208 réponses à ce sujet

[matt654321]

Halucien wrote...

Or maybe, just remove the global cooldown timer on all the Adept's skills and have them on individual cooldown timer instead?

If you'd look up a couple posts from yours, you'd see that it's already been suggested and shot down. Again, I'd vastly prefer a global cooldown and short recharge times than having individual cooldowns and long recharge times.

[TepicSnowman]

I found adept overpowered in both games, but ME2 especially. I rarely had to fire my gun at all to get the job done but then thats what i picked my team mates for; I bring the voodoo and they're packing lead.



I also don't feel the same way about people saying they don't have fun with the class. Curving biotics around obstacles, launching enemies off bridges and performing biotic combo moves with hilarious outcomes was more than enough fun for me.

[Awesome Helmet]

the fact that a biotic can only use their attacks on an enemy for 25% of its health just sucks. i could see why biotics wouldnt work on shields or barriers, but biotics should be able to work on armor as well as health. armor gives the most problems to adepts. if an adept can disable enemies with armor, and say thats a 25% boost in effectiveness of biotics, then id say lets go that direction. even if im capable of controlling my enemies 50% of the time, id be happy with that. but spamming warp over and over untill i get to the red meter just sucks. its easy to kill enemies with no shielding or armor, i dont need my biotics for that.



its a bit of a disapointment since i loved biotics in ME1. loved biotics! i could debate and discuss biotic build untill my fingers fell off. i would fight someone who thought biotics sucked. now in ME2, i play an infiltrator with slam. i still play it like a biotic though spamming slam over and over....its just different, and not necessarily better.



adepts definitely need a bit of a change.

[mackster2289]

One thing to consider is that the classes in this game don't need to be balanced to each other. If they make it so that biotic powers can affect anyone if you're an adept; then, yes, the adept would be ridiculously strong, but who cares? Its not like the adept being strong ruins the game for other classes. The Sentinel being considered the strongest class hasn't ruined playing Soldier for anyone has it?



I think the easiest solution is for there to be either a toggle that allows biotics to affect defenses or an upgrade in game (squad points or research) that allow biotics to affect defenses.

[andrewv42]

Increase the damage of Warp, perhaps?

Give a level 3+ Throw/Pull a significant disorienting effect on shielded/armoured enemies.



Adepts are great against unprotected enemies, but they rely heavily on their squad members to take out armoured and shielded foes.

[gr00grams]

Okay one thing I would like to add here, that needs clearing up;

Singularity does work on shielded, barrier, armored opponents.
No, it will not lift them into the air, but it will lock them in place, and make them unable to attack.

Like on insanity, Harbinger coming at you? toss singularity, and he cannot attack.
Scion? same deal. No attacks.

Once you understand this, Adept is incredibly powerful.

Oh, also, Throw does stagger enemies that have defenses. So does shockwave.
I love adept on insanity. I don't know what other class I could do it with. Singularity can be used to be such a crutch.
Also, warp doesn't need more damage. I killed the Thresher Maw with it on insanity... that was a lot of armor, and it took it down.

Modifié par gr00grams, 06 février 2010 - 05:04 .

[matt654321]

mackster2289 wrote...

One thing to consider is that the classes in this game don't need to be balanced to each other. If they make it so that biotic powers can affect anyone if you're an adept; then, yes, the adept would be ridiculously strong, but who cares? Its not like the adept being strong ruins the game for other classes. The Sentinel being considered the strongest class hasn't ruined playing Soldier for anyone has it?

I think the easiest solution is for there to be either a toggle that allows biotics to affect defenses or an upgrade in game (squad points or research) that allow biotics to affect defenses.

It's annoying that someone posts this every other page or so on discussions like this. I'll bold it so that there's less chance of missing it:

THE ARGUMENT IS NOT THAT ADEPTS ARE UNDERPOWERED - THEY DO FINE ON INSANITY. THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY DON'T PLAY LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO - CROWD CONTROLLING. THEY ONLY SPAM WARP TO DEAL DAMAGE, WHICH ISN'T VERY BIOTIC-LIKE.

[xMister Vx]

I was always for flashier and more damaging biotic powers. The adept should feel like a maxed out Consular at the end of KOTOR2 (I hope you know what I'm talking about). How about making multiple armour-piercing biotic projectiles or something. Hell I like Cutscene Power, but when Jack takes out FOUR heavy mechs and then becomes a quite docile regular biotic... nah.

