314 réponses à ce sujet

[ScroguBlitzen]

RGFrog wrote...
The adept should be a blue glowing deity inspiring fear as it's magic can launch, throw, explode, etc. and the only defense you may have is the few seconds of shields/barriers until those are stripped (again at the onset). The adept shouldn't be using more than a pistol. Instead should be versed in hand to hand combat where physical blows are combined with biotics to do damage.

True.  The Adept should be the Biotic God that the Volus describes.  It would be awesome for Adepts to get a biotic enhanced Melee strike.
You know how Samara does her "Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess" before biotically punching through someones head.  An Adept should have a power that enhances their melee strike to do that! 

I know I miss my Biotic God from ME1...

How about this as an ability for an Adept:

Biotic Strike
Level 1 Adds 50% Melee Damage and 10% Shield/Barrier Penetration
Level 2 Adds 100% Melee Damage and 20% Shield/Barrier Penetration
Level 3 Adds 150% Melee Damage and 30% Shield/Barrier Penetration
Level 4 Embrace of the Goddess
    Adds 250% Melee Damage and 50% Shield/Barrier Penetration.
    Enemies reduced to health may be thrown by the biotic force of the punch.
Level 4 Statis Strike
    Adds 200% Melee Damage. and 40% Shield/Barrier Penetration
    Strikes will slow enemies depending on their defenses.

[sinosleep]

Vanguards are the up close and personal biotic. What good would a mass melee strike be to an adept when they have paper mache shields and no way to recharge them? Vanguards are built to stay in melee range from the ground up, adepts aren't. I think that'd be a misplaced ability in the hands of an adept.

[sedrikhcain]

Average Gatsby wrote...

sedrikhcain wrote...

This is going to sound like a snarky response but it's not meant to be...
 
What exactly is the problem? I could summarize your post, in the main, thusly: There are six classes in this shooter game, two of them are not gun-heavy classes. These two "gun-light" classes offer two different ways to play the game and are lots of fun, and I find this troubling.

Does that sound reasonable to you? Seriously, what is the problem?

The issue is that while every class got a cool, unique ability, Adepts and Engineers didn't get sufficiently strong abilities to make up for their lack of weapon power. Crowd Controlling, their strong point, is 1) able to be done by every class including the weapon classes (incendiary and cryo ammo), and 2) isn't nearly as important as simply killing the enemy as quickly as possible. So even though they can CC the best, CC doesn't matter nearly as much as damage so they end up being weaker.

Its basically a call for balance. Besides, what good is it to play the game for 100+ hours and not give any feedback, or useless feedback like "hey that was fun". Its a nice thing to say, but I've got around 70 videos on youtube where I talk about how awesome this game is. I've already put that out there. 

There's no point in really debating fun-ness because its in the eye of the beholder. We can talk about overall effectiveness and game play fit, though, and that's what I am trying to do. I'd like to see equity, as far as power goes, across all classes for ME3, and more balance between both Ability use and gun use for the ability-heavy classes.

I get what you're calling for, I just don't understand why. What do the classes need with more "balance". You said yourself you completed the game with an adept without firing a gun -- meaning that class can be used in a unique way and still beat the game. You have called it fun and I agree, so there is no debate there but if the question is "overall effectiveness and game play fit", then I think your playthroughs are exhibit A that all those issues have been handled.
 
Any class can beat the game; therefore, If it is, in fact, true that adepts and engineers aren't as powerful as the other classes, why is that in any way significant in a one-player game?

And as for "balance between both ability use..." the entire point is to offer some variety. Mission accomplished.

Offering a critique of the game can certainly be useful but power and balance concerns in a one-player game, in which all classes can beat the game and do so in different ways does not make sense. The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

[RamsenC]

sedrikhcain wrote...
The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

My beef with the two classes is they do not have enough of their own flavor more than how much power they have. I've already stated why in my posts, but I suppose it's far too subjective. Adept is not the most powerful biotic even with Singularity and Engineer's class power is making one enemy look away. I just think they could be a lot more interesting. 

[SantosCapela]

Sabresandiego wrote...

Obviously people misread my post as I knew they would. When I mentioned getting rid of squad control, what I was essentially suggesting is that all abilities that are cast by squadmates currently would be cast by shepard instead. You arent losing anything, rather you are gaining the fact that your own character is launching the abilities rather than your squad. I love controlling my squad too, I think its awesome and I wouldnt suggest something that would make the game less fun. It would simply be a transfer of powers from your squad to yourself. This is basically how games like world of warcraft work, where you only control your own character but that control is much deeper than it is in this game.

