314 réponses à ce sujet

[Lvl20DM]

I think the devs will probably be overhauling the powers for ME 3 (particularly if your level carries over). I'm expecting a deeper power selection with the possibility of more distinct "builds" within a class. With the Adept and the Engineer they probably need to decide to give big bonuses to powers that make them as equally effective as (but not functionally the same as) guns, or simply re-align those classes so that the use of guns is assumed and the powers support that (in the same way AR, Charge, Cloak, and Tech Armor do).



I agree with the OP completely - and I think the Devs have many options for how to tweak this aspect of the game. I've seen the Half-Life 2 gravity gun mentioned, and that seems like a good idea. We actually see biotics (in the cinematics) lifting objects, moving them around, and then tossing them about. That seems like a place where they could fit in Gatsby's aim mechanic from the OP. You actually use objects and opponents as weapons - it would require you to line up "shots". This could even be a power combo - Pull (or Stasis? or Lift?) plus throw allows you to pull of this move.



The Engineer, on the other hand, needs more to make it feel like the true "tactical" class that it is meant to be. The ability to throw up shields for cover would be a good start (though tough to balance). I like the idea of the return of tech mines - the Engineer lays out traps that destabilize, harm, and otherwise "de-buff" the enemy.

[baller7345]

LxLegend wrote...

baller7345 wrote...

On NG+ I was able to overload shields and incinerate armor in one shot from the very beginning with no upgrades.  It may be different for a regular NG but once fully levled I would think they would have pretty much the same  effect.

I'm not just talking about warp and incinerate.  I'm also talking about shockwave, pull, throw, and cryoblast those abilites that no next to no damage on shields and just sit there on our power wheel and make Jack the weakest squadmember to bring along even during her own loyality mission.

It was my mistake for not making that clearer in my first post.

Ok got you.  It would certainly make every power stronger if they all worked like the defense strippers.  That is a way to increase there power most definitely.

However doing that may make you spam simply the most controlly version of the powers if they did too much damage so you'd have to find a safe ground.  Allowing every power to act like a defense stripper could make things worse  since it would obsolete the powers that were made for stripping defenses.  Of course if done right it would have people using the other abilites more even if they haven't discovered how useful they are in the first place which would help resolve a lot of people issues with the current power system.

You'd have to be careful because making a controlling ability also a high damage ability would make it too powerful imo.  I already find powers such as pull, cryo blast, throw powerful because they can incapacitate enemies (cryo blast is my most used power).  Upping the damage of the other powers isn't bad as long as you don't overdo it. 

[sinosleep]

Stationary turrets for engineer's would be nice. I know some people will say that the drone is a moving turret, but I disagree. Turrets are offensive weapons, the drone is primarily a defensive distraction. Hell, I know of at least one game whose engineer has both, KIll Zone 2. And practically every other game I can think of that has an engineer has the trusty turret (Hellgate London, Team Fortress 2, the aforementioned KIll Zone 2) so it definitely fits the class.

p.s. I like the current rock/paper/scissors set up. If abilities, even if only at max level, essentially have a big impact on enemies regardless of defenses it's right back to the over powered junk from ME 1. Keep the rock/paper/scissors, but it make it easier to throw another power out after stripping the defenses. I liked Kronner's barrier/mana bar systems from earlier in the thread. Make it so that the max amount of "spells' you can get it off before draining it is 3 or 4 single target spells or 2 aoe spells so that players can get a little bit of that ME 1 style toss everyone around flavor without over doing it. 

Modifié par sinosleep, 16 mars 2010 - 09:55 .

[WillieStyle]

How about this:

Your drone can't deal damage but has all your special abilities with twice your cooldown time. Casting a power with the drone doesn't put your own powers on cooldown.

[cruc1al]

WillieStyle wrote...

How about this:
Your drone can't deal damage but has all your special abilities with twice your cooldown time. Casting a power with the drone doesn't put your own powers on cooldown.

I think there should be a short cooldown for the engineer and a long cooldown for the drone. After all you're operating the drone when you decide to use its power.

Modifié par cruc1al, 16 mars 2010 - 10:06 .

