314 réponses à ce sujet

[clanhenderson8]

My take, Gatsby, is that it's not the fact that Weapons are overpowered, it's that they're able to be useful regardless of circumstance.

The inherit problem lay within the new Armor/Barrier/Shield system.

If Throw/Pull were able to be used against a target with armor, but not a barrier or shield, they'd instantly be more useful. Yes, the primary method of damage is weapons, but that's simply because 'everyone' uses some type of weapon. The problem is properly supplimenting classes that do not use those heavy-hitters like the Assault Rifle/Shotgun/Sniper Rifle.

I touch on this briefly here. http://onhard.blogsp...ffect-2_09.html

[RamsenC]

I think the reason Engineer and Adept are underpowered is their class specific ability is not very powerful. Not saying they aren't useful, but compared to your other options they are. The best caster option is to strip>pull>warp with your squad mates. Why use singularity or drone when you can quickly warp explode something? 

Not only that, this is something any class can do with the addition of bonus powers. Theres also the fact that Adept's class passive adds 15% power damage if you choose to go that route. Unless there's some hidden biotic damage multiplier thats pitiful. Even a Soldier can get +15% power damage, pick up reave/energy drain and set up warp combos just as well as an Adept. The fact that every class has access to every upgrade limits the uniqueness of the classes on top of this. 

Singularity and Combat Drone are still useful for slowing down/distracting a tough enemy, but for the vast majority of the game you are fighting groups of average enemies. Dumbing down of rpg elements usually leads to a homogenization of classes and this is essentially what has happened to ME2. The only thing that separates the classes really is the unique class ability, but when this ability is not as good as it should be the class suffers. Also because the unique class abilities have to be powerful enough to define your class, this in combination with global cooldowns leads using one ability most of the time. 

Modifié par RamsenC, 15 mars 2010 - 12:08 .

[sinosleep]

@Lycidas



You seem to be under the impression that infiltrators use sniper rifles exclusively and that charge is never on cool down. The only class that can shoot things in slow motion for the majority of their gameplay is the soldier since AR has such a tiny cool down. And even then, if they use other abilities AR isn't always going to be available. Which means for the entire rest of the game they have to aim in real time. Which, quite frankly, is a hell of a whole lot harder then aiming a 1/4 screen off your target and launching abilites at them when they first pop out of cover. I'm not the only one that disagrees with you on that front, several other posters have posted the exact same sentiment in this very thread includinf the OP.

[Ginnerben]

clanhenderson8 wrote...

My take, Gatsby, is that it's not the fact that Weapons are overpowered, it's that they're able to be useful regardless of circumstance.

The inherit problem lay within the new Armor/Barrier/Shield system.

If Throw/Pull were able to be used against a target with armor, but not a barrier or shield, they'd instantly be more useful. Yes, the primary method of damage is weapons, but that's simply because 'everyone' uses some type of weapon. The problem is properly supplimenting classes that do not use those heavy-hitters like the Assault Rifle/Shotgun/Sniper Rifle.

I touch on this briefly here. http://onhard.blogsp...ffect-2_09.html

That's a good point.  What we really need is a biotic ability the equivalent of Overload, and a tech ability good against Barriers.

There are guns for every occasion, and ammo powers to further enhance their specialisation or balance their weakness, so it seems silly that techies and biotics don't have similar options.

Even if it were just a level 4 evolution.  Add it onto the effect of the single-target pull, for example.  

[RamsenC]

I'll add a little more in case people disagree with me about Singularity and Combat Drone.

Singularity: Ticks away and enemy defenses and holds them in place. When enemies are down to health they are lifted into the air. Sounds great, but a defense stripper will take out shields/armor much faster and pull also lifts enemies into the air with a shorter cooldown. If you do not use squad mates to their fullest Singularity retains much of its use, but using squad mates shouldn't make your class ability far less useful. To me this says the class ability isn't good enough.

