Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[Joblom]

but the lore one as it made no sense and made ME just a little less unik.

Then again ME1 was BW first real shooter RPG and it's of course dated and of course clunky in serval areas, but it was more memorable to me then ME2 was, sure they are different from each other, but ME1 was more "different" and "unik" (probably not the best ways to describe it) it can at least stand on it's own, ME2 shooting mechanics doesn't at least to me.

Honestly? Lore can suck my butt if it gets in the way of the game being fun to play. I don't care at all about thermal clips because I think weapons with different magazine sizes and ammo capacities is way better for the gunplay. Not that what ME2 did was the only solution, but it worked well enough. I do think ME1 is over all the better experience and in fact there are some things about its combat that I miss in the sequels.

Namely, I liked the big open environments in ME1. I liked taking pot-shots at merc bases on uncharted worlds, ducking behind slopes and mountain sides for cover. I liked that ME1 had actual snipers and big Geth enemies that were more like enemy vehicles. I also liked how ME1 let you use biotics on any enemy and didn't tie all powers to one cool down. You are also more free to move in ME1; it's not a strict cover shooter. Using a defensive power and then staying mobile was a viable strategy. At least Andromeda got somewhat back this. Finally, I like that there is no real segregation in Mass Effect between "combat areas" and "talk areas". You can be in the middle of a conversation in the market in the wards and suddenly get into a gunfight. You could be walking to your ship when suddenly an angry krogan and his minions open fire on you in the docking bay. All of it seamless.

However the guns themselves? ME2 did that better. Cloak, Vanguard charge, and the combat drone were welcome additions too.

[TTTX]

Yes and to me that is baffling. It'd be like me saying I didn't notice that ME2 didn't have the vast inventory system of ME1. Or I didn't notice that my chihahua was replaced by a great dane.

I have been baffling people, before the internet was a thing, the most baffling thing is that I don't how I do it.

It's a gift.

[TTTX]

Honestly? Lore can suck my butt if it gets in the way of the game being fun to play. I don't care at all about thermal clips because I think weapons with different magazine sizes and ammo capacities is way better for the gunplay. Not that what ME2 did was the only solution, but it worked well enough. I do think ME1 is over all the better experience and in fact there are some things about its combat that I miss in the sequels.

Namely, I liked the big open environments in ME1. I liked taking pot-shots at merc bases on uncharted worlds, ducking behind slopes and mountain sides for cover. I liked that ME1 had actual snipers and big Geth enemies that were more like enemy vehicles. I also liked how ME1 let you use biotics on any enemy and didn't tie all powers to one cool down. You are also more free to move in ME1; it's not a strict cover shooter. Using a defensive power and then staying mobile was a viable strategy. At least Andromeda got somewhat back this. Finally, I like that there is no real segregation in Mass Effect between "combat areas" and "talk areas". You can be in the middle of a conversation in the market in the wards and suddenly get into a gunfight. You could be walking to your ship when suddenly an angry krogan and his minions open fire on you in the docking bay. All of it seamless.

However the guns themselves? ME2 did that better. Cloak, Vanguard charge, and the combat drone were welcome additions too.

Perhaps, I perfer to have both kind of gun since it would make more sense for both lore and practical reasons, worked for ME3.

and most enemies were actually threats and didn't for most of ME2 stay behind cover and shoot at you, granted the AI in ME1 could be terrible, but when Krogan came at you on the higher difficulties well you would be terriffide, ME2 didn't have that.

The problem with the abilities in ME2 was how much and many you could level up, it's never felt like enough, they fixed it more in ME3 though so I can't complain to much.

[Joblom]

Perhaps, I perfer to have both kind of gun since it would make more sense for both lore and practical reasons, worked for ME3.

Sure, and my understanding is ME2 had this built in but it was removed because play-testers would just sit there and let all their thermal clips "cool down" between gun-fights and it ruined the pacing. It makes sens to me that a lot of players would do this. In the end, I don't think the heat-system in ME1 was that important to the lore that it needed to be kept if changing it made for better gameplay. The lore exists to justify the gameplay and not the other way around.