[Roxlimn]

Average Gatsby:



You cannot possibly say that the Adept is harder to play, and then turn around and say that the Vanguard has a comparatively steeper learning curve. Those two statements are contradictory. If the class is more challenging to play and learn to play, then it has a steeper learning curve, even if the end result of acquiring the skill to play it is that it destroys the game.



For what it's worth, I also found my Soldier and Infiltrator plays on Insanity incredibly easy, but I didn't find Adept to be all that hard, either. The Adept has a lower ceiling on what it can do, but the skill involved in getting to a functional Adept on Insanity is lower. The only reason most people don't find it so with Soldier and Infiltrator is because we have all been playing FPS games for all these years and we can aim with our respective control choices like we were born to it.



I would not recommend playing ME2 with a gun-toting class if the prospective gamer were not a fan of FPS games.

[shoryuureppax]

Here's my 2 second solution. Increase fleshy health.



With generous health boosts, shooting enemies to death become a grueling prospect. Powers, however, become more important. With a big enough health boost, disabling enemies, even post strip, become critical. Instant KOs, in the form of well-aimed throws and shockwaves will be preferred.



Yes, difficulty will be raised. But it punishes soldiers, infiltrators, and sadly, vanguards more than the caster classes.

[sinosleep]

There's already a vast misconception that most enemies have more defense than health. Most enemies are 1:1 and there are plenty that have more health than defenses. Krogan, Klixen, and Vorcha all have more health than defenses, and I'm sure there are plenty more that do. Not only that but weapons are all inherently keyed in towards a defense, where as none of them have a built in bonus against health. It's actually quicker to shoot down defenses than it is health already.

Modifié par sinosleep, 17 mars 2010 - 12:54 .

[Shep309]

If they want to add more rpg into the game, the assault rifle should be standard for every class. I mean it was touched on earlier but anyone who goes through the military is going to know how to use an assault rifle.

The fact that the "power based" classes start off with pistols leads me to believe that the powers themselves were supposed to be far more damaging than they really are, at least I'm not seeing it when I play them on insanity, then again maybe that's just cause I suck at it too, so who knows for sure.

My biggest peeve is the assault rifle deal though, I just don't find that in any way believable that a military man/woman doesn't know how to use an assault rifle simply because he/she specialized in a certain area ( Engineer, Adept) I like the game as is really, I just find those two particulars of it rather silly.

Modifié par Shep309, 17 mars 2010 - 12:57 .

[ZeroEffect]

sinosleep wrote...

There's already a vast misconception that most enemies have more defense than health. Most enemies are 1:1 and there are plenty that have more health than defenses. Krogan, Klixen, and Vorcha all have more health than defenses, and I'm sure there are plenty more that do. Not only that but weapons are all inherently keyed in towards a defense, where as none of them have a built in bonus against health. It's actually quicker to shoot down defenses than it is health already.

This is true, but I already covered on why this doesn't really matter.  The fact is, with the current immunities provided by barrier/armor/shields, classes that don't want to rely on weapons as a primary damage dealer are forced into ability spam (warp/incinerate).  Then, when you finally get to the part where your other abilities are useful, the enemy is now too vulnerable to really make use of all of your moves, so you really only use one (or potentially a combo like pull-throw).  This is not good.  It limits the ability for the player to actually use their class in ways that aren't predefined.  All of the battles end up the same because only have 1 useful move at a time, forcing you to follow a cookie-cutter warp -> pull -> throw pattern.  Nobody is going to find that entertaining.

So, like I said, there are 2 solutions:

1) Improve health so enemies can be actually affected by all of your moves for a longer period.

2) Make other abilities actually affect enemies with defenses still up in some way (either a flat reduced effect if defense is up, or scaling like was suggested).

[Average Gatsby]

Roxlimn wrote...

Average Gatsby:

You cannot possibly say that the Adept is harder to play, and then turn around and say that the Vanguard has a comparatively steeper learning curve. Those two statements are contradictory. If the class is more challenging to play and learn to play, then it has a steeper learning curve, even if the end result of acquiring the skill to play it is that it destroys the game.

For what it's worth, I also found my Soldier and Infiltrator plays on Insanity incredibly easy, but I didn't find Adept to be all that hard, either. The Adept has a lower ceiling on what it can do, but the skill involved in getting to a functional Adept on Insanity is lower. The only reason most people don't find it so with Soldier and Infiltrator is because we have all been playing FPS games for all these years and we can aim with our respective control choices like we were born to it.