[gr00grams]

THE ARGUMENT IS NOT THAT ADEPTS ARE UNDERPOWERED - THEY DO FINE ON INSANITY. THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY DON'T PLAY LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO - CROWD CONTROLLING. THEY ONLY SPAM WARP TO DEAL DAMAGE, WHICH ISN'T VERY BIOTIC-LIKE.

Which they can do for the most, with singularity.

Really though, I think it's how the class is now. Regardless if changes are made, Throw, Pull and Shockwave just aren't as good as singularity/warp. Like even if everything is changed, if warp is still what combos (for the real damage.. those using warp on it's own... so pointless) then the rest may as well not be there anyway. Warp is the highest damage skill for biotics when you do the combo. Singularity is the best CC. Unless those two skills change, or some-such, it doesn't matter what they do. Those two moves are still better than the rest.

[Akimb0]

Captain Crash wrote...

Taken straight from Chris's own words.  Clearly they acknowledge that biotics/adepts are not balanced and I am sure they are working on improving this. 

I think it is going forwards to be a new balancing act between biotic powers and weapons.  Should weapon damage be lowered for an adept and biotic powers damage increased? a mixture?     Something needs to be done because my adept is currently a soldier which is not what I intended.

Simple problem: Most powers don't do anything until the enemy is onto it's health bar. Health bars tend to drop much faster than shields/armour/barriers. So by the time you can even use your power, the enemy is as good as dead anyway. Same with tech not working on shields/barriers. Big design flaw imo. Also the whole shared cooldown idea fails utterly. It just slows combat down and I can't see a good reason for it.

Fix: Let Biotics (and tech) work on armour/shields/barriers, with reduced effectiveness (say 50%). Remove shared cooldowns so you can then set up your own biotic explosions. (Removal of shared cooldowns should be a universal change to ME2.)

Modifié par Akimb0, 06 février 2010 - 07:15 .

[stuchiu]

Adept needs some kind of combat movement ability. Vanguard can charge, Infiltrator can cloak, Engineer can distract someone with a probe, then run, sentinel has tech armor, so he can take a few hits before hitting cover and soldier can adrenaline and move from cover to cover, but adept has nothing like that.

[matt654321]

gr00grams wrote...

Which they can do for the most, with singularity.

It's not the same as true control, and its basically used to hold them still long enough to use warp again.

gr00grams wrote...
Really though, I think it's how the class is now. Regardless if changes are made, Throw, Pull and Shockwave just aren't as good as singularity/warp. Like even if everything is changed, if warp is still what combos (for the real damage.. those using warp on it's own... so pointless) then the rest may as well not be there anyway. Warp is the highest damage skill for biotics when you do the combo. Singularity is the best CC. Unless those two skills change, or some-such, it doesn't matter what they do. Those two moves are still better than the rest.

That's why certain powers should affect certain defenses and not others. Saying 'It's O.K. that some powers are completely useless as long as they have Singularity' is a bad argument. Again, Adepts are not nonfunctional on harder difficulties, but they also don't play as advertised or in a manner that's as entertaining as it could be. This could be said a million times, but people like you will just keep ignoring it.

[gr00grams]

I don't ignore it.

Really though, what do you want them to do?
The thing most do not understand, is adepts skills are ridiculously overpowered if these proposed changes are made (just about any).

It is hard to explain, but not easy to see. If they didn't have these "lockout" moments on harder modes, adept could just walk around like a god, or they would need to remove and re-work most of their skills.

One thing though, is on modes like insanity, you need guns. No matter what class, what build, whatever, you're going to need to use guns. Once you get over that little bit, taking out shields in a second to line up a singularity/warp combo which decimates everything, its not really a problem.

Thing is, is Throw and Pull should just be removed for totally new skills.
If their is no defense to them, they would be God mode, ala ME1. It's also obvious that people cannot understand that, and want them working all the time, so just remove them, redesign new skills that could be balanced with or without the defenses.

The defenses gridlock all characters though. Whether anyone admits it or not. Even infiltrator is locked to like 3 skills in higher difficulties.

Modifié par gr00grams, 06 février 2010 - 07:22 .

[Akimb0]

gr00grams wrote...

The defenses gridlock all characters though. Whether anyone admits it or not. Even infiltrator is locked to like 3 skills in higher difficulties.

Which is a major design flaw. I like the idea and everything, but it just makes combat boring, especially when you can only really use your abilities to finish opponents off.

I don't think it would allow classes (mainly the adept) to walk around with a "god mode" as you said. However a rebalance of how skills worked, reduced duration, etc. may be needed.

Anyway, it's never going to be changed so not much use arguing over it.