ME2's combat bothers me with how useless biotics are. I almost never use them when I play it. Maybe to knock down a few krogan on Korlus but that's it. It was dumb to make biotics only work on unshieled/armored enemies.

[TTTX]

Sure, and my understanding is ME2 had this built in but it was removed because play-testers would just sit there and let all their thermal clips "cool down" between gun-fights and it ruined the pacing. It makes sens to me that a lot of players would do this. In the end, I don't think the heat-system in ME1 was that important to the lore that it needed to be kept if changing it made for better gameplay. The lore exists to justify the gameplay and not the other way around.

ME2's combat bothers me with how useless biotics are. I almost never use them when I play it. Maybe to knock down a few krogan on Korlus but that's it. It was dumb to make biotics only work on unshieled/armored enemies.

Which isn't surprising as the enemies don't rush or try to flank all that much in ME2. It just makes it easy to stay behind cover, wait and then shoot (which you do a lot anyway expect you don't have to wait for the weapon to cool down).
Perhaps it wasn't, but you still need a very good lore as to why they switched to do keep using ammo instead of having near unlimited ammo (insert a unlimited power joke here), BW didn't and the guns still feel like they do as much damage in ME2 as ME1 so it makes even less sense.

Well if they didn't, the biotics would pretty over powered in ME2.

[Mazder]

Yes and to me that is baffling. It'd be like me saying I didn't notice that ME2 didn't have the vast inventory system of ME1. Or I didn't notice that my chihahua was replaced by a great dane.

Because , in essence, if you take jsut the "shooting mechanic" between the games nothing really does change that much.
You point the gun at the enemy and hold down the trigger until your shot has fired or until they're dead or both, rinse and repeat.
Nothing wildly changes outside of the shooting mechanics. The massive changes come from the sheer engine differences. The entire games are different but the mechanics within are still similar.

For example the same combat mechanics are present in both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age : Inquisition, despite having an entire game in between to refine them.
What changes are the animations around them and the game's engine giving more flair to the animations and better graphical fidelity. The actions are still the same.
Select enemy, point, click, use power 1, 2 or 3, repeat until enemies are dead.

All roleplaying needs to be is acting out a character. I don't need inventory or stats, necessarily, I just need to able to express that character in a meaningful way. In some games that means stats in combat or stats with skills but in Mass Effect all it really needs to mean is the dialog being varied and having depth, with the characters and game-world recognizing and reflecting how my character speaks and what choices they make and opinions they express.

While true there are better ways to make inventory and stats fit a theme better than others.
In ME1 you had a bag or weapons and you could select which ones you wanted to use, but you also had a bag o'guns in this inventory you could sell on. IN ME2 they did away with that a bit and basically had it be an armoury and you just chose the guns your crew wanted to use before each mission.
Sadly that also meant not everyone had the same guns potentially, even those that had the same class could use the same gun as you only had, say, 3 Avengers so only 3 of your soldier/assault rifle users could use one.
You also couldn't buy more guns to fill up your armoury. It got rid of the "bag o' guns".
And that kinda made sense more than having this "bag o' guns" IMO.

I think this is something some RPG's need to consider. Just decluttering.

[TTTX]

Well we'll probably get some Anthem gameplay around 25/1 or the next day by people who preordered the game at least on PSN, because they get access to a VIP-demo if they preorder the game.

So we might get some opinions and such on the game around that time, because that's how the internet works.

[Joblom]

Perhaps it wasn't, but you still need a very good lore as to why they switched to do keep using ammo instead of having near unlimited ammo (insert a unlimited power joke here), B

No, I really don't think you do. I think the explanation we have is actually quite sufficient. Imagine yourself at level 1 in the first game. You overheat your assault rifle in your first clash with geth and have to sit there helpless while it cools down, which takes maybe two or three seconds. The geth charge and you die.

Now, imagine that you could simply eject the overheated heat-sink and pop in a new one to keep firing... Makes sense to me. Yes, it's true that your heat-sinks ought to cool but who cares? ME2 commits much worse crimes than this.

You point the gun at the enemy and hold down the trigger until your shot has fired or until they're dead or both, rinse and repeat.