Don't really know how world of warcraft works but nevertheless I can't visualize what your saying. I will however object to the affirmation respecting what's lost. Currently there are three options at gameplay: the first controlling only sheppard and let the squadmates roam freely, the second is to control both sheppard and the squad mates but letting them cast powers and the third one is total control by setting the preferences so that your squadmates can't cast their powers and you have to cast them yourself. The third one is similar to what you say with the difference that you are not casting the powers themselves but commanding your squadmates to do it. In what you are suggesting you loose 2 out of 3 types of gameplay being that the third one isn't exactly what you said but I'm against transfer of squadmates powers to sheppard. I don't want to strip them from powers at all nor do I want a frenzy sheppard casting powers all the way.

[TheUnusualSuspect]

sedrikhcain wrote...
 The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

I think that this is it in a nutshell.

Yes, Adepts and Engineers can't blaze away and rip someone's shields and barriers down in 0.5-1.5secs like a soldier/shooter can (actually, depending on the enemy, an adept/engineer can insta-strip them, but I'm digressing), but it isn't all about the dps, it's about the different flavor in how the job gets done.

Crowd control classes do better against bigger crowds, and that's where they shine, by locking down the field and then picking them off.  The more pure shooter classes have to stand up in enemy fire, and take some hits while picking the enemy off one at a time.

Yes, a soldier can do more dps if it's not being shot at, but outside of husk rushes, that's rarely the case.

@ AverageGatsby: Look, I don't mean this to sound offensive, but it sounds like you're looking to make the Adepts and Engineers more homogenous with the pure-shooters, and to me, that's simply not what they're about.  Those classes aren't about who can clear the field the quickest, and despite you saying that it's not about that, in most of your posts you seem to keep coming back to that point, either directly or indirectly.

Modifié par TheUnusualSuspect, 15 mars 2010 - 09:29 .

[Average Gatsby]

TheUnusualSuspect wrote...

sedrikhcain wrote...
 The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

I think that this is it in a nutshell.

Yes, Adepts and Engineers can't blaze away and rip someone's shields and barriers down in 0.5-1.5secs like a soldier/shooter can (actually, depending on the enemy, an adept/engineer can insta-strip them, but I'm digressing), but it isn't all about the dps, it's about the different flavor in how the job gets done.

Crowd control classes do better against bigger crowds, and that's where they shine, by locking down the field and then picking them off.  The more pure shooter classes have to stand up in enemy fire, and take some hits while picking the enemy off one at a time.

Yes, a soldier can do more dps if it's not being shot at, but outside of husk rushes, that's rarely the case.

@ AverageGatsby: Look, I don't mean this to sound offensive, but it sounds like you're looking to make the Adepts and Engineers more homogenous with the pure-shooters, and to me, that's simply not what they're about.  Those classes aren't about who can clear the field the quickest, and despite you saying that it's not about that, in most of your posts you seem to keep coming back to that point, either directly or indirectly.

Here's the thing though, Adepts and Engineers don't even hold back crowds better than other classes, especially on the normal difficulty, which is the difficulty i'm mainly talking about because that's the difficulty bioware planned its game around. What do I mean?

Squad Incendiary ammo and Squad Cryo Ammo.

Flip on normal with a soldier or infiltrator and a vanguard and flip on those powers, they try to do that much cc that fast with an adept or engineer having to wait 4.5 seconds between each cast. Its not that Adepts and Engineers can't CC or that they don't do it well, its that the gun using classes do it either the same or better. Adepts and Engineers only have the advantage of being able to CC single targets with protection, which to me is not nearly enough CC to balance out the CC any soldier can provide.

Think about a blue suns merc level, with Commando's and Legionaires with protection and troopers and heavies without. A engineer or adept can CC the most dangerous target in the room, commandos, or maybe get a couple targets caught in a full cryo or singularity/pull field. The will have to use their guns to do any additional damage because they will be waiting for their cooldown. A soldier can CC lighter enemies moving around while using Adrenaline rush at the same time, so they can perform both actions more efficiently and with nearly the same effectiveness.

[Kronner]

Average Gatsby wrote...

Here's the thing though, Adepts and Engineers don't even hold back crowds better than other classes, especially on the normal difficulty, which is the difficulty i'm mainly talking about because that's the difficulty bioware planned its game around. What do I mean?

Squad Incendiary ammo and Squad Cryo Ammo.