[gr00grams]

BioWare actually does this in most of their games that I have played;



A rock, scissors, paper design.

Where A beats B, B beats C, C beats A.



Jade Empire etc, all the same.

Thing is, is not many notice it until they play the top end diffs, as you can just steamroll with anything on lower diffs.



On god mode, yeah it would totally happen with adept if there weren't defenses.

3 sec to incapacitate any enemy with pull?

3 sec to launch any enemy with throw?

6 sec to floor everything with shockwave?



Then the argument would be, well don't make it affect big enemies! However, that would lead us back to square one, as then people would complain that the skills are only effective on enemies that don't matter etc.



Play adept on casual. That would show what it would be like if there were no defenses.

[Captain Crash]

gr00grams wrote...


Thing is, is Throw and Pull should just be removed for totally new skills.
If their is no defense to them, they would be God mode, ala ME1. It's also obvious that people cannot understand that, and want them working all the time, so just remove them, redesign new skills that could be balanced with or without the defenses.

The problem is this wont happen,  Bioware wont go back to square one so have to work on the current powers.

So that does mean balancing the current powers and making them more effective.  I understand exactly where your coming from though, we dont want a ME scenario again where lift and throw took out everything.  However there needs to be more of an effect outside of health.

[matt654321]

gr00grams wrote...

I don't ignore it.

Really though, what do you want them to do?
The thing most do not understand, is adepts skills are ridiculously overpowered if these proposed changes are made (just about any).

It is hard to explain, but not easy to see. If they didn't have these "lockout" moments on harder modes, adept could just walk around like a god, or they would need to remove and re-work most of their skills.

One thing though, is on modes like insanity, you need guns. No matter what class, what build, whatever, you're going to need to use guns. Once you get over that little bit, taking out shields in a second to line up a singularity/warp combo which decimates everything, its not really a problem.

Thing is, is Throw and Pull should just be removed for totally new skills.
If their is no defense to them, they would be God mode, ala ME1. It's also obvious that people cannot understand that, and want them working all the time, so just remove them, redesign new skills that could be balanced with or without the defenses.

The defenses gridlock all characters though. Whether anyone admits it or not. Even infiltrator is locked to like 3 skills in higher difficulties.

Reread the changes that I proposed. They are not game breaking. Several of the changes that others suggested would work as well. Read the thread - it addresses every point that you're making.

[rumination888]

I still think changing the Heavy version of Pull, Throw, and Shockwave so that it has rank 3 stats but also affects shielded/barriered enemies(but not armored) is the best solution.
It allows Warp to still be useful, Singularity is still useful as a trap, and the other biotic skills are now more effective against shielded enemies.

[Akimb0]

[quote]gr00grams wrote...

BioWare actually does this in most of their games that I have played;

A rock, scissors, paper design.
Where A beats B, B beats C, C beats A.

Jade Empire etc, all the same.
Thing is, is not many notice it until they play the top end diffs, as you can just steamroll with anything on lower diffs.[/quote]

Don't understand this. Most Bioware games DON'T do a "paper rock scissor" approach. BG, BG2, NWN, KoToR, Dragon Age, ME1. The only game I know of that does is ME2. (Never played Jade Empire, it looked poor.)

[quote]
On god mode, yeah it would totally happen with adept if there weren't defenses.
3 sec to incapacitate any enemy with pull?
3 sec to launch any enemy with throw?
6 sec to floor everything with shockwave?[/quote]
[/quote]
Which is why I said it wouldn't be as simple as that. By the way, no idea what you mean with the "3 sec" or "6 sec". Anyway, the effect is the same regardless, that it would be easy to disable enemies. However that's the whole point of the powers. Having longer cooldowns may help, but with the removal of "shared cooldowns" to compensate. Whatever the solution, I'm not being payed by Bioware to figure it out, so I won't get bogged down in a "how it could be balanced" discussion.

The basic problem is that with the game as it is now, your powers feel pretty worthless because by the time you get to use them, the enemy is basically dead anyway.
[quote]
Then the argument would be, well don't make it affect big enemies! However, that would lead us back to square one, as then people would complain that the skills are only effective on enemies that don't matter etc.