Right. In ME1 you pick your dialog choices with the analog stick and in ME3 you still pick your dialog choices with the analog stick. See? I can do it too.

I think this is something some RPG's need to consider. Just decluttering.

I agree. I would like an inventory with lots of different armor and weapons, but only if those items are each distinct enough to be interesting on their own. Of-course, this is a lot more work and so the devs in ME2 opted not to bother.

[TTTX]

No, I really don't think you do. I think the explanation we have is actually quite sufficient. Imagine yourself at level 1 in the first game. You overheat your assault rifle in your first clash with geth and have to sit there helpless while it cools down, which takes maybe two or three seconds. The geth charge and you die.

Now, imagine that you could simply eject the overheated heat-sink and pop in a new one to keep firing... Makes sense to me. Yes, it's true that your heat-sinks ought to cool but who cares? ME2 commits much worse crimes than this.

yeah and if you have no heat sinks you can't shoot at all and you are fucked, but unlike the other method you just have to stay alive for a few seconds then you can fire again and that ammo can last a whole lot longer (pretty much like Star Wars guns you don't have to reload all that much).

Well I do, but this is pretty minor thing (but stil an important lore I think) to complain about in ME2, after all there is what Shepard doing at the start not finding a way to stop the Reapers but hunting Geth because the Council said, their death (which was way over the top and really illogical), working for Cerberus even though they should be working with the Collectors, Shadow Broker working with the Collector for no good reason, recruit a lot of different people we have no idea we need as have no what the Collectors world are for good portion of the game, all of the best people in the galaxy we recruit just can't focus and ends up dying because you didn't fix their daddy issues, a good number of them refuses to wear armor and just uses breathing masks in hostile environments and I can probably make the list longer, but I think that's some of the important ones.

[Raga]

The people who think ME1 had compelling gameplay just baffle me (no offense). Some of the things that game had, just to recap:

1. An interminably large number of guns, ammo, mods, and armor which did nothing but change stats and horribly clutter up your inventory. They made 0 actual gameplay difference.

2. Chances to hit being highly influenced by stats which resulted in such fun things as missing with shotguns from 3 feet away if you weren't skilled enough or being unable to snipe until you nearly maxed out the sniper rifle meter because of how much the camera wildly careens around.

3. There being little to no meaningful difference in classes. The only meaningful class difference from a gameplay perspective I can think of was whether or not you could cast singularity.

3. Dumping points into the armor/shield/regneration/whatever power turning everybody into indestructible tanks who could stand indiscriminately out in the open in a hail of bullets and who had to take multiple rockets to the face to even break a sweat.

4. Terrible companion AI (not that companion AI in *any* ME game ever actually rose to competency)

5. The MAKO (do I even need to say more than that?)

6. Completely monotonous enemies who exhibited no tactics worth mentioning

And that's without getting into all the aesthetic problems that just exacerbate that stuff. ME2 is not going to win any awards for shooter mechanics and had it's own host of issues, but compared to ME1, there is like a 200% improvement.

*Addendum*

I don't think the heat sink/cooldown system in ME1 was part of the problem though. And it became essentially irrelevant toward the end of the game as your equipment improved. The only problem I can identify is basically a balance problem, with the cooldowns being maybe slightly too draconian at low levels and slightly too generous at high levels.

However, I don't really care if the system works via ammo or cooldowns. Either can work. It just depends on implementation.

[TTTX]

5. The MAKO (do I even need to say more than that?)

*gasp* how dare you speak of the MAKO that way?

Kidding, not everyone likes the MAKO.

It did give us this little funny conversation in ME3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MROwFXCRk0

[Mazder]

Right. In ME1 you pick your dialog choices with the analog stick and in ME3 you still pick your dialog choices with the analog stick. See? I can do it too.

Yeah, thanks for misunderstanding the entire point that all the "feeling different" differences from ME1's combat to ME2's was literally because of the entire rest of the game.
The engine changed so that means animation, physics, Game Design choices, plot, squadmate interaction, tactics, literally everything changed.
You can not say that they're the same as much as you can't say the gunplay/combat was different because any comparison automatically leads you to showing how completely uninteracting both games are with each other when it comes to gameplay systems.
One is old RPG with action elements, the other is action with old RPG elements.
Both are made differently from the ground up.

