10273 réponses à ce sujet

[Lumikki]

Terro_K, You actually accuse game company when it does make all games the way you like them. I think more like, why not allow game company to make any game they want, as long it sells. Only when it is failure they should start thinking, is this right direction. How ever, both Mass Effects has been success, desipite did you like them or not.

TPS is the reason to remove rpg connection from combat, if developers wanted TPS combat, because it's the different between player skill vs character skill. Having character skill connection to combat makes TPS combat worst, because character skills has negative affect to player skill combat, isn't anymore good TPS. It's crappy TPS and not even good RPG combat.

Yes, ME2 has problems, in my opinion even more than ME1, but that is no excuse to say company can't try to do TPS combat based game. ME1 mixed combat was failure, because it mixed two consept what doesn't mix well. Sure ME1 combat worked, but only from perspective of RPG, it did not work well from perspective of TPS. Does this mean ME2 has good TPS, no it doesn't necessary mean that. It only means ME2 has better TPS than ME1 had.

Modifié par Lumikki, 06 septembre 2010 - 09:57 .

[Solaris Paradox]

RPG elements can still be seamlessly integrated. Dirge of Cerberus, crap game though it was, demonstrated a few effective ways to combine inventory, player skill, and character skill. Also note that RPG elements aren't confined to just combat, and it isn't just in combat where ME2 toned down the RPG elements.



...God, I can't believe I just defended Terror_K.

[Lumikki]

Nah, you are right, the problem isn't having rpg skill connection elements in general, they are usually great. Problem was just they negative affect to TPS side. There is other possibilities to have RPG skills as connecting them to other game features, example some non-combat skills. Problem was only when it affected agaist the player skill, what was the "shooting".

Modifié par Lumikki, 06 septembre 2010 - 10:01 .

[FMT]

One of my disappointments with this game other than the really lame story (gameplay is fantastic). Is people like Liara and Wrex dont even mention or notice any of your teammates you had before in ME 1 like if you bring Garrus and Tali with you to see Liara. There's no "Hi Tali! hows it going or Hi Garrus!" to me it was lame, if you saw a friend from two years ago your not gonna stand there and say nothing and dont even make an attepmt to acknowledge there existance.

[Solaris Paradox]

FMT wrote...

One of my disappointments with this game other than the really lame story (gameplay is fantastic). Is people like Liara and Wrex dont even mention or notice any of your teammates you had before in ME 1 like if you bring Garrus and Tali with you to see Liara. There's no "Hi Tali! hows it going or Hi Garrus!" to me it was lame, if you saw a friend from two years ago your not gonna stand there and say nothing and dont even make an attepmt to acknowledge there existance.

...Strictly speaking, there's no real "friendship" that ever developed between the characters at all in ME1. They seem to have never passed beyond the "co-worker" frame of mind. Which fits in well enough with the "drifting apart" that happened after Shepard died. I'd have liked some level of acknowledgement, though.

[Homebound]

Disappointment with ME2 in a nutshell:



What could have been:

Garrus: "Hey Tali remember that one time we went on an adventure to stop a ruthless Turian Spectre named Saren?"



What actually happened:

Garrus:.......

Tali:......

Liara: Shepard, its good to see you again.



Its like your Squadmates dont aknowledge each other's existance. Moar squadbanter like in DA plox!

[Terror_K]

And of course the fact that ME2 eliminated all non-combat skills entirely.

My problem isn't that BioWare is doing TPS combat and make its games more action-oriented, it's that it's taking its existing IPs and retooling them today's hip audience by making them shallow and action-oriented and pushing aside the RPG factors to do so. They did it with ME2 and now they're turning Dragon Age into a limited hack'n'slash affair more suited for consoles rather than the PC and "Baldur's Gate Successor" roots the series was initially going for. In fact, BioWare seem to be leaving behind their old ways entirely in favour of just becoming like everybody else. If they had one IP that was more for the mainstream audience and for the most part kept to their roots I wouldn't mind, but they're not. I've been concerned about this for a while now, and as time goes on they just seem to prove more and more that my fears are justified.

Had ME2 been the first part in a series or had BioWare done a similar styled mostly TPS game with a new IP I wouldn't have had much of an issue with it. I wouldn't have become a huge fan that loves Mass Effect (or whatever the other IP would be...) to the degree I do where it's more than just a game to me, but I wouldn't be lambasting it or calling on it for its dumbing down and oversimplification. But Mass Effect went from being a game designed for classic sci-fi loving RPG nerds to being designed more for the common, mainstream gamer and today's younger generation. Not just with the gameplay, but with the changes, tone and style. If ME1 was the Wrath of Khan of the ME series, ME2 was the J.J. Abrams' Star Trek of it. And no... that's not a compliment.

