208 réponses à ce sujet

[matt654321]

CutterJohn1 wrote...

The problem with biotics is, aside from warp which is just a standard damage spell, they mostly just move people. This isn't bad, but its not great either, because the movement is lazy, uninspired.

Basically, a biotic should be like the jedi in the Jedi Knight/Jedi Academy games. Biotics should absolutely tear some **** up. Singularity gently floats people around. No. Singularity should rip them apart from tidal forces. Throw should splatter them against walls, not act like you hit them with an overly large pillow. Warp? Ick. Gimme force lightning any day. Lift? Hear mister bad guy, let me gently float you up.. No! Don't call it lift, call it launch, as in launch that guy into the stratosphere. Slam? I want bones crunched. 

If you want biotics to be fun, you have to up the violence factor. Stop treating it like a gentle force that politely asks if I may, perchance, lift you up? That is if its ok with you, mr bad guy. Don't you worry one bit though, I'll be gentle.

Yes, all of this would make Biotics OP, so naturally you would need to go back to the long cooldown timers in order to balance it. This is fine.

Or you could go play KOTOR.

[Karlojey]

I haven't read through everyone's suggestions but probably someone already mentioned this so I would like to apologize in advance if this has been posted before.



On my two playthroughs in ME1 I was a soldier and infiltrator. In ME2 I decided to try out the Adept class. This is my first time to play an Adept so my suggestion may be a bit raw.



I think what the Adept class needs is more damage dealing powers. Reave and Slam are cool but you'll get them later in the game. So far Warp is the only one that deals damage but the only time you'll feel it is when the target has another biotic power on it like singularity or pull. Furthermore, if the target has armor or shields on it you'll need to use your gun (or rely on your squadmates) to whittle down their armor/shields before your biotic powers become relevant.

[Hulk Hsieh]

My question:



If a lot of peoplo are using Biotic on casual/normal/hardcore/veteren and having great time, is it really worth it to put in a lot of time and risk to destroy original balance to please the small portion of players that insist that insane should be the only reference?



Quiet silly a thing to me.

[davidshooter]

It's been said before:



The problem is that Bioware does not test their games on the extreme difficulties - or if they do, they are not concerned with the adverse effects of simply pushing the "difficulty lever" another notch as opposed to actually tweaking the gameplay for optimal performance.



ME1 was ridiculous on Insanity in many parts - not because it was hard, but because it was tedious - the gameplay became comical because the insanity level was just the "difficulty lever" moved up a notch - not tweaked gameplay.



Then we got the Volcanic Hunt from Pinnacle Station which was undeniably never tested on insanity.



Now we have ME2 with several biotic abilities not working as intended (as no one is really using anything beyond singularity and Warp on Insanity - myself included).



The Adept is still my favorite class in ME2, but it could have been so much better if it had been properly tested on insanity/hardcore - I don't believe the Adept is functioning as intended on this difficulty. Bioware needs to hire a specialist for the insanity mode whose sole job is to play the game on the hardest difficulty and make the necessary tweaks to powers and performance instead of insanity as an afterthought where someone turns the knob to 11and says "okay, we're good to go"

[davidshooter]

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

My question:

If a lot of peoplo are using Biotic on casual/normal/hardcore/veteren and having great time, is it really worth it to put in a lot of time and risk to destroy original balance to please the small portion of players that insist that insane should be the only reference?

Quiet silly a thing to me.

Beating the game on insanity is an achievement.  Lots of people like to complete all the achievements.

There is no excuse for sub-optimal performance on a harder level in the first place let alone when an achievement is involved.

Modifié par davidshooter, 12 février 2010 - 03:04 .

[coinop25]

davidshooter wrote...

Now we have ME2 with several biotic abilities not working as intended (as no one is really using anything beyond singularity and Warp on Insanity - myself included).