I agree. I would like an inventory with lots of different armor and weapons, but only if those items are each distinct enough to be interesting on their own. Of-course, this is a lot more work and so the devs in ME2 opted not to bother.

ME2 kinda bothered to make things more streamlined.
Mass Effect isn't the type of game (yet) where you can just go picking up weapons like you could in an old RPG. Guns weren't "customized" like a sword might be to suit one dude's particular personality/combat style. Things like guns are fairly standardized.
I mean, more "sidegrades" would be okay but once the optimal had come about (the Widow) all of the other choices were kinda of useless. Add more variants on top of that and you've just made clutter.
ME3 came under that same problem as once you had either the Black Widow or the Javelin you're pretty much set in terms of combat.
There would be a need to make a different game entirely to make the "lots of variation" in the guns meaningful.
Andromeda stepped a little bit into it but never committed to it.

But it would be way too much work as you'd have to fit and balance 3-4 combat styles/mechanics to run concurrently AND all of it's possible permutations.

The people who think ME1 had compelling gameplay just baffle me (no offense). Some of the things that game had, just to recap:

1. An interminably large number of guns, ammo, mods, and armor which did nothing but change stats and horribly clutter up your inventory. They made 0 actual gameplay difference.

Very true.
I mean, sure the novelty of making either a literally unlimited ammo gun or a massive rail-gun was fun, but once you found the best way to do things it was all just useless.

2. Chances to hit being highly influenced by stats which resulted in such fun things as missing with shotguns from 3 feet away if you weren't skilled enough or being unable to snipe until you nearly maxed out the sniper rifle meter because of how much the camera wildly careens around.

3. There being little to no meaningful difference in classes. The only meaningful class difference from a gameplay perspective I can think of was whether or not you could cast singularity.

Christ I hated that about being an infiltrator in ME1.
The only upside I had is the fact I was using the highest damage weapons but that was removed when I found out this trained sniper was more wobbly than jelly!
I mean it got to the point where Soldier class was pretty much optimal as you could at least switch out to another decent weapon if needs be.
I mean even if you could cast singularity itself it wasn't until ME2 when they had a more robust physics engine that they could actually put it to decent use and add the actually good combos, other than ME1's pot luck of combos.
For ME1 it was just easy enough to have a squadmate do it as the only times they actually threw up their powers seemed to be the same amount of times singularity was actually useful!

4. Terrible companion AI (not that companion AI in *any* ME game ever actually rose to competency)

Yeah I already touched on that one and I agree.
The optimal playstyle was soldier Shep, Tali and Liara.

5. The MAKO (do I even need to say more than that?)

I mean if they'd gotten a decent team to make the driving engine good it wouldn't been fine. But, hey, old engine and team that doesn't do driving games will make any and all vehicles bad.
The Hammerhead also handled like arse but was also just weak.
The onky satisfying vehicle was the Nomad and that's only because they got some people who have actually made driving games in on the development.

6. Completely monotonous enemies who exhibited no tactics worth mentioning

And that's without getting into all the aesthetic problems that just exacerbate that stuff. ME2 is not going to win any awards for shooter mechanics and had it's own host of issues, but compared to ME1, there is like a 200% improvement.

Yeah, ME2, and to an extension 3, turned into a "Gears of War cover based shooter clone". But the main thing that changed was they let the action and story drive what was necessary for combat.
No more "planet X with it's open plains" or "corridor too tight for the player's camera to fit into at times, let alone them and some enemies" but actual designed levels directed by the story.

*Addendum*

I don't think the heat sink/cooldown system in ME1 was part of the problem though. And it became essentially irrelevant toward the end of the game as your equipment improved. The only problem I can identify is basically a balance problem, with the cooldowns being maybe slightly too draconian at low levels and slightly too generous at high levels.

However, I don't really care if the system works via ammo or cooldowns. Either can work. It just depends on implementation.

