86 réponses à ce sujet

[RoboticWater]

I never called BioWare sellouts. In no way was that the tone of my post. I'm surprised that's what you got out of it. I just found the in-game explanation unconvincing. It was just one of things one had to accept, even if it wasn't ideal. Mechanically, thermal clips definitely play more smoothly than ME's weapons. (My gripe was primarily with lore, which I feel should be given a lot of consideration in an RPG like ME.) As you say, though, clips could've been handled better. I think now is the time to improve that mechanic.

You claimed that BioWare switched to clips to appeal to a wider audience. Without qualification, I took that to mean that BioWare went to clips purely to appeal to a wider audience, and nothing more.

Sorry if I assumed too much, but there are people who actually do think BioWare are sellouts that just wanted to pander to the "CoD crowd" by making ME2 more of a generic shooter or whatever. When considering ME's ammo mechanics, I think it's important to understand why BioWare made the decisions that they did. No one should ignore the legitimate reasons that result in certain mechanics, nor should they equate grander appeal with selling out. They're fallacies I see quite often, but it's nice to know that you don't subscribe to either of them.
 

As to Overwatch, I haven't played it, nor will I. It's not my thing. I am not failing to grasp your mechanical arguments concerning game balance, ammo needs, etc... The solution I said I'd like: infinite ammo with an intrinsic heat sink that must be vented (basically a reload feature), would not be game breaking. It would make sense in terms of in-game logic, and would be a nice nod toward ME lore. It would also remove those ridiculous fields of dropped clips and omnipresent ammo crates from the game. I think they will seem very out of place in Andromeda.

I suppose that my argument is more against invoking Overwatch as defense. Like I said: infinite ammo with reloads was always a legitimate mechanic. Overwatch doesn't change that, especially if we're speaking in terms of Mass Effect.

There are reasonable discussions to be had about the lore and gameplay concessions required for ammo systems, but Overwatch shouldn't really factor into them.
 

I don't feel that it's too big a stretch to call a system like this a natural evolution of many things we've already had: ME's clunky weapons, ME2-3's clips, and ME3's M7 Lancer and Prothean Plasma Rifle.

I'll be fine if clips remain in the game. I just think they're silly and unnecessary.

EDIT: edited for clarity

My main concern about infinite ammo with reloads is that we can no longer balance weapons via ammo scarcity and there may be less incentive to make each shot count. We also couldn't gain any of the benefits of an ammo management system.

 

Either system works, but I think ammo management would result in a greater amount of gameplay depth which would be well worth the costs.

 

If we're looking at Overwatch for ideas that would translate well into MEA, I would say that giving MP characters in MEA actual personalities and backstories could be fun. Inquisition tried something like that, but it wasn't done very well. ME3 just had generic archetypes rather than defined characters.

It'd be fun, but that would make developing new characters more difficult. We probably couldn't have the mass influx of new characters that we had in ME3MP. I'd also prefer the writing talent to stay focused where possible. 

[Killroy]

Who are we kidding here? BioWare absolutely switched to an ammo system from the overheat system to appeal to a wider audience. If it was about adding new "depth" to combat then they wouldn't have had infinite amounts of ammo strewn about the ground and popping out of enemies. It's the same reason they stripped out so many of the RPG elements. 

[SKAR]

Who are we kidding here? BioWare absolutely switched to an ammo system from the overheat system to appeal to a wider audience. If it was about adding new "depth" to combat then they wouldn't have had infinite amounts of ammo strewn about the ground and popping out of enemies. It's the same reason they stripped out so many of the RPG elements.

Still, you can't deny that the weapon overheating was crap.

[Killroy]

Still, you can't deny that the weapon overheating was crap.

I prefer it to ammo. They didn't even properly implement the ammo system. There's no reload animation or shortage of ammo so there's never any risk to just firing like mad.

[RoboticWater]

Who are we kidding here? BioWare absolutely switched to an ammo system from the overheat system to appeal to a wider audience. If it was about adding new "depth" to combat then they wouldn't have had infinite amounts of ammo strewn about the ground and popping out of enemies. It's the same reason they stripped out so many of the RPG elements. 

Of course that was the goal, but that doesn't mean that the switch to thermal clips was informed by that goal alone. Incidentally, gaining a wider audience is generally the result of making a game more fun. The same could be said about removing many of the "RPG elements." Saying BioWare dumbed down their game only to appeal to a wider audience completely ignores all the legitimate reasons for removing them.