Combat Drone: Distracts enemies so you can shoot them in the back. A nice ability, but what it really does is give you cover when you are outside of cover. This is not a niche that Engineer really needs. Sure it allows you to play more aggressively, but it does not compliment the Engineer's other abilities.

Abilities like Charge and Adrenaline Rush compliment their classes perfectly and no amount of squad mate powers can make up for what these abilities do.

Modifié par RamsenC, 15 mars 2010 - 12:29 .

[Average Gatsby]

Ginnerben wrote...

clanhenderson8 wrote...

My take, Gatsby, is that it's not the fact that Weapons are overpowered, it's that they're able to be useful regardless of circumstance.

The inherit problem lay within the new Armor/Barrier/Shield system.

If Throw/Pull were able to be used against a target with armor, but not a barrier or shield, they'd instantly be more useful. Yes, the primary method of damage is weapons, but that's simply because 'everyone' uses some type of weapon. The problem is properly supplimenting classes that do not use those heavy-hitters like the Assault Rifle/Shotgun/Sniper Rifle.

I touch on this briefly here. http://onhard.blogsp...ffect-2_09.html

That's a good point.  What we really need is a biotic ability the equivalent of Overload, and a tech ability good against Barriers.

There are guns for every occasion, and ammo powers to further enhance their specialisation or balance their weakness, so it seems silly that techies and biotics don't have similar options.

Even if it were just a level 4 evolution.  Add it onto the effect of the single-target pull, for example.  

I don't think this is the real issue for several reasons:

1) On the normal difficulty, which the game is designed around, protection is not really a big deal. Most of the time protected units also happen to be the units that are well suited for the CC types that the class special abilitiy of the Adept and Engineer provide, namely the stun lock.
2) This difficency is easily made up by taking Energy Drain for adepts or Reave for engineers
3) Guns are universally more powerful, not just situationally more powerful. If targets never had any defenses, a soldier would still outshine the adept because of all the bonuses and damage granted by both his class special ability and the ammo types provided.

Things that used to be relegated to ability based classes have now been co-opted into the soldier, infiltrator, and vanguard classes. Everyone one of them has a CC, incendiary and/or cryo ammo. Using those ammos is superior to using an ability for the same role because they don't have a cooldown added to their use. So they can damage boost with AR, CC with inferno, and still shoot all at the same time. Adepts and engineers can't recreate that because the tools they have aren't designed to be more situational, single use, not super moves. This makes sense in mass effect 2 terms because the game is a shooter, but it also means that a class who can't use guns as effectively or as often will suffer by default. If the game is to incorporate more RPG gameplay elements in the next series, some changes are going to have to be made.

Modifié par Average Gatsby, 15 mars 2010 - 12:40 .

[Average Gatsby]

RamsenC wrote...

I'll add a little more in case people disagree with me about Singularity and Combat Drone.

Singularity: Ticks away and enemy defenses and holds them in place. When enemies are down to health they are lifted into the air. Sounds great, but a defense stripper will take out shields/armor much faster and pull also lifts enemies into the air with a shorter cooldown. If you do not use squad mates to their fullest Singularity retains much of its use, but using squad mates shouldn't make your class ability far less useful. To me this says the class ability isn't good enough.

Combat Drone: Distracts enemies so you can shoot them in the back. A nice ability, but what it really does is give you cover when you are outside of cover. This is not a niche that Engineer really needs. Sure it allows you to play more aggressively, but it does not compliment the Engineer's other abilities.

Abilities like Charge and Adrenaline Rush compliment their classes perfectly and no amount of squad mate powers can make up for what these abilities do.

This.