Modifié par Terror_K, 06 septembre 2010 - 10:57 .

[tonnactus]

Solaris Paradox wrote...


Yes it is. There are many different items, ten versions of most of them, you can and probably will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150 items at any given time, and scrolling through your list--whether to sell, equip, or salvage--is a really, really tedious process.

No one force the player to open lockers.After i got spectre weapons and colossus armor,i only open user-and techkits
for omnitools and bioamps.The random loot,forced on the player,was the a small problem,but thats it.

[tonnactus]

FluxDeluxe wrote...

A little bit dramatic don't you think ?
The combat in ME2 is perfectly balanced imo apart from the adept issue. It's fun, it's fast and i think it's way ahead of GOW

Not even close to the fun i had with Gow.

[tonnactus]

Solaris Paradox wrote...


...Strictly speaking, there's no real "friendship" that ever developed between the characters at all in ME1.

Then you didnt pay any attention to the game.If shepardt didnt romance ashley,there is even more then just friendship
between them. Just one example.

[FluxDeluxe]

tonnactus wrote...

FluxDeluxe wrote...

A little bit dramatic don't you think ?
The combat in ME2 is perfectly balanced imo apart from the adept issue. It's fun, it's fast and i think it's way ahead of GOW

Not even close to the fun i had with Gow.

Try using a vanguard on insanity with geth plasma shotgun and then talk to me

Gears one of the worst most badly written shooters ever it has no personality. Rubbish  
 
The amusing thing about this thread is most people recognise that 2 isn't perfect and needs lots of RPG improvements. It's the extent that they think improvements need to be made that's the real bone of contention. I think the combat is fine, it's well balanced apart from the adept. What this game screams for is more depth within the existing framework, customisable armour and weapons, decent inventory management, etc. 
 
To respond to terror k's point about the planets, my objection is not to their existence, i think they are a brilliant idea (again amazing vision) it's the way they are executed that is poor. They were pretty much an irrelevance in the end as they pretty much all looked the same, were populated by the same enemies in the same bulidings that shouted enemies everywhere etc. Great idea absoultely appalling execution, that for me summed up many of the mechanisms within ME. The vision of the team was brilliant but over ambitious considering the platform they were delivering onto. If ME1 had been released on 5 DVD's it could have been packed full of content, as it is it was released on 1 disc and fell far short of the content needed to fulfill the original vision. Playing through the 1st game is like experiencing someones broken dream.
The second game is by no means perfect but it is well crafted, combat is balanced and fair unless your an adept at higher difficulites. The weapons stand alone are great as is the 'rock, paper,scissors' mechanism that underpins the shooting, biotic and tech powers.
My criticism of the second game most revolves around a presentation that Christina Norman posted on the old forums. It said something like don't worry about the story, there are no sacred cows in rpg's etc. I could see where the lead designers were coming from to an extent, make a slick well polished game and slot in the story later but i think they went too far. There needs to be a good easy to manage inventory system in the next game, armour needs to be fully customisable and set in seperate parts, there needs to be the option to retract helmets, or open a face plate, there needs to be more customisation of weapons, there needs to be gadgets that have special effects.
As for the story there was not enough interaction between characters, there wasn't as much life in your team as there was in the first game, this really needs to change. Also the story overall was pretty light, it was ok but essentially nothing really happened, you didn't really find that much out. There was the prothean bombshell and the reaper fleet at the end but really nothing was delved into concerning motive. I was dissapointed that there was almost no interaction between the antogonist and protagnist. I think that is where ME2 story really suffers although one could argue that Tim was the real antagonist not harbringer. Still it didn't have the same feel.
In my opinion the third game needs to deliver these things in order for this series to be considered a great like the Baldurs Gate series.   

[catabuca]

Solaris Paradox wrote...
Also note that RPG elements aren't confined to just combat, and it isn't just in combat where ME2 toned down the RPG elements.

This. It irks me that whenever someone mentions rpg it's assumed they mean inventory, stats and combat. Sure, they are a part of it, but not in its entirety.

I wrote a post a while back about the way people almost 'grade' what's most important for them in a game, and how that influences their response to that game. The point was that the reason we see such wildly differing responses to these two games by players is because for some people combat is most important, for others it's story, and for yet others it's being able to calculate stats. These things aren't mutually exclusive, nor inclusive. They vary, in different amounts and on different points in the scale of importance for each player.