The Adept is still my favorite class in ME2, but it could have been so much better if it had been properly tested on insanity/hardcore - I don't believe the Adept is functioning as intended on this difficulty. Bioware needs to hire a specialist for the insanity mode whose sole job is to play the game on the hardest difficulty and make the necessary tweaks to powers and performance instead of insanity as an afterthought where someone turns the knob to 11and says "okay, we're good to go"

I can't speak for Bioware's testing strategy, but I do agree that the issue might be better approached as "what should change in Insanity" than as "how do we fix the Adept?" 

I really like playing Adept (on Hardcore). I don't think it is underpowered; if anything, I think that having maxed Singularity, Warp, and Throw, with Warp Ammo on an Avenger, might be overpowered. It means you get to destroy lots of enemies very quickly without even bothering to actually aim very often. I imagine this becomes more of an issue on Insanity when barriers, shields, and armor may take more than 1-2 cooldowns of your squad focusing on a single guy to take down defenses.

The answer, I think, is that "higher difficulty" shouldn't necessarily translate into "stronger defenses." That's kind of the easiest way to make it more difficult from the developers' perspective, and personally I'd rather see other things improved before this, but it seems like there's a vocal contingent of players who feel like this game isn't hard enough (or isn't hard in the right ways).

All of that said, if the only question here is how to make it worthwhile to use something other than Singularity + Warp playing an Adept, but without making the Adept as unstoppable as in ME1 by saying that biotics work past defenses, consider a system in which shields and barriers block biotics, and armor has a CHANCE to block it completely based on how high the armor meter is filled. I don't really mind the current system, in which an armored character will stagger and lose some armor upon being hit with a Throw, because it does mean your biotics aren't TOTALLY useless. It would add a degree of risk-taking and excitement, though, if a character at 50% armor has a 50% chance of being affected completely by a biotic effect, or even if it worked on them at 50% power and duration.

[Hulk Hsieh]

davidshooter wrote...

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

My question:

If a lot of peoplo are using Biotic on casual/normal/hardcore/veteren and having great time, is it really worth it to put in a lot of time and risk to destroy original balance to please the small portion of players that insist that insane should be the only reference?

Quiet silly a thing to me.

Beating the game on insanity is an achievement.  Lots of people like to complete all the achievements.

There is no excuse for sub-optimal performance on a harder level.

In actions games that has 50 action moves, you'll be only using 5 of them on the hardest.
In HoF mode of Icewind Dale, summoned monsters are better tanks than the fighter class.

This is what extreme difficulty does.

Modifié par Hulk Hsieh, 12 février 2010 - 03:06 .

[davidshooter]

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

My question:

If a lot of peoplo are using Biotic on casual/normal/hardcore/veteren and having great time, is it really worth it to put in a lot of time and risk to destroy original balance to please the small portion of players that insist that insane should be the only reference?

Quiet silly a thing to me.

Beating the game on insanity is an achievement.  Lots of people like to complete all the achievements.

There is no excuse for sub-optimal performance on a harder level.

In actions games that has 50 action moves, you'll be only using 5 of them on the hardest.
In HoF mode of Icewind Dale, summoned monsters are better tanks than the fighter class.

This is what extreme difficulty does.

Perhaps,

But based on my previous experience with Mass Effect (as I listed above) I firmly believe the Adapt is not functioning the way Bioware intended on Insanity mode.  I doubt they will admit that at this point as they never came clean on Pinnacle Station volcanic hunt either.  I stand by my oservation that the real problem with the Adept lies in the general way Bioware approached the insanity level - as an afterthought.  Afterall, it is a pattern at this point.

Modifié par davidshooter, 12 février 2010 - 03:16 .

[Hulk Hsieh]

davidshooter wrote...

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

My question:

If a lot of peoplo are using Biotic on casual/normal/hardcore/veteren and having great time, is it really worth it to put in a lot of time and risk to destroy original balance to please the small portion of players that insist that insane should be the only reference?

Quiet silly a thing to me.

Beating the game on insanity is an achievement.  Lots of people like to complete all the achievements.

There is no excuse for sub-optimal performance on a harder level.

In actions games that has 50 action moves, you'll be only using 5 of them on the hardest.
In HoF mode of Icewind Dale, summoned monsters are better tanks than the fighter class.

