for me. EA has incorporated enough "hard" levels without making it frustrating.

Now a days I don't have the luxury of being able to sit for hours on end getting through one mission., having said that, I only recently completed ME3 on insanity level and the ONLY reason that I did it was because it was the only badge I didn't have, did I enjoy it.., no.

 

Cheers

[Sylvius the Mad]

I don't think difficulty is particularly important. As long as the game's mechanics make sense, and the fights aren't too gimmicky, I'm fine with the combat.

Whatever the difficulty is, it shouldn't be twitch-based (because that can be undone by pausing, and pausing is mandatory), and it should match the narrative (if the story says something is difficult, it needs to be difficult).