Play adept on casual. That would show what it would be like if there were no defenses.[/quote]

I think it'd be a start. However you just have to consider all games you've ever played with Magic in. (Biotics is basically "magic" as far as it's in game effects work.) It always ends up overpowered. Look at basically any D&D game ever made. Look at the KoToR games with the Force powers etc. These types of abilities are always "overpowered" compared to the things other classes can do. Usually with a downside, such as an adept who messed up is going to die instantly when they get hit.


edit: can't help myself, but as an example idea to balance biotics: Have lift/pull work on armour/shields (perhaps at level 3+ only), but not suspend them for more than a second or so, before the effects stop working and they fall to the ground, taking damage. Then the powers would be able to stop advancing enemies, even if only briefly, one second in the air, a second or two getting up, while doing some damage (how much, I have no idea, hence why the changes would have to be tested) to shields and armour. This way powers would actually be used more than weapons, as I feel it should be for an adept. They could also not have "basic" powers work on "large" enemies like mechs etc. Powers like Warp etc. still would.

Modifié par Akimb0, 06 février 2010 - 07:58 .

[FFLB]

matt654321 wrote...

FFLB wrote...


It's not too difficult to pull off a power combo with a teammate. Even on your own, as long as you've upgraded the duration of the power, you can still combo quite well. It just isn't as fast as it was in ME1.

I don't think that you understood. Yes, you can power combo now, but the only times where it's possible to do so is when it's no longer helpful (the enemy is already down to just health - may as well shoot them). If you can do some sort of power combo on a protected enemy, even at a reduced effect, it still elevates power combos from being completely gimmicky to being actually helpful.

No, I understand the point that you're trying to make quite well. The thing is though, you say that powers aren't effective until the enemy is almost dead, but even if the enemy has a sliver of health left, they can still do the same amount of damage to you as if they had a full bar of health and defenses. Also, I think you may doing the opposite of what some others are doing. For me, I strip off shields with the SMG and knock out armor with the pistol, after which I'll clean up using Biotics. Although, all of this works better when you slow them down with a Singularity so you can combo with a warp to take out a crowd of them after stripping them down. If you didn't have to strip them down, you could wipe them out with just powers from the start.

Engineers are pretty much set up the same. They have abilities to deal with shields, armor, and health. The Adept does so with the main difference being Singularity doing damage to defenses over a short period of time rather than instantly.

As others have said though, allowing the Adept to have a free pass would overpower it. Unless you'd prefer having an energy pool to use Adept powers and carry a set amount of energy drinks to recharge over a short period of time. You would then be turning it into the ME version of a DA:O mage. Since the lore is already there for that sort of system though, it could work.

I personally would like to see their powers affect more of the environment. I always considered it strange that the Singularity didn't warp the ground or items around it.

Modifié par FFLB, 06 février 2010 - 08:00 .

[matt654321]

FFLB wrote...


No, I understand the point that you're trying to make quite well. The thing is though, you say that powers aren't effective until the enemy is almost dead, but even if the enemy has a sliver of health left, they can still do the same amount of damage to you as if they had a full bar of health and defenses. Also, I think you may doing the opposite of what some others are doing. For me, I strip off shields with the SMG and knock out armor with the pistol, after which I'll clean up using Biotics. Although, all of this works better when you slow them down with a Singularity so you can combo with a warp to take out a crowd of them after stripping them down. If you didn't have to strip them down, you could wipe them out with just powers from the start.

No, you don't understand. The problem isn't how much damage they can do - it's the fact that there are easier, more straightforward ways of taking care of enemies when biotics finally do become functional.

FFLB wrote...
Engineers are pretty much set up the same. They have abilities to deal with shields, armor, and health. The Adept does as well, with the main difference Singularity doing damage to defenses over a short period of time rather than instantly.

Engineers may also have problems. I haven't looked at them much. Either way, their primary role isn't crowd control that becomes nearly impossible on higher difficulties, and I highly doubt that they have as many useless powers as the adept.

FFLB wrote...
As others have said though, allowing the Adept to have a free pass would overpower it. Unless you'd prefer having an energy pool to use Adept powers and carry a set amount of energy drinks to recharge over a short period of time. You would then be turning it into the ME version of a DA:O mage. Since the lore is already there for that sort of system though, it could work.

More proof that you haven't read what I said at all. I never said that adepts should have a free pass. I think that certain powers should work on certain defenses, and even then those powers shouldn't work at full capacity unless you evolve them into their heavy version (and they still don't need to work fully then either - just more than a not evolved version). I mention explicitly that the reduced effectiveness is to prevent the overpoweredness that was present in ME1.

It seems to me that you just like hearing your own voice. You clearly haven't even read my suggestions.

[Space Shot]

Captain Crash wrote...

Taken straight from Chris's own words.  Clearly they acknowledge that biotics/adepts are not balanced

Really?