This is what extreme difficulty does.

Perhaps,

But based on my previous experience with Mass Effect (as I listed above) I firmly believe the Adapt is not functioning the way Bioware intended on Insanity mode.  I doubt they will admit that at this point as they never came clean on Pinnacle Station volcanic hunt either.  I stand by my oservation that the real problem with the Adept lies in the general way Bioware approached the extreme difficulties.  Afterall, it is a pattern at this point.

Well, we don't know their intention. The followings are my guess only:

1) They want to somewhat limit biotic powers, so shield/armor blocks some powers now.
2) They give us the ability to borrow one power from teammates, so I think they want use to use that to improve our characters beyond the original powers.
3) They give use the biotic combo and some toturial about 2 squad members works togather on one target, so I think they want use to use the powers of teammates in combat.
4) They improve the shooter parts of the game, and give the chance to all class to get sniper rifle/shotgun, so I think they want us to shoot, with all class.

Maybe Adept is the result of all 4 of them. But that is my guess.

Modifié par Hulk Hsieh, 12 février 2010 - 03:23 .

[Divine Flame]

Not sure if this was already mentioned because i didn't read the whole thread so excuse me if it has been posted already. There are several videos on youtube on an Adept being played on insanity. It's very well made by Average Gatsby and he makes the Adept appear overpowered even on insanity. you have to use more strategy and combos with you team but i dont' see how this is a bad thing. You might wanna check those videos out.

Again i didn't read the whole thread so if I am repeating stuff my apologies.

Modifié par Divine Flame, 12 février 2010 - 04:13 .

[davidshooter]

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Well, we don't know their intention. The followings are my guess only:

1) They want to somewhat limit biotic powers, so shield/armor blocks some powers now.
2) They give us the ability to borrow one power from teammates, so I think they want use to use that to improve our characters beyond the original powers.
3) They give use the biotic combo and some toturial about 2 squad members works togather on one target, so I think they want use to use the powers of teammates in combat.
4) They improve the shooter parts of the game, and give the chance to all class to get sniper rifle/shotgun, so I think they want us to shoot, with all class.

Maybe Adept is the result of all 4 of them. But that is my guess.

I don't really disagree with any of that.

But I also think Bioware was surprised by the revelation that most Adept/insanity players aren't really using shockwave, throw, or pull at all - I know I didn't and I used an Adept to get the insanity achievement.  I don't think that was an anticipated outcome and I think that is because the insanity level was not given any specific attention - or at least not the attention it deserved.

Just my 2 cents.

Modifié par davidshooter, 12 février 2010 - 03:38 .

[Hulk Hsieh]

davidshooter wrote...

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Well, we don't know their intention. The followings are my guess only:

1) They want to somewhat limit biotic powers, so shield/armor blocks some powers now.
2) They give us the ability to borrow one power from teammates, so I think they want use to use that to improve our characters beyond the original powers.
3) They give use the biotic combo and some toturial about 2 squad members works togather on one target, so I think they want use to use the powers of teammates in combat.
4) They improve the shooter parts of the game, and give the chance to all class to get sniper rifle/shotgun, so I think they want us to shoot, with all class.

Maybe Adept is the result of all 4 of them. But that is my guess.

I don't really disagree with any of that.

But I also think Bioware was surprised by the revelation that most Adept/insanity players aren't really using shockwave, throw, or pull at all - I know I'm not and I used an Adept to get the insanity achievement.  I don't think that was an anticipated outcome and I think that is because the insanity level is not given any specific attention.

Just my 2 cents.

Could be, but I think I'll give them pass on this since balancing all class and power, especially in the extreme difficulty, is proven by history to be hard and almost never done well. At least the "loyal power" and squad member power is there for players to choose.

I will welcome them to do something new and improved on biotic in ME3, but for now, I prefer they work on some good DLC for us rather than make big changes on current powers for one specific class on one extreme dfficulty.