The most important thing about the ME games for me is the story, how well my decisions are integrated into the whole experience, and how involved I feel. For me, it's that that's the biggest factor in 'immersion'. For others having tight, flowing combat is their biggest factor in 'immersion'. Neither is wrong, both is right.

While I like the improvements to the combat system in ME2 on the whole, and while I don't mind losing the inventory (although I miss modding my weapons), I do lament the changes in the narrative flow, in terms of losing elevators, having end of mission screens, of being beamed directly into corridors to shoot people, of having been told my actions in ME1 - all of them - will have huge ramifications for the universe and my individual game in ME2 only to find out that 95% of those 'ramifications' are an email, and the other 5% don't really seem matter that much either. And so, the 'rpg' elements I miss from ME1 aren't stats and inventories, but the way my choice was integrated into the cinematic feel of the story, and the way the game was written in order to keep me immersed in that universe.

This is why I can prefer how ME1 handled what I call 'immersion', and at the same time someone else can prefer how ME2 handled what they call 'immersion'.

[tonnactus]

FluxDeluxe wrote...


Not even close to the fun i had with Gow.

I should buy a weapon pack to have more fun with the game then Gow? No,thanks. Gow has weapons like the one
were you mark an enemy and its got attacked by a laser satellite from orbit.Not to forget things like the brumak ride,
the fight with the sea monster and to control the flying locust.
The geth plasma shotgun is just a weapon with a secondary fire funtion.Such things existed in Halflife 2 for nearly every type
of weapon and in MAss Effect with the carnage shot.

Modifié par tonnactus, 06 septembre 2010 - 01:41 .

[Terror_K]

tonnactus wrote...

I should buy a weapon pack to have more fun with the game then Gow? No,thanks. Gow has weapons like the one
were you mark an enemy and its got attacked by a laser satellite from orbit.Not to forget things like the brumak ride,
the fight with the sea monster and to control the flying locust.
The geth plasma shotgun is just a weapon with a secondary fire funtion.Such things existed in Halflife 2 for nearly every type of weapon and in MAss Effect with the carnage shot.

Go back even further to the original Unreal. There may even be games before that, but that's the one that comes to mind as far as weapons across the board having a primary and secondary fire, and it's over 12 years old now.

I also like that it's okay for the RPG elements to suffer for the sake of strengthening the shooter ones, yet not the other way around. Those that support ME2's changes will say "but the game was never a pure RPG" and that "the shooter stuff suffered in ME1" and the like as if it's a good enough excuse to let the RPG stuff suffer. Despite the game supposedly being an RPG first and foremost, it's the shooter stuff that seems to dominate now. As long as its strong then to hell with the deeper and more complex elements.

In other words, it's a double-edged sword. TPS has no more right to be the dominant factor that gets the preferential treatment than the RPG elements do. TPS doesn't need to suffer at the expense of RPG elements either, and the same goes for things the other way around. ME1 may have been a case of the TPS being unneccesarily hampered by the RPG stuff, but ME2 is a case of the complete opposite. One swings too far one way, while the other swings too far the other.

One has to have balance and design it so both elements compliment each other and work together, rather than fight each other for dominance. And I honestly believe ME1 got this balance closer than ME2. Sure, the elements clashed more in ME1 than in ME2, but that's simply because BioWare severely weakened the RPG elements in ME2 to the point where they weren't strong enough to clash and they merely crumpled up in the corner in submission. BioWare claims there are "no sacred cows" and all, but I wonder when ME3 comes around which elements will be staying at the expense of the other.

Had ME1 cleaned up the inventory a bit more, had less junk items and more useful/balanced/varied ones and given us sorting, as well as making shooting itself mostly skill-based (ala ME2) then (combat wise) it would have been pretty much bang on. Shame rather than make these repairs BioWare went with the philosophy of "the simplest solution is the best one, and then you make it even simpler."

Modifié par Terror_K, 06 septembre 2010 - 02:12 .

[Jebel Krong]

Terror_K wrote...

*snip*

But Mass Effect went from being a game designed for classic sci-fi loving RPG nerds to being designed more for the common, mainstream gamer and today's younger generation. Not just with the gameplay, but with the changes, tone and style. If ME1 was the Wrath of Khan of the ME series, ME2 was the J.J. Abrams' Star Trek of it. And no... that's not a compliment.

i'm sorry but it was never for rpgs nerds - classic sci-fi lovers, yes, but it was never EVER solely an rpg. until you admit that you are looking at everything with your blinkers on.

tonnactus wrote...