[ScroguBlitzen]

 Another big cause of the relative weakness of power centric classes is the global cooldown.Compare Lift and Singularity in ME1.  They were both very powerful (and similar) when leveled, affected every enemy and were balanced by very long separate cooldowns.
They were truly awesome powers to use for a high level biotic.  They were only seriously broken once you had enough gear to lower your cooldowns to the point where they could be used non-stop.
The best way to balance them in ME2 would have been to allow shields, barriers and armor to provide RESISTANCE to the affects, so a 10 second lift becomes only a couple seconds for strong/heavy and shielded enemies or is even resisted entirely.  They also of course should never let the cooldowns get so short as to be game breaking.
What they did instead is create a global cooldown.  Sounds good on paper.  Global cooldown means that you have to make them much shorter so that you can keep the action flowing.  That also means that each ability must be proportionally weaker because of the shorter cooldown.
The big problem with global cooldown for power-centric classes is that the more powers you have the less valuable any additional powers become.  This is because they all share a single global cooldown.  In ME1 every new power you had made you proportionally more powerful, in ME2 every new power you have makes you more more versatile, but only marginally more powerful by a decreasing amount.

Look at the classes and which powers they use when played for efficiency.
Soldier uses Adrenaline Rush over 90% of all cooldowns.  Why bother with Concussive Shot when it costs you your AR cooldown?
Infiltrator uses Tactical Cloak probably 80% of the time and Incinerate 20% (more or less, depending on trying to save ammo or vs husks etc)
Vanguard uses Charge over 90% of the time.  Pull and Shockwave are mostly used for variety or Warp Combos not because their needed.
The 3 Soldier classes only use 1 or 2 powers each 90% of the time or more (when playing efficiently, people use more for fun and variety).  These classes that only use a couple powers suffer the least from the multi-power penalty of a global cooldown and they benefit the most from how often their powers become available.
The 2 "Caster" classes (Adept/Engineer) have the most active powers so they end up suffering the most from the diminishing returns of multiple powers.

So in summary:
In ME1: Each additional power made your character proportionally stronger.
In ME2: The global cooldown causes each additional power to benefit your character less and less as you gain more powers.  It makes the power heavy classes weaker than they should otherwise be (even though the individual powers may be good). It also causes some classes to neglect potentially fun and handy skills because it would delay the use of their uber skill (AR, Charge, Cloak).

Both of these situations would be fixed by some compromise between a global cooldown and individual cooldowns for all or some skills.

[Datacakes]

So the only way to kill the reaper larva at the end is to ... shoot it. With a gun. While it moves. I cant warp it to death or incinerate it? My Sentinel is hating the shotgun choice. Tempest SMG takes forever to widdle away that reaper. Foe - eh - vah! Try doing it without a sniper rifle or assault rifle. Now that's insanity mode.

[RamsenC]

I have to agree, protected enemies are not the problem for these classes. With bonus powers and squad mates any protection can easily be taken out by any class. Adept does not need a biotic overload and Engineer does not need something for barriers.



The problem is these classes are not the best at anything.

[RamsenC]

ScroguBlitzen wrote...

.....So in summary:
In ME1: Each additional power made your character proportionally stronger.
In ME2: The global cooldown causes each additional power to benefit your character less and less as you gain more powers.  It makes the power heavy classes weaker than they should otherwise be (even though the individual powers may be good). It also causes some classes to neglect potentially fun and handy skills because it would delay the use of their uber skill (AR, Charge, Cloak).

Both of these situations would be fixed by some compromise between a global cooldown and individual cooldowns for all or some skills.

A nice fix for this is making the class abilities have their own cooldown, while every other power stays on global cooldowns. This will keep the balance of having global cooldowns without the spamming of class abilities. 

Modifié par RamsenC, 15 mars 2010 - 12:47 .

[clanhenderson8]

RamsenC wrote...

I have to agree, protected enemies are not the problem for these classes. With bonus powers and squad mates any protection can easily be taken out by any class. Adept does not need a biotic overload and Engineer does not need something for barriers.

The problem is these classes are not the best at anything.

Elaborate on the "Best at anything" thing, could you?

[Ginnerben]

Average Gatsby wrote...
I don't think this is the real issue for several reasons:

1) On the normal difficulty, which the game is designed around, protection is not really a big deal. Most of the time protected units also happen to be the units that are well suited for the CC types that the class special abilitiy of the Adept and Engineer provide, namely the stun lock.
2) This difficency is easily made up by taking Energy Drain for adepts or Reave for engineers
3) Guns are universally more powerful, not just situationally more powerful. If targets never had any defenses, a soldier would still outshine the adept because of all the bonuses and damage granted by both his class special ability and the ammo types provided.