Yeah, the whole system difference could work, as they show in Andromeda you can have a balance between the two if you so choose, but that means you have to pick a playstyle for it to design around.
If you chose one over the other it'll make some decisions you don't intend.
I mean if you had the "heatsinks" design for guns in ME2 all the tension out of fights is immediately gone IMO.

[Joblom]

The engine changed so that means animation, physics, Game Design choices, plot, squadmate interaction, tactics, literally everything changed.

Oversimplifying the combat is not a very fair way of analyzing how it changed or did not change between games. The guns themselves are very different from ME1 because they are each now very different from each-other. In ME1 only the sniper rifle really functioned differently. The shotgun... less so. The pistol and assault rifle might as well have been the same weapon. I've outlined the differences between weapons in ME2 already. In summary: the Carnifex is not like the Predator, the Avenger is not the Vindictator or the Mattock, and the Mantis is not like the Viper. Even if you stripped everything else in the game away and just had combat with the weapons the shooting would be very different because each gun would facilitated a different kind of play style.

Mass Effect isn't the type of game (yet) where you can just go picking up weapons like you could in an old RPG. Guns weren't "customized" like a sword might be to suit one dude's particular personality/combat style. Things like guns are fairly standardized.
I mean, more "sidegrades" would be okay but once the optimal had come about (the Widow) all of the other choices were kinda of useless. Add more variants on top of that and you've just made clutter.

The Viper is a sensible alternative to the Widow and so is the Mantis, frankly. They do not outclass the other; that depends on your play style. An infiltrator with cryo rounds and the viper can be quite lethal and effective indeed. I'd know, I played that way many times. Now, given the way ME2 did guns I do think that too many weapons would wind up with pretty trivial differences. I never played ME3 so I can't talk about its guns much. I can think of a few extra gimmicks you might add to increase the weapon diversity, but too many is... too many. ME1 had way too many but ME2 could possibly use a few more.

Ultimately, as you said ME2 streamlined things. I don't actually mind this. In the end it's the same result I suppose.

The people who think ME1 had compelling gameplay just baffle me (no offense).

It had gameplay that was good enough considering the type of game it was trying to be. There was lots of room for improvement, no argument there.

yeah and if you have no heat sinks you can't shoot at all and you are fucked,

So don't run out of heat-sinks then. Like I said before, it is logical that you should have some way to cool them down, but I understand the GAME reasons why this was cut. How likely am I to run out of ammo vs get charged by an enemy while I'm waiting for my weapon to cool down? This is not a binary choice in-universe, really.

Well I do, but this is pretty minor thing (but stil an important lore I think) to complain about in ME2,

If it's minor then how is it important?

The other things you mentioned are all bigger problems. It's debatable that the heat-sink thing is even a problem, frankly. I think players are just stuck on the concept ME1 had as it was unique and cool and can't accept that maybe it didn't actually work that well in the game itself. Once again, by mid game where you even thinking about heat management anymore? I wans't because by then my guns almost never overheated.

[Mazder]

Oversimplifying the combat is not a very fair way of analyzing how it changed or did not change between games. The guns themselves are very different from ME1 because they are each now very different from each-other. In ME1 only the sniper rifle really functioned differently. The shotgun... less so. The pistol and assault rifle might as well have been the same weapon. I've outlined the differences between weapons in ME2 already. In summary: the Carnifex is not like the Predator, the Avenger is not the Vindictator or the Mattock, and the Mantis is not like the Viper. Even if you stripped everything else in the game away and just had combat with the weapons the shooting would be very different because each gun would facilitated a different kind of play style.

Yeah except they really didn't.
Outside of "sniper being for long range, pistol being Assault rifles back-up or just the back-up in general and the shotgun being the close range beast" the differences between every weapon in ME2 is possible to create in ME1.
The only real difference is you were hard coded into making those choices rather than them being optional.
Outside of the ammo types I could make a Mattock styled gun in ME1 very easily. I could make a Carnifex analogue.
All ME2 really did was place each "gun made in ME1" and put a name and model to it and streamlined the proccess of it being available. In ME1 you had to find the right mods and ammo types to make the gun, whereas in ME2 it was just there, ready to be picked up. The gameplay style in combat were effectively the same, their acquisition wasn't.