 

Like I've said many times. The current ammo system isn't that great. In fact, the abundance of ammo makes it tantamount to, if not worse than infinite ammo with reload. Although, if BioWare committed to ammo scarcity, then the game could gain more depth.

[Killroy]

Of course that was the goal, but that doesn't mean that the switch to thermal clips was informed by that goal alone. Incidentally, gaining a wider audience is generally the result of making a game more fun. The same could be said about removing many of the "RPG elements." Saying BioWare dumbed down their game only to appeal to a wider audience completely ignores all the legitimate reasons for removing them.
 
Like I've said many times. The current ammo system isn't that great. In fact, the abundance of ammo makes it tantamount to, if not worse than infinite ammo with reload. Although, if BioWare committed to ammo scarcity, then the game could gain more depth.

I reject the idea that ammo scarcity equates to depth.

[SKAR]

I prefer it to ammo. They didn't even properly implement the ammo system. There's no reload animation or shortage of ammo so there's never any risk to just firing like mad.

I did feel annoyed by the wait.

[NKnight7]

I didn't mind either way, but it is nice that Overwatch has unlimited ammo. 

[Killroy]

I did feel annoyed by the wait.

 

Weren't you talking about how much you want realism just a few days ago*? Well in the real world, reloading a gun doesn't happen instantly. It takes several seconds, even if you're highly trained. The ammo system in ME2 and ME3 is completely unrealistic.

 

 

 

*I think it was you, but I can't remember

[Killroy]

I didn't mind either way, but it is nice that Overwatch has unlimited ammo. 

 

And it's not lacking in depth.

[RoboticWater]

I reject the idea that ammo scarcity equates to depth.

You could try to have an argument for that opinion.

 

Scarcity does not inherently create depth, no, but it provides the opportunity to create it. I've already explained how in my other posts.

 

And it's not lacking in depth.

Due in no part to the ammo system.

[Cz-99]

I don't mind ammunition, but I thought it was kinda pointless in ME3 since it was everywhere and very difficult to completely run out of it. The overheating system in the first game was kinda neat, but I don't particularly have a preference for one or the other. Overwatch's system is cool too. If they make Biotics fun again in ME:A I won't have to worry about gunplay at all.

[SKAR]

Weren't you talking about how much you want realism just a few days ago*? Well in the real world, reloading a gun doesn't happen instantly. It takes several seconds, even if you're highly trained. The ammo system in ME2 and ME3 is completely unrealistic.



*I think it was you, but I can't remember

Not everything has to be realistic. Obviously. I like the thermal clips personally. They made some sense. This guy makes a good point on the subject, check him out. [url=""]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdpruBC1sW0

[Tetrabytes101]

Going to the O,P i hope the weapons are like the blasters from mass effect 3/starwars with battlefront technology and dynamics ie they over heat but can last longer with mods etc,,

[Element Zero]

My main concern about infinite ammo with reloads is that we can no longer balance weapons via ammo scarcity and there may be less incentive to make each shot count. We also couldn't gain any of the benefits of an ammo management system.

This a good point. It's one I easily overlooked, initially, since many of the weapons most affected are weapons I seldom use. Ultimately, though, I never really run out of ammo, regardless of which weapon and class combo I'm using. My assault rifle Soldier or Adept never stuns out of clips, but neither does my sniper Infiltrator. I'm not sure that the clips are really having a meaningful impact, because they're so abundant. They'd have to rebalance that system if they want them to actually be impactful. Otherwise, they may as well go to an infinite ammo + reload system. (I know you've acknowledged as much a few times, as well.)

I didn't get the impression that anyone was trying to portray Overwatch as the bringer of deliverance, or origin of this type of mechanic. I thought the OP just saw a cool mechanic, and a few people agreed they'd like to see it adapted to fit ME. Granted, I didn't read every single post in detail, so I may have missed something; but that's how I interpreted the discussion before jumping into it.

[RoboticWater]

This a good point. It's one I easily overlooked, initially, since many of the weapons most affected are weapons I seldom use. Ultimately, though, I never really run out of ammo, regardless of which weapon and class combo I'm using. My assault rifle Soldier or Adept never stuns out of clips, but neither does my sniper Infiltrator. I'm not sure that the clips are really having a meaningful impact, because they're so abundant. They'd have to rebalance that system if they want them to actually be impactful. Otherwise, they may as well go to an infinite ammo + reload system. (I know you've acknowledged as much a few times, as well.

