903 réponses à ce sujet

[IncognitoPanda]

I have now read through most of the posts here, and ther's a lot of great ideas. Some that I'd like to expand upon.

First, how about making each class differentiate even more by giving them perks. For instance, the soldier is a master of weapons, and weapons only. He/she should have an advantage within the weapon department more than just being able to use them. How about making the soldier switch guns quicker? A soldier relies on switching between guns and ammo, so if that could happen a bit faster would be great. Then the Vanguard may perhaps move a bit faster or something, the infiltrator already sees things in slowmo when using sniper...every class being a bit distinct.

Also love the thought about more context-melee. Nothing too complicated but seeing your class perform up close in action would have been awesome. Vanguard Charge-karatekick ftw! Or something like that. Really, infiltrators neck snapping if unseen by enemy, vanguards punching the enemy so they fly away kind of like charge, just standing still. Engineers perhaps stunning the enemy, and so on. Whether these changes should be mainly aesthetic or functional I am not sure yet.

The Unity and Ammo powers should not be considered a power, thus should not have a cooldown period. I find it ridiculous having to wait 12 seconds after using a power to heal your squad, when that consists of sending something like a radio signal to your squadmates' suit. That can't possibly be so resource consuming. These "powers" could have a bit different color in the wheel, for example, to indicate that they are not normal powers r

Moding weapons with small "add ons" could excuse ME for not having so many weapons of each type. Not sure how to make that happen well, or if people will take any interest, but say you start with the basic weapon. Then you get 2-3 slots which you may fill up with whatever perk you want, steadier aim, bigger clip, etc, and then you may combine those a bit. Perhaps add the layer of tradeoff in inclusion to the fact you have to choose between the mods.

Modifié par IncognitoPanda, 26 mai 2010 - 06:07 .

[Scarecrow_ES]

Panda... there have been a lot of refinements to some of the ideas I've presented in my initial proposals that have come from lengthy discussions in this thread. I'm in the process of incorporating some of those improvements into an update. One issue with the tiered system for power cooldowns is that 2 doesn't seem like quite enough, and as you've pointed out, some powers really do need a slightly longer cooldown for balancing sake. So yeah, 3 tiers, I think, is optimal fo our purposes, and the update will point to that.



We also discussed pages and pages ago an update to the skill assignment system that would actually separate individual attributes of a power - say, duration, area of effect, etc - into their own sub-categories beneath a power, and so instead of upgrading the whole power incrementally, you'd just upgrade those attributes of the power that were important to you. This is a way to keep the single point upgrade a la ME1, but also add back some of the power variety that ME1 had and ME2 has rigidly condensed. I'll explain in more detail in the update when it's finished.



The controller scheme is just demonstrating a way to incorporate a charging system for powers, that's all. Just showing how it could be done.



There is something additional I want to discuss, about the idea of a lock-on system we've talked about earlier. One way that I think it could be done would be to modify the power system from a button press to a press and release system. Holding your reticule over a target will put a sort of bracket around the target to show that any power you use will be directed at that target. Pressing the button assigned to a power will lock-in the selection of target until the button is released. Releasing the button then activates the power. Essentially then, the player targets the enemy he wishes to attack with a power, presses the power button, drags the reticule in the direction he wants to curve his power from, and then releases the button to send the power. This also is in keeping with the press-hold-release function associated with my charging powers system... so if that system is ever added to ME3, then most of the ground work for this type of lock-on system has already been laid. BioWare simply needs to make minor adjustments to the targeting system to incorporate a target lock, and a visual representation of bracketing for a targeted enemy. Very simple stuff.

[Scarecrow_ES]

We've discussed in onl minor detail some of the ideas you've suggested there. The notion about further distinguishing classes is something I've personally had on the backburner since I created this thread, but since there's never been much interest in it expressed by others, it's not something I've devoted much time to. I will say that I completely agree that each class should feel much more distinct. In fact, playing the game through as each class should feel almost like playing a completely different game when it comes to mission scenarios.



One thing that irks me about ME2's mission gameplay is that there is really only ONE right answer. One way to tackle combat. Sure, there's all kinds of powers, and each class has different ones, but no matter what you choose, fights are all the same. This wasn't the case with ME1. Fights were far more limited in nature and so largely uninteresting in ME1, but at least you could tackle them in different ways. This is a missed opportunity in ME2.