Things that used to be relegated to ability based classes have now been co-opted into the soldier, infiltrator, and vanguard classes. Everyone one of them has a CC, incendiary and/or cryo ammo. Using those ammos is superior to using an ability for the same role because they don't have a cooldown added to their use. So they can damage boost with AR, CC with inferno, and still shoot all at the same time. Adepts and engineers can't recreate that because the tools they have aren't designed to be more situational, single use, not super moves. This makes sense in mass effect 2 terms because the game is a shooter, but it also means that a class who can't use guns as effectively or as often will suffer by default. If the game is to incorporate more RPG gameplay elements in the next series, some changes are going to have to be made.

While I will agree that it won't solve every problem, I think it would help.  To counter your points
1) This will help solve the problem of balancing the higher-risk, higher reward play at the higher levels.  People have been arguing that they're more balanced at the lower levels, where protections aren't as common, so improving them will make them overpowered here.  
2) If they're only balanced when making use of a bonus power, they're not balanced.  A bonus power shouldn't be required to shore up a weakness in a class, and bring it to the power of the other classes.  Especially since the other classes also get a bonus power .  A biotic can take Reave and spam 
3) This is why I don't think that its the whole solution.  Because guns are both universally more powerful and situationally much more powerful.  This will help balance the outlying situations.  Something else has to be done about the universal power difference.  

[JediPilot0]

So let me get this straight, I kind of rushed through this thread.

AG, are you saying that regardless of barrier types, the "casters" are underpowered because their powers are not as lethal as the soldier types?

I really don't like the idea of having powers that simply take place of guns. If I' standing up to shoot overload for a few seconds, how is that a different experience than standing up and firing my assault rifle?

I think the casters should either get massive bonuses to casting times, or be able to cast without global cooldowns. And yes, some of the class specific powers should change to something else. I like how someone earlier put it that the engineer's drone solves a problem that the engineer doesn't really have.

Or we should have some more unique setups in addition to Warp combos, but I wouldn't want to deal away with guns at all for the casters because it's a military type game and guns just have to be there.

Also, you say that the guns are rewarded more because of the skill in aiming vs aiming a power, but I think you've got it backwards: The guns are pretty reliable, but the powers fluctuate in their effectiveness. You can just auto aim a throw at someone and hit them no problem, but it will be a crappy result. OR you can carefully throw him off a ledge and be instantly lethal. I think powers peak higher, but we just don't have the right opportunities to do so as often as we should.

EDIT - you could, if going for the mutli-cooldown solution, have the class passive power give you more available powers at each iteration or something along those lines.

I don't agree though that casters should be able to do away with guns entirely. It should be that any definiency in firepower from only having a pistol is made up for in powers to bring you up to the lethality of the solier-types.

EDIT # 2 - Like anyone can just play a shooter class and do good without aiming, but if you go for headshots you are much more effective. This element should be more pronounced in powers. A crappy throw vs a well aimed curve throw to instantly kill an enemy by tossing him of the ledge is the equivalent, and there's just not enough opportunities, like I said, for the caster "headshots." Not sure what the Engineer's equivalent wourld be though.

Modifié par JediPilot0, 15 mars 2010 - 01:23 .

[mundus66]

Great post as usual Gatsby and i always enjoyed watching your videos and read your threads. I also came to the conclusion myself that powers that increased your shooting where the best powers and i also tought why is that? And yeah it is like you say, if powers where as powerful as shooting you could just throw them out there and didn't even have to think about aiming. Aiming powers might work, but i do not think that powers like warp or pull, that you can curve around corners should go away.