I've occasionally run low on Claymore rounds and my Soldier's sniper has run out frequently (mainly because I'm not a good sniper). But yes, infinite ammo + reload would probably amount to similar combat when all is said and done.

 

I just like to bring up ammo management every time we get one of these anti-thermal clip threads because I think the combat needs a few more simple mechanics to spruce it up. Ammo/use limitations on equipment are just a tried and true method of doing that.
 

I didn't get the impression that anyone was trying to portray Overwatch as the bringer of deliverance, or origin of this type of mechanic. I thought the OP just saw a cool mechanic, and a few people agreed they'd like to see it adapted to fit ME. Granted, I didn't read every single post in detail, so I may have missed something; but that's how I interpreted the discussion before jumping into it.

I'll admit that I made a bigger deal out of the matter than I needed to, but I've just gotten tired of the "see this thing in this game? It should be in Mass Effect," threads that don't bother to justify their position. If we are to have constructive discussions about game design, we have to move past simply acknowledging mechanics that we like.

I think it's important to understand that the reasons why infinite ammo + reload might work well in Mass Effect differ from the reasons it works in Overwatch. Understanding that distinction is incredibly important to game design.

[Remix-General Aetius]

Makes me wish that's how it worked in ME2.

 

Never heard of Coalesced editing, have ya?

[9TailsFox]

Reload like a boss.

https://thumbs.gfyca...lBug-mobile.mp4

[Addictress]

Well the people who don't like waiting for the cool-down in ME1 probably hate the particle rifle and collector weapons huh? But the particle rifle and collector rifles/smg, though weak, are great and fashionable fun to play in ME3MP.

[KaiserShep]

Once you modded the better weapons in ME1, cooldowns were pretty much out of your way. I had modded Spectre weapons that could fire continuously at everything and all enemies would be dead before they even got close to overheating. 

[Gileadan]

From the way it is presented in the lore to how it works in game, Mass Effect 2 & 3's weapons and thermal clip design are probably the dumbest things I have ever seen in a shooter based game.

 

The disposable thermal clips are meant to be ammo. Period.

 

If they were truly universal, the player should be able to load *all* their thermal clips into the same weapon. But you can't, because each time you pick up a clip, the game spreads the spare ammo increase among all your guns that are not at max ammo already. If you have a pistol and an assault rifle, both get their ammo count increased. You can't just load all your thermal clips into your assault rifle. Because they act like ammo, not like a universal cooling resource.

 

Pistols and shotguns in Mass Effect generally  have a smaller magazine size (as in supposedly "shots fired until clip is fully heated") than assault rifles, submachine guns and machine guns. Why? Shouldn't the weapon that generates the most heat have the smallest magazine size since it heats up the thermal clip that much quicker? But full auto weapons heat up much, much faster than semi-auto or pump action ones, so pistols and shotguns should have way bigger magazin sizes than fully automatic weapons. But they don't, because they are modeled after conventional present day weapons that use ammo. Because thermal clips are meant to be ammo.

 

And let's not even mention the horribly stupid case of over-engineering of having a micro-fabricator that shaves shards off a massively dense ammo block whose weight is kept manageable by an integrated mass effect field, only to have the final weapon perform not much differently from a present day weapon that propels a solid metal slug through a basic chemical reaction. Despite the integrated mass effect fields, no one even came up with the idea to use that field to not only make the ammo block lighter, but also the gun itself. Why does weapon weight even still exist as a balancing factor?

 

The M-7 Lancer was one of the best weapons in ME3 because it adhered to the principles of ME1 where all those overengineered weapons at least had infinite ammo as an advantage. MEA needs to get off the stupid train and back to that principle.

[Killroy]

Once you modded the better weapons in ME1, cooldowns were pretty much out of your way. I had modded Spectre weapons that could fire continuously at everything and all enemies would be dead before they even got close to overheating.

 
I really don't see why that should even be an issue. It's an RPG and you have to be of a high level and devote resources and time to getting those "OP" weapons/mods. Progression should always be part of an RPG. 
 

From the way it is presented in the lore to how it works in game, Mass Effect 2 & 3's weapons and thermal clip design are probably the dumbest things I have ever seen in a shooter based game.
 
The disposable thermal clips are meant to be ammo. Period.
 