The Viper is a sensible alternative to the Widow and so is the Mantis, frankly. They do not outclass the other; that depends on your play style. An infiltrator with cryo rounds and the viper can be quite lethal and effective indeed. I'd know, I played that way many times. Now, given the way ME2 did guns I do think that too many weapons would wind up with pretty trivial differences. I never played ME3 so I can't talk about its guns much. I can think of a few extra gimmicks you might add to increase the weapon diversity, but too many is... too many. ME1 had way too many but ME2 could possibly use a few more.

I mean just because you managed doesn't mean they're the optimal weapons or playstyle. Just because you found something that might be able to perform on par with the Widow doesn't mean the widow on it's own isn't just better as it doesn't need any assistance to reach the same performance. An infiltrator with cryo rounds and a Widow would be better than one with a Viper and cryo rounds, simply because all the shots spent with the Viper the Widow can do in one.
And given how it's based on the "ammo/disposable heatsink" system that means that even with the "more rounds" argument the trade-off is still geared more towards the widow as you spend less rounds getting the job done. If we were in the realms of ME1 the Widow is the same as a sniper rifle with a couple of scram rails and high ex ammo. "One shot, enemy dead, wait for cooldown/reload and tac-cloak if necessary, repeat. With tactical cloak it's made easier.
With the viper it's "tac-cloak, shoot, hide, tac-cloak, shoot, hide, tac-cloak, shoot, enemy dead".


Maybe you should play ME3 and see how they took the ME2 concept and the ME1 mods concept and blended them decently to the point where it shows how the two systems work together very well if decluttered.
And, yeah, there is more weapon choice in ME3.
Andromeda takes that and changes it further.

[TTTX]

So don't run out of heat-sinks then. Like I said before, it is logical that you should have some way to cool them down, but I understand the GAME reasons why this was cut. How likely am I to run out of ammo vs get charged by an enemy while I'm waiting for my weapon to cool down? This is not a binary choice in-universe, really.

Problem is that heat sink ammo runs out rather fast and for longer conflicts (even the game has to hand out a few places for Shepard to get ammo or else they would run out long before even reaching some of the mission especially on the mission where there isn't suppose to be any ammo like Jacobs loyalty mission) you need boxes and boxes to make sure you don't run out, with the other system you just need to carry a few metal blocks and you are set to fight for a very long time, you can literally shoot for days and never run out of ammo.

If it's minor then how is it important?

The other things you mentioned are all bigger problems. It's debatable that the heat-sink thing is even a problem, frankly. I think players are just stuck on the concept ME1 had as it was unique and cool and can't accept that maybe it didn't actually work that well in the game itself. Once again, by mid game where you even thinking about heat management anymore? I wans't because by then my guns almost never overheated.

It is from a lore one and logical sense.

[Joblom]

It is from a lore one and logical sense.

The gameplay is more important though. As I said, the devs have a built-in feature in ME2 where your thermal clips cool off on their own over time. However when it was enabled players tended to just sit there and camp forever letting their thermal clips restore. That's why they cut it.

Perhaps another idea would have been to make cooling down thermal clips a power of some kind. Or a passive ability you can upgrade? I am sure there are better ways to handle it, but Bioware's mentality was probably to just not bother and take the simple route. It's understandable because game development has limits on its time and budget, among other limitations.

Outside of the ammo types I could make a Mattock styled gun in ME1 very easily. I could make a Carnifex analogue.

No you couldn't. Slapping scram rails and explosive rounds on your pistol is not the same at all. The weapon doesn't function the same or have the same limitations or advantages. That's really only the meaningful thing you can do with ME1's weapons; give them the goofy explosive effect in return for them over-heating after a couple of shots. It has some utility, but the other build is to slap on some friction-less materials with the right ammo power and just never let go of the trigger.

because you managed doesn't mean they're the optimal weapons or playstyle.

Who cares if it is optimal or not? In ME2 it's all single player so there is no real competition. No incenctive to play in the optimal way as opposed to whatever way you find to be the most fun.