What i would like them to do for the next game, would be to give us more power combos, warp explosions are very powerful, but its also the only power combo. I think they should add more combos, even combos between 2 different types of powers, like combining singularity with an overload for example, it could create a vortex that kept draining shields rapidly from enemies standing in it. That just one power i though of from the top of my head, im sure if some developers sat down and tought about this, they could fix the power problem right there, without making the game to easy again like ME1 was.

Modifié par mundus66, 15 mars 2010 - 01:14 .

[RamsenC]

clanhenderson8 wrote...

RamsenC wrote...

I have to agree, protected enemies are not the problem for these classes. With bonus powers and squad mates any protection can easily be taken out by any class. Adept does not need a biotic overload and Engineer does not need something for barriers.

The problem is these classes are not the best at anything.

Elaborate on the "Best at anything" thing, could you?

Not sure what there is to elaborate on. Adept is not the best defense stripper, not the best CCer, not the best at AoE damage, not the best at single target damage, not the best at power damage, not the best at gun damage, etc. 

Adept may be tied with other classes in certain aspects or even slightly better, but its not noticeable better at any aspect. Engineer is the same way. You could say Engineer is the best at neutralizing a single elite enemy's offense, but that is arguable and not enough to make the class as powerful as it should be. 

[baller7345]

This really isn't a major discussion on your original post but honestly this seems a bit weird coming from you. You were absolutely loving the engineer and helped dispel a large amount of the adept hate. Just wondering but where did this come from.

Ok as to why powers aren't as real time skilled based as every other class comes down to an attempt at bioware to make the game more appealing to people who have no TPS or realtime experience. I thought they fit in quite well if you look at it from a sequel perspective. In the first game you had no reason to aim your tech mines or biotic abilites because they always hit pretty much no matter what. I was even able to use Tali's tech mines even when she didn't have line of sight unlike carnage. Now every squad ability works like this. The abilites that shepard use do have more skill required than they used to in that I can no longer overload people hunkered down in cover because I no longer have 10 meter radius mines and as such I have to either wait for the enemy to pop out of cover and use it at the right time or just curve another ability around the corner by learning where to aim in order to get the proper curve. Its not as if the engineer and the adept are alone in the power department as every class including the soldier gets an auto homing power. The engineer and adept are simply the classes that specialize in those powers for those who don't like to shoot or don't want to shoot as much. Has any wizard in old school RPG's aimed their fireballs (seriously if you know of any tell me) because I don't think I've ever seen any. The game is much more shooter focused but it is still an RPG at heart and being such you will always see power classes like the engineer and adept

Basically it boils down to whether or not they require more skill than ME1 and that is a resounding yes.

Modifié par baller7345, 15 mars 2010 - 01:15 .

[Average Gatsby]

JediPilot0 wrote...

So let me get this straight, I kind of rushed through this thread.

AG, are you saying that regardless of barrier types, the "casters" are underpowered because their powers are not as lethal as the soldier types?

I really don't like the idea of having powers that simply take place of guns. If I' standing up to shoot overload for a few seconds, how is that a different experience than standing up and firing my assault rifle?

I think the casters should either get massive bonuses to casting times, or be able to cast without global cooldowns. And yes, some of the class specific powers should change to something else. I like how someone earlier put it that the engineer's drone solves a problem that the engineer doesn't really have.

Or we should have some more unique setups in addition to Warp combos, but I wouldn't want to deal away with guns at all for the casters because it's a military type game and guns just have to be there.

Also, you say that the guns are rewarded more because of the skill in aiming vs aiming a power, but I think you've got it backwards: The guns are pretty reliable, but the powers fluctuate in their effectiveness. You can just auto aim a throw at someone and hit them no problem, but it will be a crappy result. OR you can carefully throw him off a ledge and be instantly lethal. I think powers peak higher, but we just don't have the right opportunities to do so as often as we should.

Its a mix between one, the "casters" aren't as lethal enough and therefore left behind in the game compared to the shootier classes, and the "casters" don't make up for this by being able to CC or damage boost well enough to compensate for that issue.