Flip on normal with a soldier or infiltrator and a vanguard and flip on those powers, they try to do that much cc that fast with an adept or engineer having to wait 4.5 seconds between each cast. Its not that Adepts and Engineers can't CC or that they don't do it well, its that the gun using classes do it either the same or better. Adepts and Engineers only have the advantage of being able to CC single targets with protection, which to me is not nearly enough CC to balance out the CC any soldier can provide.

Think about a blue suns merc level, with Commando's and Legionaires with protection and troopers and heavies without. A engineer or adept can CC the most dangerous target in the room, commandos, or maybe get a couple targets caught in a full cryo or singularity/pull field. The will have to use their guns to do any additional damage because they will be waiting for their cooldown. A soldier can CC lighter enemies moving around while using Adrenaline rush at the same time, so they can perform both actions more efficiently and with nearly the same effectiveness.

I have to disagree, now I did not play on normal, but Singularity is the most effective CC ability in the game, not to mention that on normal I guess very few enemies have any kind of defence, so throw, pull, slam etc work right away. No need to shoot. They have defence? use Overload/Warp from Miranda, you or other squadmate, Pull + Warp = boom. Or if you do not enjoy explosions, like me for example, pull field + area throw
I really think Adept is very powerful and not worse than Soldier, just different. I like shooting more so I enjoyed Soldier more, but there are a lot of people who like to play slow, use tactics, take their time and enjoy cool biotic powers.
Engineer is the same, with slight differences.

[TheUnusualSuspect]

Sorry, haven't played an Adept or Engineer on Normal, but correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't either of those classes be able to near insta-kill any unshielded non-elite opponent at that setting? (Pull/Unstable Warp bomb, Area Incinerate, etc). Am fairly used to playing on Insanity where everything has shield and has double health and Shep does less damage (or so it seems), but an Adept Shep with two warping squaddies could pull/warp the field in the space of 15 secs with an Adept's <2s pull cooldown.



Let's not forget too, that an Adept or Engineer can still shoot, and while doing maybe 50% of the damage of a Soldier, STILL has the powers on top of that. I often fell into that trap myself of simply not bothering to shoot, but when things got busy (and so did I) a constant blaze of gunfire + powers from either an Adept or an Engineer deals a heck of a lot of damage, and I get the feeling that this is how Bioware balanced it. If an Adept can throw out a Heavy Warp every 3 secs, that's 210 damage on top of his weapon damage. Same with an Engineer and Incinerate. Put them all together and it'd be a close call as to who can take down an enemy faster between a Soldier and a Engineer or Adept.

[Average Gatsby]

sedrikhcain wrote...

I get what you're calling for, I just don't understand why. What do the classes need with more "balance". You said yourself you completed the game with an adept without firing a gun -- meaning that class can be used in a unique way and still beat the game. You have called it fun and I agree, so there is no debate there but if the question is "overall effectiveness and game play fit", then I think your playthroughs are exhibit A that all those issues have been handled.
 
Any class can beat the game; therefore, If it is, in fact, true that adepts and engineers aren't as powerful as the other classes, why is that in any way significant in a one-player game?

And as for "balance between both ability use..." the entire point is to offer some variety. Mission accomplished.

Offering a critique of the game can certainly be useful but power and balance concerns in a one-player game, in which all classes can beat the game and do so in different ways does not make sense. The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

The why comes from 2 things:

1) Bioware has said that they want to have a balanced game, even if it is single player only, which can be evidenced by changes made in Dragon Age: Origins and through statements they've said. I'm pretty sure there is mention of balance in the slide show.

If BioWare said "hey, we don't care about balance", then neither would I.

2) Its just good game design to try to have a variety mixed with balance. Just because there isn't a competitive aspect to the game through some kind of multiplayer doesn't mean the playing experience has to necessarily favor one class or the other.

I think they can do that. I think they can balance out the classes, and I think they could do it by making each of the classes even more distinct. Like I've said, I'm trying my best not to seem like its a complaint but that its a section of the game that is good but can and should be made even better for Mass Effect 3.

[davidshooter]

A sniper/viper adept is still one of my favorite classes in the game.

The only thing that bugs me about the adept is that on harder difficulties it takes damage too quickly because it has no damage mitigating ability or bonus. Sometimes on Insanity an Adept can go from full shields to half health in the time it takes the game to animate throwing a single warp - meaning you are sometimes in cover longer than a cooldown because you have to heal.

What I would like to see is a barrier increase that is part of the regular barrier, at least in the bastion specialization, that gives the Adept a bit more survivability and doesn't itself have a cooldown - which doesn't solve the problem.

Other than that I like the class just as much as my sniper infiltrator and sniper soldier. In fact, I prefer the fact that the adept doesn't have a slowdown in the sniper scope like the infiltrator-which really bugs me - well that and the auto aim all sniper rifles have.