An infiltrator with cryo rounds and a Widow would be better than one with a Viper and cryo rounds

No. I see you've never done this. You don't know what I'm talking about. The point of cryo rounds and a viper is that while a single viper shot won't kill, it WILL freeze an enemy solid. So rather than kill each enemy you tag each enemy after dropping their shields. Then you mop up while all the enemies are frozen. Widow is one-shot, one kill. Cloak, aim, fire. Repeat. Powerful, but it gets boring after a while. The viper/cryo method requires that you be aggressive and accurate while firing rapidly at multiple enemies. Generally I combine this method with the Geth Shotgun after the Collector Ship and I use tactical cloak to reposition myself, getting off a charged, cloak-bonus sneak attack as I reposition my location for best shots at the most enemies.

Someday it is possible I will play ME3 but I doubt it.

[Mazder]

No you couldn't. Slapping scram rails and explosive rounds on your pistol is not the same at all. The weapon doesn't function the same or have the same limitations or advantages. That's really only the meaningful thing you can do with ME1's weapons; give them the goofy explosive effect in return for them over-heating after a couple of shots. It has some utility, but the other build is to slap on some friction-less materials with the right ammo power and just never let go of the trigger.

Yeah, but that gun is now not a Carnifex analogue and is now just the bog standard Predator pistol analogue.
And even if so you've just described there being only one other good thing to do. Unlimited ammo or high power.

ME2's story doesn't have the same separation from it's combat as ME1 does so it's going to take the things that work in ME1 and just make them normal.

Who cares if it is optimal or not? In ME2 it's all single player so there is no real competition. No incenctive to play in the optimal way as opposed to whatever way you find to be the most fun.

Because that's how game design works?

The game is structured around an optimal path. It's what drives the bare minimum and the top-level maximum potential the game has from a gameplay perspective. In order to balance the game to have options you first need to have the best, or "optimal", way of doing things. Once you have that you can then tweak those balances to get harder difficulties, better AI interaction, more permutations with modifications, more play styles, etc.
The competition is with the game itself.

No. I see you've never done this. You don't know what I'm talking about. The point of cryo rounds and a viper is that while a single viper shot won't kill, it WILL freeze an enemy solid. So rather than kill each enemy you tag each enemy after dropping their shields. Then you mop up while all the enemies are frozen. Widow is one-shot, one kill. Cloak, aim, fire. Repeat. Powerful, but it gets boring after a while. The viper/cryo method requires that you be aggressive and accurate while firing rapidly at multiple enemies. Generally I combine this method with the Geth Shotgun after the Collector Ship and I use tactical cloak to reposition myself, getting off a charged, cloak-bonus sneak attack as I reposition my location for best shots at the most enemies.

Someday it is possible I will play ME3 but I doubt it.

Yeah, except I have and after my, 4th, or 5th playthrough I want to do things rather quickly sometimes. Or I just want to actually finish the game.

You know what you wouldn't have to do if you used a Widow?
Waste time freezing enemies as they're all already dead. What's the purpose of the combat? To kill the enemies to progress along the story.
Which is the fastest/most optimal way of doing so? The Widow.

It's a shame how you're late to the party as you'd have liked ME3's MP in it'a heyday.

[Someone With Mass]

Someday it is possible I will play ME3 but I doubt it.

I still have the notion that if the Citadel DLC had been the ending instead of what we got, it would have been a 1000 times better than the pretentious crap they tried to pull.

Seeing Shepard and the crew fly off into the sunset on the Normandy after having a party feels wholesome and that's good enough for me.

[Raga]

I stopped using the Widow on later playthroughs because it's so good it makes the game boring. I switched to shotgun infiltrator and I don't have any regrets.

[TTTX]

The gameplay is more important though. As I said, the devs have a built-in feature in ME2 where your thermal clips cool off on their own over time. However when it was enabled players tended to just sit there and camp forever letting their thermal clips restore. That's why they cut it.

Perhaps another idea would have been to make cooling down thermal clips a power of some kind. Or a passive ability you can upgrade? I am sure there are better ways to handle it, but Bioware's mentality was probably to just not bother and take the simple route. It's understandable because game development has limits on its time and budget, among other limitations.

True, but it's just one of the lore stuff that was changed in me, along with a good portion of the terminus systems.

those limitations pretty made BW downfall and possible death.