I tend toward Infiltrator-type classes in games... especially RPGs. I like class setups that let me choose when and how to fight. I can sneak, I can flank... I can completely circumvent if I want to. I can strike a target from long range and close for more traditional fighting, or I can sneak up and deliver a fatal blow completely undetected. It's this kind of choice that draws me to Infiltrator type classes. The ME2 Infiltrator should give you all the right tools to play the game this way, or so it seems, but you really can't play the game stealthily, which is irksome to say the least.



SO yes, I am completely in favor of greater class differentiation that adds passive "perks" as well as active powers that forces each class down a clear gameplay path. Most of your ME classes tend toward some of the very basic and fundemental RPG character archetypes... tanks, assassins, mages, buff/debuff specialists, etc. They should play more like those distinct classes, and it can be very simple to make them that way by tweaking some of the basic stats like health, damage resistance, agility, etc for each class, but yeah, also adding "perks" and ensuring that players both must, and will want to, play to the strengths of a class to succeed with it.



I'm all for expanding melee to add more context sensitive actions. This is something we've mentioned before, but never really discussed in-length (largely, I suppose, because what needs to be said beyond "let's add more context sensitive melee options"?)



I completely agree with removing ammo powers and unity from the standard power system. If I had my way, ammo types would shift to mods (given that I'm advocating a significant mod system in my OP update) instead of powers, and that they'd be upgraded under the research system and not the skill system (except keeping the tech/biotic/soldier limiting factor - ie tech based classes can access tech-type ammo, biotics can access warp ammo, etc). All we have to do from a combat standpoint is to add a simple interface under the weapon selection system to change ammo on the fly (though I imagine it would be possible to also set up weapons in the armory ahead of time too).



Unity (medigel) just needs to have no cooldown associated with it. Under my tiered cooldown system, it could just be a level 0 power (requiring zero tiers' worth of power).



Modding weapons is something we've discussed at length in the thread, but it has gotten more serious in recent pages, and I feel the time is right to add it to the compendium. The new OP update will feature a variation on the KotOR type slotted system that seems to be most favorable to players, with certain caveats which I think will keep this system balanced for gameplay.

[Scarecrow_ES]

bump

[Dualfinger]

Buddy bump

[Scarecrow_ES]

Thanks... still working on an update. Some stuff has been added, and of course I've gone through and updated some of the old language and incorporated some of the good ideas, modifications, or changes we've already talked about. There are a lot of things I want to include, such as the mod system, that I am working the language on to make clear, and still working through the individual pages here for snippets that need to be included.



Unfortunately, I've gotten side-tracked with the release of Super Mario Galaxy 2, which is now occupying a lot of my free time. I gotta say, Nintendo never disappoints with first-party releases. Anyway, I hope to have the text of the update done within a week, and then perhaps some significant reformatting to make to huge wall of text more digestable. I expect the updated compendium will be perhaps 20% longer, so there's definitely a lot there to read through for those new to the thread, and the occasional viewer might find a lot there he's never seen before. If you follow the thread with regularity, however, I don't think there's much there that you'll have missed in our greater conversation here, though.

[Galaxxia]

wow there are alot of ideas coming up and most of them are pretty good. Did anyone from bioware already read this?I suggest to send the updated form to bioware or one of the bioware mods because this needs to be considered by bioware in ME 3.

back to the topic:

I mostly agree with scarecrows proposals but what bothered me when i played mass effect was the fact that nearly no choice you made in a sidequest affected your main storyline. Everything you got from for example helping someone with something was a message to your private terminal which said "thanks". I also remember having saved the Cerberus guy from Pvt jenkins in ME 1 which had no effect on ME 2 but just a message.

Also there need to be more sidequests with more variety because all the "investigate XY" was kinda boring. And why not make like a sneeking mission or bring back the mako?

thats my opinion and i would say more if it just wasnt too hard for me to express myself in proper english.



(°-°)

[Dualfinger]

Man, I really hope the devs read this stuff.

[yuncas]

I just started a run with an infiltrator on insanity yesterday and I have two great big gripes. I've probably said something about them on this very thread but I don't feel like searching for it. Also I guess it wouldn't hurt to restate the two points just to express how badly they chap my big fat ass. The aim assist when zoomed in with a sniper rifle has been responsible for me getting killed more times than I can count. No aim assist PLEASE! Second is the way a sniper rifle goes from the over-the-shoulder crosshairs view to scoped view. They do not sync up. I can be aiming directly at an enemy in 3rd person view but when I zoom in with the scope I'll be aiming at a wall, a box, the open air, or the worst of all, the wrong enemy.

[Scarecrow_ES]

Yeah, Yuncas... a little refinement to their engine will fix that, but thanks for bringing it up. I don't think you've posted that one in this thread before, so it's all good.