[Captain Crash]

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Hulk Hsieh wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Well, we don't know their intention. The followings are my guess only:

1) They want to somewhat limit biotic powers, so shield/armor blocks some powers now.
2) They give us the ability to borrow one power from teammates, so I think they want use to use that to improve our characters beyond the original powers.
3) They give use the biotic combo and some toturial about 2 squad members works togather on one target, so I think they want use to use the powers of teammates in combat.
4) They improve the shooter parts of the game, and give the chance to all class to get sniper rifle/shotgun, so I think they want us to shoot, with all class.

Maybe Adept is the result of all 4 of them. But that is my guess.

I don't really disagree with any of that.

But I also think Bioware was surprised by the revelation that most Adept/insanity players aren't really using shockwave, throw, or pull at all - I know I'm not and I used an Adept to get the insanity achievement.  I don't think that was an anticipated outcome and I think that is because the insanity level is not given any specific attention.

Just my 2 cents.

Could be, but I think I'll give them pass on this since balancing all class and power, especially in the extreme difficulty, is proven by history to be hard and almost never done well. At least the "loyal power" and squad member power is there for players to choose.

I will welcome them to do something new and improved on biotic in ME3, but for now, I prefer they work on some good DLC for us rather than make big changes on current powers for one specific class on one extreme dfficulty.

Well thats it exactly.   Biotics were overpowered so they tried to balance it out in ME2.  They lowered the cool down so you had to use your team mates to combine powers (especially for lower levels). This was their balance and also the best way to make effective use of squad powers.  Jacob Pulls and then you throw.   Goes hand in hand with the shooter play style as you make more use of tactics

However it sort of restricts you in making sure you always have two biotics at any one time.  You can argue its not a major issue but it still limits your available squad mates.    

Modifié par Captain Crash, 13 février 2010 - 12:48 .

[Acero Azul]

if you have seen some of the players here on the forum who posted their adept videos, the adept class is not weak at all and does not need to be fixed

[flatlander five]

Acero Azul wrote...

if you have seen some of the players here on the forum who posted their adept videos, the adept class is not weak at all and does not need to be fixed

Yeah, but they'll still QQ

I dunno - if people don't like Adept, they don't have to play it. There are a bunch of other classes all tailored to different play-styles.

[Roxlimn]

After playing the game concurrently on Hardcore with Sentinel and Adept, I have to say that the Sentinel is the weaker of the two classes, and that it's the one that suffers from not enough variety in powers usage.



The pattern for Sentinel play is use (defense stripping power) then pew-pew-pew. You'll use Warp for Armor/Barrier, Overload for Shields. Play is not materially different - you're just pressing one button instead of another, maybe even the exact same button depending on your mapping. Once the defense are stripped, you get Throw or AI Hacking to use as finishers. Not a whole lot of variety or power there.



Adept has single-target lockdown with Singularity, and can choose between Pull and Throw for finishers. Moreover, it gets the awesome Warp Explosion combo, which can be used with either Singularity or Pull, depending on situation. Pull+Throw kills enemies really fast - quite literally in 2 seconds without even going much out of cover.



It feels more powerful. The only time Sentinel was really in competition was when I was using Jack or Jacob for the Pull to trigger Warp Explosion, and it still lacked single-target lockdown power.

[Arde5643]

From my experience in hardcore, adepts are totally overpowered against any battle in the game not involving YMIR, geth prime, and praetorian.



It's ridiculous how singularity, pull, warp completely trivializes these encounters that take other classes longer or much longer to go through.



However, on any of those fights that involve geth prime, praetorian, and YMIR, I wish the adepts have some more abilities other than just bunkering down to shoot and spamming warp at times.

[Roxlimn]

Arde5643:



Actually, they do. Other classes - Sentinel, Soldier, and Infiltrator are only slightly better at dealing with Shields, and only if the Adept didn't take Energy Drain as his bonus power, which he can afford to do because he basically kills every other encounter so easily that he frankly doesn't need AP Ammo at all.



For every other class, you still have to deal with the Mech even when its defenses are down. With the Adept, you don't. Once only Health is left, you lock it down with Pull - it does not fire anymore. That essentially means that Pull insta-kills the Mech as soon as it's down to Health - about a 20% premium on damage. No damage power is capable of that.