Modifié par davidshooter, 15 mars 2010 - 09:57 .

[Average Gatsby]

TheUnusualSuspect wrote...

Sorry, haven't played an Adept or Engineer on Normal, but correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't either of those classes be able to near insta-kill any unshielded non-elite opponent at that setting? (Pull/Unstable Warp bomb, Area Incinerate, etc). Am fairly used to playing on Insanity where everything has shield and has double health and Shep does less damage (or so it seems), but an Adept Shep with two warping squaddies could pull/warp the field in the space of 15 secs with an Adept's

Let's not forget too, that an Adept or Engineer can still shoot, and while doing maybe 50% of the damage of a Soldier, STILL has the powers on top of that. I often fell into that trap myself of simply not bothering to shoot, but when things got busy (and so did I) a constant blaze of gunfire + powers from either an Adept or an Engineer deals a heck of a lot of damage, and I get the feeling that this is how Bioware balanced it. If an Adept can throw out a Heavy Warp every 3 secs, that's 210 damage on top of his weapon damage. Same with an Engineer and Incinerate. Put them all together and it'd be a close call as to who can take down an enemy faster between a Soldier and a Engineer or Adept.

The pull warp combo is still instant kills, so adepts get closer, but not quite, to 50/50 guns/powers on normal while being able to keep up with the soldier, but you do have to use that really frequently. Engineers do not 1 hit kill with incinerate, as far as I remember. I may use gibbed's and test it out but I doubt it. Adepts aren't 1 shotting anything with just warp, and the two do roughly equivalent damage against health.

heavy warp is a 6 second cooldown. So it would be a 200 damage v health on top of weapons but at the same time, a soldier has a 60% weapon damage booster per shot, and a 100% damage increase per shot (with half the ROF but it becomes less of a factor with less rapidly firing weapons), and the ability to use stronger guns.

Modifié par Average Gatsby, 15 mars 2010 - 09:59 .

[baller7345]

Average Gatsby wrote...

TheUnusualSuspect wrote...

sedrikhcain wrote...
 The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

I think that this is it in a nutshell.

Yes, Adepts and Engineers can't blaze away and rip someone's shields and barriers down in 0.5-1.5secs like a soldier/shooter can (actually, depending on the enemy, an adept/engineer can insta-strip them, but I'm digressing), but it isn't all about the dps, it's about the different flavor in how the job gets done.

Crowd control classes do better against bigger crowds, and that's where they shine, by locking down the field and then picking them off.  The more pure shooter classes have to stand up in enemy fire, and take some hits while picking the enemy off one at a time.

Yes, a soldier can do more dps if it's not being shot at, but outside of husk rushes, that's rarely the case.

@ AverageGatsby: Look, I don't mean this to sound offensive, but it sounds like you're looking to make the Adepts and Engineers more homogenous with the pure-shooters, and to me, that's simply not what they're about.  Those classes aren't about who can clear the field the quickest, and despite you saying that it's not about that, in most of your posts you seem to keep coming back to that point, either directly or indirectly.

Here's the thing though, Adepts and Engineers don't even hold back crowds better than other classes, especially on the normal difficulty, which is the difficulty i'm mainly talking about because that's the difficulty bioware planned its game around. What do I mean?

Squad Incendiary ammo and Squad Cryo Ammo.

Flip on normal with a soldier or infiltrator and a vanguard and flip on those powers, they try to do that much cc that fast with an adept or engineer having to wait 4.5 seconds between each cast. Its not that Adepts and Engineers can't CC or that they don't do it well, its that the gun using classes do it either the same or better. Adepts and Engineers only have the advantage of being able to CC single targets with protection, which to me is not nearly enough CC to balance out the CC any soldier can provide.

Think about a blue suns merc level, with Commando's and Legionaires with protection and troopers and heavies without. A engineer or adept can CC the most dangerous target in the room, commandos, or maybe get a couple targets caught in a full cryo or singularity/pull field. The will have to use their guns to do any additional damage because they will be waiting for their cooldown. A soldier can CC lighter enemies moving around while using Adrenaline rush at the same time, so they can perform both actions more efficiently and with nearly the same effectiveness.

The squad ammo powers aren't really a good example since they are the evolved form of the power.  Unless you race toward the evolved form (which most people on vetern and lower don't do) then for the majority of the game you don't have the squad versions.  The adept and engineer are able to control multiple people from the beginning (especially the adept) and only get better as they level up.  The ammo powers only allow good control once you have the squad versions.