To reply to Galaxxia's post, I think the significant change in mission structure in ME2 has a lot to do with producing a more narrow, focused narrative that the devs could more clearly define and control. This is the primary factor in what allows the more cinematic approach they've taken to the narrative, as compared to other games. Unfortunately, this has significant ramifications for how any sub-line is handled away from the main story-line. It'd be quite difficult to handle all the possible outcomes that could be made possible through Shepard's actions and make those actions show up in the same cinematic fashion BioWare was going for.



Personally, while I do appreciate the "art" focused experience in and of itself, I think this is a wrong direction in videogames... at least in the RPG genre where diversification is a true hallmark. I think true RPG fans prefer to see their actions at least mirrored somewhere in their environment... if only to have some mundane action taken somewhere in some relatively unimportant side-quest me casually mentioned by some NPC somewhere else in the game. The cinematic approach to story-telling is a boon to videogames as a whole, yes, but it's currently not possible have both the cinematic presentation with the open nature of gameplay in RPGs. Ultimately this would lead to the pretty but narrow ME2-sytel of presentation. Fans of the action genre will applaud this, as many action games with more focused gameplay have had this more cinematic approach for awhile. But for those of us who have grown up in RPGs, we're seeing a lot of the secondary and tertiaty experience dwindle because of it.



I do hope that one day developers can do both at the same time. BioWare, I'm sure, could handle it if any developer could. Oh, and yes, I'm all for mission variety.



As far as devs seeing this list... I'm not sure. I know the mods frequent the thread, hiding in the background and observing. At one point this had been stickied as a part of my negotiation with said mods, and they've occasionally posted in the thread. In private discussions with them, there have been some cryptic statements made that lead me to believe there is some interest in the thread from on high, but I've got no real reason to believe that dev staff are watching this thread like a hawk to draw inspiration from. I've certainly never been contacted directly by any member of dev staff. But yeah, my hope has always been to make this topic about reaching the dev staff with the truly best ideas possible.

[Computer_God91]

It would be nice to see your ideas implemented into the game seeing as I agree with a lot of them. You should recommend either collapse-able helmets or the DA takes off helmet in conversation. Either of those would be welcomed too.

[Scarecrow_ES]

Yeah, I'm including the pretty standard request to have the full environmental helmet not be a selectable option for Shepard, so that you won't have to worry about walking around in a full helmet in normal environments. Of course, I'm also suggesting that we have appropriate combat attire for all party members. You know, like Shepard you should have a casual outfit for the ship and whatnot, and then a combat outfit for out.

[Minister of Sound]

Great job with the thread. All your ideas sound awesome and rational. But don't forget to add putting back in allowing the player to choose what to say every conversation; No more of Shepard speaking without input.

[Scarecrow_ES]

I suppose that really depends on the conversation and what's said. Certainly significant inter-character interactions should have dialog options, but static cutscenes don't require them.

[Dracotamer]

I'd like to see customizable armor and weapons for both myself and squad-mates like in ME 1 and an inventory system/drops.

[yuncas]

Heres one I don't hink has been mentioned. Somehow being able to designate your primary weapon would be useful, so far as having the ammo you collect go directly to the stockpile you have hidden somewhere on your person for that particular weapon. THAT IS IF THEY KEEP THE UNINTERCHANGEABLE AMMO SYSTEM BEING USED NOW.

[Scarecrow_ES]

Right, yeah... clearly if we keep the weapon system as is, something could stand to be changed so that I'm not just filling up on ammo for the weapon I'm using. Even just applying ammo to those weapons with the lowest count first would be helpful. Of course, my system completely eliminates the need for this, so... ya know.

[Dualfinger]

True that.



Still man, BVS ftw.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

what i wanna see from the conversation system:

Renegade and Paragon interrupt prompts on screen at the same time and Renegade and Paragon choices not always equally being a "perfect solution to every crime". As is they kinda both "beat the goal" in the same way, I'd like to see more situations where if you're choosing between blue and red you're making a real choice, not just a sentence choice.  But then again I guess that is kinda hard to do....but i can't actually remember any time in either game where blue and red choices had any sort of legitimate difference to them...other than one makes me sound like a clown and the other one makes me sound like harrison ford.

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 03 juin 2010 - 05:15 .

[Scarecrow_ES]

Well, the interupts are a different sort of issue than conversation options. I mean, a paragon interupt choice only appears for paragons, and renegade for renegades, and the action you take based on that interupt is unique to that choice. For instance, there is an interupt at one point where you choose to end the conversation by shooting at an exposed gas pipe and effectively killing the krogan you're talking to. A paragon would never do that... or more correctly, there is clearly no paragon choice that could lead to that action. As such, the interupt system as is makes sense.