This is true on a Geth Prime as well. Your biggest problem is Shields and you can get through that using Disruptor Ammo and Tempest - which is the best gun option for Sentinel, too.



Lots of Adept players say that they have difficulty with Mechs. I've recently played an Adept on Hardcore, and I didn't have that great of a problem with them, TBH. Anytime you're expecting double Mechs, pack the Cain to remove the Shields instantly, then Warp to Health, then Pull for the insta-win.



At no point in the game does this actually constitute a tough challenge since there is nearly always a position that you can basically bunker down and be invulnerable to YMIR fire. The tough challenge is getting to that position.

[brgillespie]

Average Gatsby wrote...

I think I have a solution for Bioware, and it involves looking at the Engineer class. I think if they set up the Adept like the Engineer, not in abilities but in what those abilities mean in game, we'd all have a fun time without changing armor, shields, or anything like that:

Engineer has:                                                           Adept has:
Tech Mastery - cooldowns/damage                     Biotic Mastery - cooldowns/damage
Cryo Blast - AOE crowd control (health only)      Shockwave - AOE crowd control (health only)/damage
Overload - anti-shield, anti-mech                         Throw - single/(aoe) target knockdown, damage
Incinterate - anti-armor, anti-health                      Warp - anti-barrier, anti-armor, anti-health
AI Hack - Anti-mech, crowd distraction                 Pull - single target/(aoe) crowd control (health only)
Combat Drone - Crowd distraction                       Singularity - aoe crowd control

With that direct comparison, we see the issue:
Engineers have a specialty against a certain enemy type, mechs/geth, and have options for dealing with every enemy type via both damage OR distraction. Adepts, on paper, excel at groups of humanoids/non-synthetics, except this is completely negated by armor, barriers, or shields. In addition, the differences between Pull, Singularity, Throw and Shockwave are in theory ( not practice) the same, whereas the only two somewhat similar powers for Engineers are AI hack/combat drone. In truth, biotics have 3 abilities: Mastery, Warp, CC move, whereas Engineers 5: Mastery, Cryo, Overload, Incinerate, and Distraction.

My fix proposal: 
1) Biotics should not have any anti shield move, just how engineers have no anti barrier move. That makes sense. The jack of all trades class is the sentinel, not the biotic.
2) Make Warp stronger anti-armor, no anti-barrier. Make Throw anti barrier. That way we get some diversity instead of warp spam
3) Pull works on all enemies, reguardless of armor, shield, or barrier, however it is also single target only. That way we have some kind of Crowd distraction, single enemy nutralization without it being overpowered OR a copy of the Engineer.
4) Singularity stays the same. Its the equivalent of Cryo Blast
5) Shockwave gets a damage-less "stun" when encountering armor/shield/barrier enemies. Instead of enemies getting beaten around up in the air, when shotwave hits them they get stunned, like what happens to shepard when she/he's hit with a rocket.

What do you guys think? I think this is a pretty solid way to deal with the problem, particularly with Pull and shockwave.

Everyone should go to Youtube and check out Gatsby's Adept videos. Seriously.

Personally, I think this would be a fantastic revision to the class. When I played Adept it wasn't too fun simply because the biotic powers have such a narrow range of usefulness. I then tried Engineer and had a blast. The diversity of the Adept's powers needs to be increased. A bigger tool box, so to speak. As it is, the combos are cool but Adepts are shoehorned into using just a few powers, compared to my Engineer where I use virtually ALL my powers in every single battle. I'm keeping my Drone up, I'm popping Incinerate at armored targets, hitting shielded enemies with Overload, hacking any synthetic bad guys, freezing rushing enemies with Cryo... it's great.

Modifié par brgillespie, 13 février 2010 - 07:16 .

[Seraphael]

Bioware being clueless with regards to game balance? I saw that coming miles away.