Modifié par baller7345, 15 mars 2010 - 10:02 .

[baller7345]

Average Gatsby wrote...

TheUnusualSuspect wrote...

Sorry, haven't played an Adept or Engineer on Normal, but correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't either of those classes be able to near insta-kill any unshielded non-elite opponent at that setting? (Pull/Unstable Warp bomb, Area Incinerate, etc). Am fairly used to playing on Insanity where everything has shield and has double health and Shep does less damage (or so it seems), but an Adept Shep with two warping squaddies could pull/warp the field in the space of 15 secs with an Adept's

Let's not forget too, that an Adept or Engineer can still shoot, and while doing maybe 50% of the damage of a Soldier, STILL has the powers on top of that. I often fell into that trap myself of simply not bothering to shoot, but when things got busy (and so did I) a constant blaze of gunfire + powers from either an Adept or an Engineer deals a heck of a lot of damage, and I get the feeling that this is how Bioware balanced it. If an Adept can throw out a Heavy Warp every 3 secs, that's 210 damage on top of his weapon damage. Same with an Engineer and Incinerate. Put them all together and it'd be a close call as to who can take down an enemy faster between a Soldier and a Engineer or Adept.

The pull warp combo is still instant kills, so adepts get closer, but not quite, to 50/50 guns/powers on normal while being able to keep up with the soldier, but you do have to use that really frequently. Engineers do not 1 hit kill with incinerate, as far as I remember. I may use gibbed's and test it out but I doubt it. Adepts aren't 1 shotting anything with just warp, and the two do roughly equivalent damage against health.

I may be remembering wrong but I most definite remeber one hitting just about everything with incinerate outside of krogan and anything that wasn't a trooper (i.e. vanguard, sentinel, engineer).  Of course maybe my memory is flawed a little but I can say for a fact that vorcha, geth, loki mechs, finir mechs, and of course husks were one shotted with the engineers powers.  I'm pretty sure the troopers fell into this category as well but I'm not a 100% sure.

EDIT:
This was once I got the heavy variations.

Modifié par baller7345, 15 mars 2010 - 10:03 .

[Average Gatsby]

baller7345 wrote...

Average Gatsby wrote...

TheUnusualSuspect wrote...

sedrikhcain wrote...
 The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

I think that this is it in a nutshell.

Yes, Adepts and Engineers can't blaze away and rip someone's shields and barriers down in 0.5-1.5secs like a soldier/shooter can (actually, depending on the enemy, an adept/engineer can insta-strip them, but I'm digressing), but it isn't all about the dps, it's about the different flavor in how the job gets done.

Crowd control classes do better against bigger crowds, and that's where they shine, by locking down the field and then picking them off.  The more pure shooter classes have to stand up in enemy fire, and take some hits while picking the enemy off one at a time.

Yes, a soldier can do more dps if it's not being shot at, but outside of husk rushes, that's rarely the case.

@ AverageGatsby: Look, I don't mean this to sound offensive, but it sounds like you're looking to make the Adepts and Engineers more homogenous with the pure-shooters, and to me, that's simply not what they're about.  Those classes aren't about who can clear the field the quickest, and despite you saying that it's not about that, in most of your posts you seem to keep coming back to that point, either directly or indirectly.

Here's the thing though, Adepts and Engineers don't even hold back crowds better than other classes, especially on the normal difficulty, which is the difficulty i'm mainly talking about because that's the difficulty bioware planned its game around. What do I mean?

Squad Incendiary ammo and Squad Cryo Ammo.

Flip on normal with a soldier or infiltrator and a vanguard and flip on those powers, they try to do that much cc that fast with an adept or engineer having to wait 4.5 seconds between each cast. Its not that Adepts and Engineers can't CC or that they don't do it well, its that the gun using classes do it either the same or better. Adepts and Engineers only have the advantage of being able to CC single targets with protection, which to me is not nearly enough CC to balance out the CC any soldier can provide.

Think about a blue suns merc level, with Commando's and Legionaires with protection and troopers and heavies without. A engineer or adept can CC the most dangerous target in the room, commandos, or maybe get a couple targets caught in a full cryo or singularity/pull field. The will have to use their guns to do any additional damage because they will be waiting for their cooldown. A soldier can CC lighter enemies moving around while using Adrenaline rush at the same time, so they can perform both actions more efficiently and with nearly the same effectiveness.

The squad ammo powers aren't really a good example since they are the evolved form of the power.  Unless you race toward the evolved form (which most people on vetern and lower don't do then for the majority of the game you don't have the squad versions).  The adept and engineer are able to control multiple people from the beginning (especially the adept) and only get better as they level up.  The ammo powers only allow good control once you have the squad versions.