I would not recommend playing ME2 with a gun-toting class if the prospective gamer were not a fan of FPS games.

I don't know where I said that. I read my op and can't find it. I'm not really talking about difficulty, I'm talking about overall effectiveness of guns-leaning classes vs ability-leaning classes. And I'm also talking about the normal difficulty, not hardcore/insanity because bioware has said they didn't design the game around those higher difficulties.

The Vanguard is kind of unique in that it is (arguably) the class that can tear through the game the quickest and also has probably the highest learning curve and requires the most FPS-style skills.

[sinosleep]

I disagree. The squad in this game is not so ubre nor is the health so low that if you aren't on CD when they hit health that you can't have some fun with them. If you don't want to lose your CD on defenses, then DON'T. You have guns that are built for that any way. Strip the defenses with your guns, and then the instant that the target is in health you can start casting abilities since you won't be on CD.

[Kurupt87]

Vanguard i find to be more effective on the higher difficulties where enemies have defences, personally i find it ****** annoying when i charge someone to get in shotgun range only to knock them some random distance away, so i have to toddle after them because my shotty is out of effective range again. While it is a good control mechanism, an even better one is charge to fully shielded foe, blast melee dead. But again we're back to a unique class defining power in a weapon focused class versus the "just another ability" class powers (and imo, compared to the other class uniques, really rather lacklustre) of the casters.
edit: i suppose my vangaurd experience is skewed as it is a long time since i played it on anything other than insanity, and yeah now that i think about it a full shield regen aoe throw coupled with liberal smg spray and a reduceable 6s cd would absolutely speed through normal like nobodies business.

Modifié par Kurupt87, 17 mars 2010 - 02:04 .

[Average Gatsby]

Can I just say I think this is the single longest "controversial" thread I've ever seen on a forum that hasn't devolved into personal attacks and trolling?



(commence Jinxification)

[WillieStyle]

Average Gatsby wrote...

Can I just say I think this is the single longest "controversial" thread I've ever seen on a forum that hasn't devolved into personal attacks and trolling?

(commence Jinxification)

Min/max threads tend to be that way.
Of course ME2 isn't a real RPG because it doesn't have an Inventory.

[WillieStyle]

I have to say though, I think you're overestimating the effectiveness of weapons. The big advantage of powers, it seems to me, is AoE. Against multiple husks, Inceneration Blast + Pull Field >>> Revenant + Adrenaline Rush.



But I agree that the Adept and Engineer class abilities leave something to be desired.

[Roxlimn]

Average Gatsby:



If you can talk about efficacy at the Normal difficulty level, then you are a more skillful person than me. Or most people posting in this here thread, I imagine.



I can't really differentiate the power of classes at Normal because I destroy the game with equal ease using any class at that setting. I can discern no challenge.



Moreover, I find it hard to believe that Adept (can't talk about Engineer much) at Normal isn't as easy as Soldier is. There's no need to aim much, and with both Pull and Sing setting up the Warp Explosion so easily and so widely, most encounters end before they even begin. All you need to know is which powers work off of which other powers. Then you're set. No need to find cover. No need to aim.



Efficacy in this case is skill dependent. Even at Normal, you sort of have to aim with a gun-toting class. AR and Infiltrator slowmo both make that much easier, but it's still harder than aiming in the general direction of a target and throwing a power.

[JediPilot0]

Average Gatsby wrote...

Can I just say I think this is the single longest "controversial" thread I've ever seen on a forum that hasn't devolved into personal attacks and trolling?

(commence Jinxification)

Come over and join ours:

http://social.biowar...ndex/1715932/19

19 pages, and still pretty civil. Though it's all a blur to me now.


PS- UR DUMB  : )

Modifié par JediPilot0, 17 mars 2010 - 02:52 .

[Average Gatsby]

JediPilot0 wrote...

Average Gatsby wrote...

Can I just say I think this is the single longest "controversial" thread I've ever seen on a forum that hasn't devolved into personal attacks and trolling?

(commence Jinxification)

Come over and join ours:

http://social.biowar...ndex/1715932/19

19 pages, and still pretty civil. Though it's all a blur to me now.

