I've noticed how the ME franchise has slowly more towards its action orientation at the price of role-playing.
Should Bioware continue like this? Should they add in things like a (better) loot system, such as picking up weapons and armour from fallen enemies, deeper customisation (especially for armour, but I think that is one thing they said they are addressing), more class specialisations, more freedom in the way the story is played?
What do you guys think?
An elaborate inventory system is wholly unnecessary IMO, but more protag customization, dialog options, character interactions, weapon & armor customization, and impactful choices would be very welcome.
Sometimes it's nice to play a game that doesn't take 20 minutes of your life selling useless crap to a phony merchant for every hour spent actually playing it. >.<
Sometimes it's nice to play a game that doesn't take 20 minutes of your life selling useless crap to a phony merchant for every hour spent actually playing it. >.<
This is why I love ME3's bottomless pit. I don't want to sell that old mod. I want it to disappear into the chasm that is the ship's armory.
Something I would also appreciate is squadmate armour customisation. Sometimes I just don't like what they're wearing, or I feel it's not very "immersive" that Miranda is wearing a spandex suit and no battle armour or whatever. Maybe an inventory would be annoying, so maybe another way to have a decent level of customisation in squadmates (more than just two options that are mainly colour changes). Or be able to give them any weapon, although their accuracy would suffer given what class they are.
While I wouldn't mind a wider array of customization for our character - in terms of powers, weapons, and armor - there is a certain limit I'd want to see on how much that extends to the squadmates. I feel after a point it just becomes busy work that artificially inflates the game's length with micromanagement.
Personally, I miss the inventory system. Or at least AN inventory system. I don't mind some refining of it, but I mostly just miss there being tiers of armors and guns. I never cared that much for customization.
Plopping armor on me and my squadmates to become unstoppable juggernauts of death is fun.
I always just enjoyed shop aspects of games.
My problem with that is I always end up liking the aesthetic of some of the mid to low tier equipment better than the end game equipment and I always hate choosing between form and function in games.
It's not so bad when I can get something where I like the way it looks and it's still functional, even if it's not the best. I don't care about being the best so long as I can be good enough and still be satisfied with how my character looks.
My problem with that is I always end up liking the aesthetic of some of the mid to low tier equipment better than the end game equipment and I always hate choosing between form and function in games.
That's what happened to me in ME1. I generally dislike a lot of the armor in the game, but I'm actually rather fond of the old Onyx armor Shepard starts off with. I prefer having the N7 logo, and none of the other armors sport it. The colossus armor is nice, but I hate the w ay it looks, so I just don't use it. Since my Shepard doesn't take too long to become a biotic whirlwind with a full arsenal of Spectre weapons, most things die before they can inflict enough damage anyway.
My problem with that is I always end up liking the aesthetic of some of the mid to low tier equipment better than the end game equipment and I always hate choosing between form and function in games.
It's not so bad when I can get something where I like the way it looks and it's still functional, even if it's not the best. I don't care about being the best so long as I can be good enough and still be satisfied with how my character looks.
Hm, I've always been the opposite. I never cared that much for aesthetics so much as how much it can provide me.
Aside the Phoenix armor... you'd never catch me in that damn thing.
I'm a big believer in being "good enough" in games. I don't need the best stuff. I don't need the biggest numbers. I don't need to be a gamebreaker. I just need to be good enough to complete the task at hand. So long as I can accomplish that, I'm going to take the gear I most stylistically enjoy.
If it's like Inquisition's customization then yes. Aesthetics matter very little to me.
YES. I want more things that define the Pathfinder's origin. Like how ME1 had quests specific to the pre-service history and extra dialogue for the psychological profile you chose, or how DA:O had unique content for the places the PC came from. Those were my favorite parts of both games, getting little tidbits of information that added depth to my character.
more elements where my character is in control and not me would be welcome - hacking, lock picking, persuasion for example type things.
I think I came at Mass Effect from the direction of an rpg rather than a shooter. And as the series went on, I've been left to feel more and more out in the cold as Bioware has abandoned its roots.
Some stuff that might bring that feeling back, in no particular order;.
A more customizable talent tree, (one thing I think DA2 did right was this.)
More dialogue options. Not like we can get much less, of course
More modular armor. Both for the protagonist and followers
More armor/outfit styles, for protagonist and companions. I don't want to be stuck with someone else's concept of "sexy marine"
Non-combat based talents (hacking, lockpicking, knowledge-based skills, healing, crafting etc)
If I understand correctly, that sort of alludes to my post that mentioned non-combat skills, so I thought I'd dig a little deeper into that.In ME1, you needed someone in the party to have the appropriate level decryption / electronics skill before you could attempt to open something secure. I quite liked that and found it more immersive. It was also another consequence of your choice of party members in any given operation. There were 2 types of content accessible from hacking: loot, and side quest acquisition (they could also be acquired by entering the appropriate system).ME2's Shepard was apparently an accomplished hacker and safecracker, but it still relied on the player's skill to solve the puzzles presented. By ME3, security was pretty much a joke, with the omni-tool able to hack into everything. (I found it more believable to role-play that EDI was doing the hacking through my omni-tool.)I would welcome a return to ME1's system of needing the appropriate skills in your party, but without the annoying mini-game. The party member with the skills should be able to complete the hack without the player's assistance.-----------------On another note - how about learning skills / specializations from other NPCs?DAO required specializations to be unlocked by learning the skills directly from an NPC, which I found immersive. ME1 awarded a specialization in the Luna mission. Specializations sort of went away after that (unless you consider skill evolutions a form of specialization).Anyone else interested in specializations?
I agree we were both talking down the same but but I hated the ME1 system which is basically the same as FO3/4 system where your skills allow you to try and do something. My character might be able to hack or unlock something but if good ol' Sid can't actually DO the task then failure ensues - and yes you can get skills that make it automatic and widen the sweet spot but even in the latter you can fail based on your skill not your characters. I am, for example, unaccountably awful at FO/Skyrim lock picking. Consequently no matter how much I might like to be a master thief since Sid can't do it my character can't do it. That is just wrong to me in an RPG.
ME had quite nice balance in my opinion, but I wouldn't mind loot system. There was something nice and fuzzy about ME1's somewhat confusing system ^^
Customization of PC could always be improved. I'm personally hoping ME:A brings DAI's CC, crafting and companion/squadmate armors back since I think it had best system for those from any BW game.
"More RPG elements" boils down in the end to more choice. More choice is almost always good.
There is certainly a balancing act to this. For example, having a person miss out on content because of a dialogue choice, or picking a particular method to accomplish a goal I am fine with. Having that happen because I prefer to hang out with particular characters not so much. Party balance I'll leave to DA where it belongs (Along with a bigger party but that's another issue). I would also encourage class choice to play into things like the way it was done in ME3's Omega DLC.
If you absolutely have to have you're non-combat skills play a bigger role, I would suggest separating them from the class. Here's how:
If you've every played Tron 2.0 you'll have an idea of where I am going with this. Essentially your omni-tool can be loaded with a finite number of programs that affect: hacking, lockpicking, knowledge-based skills, healing, crafting etc. In general they came in two forms, automatic and mini-game. The automatic programs works as advertised (up to a certain difficulty level necessitating you improve the program as the game goes on) but take up a LOT of space. The mini-game versions do not require as much space but do not guarantee success, and before you buy you are allowed to try out the mini-game to see if it's your cup of tea.
Add in finite resources (forcing you to choose between building a short term drone for an eye in the sky, more health packs etc) and this could easily compliment the gameplay nicely.
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