Easy fix: Make biotics affect armoured opponents with slightly reduced effectiveness. The global cooldown is quite poorly implemented as well as it enforces repetetive power usage making the game less fun. Longer individual power cooldowns and shorter global cooldowns would be preferrable. Don't wait for ME3, patch it in now.

Oh, and Bioware...please hire someone with MMO-game balance experience soon. class balance matters. Even in a singleplayer game. You need to start appreciate that fact.

Modifié par Seraphael, 13 février 2010 - 11:08 .

[themaxzero]

coinop25 wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

Now we have ME2 with several biotic abilities not working as intended (as no one is really using anything beyond singularity and Warp on Insanity - myself included).

The Adept is still my favorite class in ME2, but it could have been so much better if it had been properly tested on insanity/hardcore - I don't believe the Adept is functioning as intended on this difficulty. Bioware needs to hire a specialist for the insanity mode whose sole job is to play the game on the hardest difficulty and make the necessary tweaks to powers and performance instead of insanity as an afterthought where someone turns the knob to 11and says "okay, we're good to go"

I can't speak for Bioware's testing strategy, but I do agree that the issue might be better approached as "what should change in Insanity" than as "how do we fix the Adept?" 

I really like playing Adept (on Hardcore). I don't think it is underpowered; if anything, I think that having maxed Singularity, Warp, and Throw, with Warp Ammo on an Avenger, might be overpowered. It means you get to destroy lots of enemies very quickly without even bothering to actually aim very often. I imagine this becomes more of an issue on Insanity when barriers, shields, and armor may take more than 1-2 cooldowns of your squad focusing on a single guy to take down defenses.

The answer, I think, is that "higher difficulty" shouldn't necessarily translate into "stronger defenses." That's kind of the easiest way to make it more difficult from the developers' perspective, and personally I'd rather see other things improved before this, but it seems like there's a vocal contingent of players who feel like this game isn't hard enough (or isn't hard in the right ways).

All of that said, if the only question here is how to make it worthwhile to use something other than Singularity + Warp playing an Adept, but without making the Adept as unstoppable as in ME1 by saying that biotics work past defenses, consider a system in which shields and barriers block biotics, and armor has a CHANCE to block it completely based on how high the armor meter is filled. I don't really mind the current system, in which an armored character will stagger and lose some armor upon being hit with a Throw, because it does mean your biotics aren't TOTALLY useless. It would add a degree of risk-taking and excitement, though, if a character at 50% armor has a 50% chance of being affected completely by a biotic effect, or even if it worked on them at 50% power and duration.

To be honest The adept really is great on Hardcore and it is slightly weaker in Insanity. The question is should we really be balancing the game around Insanity? Sure it should be a consideration but I don't really think its a major issue.

[Average Gatsby]

Just some food for thought. No judgements:

Adepts Don't Need Guns

Like i said, not trying to enter on one side of a debate or another. But I wanted to submit this as evidence for all sides to use.

[themaxzero]

Average Gatsby wrote...

Just some food for thought. No judgements:

Adepts Don't Need Guns

Like i said, not trying to enter on one side of a debate or another. But I wanted to submit this as evidence for all sides to use.

But, but, you are not using Pull and Push and therefore its all completely invalid and Adepts suck!

Just getting in early.

Modifié par themaxzero, 13 février 2010 - 11:22 .

[Seraphael]

themaxzero wrote...

To be honest The adept really is great on Hardcore and it is slightly weaker in Insanity. The question is should we really be balancing the game around Insanity? Sure it should be a consideration but I don't really think its a major issue.

To be even more honest; most/all classes are better than the biotics specialist on most difficulty levels. And to answer your question; no, we should balance the game around having fun. Not being able to use the majority of biotic powers when it matters is anything but.

[Average Gatsby]

themaxzero wrote...

Average Gatsby wrote...

Just some food for thought. No judgements:

Adepts Don't Need Guns

Like i said, not trying to enter on one side of a debate or another. But I wanted to submit this as evidence for all sides to use.

But, but, you are not using Pull and Push and therefore its all completely invalid and Adepts suck!

Just getting in early.

Haha. Its like a new version of FIRST. Pull is used alot. What's push?