PS- UR DUMB  : )

I can understand why its a blur. Every response is about the size of my OP. When it comes to plot related stuff, I tend to shy away from it unless its someone making predictions, then I'll chime in with my own ridiculous predictions and we'll all have a predictions.

I like this game too much to stand people saying something sucks. I only deal in "good" and "not quite as good". 

[JediPilot0]

Average Gatsby wrote...

I can understand why its a blur. Every response is about the size of my OP. When it comes to plot related stuff, I tend to shy away from it unless its someone making predictions, then I'll chime in with my own ridiculous predictions and we'll all have a predictions.

I like this game too much to stand people saying something sucks. I only deal in "good" and "not quite as good". 

lol, fair enough.

[Lycidas]

Shep309 wrote...

If they want to add more rpg into the game, the assault rifle should be standard for every class. I mean it was touched on earlier but anyone who goes through the military is going to know how to use an assault rifle.

The fact that the "power based" classes start off with pistols leads me to believe that the powers themselves were supposed to be far more damaging than they really are, at least I'm not seeing it when I play them on insanity, then again maybe that's just cause I suck at it too, so who knows for sure.

My biggest peeve is the assault rifle deal though, I just don't find that in any way believable that a military man/woman doesn't know how to use an assault rifle simply because he/she specialized in a certain area ( Engineer, Adept) I like the game as is really, I just find those two particulars of it rather silly.

Look at it this way AR's are quite big and clumsy weapons thats why soldiers that use a lot of biotic / tech powers might want to prefer a smaller gun that can be operated with one hand more efficient.

[Morzak]

 Very interesting Thread you started here Gatsby.  

Although i'm pretty happy with my Adept and Engineer on Insanity there are some interesting ideas to think about.  I don't like the idea of aiming powers with a charge time, seems to this would be like using the Arc Projector or the Cain, and i prefer the system in place.  Also letting powers affect protected enemies fully would be to overpowered.

The idea with separated ability and GCD is very interesting because it would allow you to use powers lets say every 2 seconds or so, but you would still have to wait the ability CD if you wan't to reuse let's say Warp, the CD could may be higher than it is now but that would need testing.  This could also lead to better CC because an adept could use singularity on a protected enemy than strip another with warp and pull or throw him afterward without having to wait long cooldowns. But i think later in the Game the issue is smaller the 40% CD reduction really helps you.

[Lycidas]

Roxlimn wrote...

Moreover, I find it hard to believe that Adept (can't talk about Engineer much) at Normal isn't as easy as Soldier is. There's no need to aim much, and with both Pull and Sing setting up the Warp Explosion so easily and so widely, most encounters end before they even begin. All you need to know is which powers work off of which other powers. Then you're set. No need to find cover. No need to aim.

Actually setting up a warp explosion on Normal is harder than on Insanity quite often. That is because the target that is trapped in a Pull or Singularity has been shot to death by your squad most of the time before your warp even has a chance to land. You can kind of see this in the class promotion video most power combos there are just for "fun" cause the target would have been dead without the second move anyways.

Morzak wrote...
The idea with separated ability and GCD is very
interesting because it would allow you to use powers lets say every 2
seconds or so, but you would still have to wait the ability CD if you
wan't to reuse let's say Warp, the CD could may be higher than it is now
but that would need testing.  This could also lead to better CC because
an adept could use singularity on a protected enemy than strip another
with warp and pull or throw him afterward without having to wait long
cooldowns. But i think later in the Game the issue is smaller the 40% CD
reduction really helps you.

While this is true the issue will be there again as soon as we get new skills on even higher cooldowns. And such a huge reduction from skills / upgrades should not even be necessary to make the class fun to play in the first place. How much more are we supposed to get in ME3 60, 70 or 80%? This sounds silly to me.

Modifié par Lycidas, 17 mars 2010 - 09:25 .

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Weapons and ammo are murch more powerful than the powers. The "soldier" classes were designed to shoot and have skills that help them shoot. The adept has no such skills.



Although Bioware claimed that powers were put on a global cooldown to increase their ability to be spammed, powers are less spammabe than in ME1. The adept must be a gimped soldier until he has stripped defenses from the foe.



The soldier is the weapons master and spends his time shooting as he was designed to. The adept is the biotics master. Unfortunately he must spend much of his time shooting.That makes him a gimped soldier.