If they were truly universal, the player should be able to load *all* their thermal clips into the same weapon. But you can't, because each time you pick up a clip, the game spreads the spare ammo increase among all your guns that are not at max ammo already. If you have a pistol and an assault rifle, both get their ammo count increased. You can't just load all your thermal clips into your assault rifle. Because they act like ammo, not like a universal cooling resource.
 
Pistols and shotguns in Mass Effect generally  have a smaller magazine size (as in supposedly "shots fired until clip is fully heated") than assault rifles, submachine guns and machine guns. Why? Shouldn't the weapon that generates the most heat have the smallest magazine size since it heats up the thermal clip that much quicker? But full auto weapons heat up much, much faster than semi-auto or pump action ones, so pistols and shotguns should have way bigger magazin sizes than fully automatic weapons. But they don't, because they are modeled after conventional present day weapons that use ammo. Because thermal clips are meant to be ammo.
 
And let's not even mention the horribly stupid case of over-engineering of having a micro-fabricator that shaves shards off a massively dense ammo block whose weight is kept manageable by an integrated mass effect field, only to have the final weapon perform not much differently from a present day weapon that propels a solid metal slug through a basic chemical reaction. Despite the integrated mass effect fields, no one even came up with the idea to use that field to not only make the ammo block lighter, but also the gun itself. Why does weapon weight even still exist as a balancing factor?
 
The M-7 Lancer was one of the best weapons in ME3 because it adhered to the principles of ME1 where all those overengineered weapons at least had infinite ammo as an advantage. MEA needs to get off the stupid train and back to that principle.

 
I like you.

[Sanunes]

Once you modded the better weapons in ME1, cooldowns were pretty much out of your way. I had modded Spectre weapons that could fire continuously at everything and all enemies would be dead before they even got close to overheating. 

 

They could fix that by just removing a mod like that which could lead to weapons being more like what we got in Mass Effect 3.

 

My concern switching systems again is that there is going to be some trade-off somewhere that we can't think of that would hurt either the gameplay or weapon variety.

Modifié par Sanunes, 16 mai 2016 - 02:02 .

[Giantdeathrobot]

To be fair, multiplayer shooters rarely, if ever, have ammo being an issue. In the Call of Battlefields of this world, you usually spawn with a couple hundred rounds, while you would be very lucky to fire even half of those before dying and respawning with a full arsenal, to say nothing of ammo pickups. In that scenario, Overwatch doesn't shake up the formula that much.

 

It IS true, however, that another EA shooter (Battlefront) has a system very similar to ME1's heat generation, and off the complaints I hear about that game you rarely hear anyone talk about it. On the other hand, I do hear complaints about weapon variety, which may or may not be spawned from sai heat generation system.

 

Plus, we had the Lancer in ME3 and it didn't break the game's balance or cause it to become boring.

 

Maybe what they will do is a compromise; thermal clips, but with a way to mod weapons so that they use the overheating system, where you trade off infinite ammo for, say, lower accuracy or damage. 

 

My personal favorite would be that clips work as in the lore; you use them to instantly cool off your overheating weapon if required, and have a very finite number of them. But I'm not sure how well that works gameplay wise.

[Vortex13]

If we're looking at Overwatch for ideas that would translate well into MEA, I would say that giving MP characters in MEA actual personalities and backstories could be fun. Inquisition tried something like that, but it wasn't done very well. ME3 just had generic archetypes rather than defined characters.

 

 

I would be leery of something like that judging by BioWare's attempt in DA:I. Now I haven't played Overwatch, but I am currently enjoying Battleborn so I know that MP characters as actual 'characters' is something that can work, but then again, those characters are unique. In ME MP, you were picking a character class with a set of powers, wouldn't it be limiting to say that all human vanguards have to be a female with a ditzy personality as opposed to just having the classes be 'blank slates'?

 

I'm not against the idea of having MP 'characters', but I do feel that they need to be fleshed out enough, and different enough (design and playstyle-wise) from each other and the SP portion of the game so that you aren't feeling like your playing as a watered down, knock off version of the real thing. Plus, having MP avatars as characters in their own right runs the possibility of having people turned off to a certain character 'class' because of said character's personality.

 

Case in point being the character Benedict from Battleborn. On the surface his playstyle is really interesting; he can 'fly' and get to hard to reach/out of the way areas of the map and rain down death with his rocket launcher. The problem is that he has the personality of Matthew Macconaughey's character from Sahara, except 100 times more annoying which has completely put me off from wanting to play as him in any extended capacity.