Guns are harder to use that abilities, but because they are so strong, they get better results. I no guns'd the collector ship platforms in a speedrun attempt, which was stressful but not too bad, but when I re-did the section mainly using my Assault rifle for kills, it was much harder but I finished a full minute faster.

A power can never miss unless your basically not even looking at the target. Plus, you can pause the game and pefectly aim any power and it will go exactly towards that locked on unit. Even if you set up a shot using pause, no bullets simply automatically track towards their target.

My suggestion comes out of what I saw in the presentation, in that the ME team has a love for shooters and wants to keep the game shooty, but still wants to have balance between the classes and not all just be copies of each other. In turning powers more shot like, it shores up the weakness of the class while keeping it shooter-like. But different cooldown styles, more combos, I like it all and I'd embrace it, but it's also been suggested and I wanted to put out a different take.

There's other things that would be decidedly non-shooter that I'm definitely open to, like, for example, letting engineers be able to passively buff their squad with a regen bonus or adepts providing protective barriers on tanking characters, but I didn't want to suggest anything that would take away from the shooting nature of the game. Can I fit another "shooting" in here? Shooting.

[JediPilot0]

baller7345 wrote...

This really isn't a major discussion on your original post but honestly this seems a bit weird coming from you. You were absolutely loving the engineer and helped dispel a large amount of the adept hate. Just wondering but where did this come from

I agree.

I wonder if we should be judging a class by how fast they can clear combat scenarios.

Maybe the game is just not hard enough. I know when I'm an Adept I know I'm supposed to have battlfield control, but why bother when I can just shoot everything as a soldier? What advantage do I gain by staying back? Maybe there should be combat scenarios taylored to suit each class so each class has an opportunity to shine, though I don't really like that idea.

Or engineers should be able to hack turrets and adepts should be able to bring down ceilings and throw debris at enemies. I'm trying to think of how to enhance lethality wihtout changing the "spirit" of the class. Maybe the engineers should be able to depoy their own turrets.

Modifié par JediPilot0, 15 mars 2010 - 01:34 .

[Average Gatsby]

baller7345 wrote...

This really isn't a major discussion on your original post but honestly this seems a bit weird coming from you. You were absolutely loving the engineer and helped dispel a large amount of the adept hate. Just wondering but where did this come from.

Ok as to why powers aren't as real time skilled based as every other class comes down to an attempt at bioware to make the game more appealing to people who have no TPS or realtime experience. I thought they fit in quite well if you look at it from a sequel perspective. In the first game you had no reason to aim your tech mines or biotic abilites because they always hit pretty much no matter what. I was even able to use Tali's tech mines even when she didn't have line of sight unlike carnage. Now every squad ability works like this. The abilites that shepard use do have more skill required than they used to in that I can no longer overload people hunkered down in cover because I no longer have 10 meter radius mines and as such I have to either wait for the enemy to pop out of cover and use it at the right time or just curve another ability around the corner by learning where to aim in order to get the proper curve. Its not as if the engineer and the adept are alone in the power department as every class including the soldier gets an auto homing power. The engineer and adept are simply the classes that specialize in those powers for those who don't like to shoot or don't want to shoot as much. Has any wizard in old school RPG's aimed their fireballs (seriously if you know of any tell me) because I don't think I've ever seen any. The game is much more shooter focused but it is still an RPG at heart and being such you will always see power classes like the engineer and adept

Basically it boils down to whether or not they require more skill than ME1 and that is a resounding yes.

I know its weird coming from me, but this isn't a rant thread or a complaint thread. People saying ____ is useless, this class sucks, blah blah blah. That annoys me because its not true and comes out of ignorance and/or lack of skill. 

This thread is more of an analysis of how gameplay in ME2 turned out to be, and how could it be made better for the classes that didn't reap as much benefit as the others. Its all about degrees. If I could rank them, I'd say that for the gameplay of mass effect 2, Soldiers, Infiltrators, Sentinels, and Vanguards are excellent, whereas adepts and engineers are good, different, better than before, but not as good a fit as the others. 