Ammo powers are good from the very beginning at control. At level 6, jacob has squad incendiary ammo.

And I was comparing the fully evolved versions of both, but even at lower levels just plain cryo ammo is strong. An engineer has a 3 second, 1.2 meter cryo blast at lvl 1 CB. A soldier has a 3 second freeze at lvl 1 cryo ammo. The engineer has to wait 4.5 seconds after using the power before it can do anything else but shoot. The soldier is freezing any target the engineer can without having to wait for a cooldown.

I'm not going to try to prove that one ability is better than the other, but you can see that they are very close. Because they are so close, it means that CC isn't that big of a specialty for the engineer. Yes they have more of it, but its not like the other classes can't get close. Conversely, the engineer is not able to put out the damage that any gun-heavy class can, either through no access to better weapons, no individual buffs to increase the amount of time spent our of cover, and no ammo powers.

Engineers > Soldier CC, but the soldier still has really good CC. However, Soldier > Engineer for damage, to the extent that it is over and above the CC advantage the engineer is given.

[Kronner]

Engineer or Adept can also benefit from squad ammo..you are not taking the combos into account. Lets see... Miranda Overloads shields, for Soldier, no difference, still shoot, shoot, kill. Engineer - Cryo blast, bang, dead. Adept - Pull, Throw, Slam, you name it.
The thing is, Soldier kills faster, no doubt. Does that mean its better? No.
It may be better for me, but someone else can much prefer Engineer or Adept. I often see people saying Engineer was the easiest Insanity playthrough..

Modifié par Kronner, 15 mars 2010 - 10:15 .

[baller7345]

Average Gatsby wrote...
Ammo powers are good from the very beginning at control. At level 6, jacob has squad incendiary ammo.

And I was comparing the fully evolved versions of both, but even at lower levels just plain cryo ammo is strong. An engineer has a 3 second, 1.2 meter cryo blast at lvl 1 CB. A soldier has a 3 second freeze at lvl 1 cryo ammo. The engineer has to wait 4.5 seconds after using the power before it can do anything else but shoot. The soldier is freezing any target the engineer can without having to wait for a cooldown.

I'm not going to try to prove that one ability is better than the other, but you can see that they are very close. Because they are so close, it means that CC isn't that big of a specialty for the engineer. Yes they have more of it, but its not like the other classes can't get close. Conversely, the engineer is not able to put out the damage that any gun-heavy class can, either through no access to better weapons, no individual buffs to increase the amount of time spent our of cover, and no ammo powers.

Engineers > Soldier CC, but the soldier still has really good CC. However, Soldier > Engineer for damage, to the extent that it is over and above the CC advantage the engineer is given.

Ammo powers also don't work on every shot and can prove problematic if you are being charged.  Taht 1.2 meter radius isn't very big but it is possible to hit up to 4 people with it (although 2 is more likely unless its a bunch of husks).  I'm not saying its a big difference but that difference in effectivness is there.  The cooldown isn't as big of an issue as everyone makes it out to be as long as you aren't worried about speed but if the soldier gets lucky then they could possiblely freeze more than the engineer during this time.

Saying Jacob can have squad incindery ammo at level 6 is accurate for us but we are not the average player.  We max out the most useful powers first while your average player will experiment (what normally happens on the first playthrough for every player) with different abilites and in the end either will max the ammo power late or won't max it at all.  Normal was meant for the average player and most of the people who have multiple insanity playthroughs are no longer the averag player so we know to much when going into that difficulty.

On normal the damage issue isn't really a problem since everythign is so fragile to begin with so the small advantage that you get from the power version of control plays a bigger role.  This is a bigger issue on insanity (though I still prefer the power control to ammo control but this is not the place for that) but since this is about normal difficulty then damage is a moot point.  The widow is overkill for most of the enemies on this difficulty and the extra damage the combat classes do is more or less overkill.

Modifié par baller7345, 15 mars 2010 - 10:22 .

[sedrikhcain]

Average Gatsby wrote...

sedrikhcain wrote...

I get what you're calling for, I just don't understand why. What do the classes need with more "balance". You said yourself you completed the game with an adept without firing a gun -- meaning that class can be used in a unique way and still beat the game. You have called it fun and I agree, so there is no debate there but if the question is "overall effectiveness and game play fit", then I think your playthroughs are exhibit A that all those issues have been handled.
 