I've played Soldier, Adept, and Infiltrator and Adept was the most powerful by far.  Warp is devastating and even with just a heavy pistol you can bring some serious pain even against enemies with Barriers and Armor.  It all depends on how you use it and if you just go about playing the Adept as you probably did in ME1 you are going to have some trouble but if you properly adapt you can still have a lot of fun with it.

Warp the big guys, and fling the rest.  Not too much trouble and certainly not anything that I think needs changing.

[matt654321]

Since you people can't be bothered to actually go back and look at what I actually said, I'll repost it here. I hope that I don't have to do it again.





I made a topic suggesting these fixes a bit ago and the responses were overwhelming positive. I think they're good fixes.





I fully understand that biotics needed to be changed in Mass Effect 2 - keeping enemies afloat indefinitely with singularity + lift was overpowered and uninteresting. However, having the control effects of biotics be completely ineffectual on defended enemies on higher difficulties is also uninteresting - it relegates adepts to being forced to spam warp continuously on enemies, which is not what I had in mind when creating a biotic. I suggest the following changes, which I believe work well within your system to preserve balance while still allowing biotics to be interesting while not overpowered.



Pull - Allow it to work on armored enemies, but for only half of its duration. Heavy Pull maintains its full duration against armored foes.



This change allows biotics to have a decent option against armor besides mindlessly spamming warp, but it still keeps armor relevant. It also makes heavy pull a viable choice. This change also makes sense according to game lore (there's no reason for armor to fully defend against altering the enemy's mass). The best thing about this change is that it makes pull+warp into a useful and fun combination rather than being gimmicky and ineffective.



Remember that pull does not do much damage to armor by itself. You'll still need allies to shear off armor, making pull not an answer to armor in and of itself.



Throw - Knocks down armored enemies. Heavy throw sends enemies half of the distance.



Keeps thow relevant as an emergency option to stop charging krogans and the like, which adepts previously had almost no answer for. Since it doesn't send them very far, however, you still need to watch out for them. Again, makes heavy throw a viable option.



Shockwave - Works against shielded foes. Heavy shockwave deals damage to shields.



Adepts need a response against geth rushes. This version of shockwave will buy the adept some time, but won't solve the problem by itself - you still need to kill the enemies, as they'll get up eventually.



Warp - Deals 1.5x damage against barriers. Heavy warp deals double damage against barriers.



The achievement for warp is specifically against barriers, so I figured that warp is supposed to do something special against them. Enemy vanguards are still very dangerous, as the adept has no way to slow them down. With this version of warp, they can strip off their barrier quickly then throw them to buy time.



Singularity - Same changes as pull.





This system, IMO, allows biotics to do what they're supposed to do rather than being wholly ineffective on higher difficulty levels while still preserving balance and working within Mass Effect 2's typed defense system. Biotics would provide control but wouldn't be able to destroy enemy defenses - you'd still need to rely on teammates or your bonus powers for that. These changes would made adepts fun and playable on hardcore and insanity, but still balanced enough that the game doesn't devolve into spamming biotics and shooting in between like in Mass Effect 1.

[Akimb0]

Space Shot wrote...

Captain Crash wrote...

Taken straight from Chris's own words.  Clearly they acknowledge that biotics/adepts are not balanced

Really?

I've played Soldier, Adept, and Infiltrator and Adept was the most powerful by far.  Warp is devastating and even with just a heavy pistol you can bring some serious pain even against enemies with Barriers and Armor.  It all depends on how you use it and if you just go about playing the Adept as you probably did in ME1 you are going to have some trouble but if you properly adapt you can still have a lot of fun with it.

Warp the big guys, and fling the rest.  Not too much trouble and certainly not anything that I think needs changing.

That's the point, warp this, warp that. Notice how it's always mentioned because it's the only power adepts get (not including bonus powers) which works vs shields/armour? On the higher difficulty levels where basically everything has armour or shields this means it's the only power an adept can use until all their defenses are stripped. There's something wrong with that.

[Space Shot]

Akimb0 wrote...

That's the point, warp this, warp that. Notice how it's always mentioned because it's the only power adepts get (not including bonus powers) which works vs shields/armour? On the higher difficulty levels where basically everything has armour or shields this means it's the only power an adept can use until all their defenses are stripped. There's something wrong with that.

Not really.  Sure, I'm heavily favoring warp while playing the Adept but I'm favoring concussion shot and incinerate even more heavily when playing my other classes.  You use the right tool for the right job and so long as you keep up that policy you don't have that much imbalance in ME2.