Solaris Paradox wrote...

...Strictly speaking, there's no real "friendship" that ever developed between the characters at all in ME1.

Then you didnt pay any attention to the game.If shepardt didnt romance ashley,there is even more then just friendshipbetween them. Just one example.

bull****.

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 06 septembre 2010 - 03:05 .

[Jebel Krong]

Terror_K wrote...

Go back even further to the original Unreal. There may even be games before that, but that's the one that comes to mind as far as weapons across the board having a primary and secondary fire, and it's over 12 years old now.

I also like that it's okay for the RPG elements to suffer for the sake of strengthening the shooter ones, yet not the other way around. Those that support ME2's changes will say "but the game was never a pure RPG" and that "the shooter stuff suffered in ME1" and the like as if it's a good enough excuse to let the RPG stuff suffer. Despite the game supposedly being an RPG first and foremost, it's the shooter stuff that seems to dominate now. As long as its strong then to hell with the deeper and more complex elements.

In other words, it's a double-edged sword. TPS has no more right to be the dominant factor that gets the preferential treatment than the RPG elements do. TPS doesn't need to suffer at the expense of RPG elements either, and the same goes for things the other way around. ME1 may have been a case of the TPS being unneccesarily hampered by the RPG stuff, but ME2 is a case of the complete opposite. One swings too far one way, while the other swings too far the other.

One has to have balance and design it so both elements compliment each other and work together, rather than fight each other for dominance. And I honestly believe ME1 got this balance closer than ME2. Sure, the elements clashed more in ME1 than in ME2, but that's simply because BioWare severely weakened the RPG elements in ME2 to the point where they weren't strong enough to clash and they merely crumpled up in the corner in submission. BioWare claims there are "no sacred cows" and all, but I wonder when ME3 comes around which elements will be staying at the expense of the other.

Had ME1 cleaned up the inventory a bit more, had less junk items and more useful/balanced/varied ones and given us sorting, as well as making shooting itself mostly skill-based (ala ME2) then (combat wise) it would have been pretty much bang on. Shame rather than make these repairs BioWare went with the philosophy of "the simplest solution is the best one, and then you make it even simpler."

well done for contradicting yourself in one post. so it's ok for it to be RPG-dominant, in your eyes, but not TPS dominant? whilst you are supposedly arguing for balance?! 

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 06 septembre 2010 - 03:11 .

[lazuli]

Terror_K wrote...
I also like that it's okay for the RPG elements to suffer for the sake of strengthening the shooter ones, yet not the other way around.

Although the developers did say they were focusing on improving combat and gameplay, it's still subjective to say that the RPG elements in 2 are worse than in 1.

If the RPG elements we're always referring to are inventory, character development, and level-up options, then I'd say they've been improved.  I won't even get into the inventory.  No one's mind is going to be changed on that.  You either like it or you don't.  Each character gets a mission (or two) devoted to them.  Whether or not the characters experience growth or change depends on the character in question.  But characters do not have to be dynamic to be effective, especially in a video game.  And leveling up, despite fewer levels and skills, is arguably richer now.  Instead of spending 1 point to increase a power's duration by half a second or something equally marginal, you will actually notice a difference when your powers level up.  And then there's the option to evolve them into one of two different versions, for every power.

I know that arguments about how you're disappointed with ME2 can't be countered by a blanket "Well ME1 sucked" statement, but you should put it in perspective.  Has there been a game that meets all of your requirements?  Is it even possible?  I don't know enough about your tastes or the game development process to intelligently answer that.

[Terror_K]

Jebel Krong wrote...

well done for contradicting yourself in one post. so it's ok for it to be RPG-dominant, in your eyes, but not TPS dominant? whilst you are supposedly arguing for balance?! 

Because the original game was primarily an RPG. It was an RPG with TPS combat. Now it's more of a story-driven TPS with a few RPG factors. When I was talking about the balance I was referring to the combat system alone, not the entire game as a whole. ME1 tried to blend RPS with TPS when it came to combat. It didn't work as well as it could have, but that's what it tried to do. ME2 shoved the RPG aside completely, and that's the problem: there's no proper blending at all. The combat is like a completely different animal than the rest of the game, and a shallow one at that. And for some reason that sucked the RPG even out of some of the non-combat elements. I mean... can anybody honestly give me a reason why weapon modding had to go in order to "improve" combat?

[lazuli]

Terror_K wrote...
I mean... can anybody honestly give me a reason why weapon modding had to go in order to "improve" combat?