Also, I'm not saying that somehow these classes are less fun. I prefer Adept and Engineer over soldier, and they are all fun. What they are is less effective. For me, effectiveness doesn't equal fun, but it is a factor when I'm trying to help people play a class. Its hard for me to talk about how effective an engineer or adept is at CC, for example, when other classes can do the same or similar thing and often times better. The end result was trying to make an RPG type unit, a caster, fit into a shooter game, and it works, and works well, but it could be better.

Modifié par Average Gatsby, 15 mars 2010 - 01:39 .

[baller7345]

JediPilot0 wrote...

baller7345 wrote...

This really isn't a major discussion on your original post but honestly this seems a bit weird coming from you. You were absolutely loving the engineer and helped dispel a large amount of the adept hate. Just wondering but where did this come from

I agree.

I wonder if we should be judging a class by how fast they can clear combat scenarios.

Maybe the game is just not hard enough. I know when I'm an Adept I know I'm supposed to have battlfield control, but why bother when I can just shoot everything as a soldier? What advantage do I gain by staying back? Maybe there should be combat scenarios taylored to suit each class so each class has an opportunity to shine, though I don't really like that idea.

Or engineers should be able to hack turrets and adepts should be able to bring down ceilings and throw debris at enemies. I'm trying to think of how to enhance lethality wihtout changing the "spirit" of the class. Maybe the engineers should be able to depoy their own turrets.

I don't believe we should judge classes by speed.  Each class provides a unique play experience which allows them to fit a wide variety of play styles.  Some people enjoy shooting things and they have the combat classes while other don't care to shoot or dont' want to shoot as much so they have the power classes.  You also don't have to hang back with either class if you don't want to you are able to rush forward with just about any class and with the adept and engineer you can accomplish this with minimal shooting.  They might be slower but speed isn't the thing that judges power in my opinion.

[baller7345]

Average Gatsby wrote...

baller7345 wrote...

This really isn't a major discussion on your original post but honestly this seems a bit weird coming from you. You were absolutely loving the engineer and helped dispel a large amount of the adept hate. Just wondering but where did this come from.

Ok as to why powers aren't as real time skilled based as every other class comes down to an attempt at bioware to make the game more appealing to people who have no TPS or realtime experience. I thought they fit in quite well if you look at it from a sequel perspective. In the first game you had no reason to aim your tech mines or biotic abilites because they always hit pretty much no matter what. I was even able to use Tali's tech mines even when she didn't have line of sight unlike carnage. Now every squad ability works like this. The abilites that shepard use do have more skill required than they used to in that I can no longer overload people hunkered down in cover because I no longer have 10 meter radius mines and as such I have to either wait for the enemy to pop out of cover and use it at the right time or just curve another ability around the corner by learning where to aim in order to get the proper curve. Its not as if the engineer and the adept are alone in the power department as every class including the soldier gets an auto homing power. The engineer and adept are simply the classes that specialize in those powers for those who don't like to shoot or don't want to shoot as much. Has any wizard in old school RPG's aimed their fireballs (seriously if you know of any tell me) because I don't think I've ever seen any. The game is much more shooter focused but it is still an RPG at heart and being such you will always see power classes like the engineer and adept

Basically it boils down to whether or not they require more skill than ME1 and that is a resounding yes.

I know its weird coming from me, but this isn't a rant thread or a complaint thread. People saying ____ is useless, this class sucks, blah blah blah. That annoys me because its not true and comes out of ignorance and/or lack of skill. 

This thread is more of an analysis of how gameplay in ME2 turned out to be, and how could it be made better for the classes that didn't reap as much benefit as the others. Its all about degrees. If I could rank them, I'd say that for the gameplay of mass effect 2, Soldiers, Infiltrators, Sentinels, and Vanguards are excellent, whereas adepts and engineers are good, different, better than before, but not as good a fit as the others. 