Any class can beat the game; therefore, If it is, in fact, true that adepts and engineers aren't as powerful as the other classes, why is that in any way significant in a one-player game?

And as for "balance between both ability use..." the entire point is to offer some variety. Mission accomplished.

Offering a critique of the game can certainly be useful but power and balance concerns in a one-player game, in which all classes can beat the game and do so in different ways does not make sense. The objective isn't to make all the classes capable of dealing out the exact same amount of damage, the objective is to give each class its own flavour.

The why comes from 2 things:

1) Bioware has said that they want to have a balanced game, even if it is single player only, which can be evidenced by changes made in Dragon Age: Origins and through statements they've said. I'm pretty sure there is mention of balance in the slide show.

If BioWare said "hey, we don't care about balance", then neither would I.

2) Its just good game design to try to have a variety mixed with balance. Just because there isn't a competitive aspect to the game through some kind of multiplayer doesn't mean the playing experience has to necessarily favor one class or the other.

I think they can do that. I think they can balance out the classes, and I think they could do it by making each of the classes even more distinct. Like I've said, I'm trying my best not to seem like its a complaint but that its a section of the game that is good but can and should be made even better for Mass Effect 3.

All right. Well, enjoy.

[baller7345]

Kronner wrote...

Engineer or Adept can also benefit from squad ammo..you are not taking the combos into account. Lets see... Miranda Overloads shields, for Soldier, no difference, still shoot, shoot, kill. Engineer - Cryo blast, bang, dead. Adept - Pull, Throw, Slam, you name it.
The thing is, Soldier kills faster, no doubt. Does that mean its better? No.
It may be better for me, but someone else can much prefer Engineer or Adept. I often see people saying Engineer was the easiest Insanity playthrough..

^ ^
This, I'm one of the people that greater damage isn't a direct correlation to a better class.  I played Dragon Age as an Rouge Archer (without the dex fix) and loved it not becasue I was able to dish out more damage but because I was able to play a unique class that was effective at doing what it did.  Effectiveness and having a proper place in the aspects of gameplay come down to opinion though but hey we aren't here to agree with each other .

[munrohk]

If I'm honest I'd like to see ME3 Adpets play the way Samara, Miranda and Jack do in their cutscenes; with the Bastion and Nemisis branches advocating controlled vs aggressive approaches rather than cooldowns and damage.   And if the AI and new cover system can handle it, bring back the movable objects.  Crushing enemies with their own cover or just lifting the cover away was one of the most gratifying features for Adpets in ME1.

I'd like to see the Engineer have more environmental stuff to play with.  People in the ME universe seem to have a pathological compulsion to leave explosives lying around for Engineers to overload; why not a larger variety of environmental variables, like hackable doors to funnel the enemy and certain floor materials that can be electrified.  Let Engineers deploy force fields and create their own cover like the geth do, let them make stealth drones that they can control directly to pre-hack synthetics or lay down mines.  Basically, let them feel as if they're upsetting the enemy's strategic advantage, instead of waiting for an enemy to stand near an explosive container.

Obviously if one were to mod these kinds of things into ME2 it'd be game-breaking.  But in ME3 they've got a blank slate on level design and they're coming off the back of ME2 where the Soldier combat was nailed.  It feels as if they were successful in refining the core gameplay in ME2 but a lot of frills were cut, and in 3 they should focus on bringing those back.

Yes, they would be radically different playing experiences but I'm given to believe that that was the original vision.  If the control schemes have to be different for different classes because the approaches are so different, then personally I'd consider that a good thing.  I doubt many people would begrudge losing the weapon wheel and having only one weapon on engineers/adepts if that bumper instead brought up a whole new class-specific wheel of awesome.

Also, CQC for the vanguard would be nice.  If there's time.  I don't want to come off as demanding or anything.

[Besetment]

I think the problem is what Ramsec said. Engineer and Adept are lacking their own flavour and the reason why I feel is because all the other classes can experience what its like be like an Adept or an Engineer without having to play them.

My Infiltrator videos use squadmate powers as much as if not more than the Infiltrator's powers. I can sort of turn into a mini Adept using Pull/Warp detonations on squadmates and where my job is to strip protections. Later in the game this is doable solely with Area Reave so you can play the game almost as a 'proxy Adept' through your squadmates.

Similarly, if you bag Tali and Legion and use AI Hacking and Dominate you can get some of the flavour of the Engineer without even playing one. I have generally found Reave to be an adequate (and in some cases all out) replacement for Incinerate.