That statement is completely inaccurate.  Weapon modding exists, albeit in a different form than it did in ME1.  You have ammo powers and upgrades.

[Solaris Paradox]

tonnactus wrote...

Then you didnt pay any attention to the game.If shepardt didnt romance ashley,there is even more then just friendship
between them. Just one example.

I'm talking about between other party members, you tool. Read the posts I'm responding to. Adds, you know, context.

Friendships develop between Shepard and his party members, but you never see anything develop between, say, Garrus and Tali, or between Liara and Wrex. They have brief banters on the elevators. Beyond that they keep to themselves until some cutscene triggers dialogue that usually involves someone making a remark that each of the other characters also says in slightly different wording. Same with Mass Effect 2, for the most part, except that Jacob and Miranda have a history and there are two pairs of squadmates who butt heads after loyalty missions.

[FataliTensei]

lazuli wrote...

Terror_K wrote...
I mean... can anybody honestly give me a reason why weapon modding had to go in order to "improve" combat?

That statement is completely inaccurate.  Weapon modding exists, albeit in a different form than it did in ME1.  You have ammo powers and upgrades.

It's not really even modding, it's just let me pay to up the damage, not hmm this will let fire more but not as strong or vice versa, or these bullets with this mod will work well together.  It's paying to upgrade a weapon, like alot of shooters out there.

Modifié par FataliTensei, 06 septembre 2010 - 04:49 .

[lazuli]

FataliTensei wrote...
It's not really even modding, it's just let me pay to up the damage, not hmm this will let fire more but not as strong or vice versa, or these bullets with this mod will work well together.  It's paying to upgrade a weapon, like alot of shooters out there.

Time to spout some cliché: You're arguing semantics.

Sure, simple damage increase research upgrades aren't that deep.  But each gun has a few other research upgrades associated with it that help differentiate it from the others.  There is still overlap, but the guns are different.  And I guess you're just not addressing ammo powers.

Weapon modding does exist in ME2.  To say it doesn't is inaccurate.  I'm not trying to determine which system is better or deeper, I'm just saying that weapon modding does exist in ME2.

[FataliTensei]

lazuli wrote...

FataliTensei wrote...
It's not really even modding, it's just let me pay to up the damage, not hmm this will let fire more but not as strong or vice versa, or these bullets with this mod will work well together.  It's paying to upgrade a weapon, like alot of shooters out there.

Time to spout some cliché: You're arguing semantics.

Sure, simple damage increase research upgrades aren't that deep.  But each gun has a few other research upgrades associated with it that help differentiate it from the others.  There is still overlap, but the guns are different.  And I guess you're just not addressing ammo powers.

Weapon modding does exist in ME2.  To say it doesn't is inaccurate.  I'm not trying to determine which system is better or deeper, I'm just saying that weapon modding does exist in ME2.

Ok then, it's dumbed down, simplistic and dull modding

[tonnactus]

Solaris Paradox wrote...


I'm talking about between other party members, you tool.

That was just one example of many,******.
Someone also could interprete garrus remark that wrex isnt a typical krogan as something like a beginning friendship or at least some sympathy.So the player would expect that they recognize each other when they meet.

Modifié par tonnactus, 06 septembre 2010 - 05:39 .

[brfritos]

FataliTensei wrote...

lazuli wrote...

Terror_K wrote...
I mean... can anybody honestly give me a reason why weapon modding had to go in order to "improve" combat?

That statement is completely inaccurate.  Weapon modding exists, albeit in a different form than it did in ME1.  You have ammo powers and upgrades.

It's not really even modding, it's just let me pay to up the damage, not hmm this will let fire more but not as strong or vice versa, or these bullets with this mod will work well together.  It's paying to upgrade a weapon, like alot of shooters out there.

Let's put this in another way: why the amor parts have fixed skills, instead of giving you some upgrades for putting on them?
Is this kind of simplicity that annoys me.

I really like the armor system in ME2, the idea is great, I only wish I had more options to customize them.
In ME1 you end the game basically with the same Colossus armor for everyone.
And if you have patience and money, with even the same overpowered omni-tool.

So the omni-tool upgrades - called armor upgrades now - aren't THAT different.

Now imagine if your squadron could use armor and the armor parts have the original skill, plus the ability to have one more upgrade?
Miranda could use a leg part that enhances her health or a visor that reduces her cooldown, while Garrus could use an arm part that enhance his shields.
Garrus shields are pretty low.

The possibilities and options are bigger.
And more creative in my opinion.