Also, I'm not saying that somehow these classes are less fun. I prefer Adept and Engineer over soldier, and they are all fun. What they are is less effective. For me, effectiveness doesn't equal fun, but it is a factor when I'm trying to help people play a class. Its hard for me to talk about how effective an engineer or adept is at CC, for example, when other classes can do the same or similar thing and often times better. The end result was trying to make an RPG type unit, a caster, fit into a shooter game, and it works, and works well, but it could be better.

Ok I was just wondering.  I wasn't trying to say you were ranting I just found it strange.

I will say I don't think you can say that ME2 is just a shooter game because while the shooter elements are stronger the game is still a hybrid of the shooter genre and the RPG genre.  The classes themselves have to represent this in some way and the adept,engineer, and a caster sentinel arethe representation of the RPG aspects. 

Modifié par baller7345, 15 mars 2010 - 01:45 .

[JediPilot0]

I really don't like the idea of giving shooter like powers to the casters. This homogenizes the gameplay experiences of all the classes. I see what you mean, AG, about the pause mechanic for aiming powers. I forgot about that.



I wonder if it's not just a question of level design, moreso than class deficiencies. Like I said before, being able to toss someone off a cliff is rare and takes too much time to set up.



I think the casters should really stay away from the aiming skills that the combat classes require. The solution should be for level design that benefits these classes more, or just more ability to set up combos or a single deadly attack that you need to work towards. If that's more CC, I don't know.



I envision that the soldier classes pick away at enemies one at a time, while the casters should be able to intelligently round up the masses for a single powerful strike or two and deal with everyone. Less constant action, but more payoff. As it is, CC in this game is kind of weak in that most enemies are really spread out I find. You end up having to work one or two guys at a time for little payoff while you're getting shot by everyone else..



I may not seem like I'm going anywhere, but I'm just brainstorming. I like threads like this.

[rumination888]

More people need to realize "fun" and "effectiveness" aren't the same thing. When someone is saying your favorite class isn't as effective as other classes, you shouldn't take that to mean the class isn't fun.

I find the Engineer more fun than the Soldier, but the maximum effort you can put into the Engineer is far less than the maximum effort you can put in the other classes. In this game, effort is rewarded with faster, smoother, and more action-packed clears(flashy effects doesn't equal action-packed).

None of the Engineer's powers require much effort to use, while the Vanguard's Charge requires the most effort. This is one of the major reasons why the playerbase is so polarized in their view of the Adept/Engineer and Vanguard.

[JediPilot0]

And as for Bioware's desire to add in more RPG elements, that doesn't neccessarily mean reworking the combat too much. RPG elements to me give the player a real sense of progression and ownership of their character. I find that in both Mass Effects (especially ME1), any incremental upgrades you're applying to yourself are barely noticeable. I think we just need more OOMPH per point spent.

An example would be from Deus Ex (if you guys are old enough to have played it). You had about 4 levels of weapon skills, and a shrinking crosshair system, similar to ME2's crosshairs. Each time you leveled up the weapon skill, you could observe a VERY noticeable difference in you combat. A level 1 crosshair woul have maximum width of say 200 pixels (innacurate shots), but level 2 weapons would be say 150 pixels. A very obvious sign that you are upgrading your abilities. You could see it on your screen.

Upgrades that we have now, while they may make a difference under the hood, barely seem to increase my effectiveness in combat. I don't immediately feel more powerful after getting a +10% to SMG damage. I know if I stopped and recorded changes in an enemy's healthbar, the difference would be there, but I'm too busy in combat to really notice this change.

I don't want them to bring back the many powers like ME1 with 500 levels, each giving you something useless like +2% to some ability. I'd rather they focus on just making each upgrade pack a noticeable punch.

Giving a +10% pistol damage boost could make your pistol sound more powerfull, or even completely different. We don't need to really add too many RPG elements, just give each upgrade more meaning. We need a sense of progress, and ME1's system was just lots of skills with little incremental upgrades. I'd like fewer upgrades like ME2, but with more beef to the upgrades.

Sorry, I think I said the same thing about 10 different ways there.

Modifié par JediPilot0, 15 mars 2010 - 02:23 .