This doesn't work in reverse. You can't get the flavour of the Vanguard or the Soldier or Sentinel or Infiltrator on either an Engineer or Adept. Your Squadmates can't approximate what these classes do. For one thing your squadmates can never really fulfill the role of a shooter. They can't tactically strip protections for you and you don't get to experience it or direct it anyway.

The other four classes have things like unique weapons and a style of play that can't be emulated by squaddies. I think Engineer and Adept needs something that the other classes just can't ever do. Some of the heavy weapons like Avalanche, Arc Projector and the Flame Thrower feel as if they should be Engineer only to me and feel as if they could be adapted slightly so that the damage vs ammo ratio allows the engineer to use them more as main guns.

They feel like engineering prototypes. Devices with civilian application that have been adapted for military use. Either way the Engineer needs something you can't get anywhere else and I'm not seeing that unless you mean drone spam.

The Adept needs something else too. I feel as if Pull/Throw should have a special use for Adepts. One that you can't control on squadmates and that hybrids like Vanguard can't do. I'm talking lifting and throwing crates and boxes and whatnot at enemies. You can already pull canisters and what not but the mechanics are clumsy. I often blow myself or my squadmates up when doing this so I feel they need something that works like the gravity gun in HL2. A way of holding objects like canisters and launching them. The way I could see it working is the same way Operative adds time dilation for Infiltrators. Biotic Mastery is rather plain at the moment so how about rank 2 lets you launch small objects like canisters. rank 4 lets you launch medium objects like boxes/crates.

Adept is meant to be the 'fun with physics' class right?

Modifié par Besetment, 15 mars 2010 - 11:35 .

[sinosleep]

What do you mean by squadmates not being able to tactically strip protections for you? You can both a.) direct them to shoot at a protected enemies, or actively use one of their many defense stripping powers. Everything else about your post makes sense but I don't really get that paragraph.

Though at the end of the day none of those things are an issue for me any way. In DA:O the classes don't approximate what your PC can do, they straight up can go one for one with your PC if you recruit them early before they've had a chance to spend 3/4 of their skill points. Their spells aren't any weaker, don't take any longer to cast, or anything like that, and you can actually sit there and essentially play the game as one of your squadmates instead of as the PC if you feel like it. That in no way shape or form hurt replayability for me.

Modifié par sinosleep, 15 mars 2010 - 11:41 .

[Kurupt87]

munrohk hit on a good idea there. Maybe the adept or engi could have an ability similar to the collector guardians, so dropping cover wherever they are. It could be high cover, and be able to soak up infinite dmg (or alot of dmg, otherwise insanity would cane it) but have limited duration, which would require testing to determine ofc. This would give the caster the ability to exactly choose where to place themselves, increase their survivabilty but not their use of weapons, because you can't get "in cover" using this but can curve powers around it. It'd probably have to have a prohibitively long independent cooldown though, depending on duration and dmg soak power, otherwise casters would be immune to all but flankers and melee enemies.

[Besetment]

sinosleep wrote...

What do you mean by squadmates not being able to tactically strip protections for you?

I meant that they can't shoot properly. You can't determine what they shoot at. You can of course strip basically any protections fast with Reave, Warp, Overload, Energy Drain once you are upgraded to the nines but thats not the point.

I'm thinking back to a few situations where for example, you have a Krogan charging you early on in Insanity+. If you play an Infiltrator you can see that threat and react to it. Plug its head with a Widow shot, strip the remaining armour with Incinerate and just before it clobbers you, you hit 1 + 2 (Pull + Warp) and send the Krogan flying.

Squadmates can do the direct damage biotics and tech just fine. They can't do the shooting bit and picking targets so Adepts and Engineers kind of lack that dimension in their core gameplay. Adepts and Engineers have the smallest weapon pool in the game and don't have any unique weapons to differentiate them. So as shooters they feel like every other class but with less options. Squadmates with unique weapons like Grunt and Legion don't do it because you don't have the necessary degree of control over your squatemate's targeting.

Equipping Legion with the Widow doesn't give you the flavour of having a sniper on the team and he cannot be counted on to 1 shot Krogan armour off right as its just about to charge you. Its not about game balance or who or what can strip protections faster. Its about flavour.

Modifié par Besetment, 15 mars 2010 - 11:50 .

[TheUnusualSuspect]

Besetment wrote...

sinosleep wrote...

What do you mean by squadmates not being able to tactically strip protections for you?

I meant that they can't shoot properly. You can't determine what they shoot at.

Uh, yes you can.  Point at an enemy, press Q & E  (default keys) and they start shooting at that enemy, and only that enemy until it dies.

Modifié par TheUnusualSuspect, 15 mars 2010 - 11:49 .