I could agree with paragon/renegade conversation options leading to truly different results, but this adds such a potential degree of overcomplexity to conversations that I'm not sure such true differentiation is possible. At least not within the scope that Mass Effect tries to stay within. There are other games, of course, where the good/bad choice in conversations can end up having very different and largely permanent consequences, but usually this is only with ancillary characters with little or no impact on the storyline.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

no obviously not having them for every situation but like....when vitor was at his console you get paragon and renegade interrupts but they are alternating. for pushing the merc out the window, a paragon option could be just knocking him out cold instead of knocking him out a window :E

in other situations it could be as subtle as shooting someone in the leg instead of in the head, ect


Basically what the interupt system is mechanicly is the current choice system with a timer attached, increasing urgency in the choice.  Paragon or Renegade must be reactive, while letting the timer expire is the same as a neutral choice.

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 04 juin 2010 - 04:49 .

[Jebel Krong]

yuncas wrote...

I just started a run with an infiltrator on insanity yesterday and I have two great big gripes. I've probably said something about them on this very thread but I don't feel like searching for it. Also I guess it wouldn't hurt to restate the two points just to express how badly they chap my big fat ass. The aim assist when zoomed in with a sniper rifle has been responsible for me getting killed more times than I can count. No aim assist PLEASE! Second is the way a sniper rifle goes from the over-the-shoulder crosshairs view to scoped view. They do not sync up. I can be aiming directly at an enemy in 3rd person view but when I zoom in with the scope I'll be aiming at a wall, a box, the open air, or the worst of all, the wrong enemy.

i think that's a problem with movement in the cover system - it's far too sensitive, so if you are on a corner for example, tiny movement on the horizontal axis can cause massive accidental movements, throwing your aim completely off (particularly if it cause you to snap from the side of cover to over said cover and perhaps back again in less than a second). also bullets travel so damn slowly - compared with any other 3rd person action game, say gears, it's noticeable, doubly so when you're supposed to be firing railguns at everything...

[SithLordExarKun]

Quite honestly i am sick and tired of only being able to interact with my party members in the Normandy and not talk to them outside of the ship, this is a flaw(to me) that is present in both games and actually engaging them in a conversation with them outside of the ship would be interesting.



Secondly i think that the romances need to be improved as i personally felt that for both games it wasn't very deep and shallow as in the romances felt rushed and lacked alot of substance. Well in DAO or KOTOR the romances took quite some time to actually build up and for some reason because of that felt a lot more realistic and fleshed out than the ones in ME1 and ME2.

[Jebel Krong]

SithLordExarKun wrote...

Quite honestly i am sick and tired of only being able to interact with my party members in the Normandy and not talk to them outside of the ship, this is a flaw(to me) that is present in both games and actually engaging them in a conversation with them outside of the ship would be interesting.

double the ram, memory bandwidth and disc space in everyone's console and you could probably get your wish.

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 04 juin 2010 - 11:33 .

[yuncas]

Jebel Krong wrote...

yuncas wrote...

I just started a run with an infiltrator on insanity yesterday and I have two great big gripes. I've probably said something about them on this very thread but I don't feel like searching for it. Also I guess it wouldn't hurt to restate the two points just to express how badly they chap my big fat ass. The aim assist when zoomed in with a sniper rifle has been responsible for me getting killed more times than I can count. No aim assist PLEASE! Second is the way a sniper rifle goes from the over-the-shoulder crosshairs view to scoped view. They do not sync up. I can be aiming directly at an enemy in 3rd person view but when I zoom in with the scope I'll be aiming at a wall, a box, the open air, or the worst of all, the wrong enemy.

i think that's a problem with movement in the cover system - it's far too sensitive, so if you are on a corner for example, tiny movement on the horizontal axis can cause massive accidental movements, throwing your aim completely off (particularly if it cause you to snap from the side of cover to over said cover and perhaps back again in less than a second). also bullets travel so damn slowly - compared with any other 3rd person action game, say gears, it's noticeable, doubly so when you're supposed to be firing railguns at everything...

Yeah I can see that happening sometimes. I'll catch it when I'm coming out of the scoped view and somehow I'm crouched out in the open when I'm supposed to be behind the nearby cover for example. I can't recall that ever happening to me in ME1. Is it the cover itself that is not working properly in ME2?  

And the bullet velocity of the so called super awesome future guns is real ridiculous. You shouldn't have to lead a target with them to get a hit.