Someday it is possible I will play ME3 but I doubt it.

The Multiplayer was fun once the added all the free DLC and there were more people playing and this comes from a guy who generally hate playing multiplayer.

Never the less ME3 have it's moments of greatness and some of the best characters moments of the entire series (aside from the Citadel DLC).

If you buy ME3, don't buy the Omega DLC, not worth the price tag.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCQzhupGrvk

[FrozenShadow]

Anthem, a Destiny clone that met Titan Fall.

[TTTX]

Anthem, a Destiny clone that met Titan Fall.

pretty much and not many people seem to care about this game coming out.

[Joblom]

Because that's how game design works?

No, that's not how it works. The goal is to have several classes that offer a variety of play-styles to give players the option to tailor the experience to whatever sort of combat style they enjoy the most. Whether one class or style comes out with the highest DPS after you chart it on a graph or something is not the developer's concern at all.

The game does not direct you towards playing in an optimal way at all. The game doesn't care. The game is just there to be completable with every class and squadmate combo. Hell, even MMO's don't impose optimal builds on people; the players do.

Yeah, except I have and after my, 4th, or 5th playthrough I want to do things rather quickly sometimes. Or I just want to actually finish the game.

If you've played it then why did you describe the viper build wrongly?
It's about FUN, Mazder. I got bored just using cloak to get critical hits with the widow. I wanted some variety and thankfully the developers had seen fit to leave me that option. So I stopped using the widow and switched to the viper. It's a different way to play the game and equally valid.

Regarding ME3's multiplayer, yeah, it always looked fun. However I swore I'd never pay to play ME3 and even if the game was free I don't think I could motivate myself to play through it. A lot of people dislike ME3's ending but I think the bad writing and design is there from the beginning to end. I wish that EA hadn't cancelled the standalone Mass Effect multiplayer game. That's what I really want.

[Mazder]

No, that's not how it works. The goal is to have several classes that offer a variety of play-styles to give players the option to tailor the experience to whatever sort of combat style they enjoy the most. Whether one class or style comes out with the highest DPS after you chart it on a graph or something is not the developer's concern at all.

The game does not direct you towards playing in an optimal way at all. The game doesn't care. The game is just there to be completable with every class and squadmate combo. Hell, even MMO's don't impose optimal builds on people; the players do.

And where do you think that comes from without establishing a baseline?
You literally can no do what you say without an optimal playthrough.
Before "fun" is implemented, before all the variables you have to make sure the game works. I would know I've been through the classes on it, I've gotten a degree on it, I've failed to do it myself it's a very difficult thing that needs a lot of testing and balancing before you can even get to the stage of different playstyles.

The game does. Just because you fail to see it does not mean there is not an optimal way of doing things?
Ever heard of a Speed Run?
That's taking the optimal way through, enhancing it with potential exploits and maybe even a few glitches the game designers themselves did not spot in order to get a game done fast.

Every single game requires a way to do it the best/easiest way before there can be any form of alternate methods put in place.

And, again, just because it can be completed with everything within itself doesn't mean that everything it includes is the optimal way of doing things within it.
Being possible doesn't erase the best way to do things.

If you've played it then why did you describe the viper build wrongly?
It's about FUN, Mazder. I got bored just using cloak to get critical hits with the widow. I wanted some variety and thankfully the developers had seen fit to leave me that option. So I stopped using the widow and switched to the viper. It's a different way to play the game and equally valid.

Regarding ME3's multiplayer, yeah, it always looked fun. However I swore I'd never pay to play ME3 and even if the game was free I don't think I could motivate myself to play through it. A lot of people dislike ME3's ending but I think the bad writing and design is there from the beginning to end. I wish that EA hadn't cancelled the standalone Mass Effect multiplayer game. That's what I really want.

Oh, maybe because it's been literally 2-4 years since I properly played ME2 last and this playstyle was done near the time I bought the game back in 2011?
Maybe remembering one playstyle out of all the permutations is easily able to be placed in the "few details might be wrong but this is the gist of it" category? Maybe because I'm a human being without an eidetic memory?
I dunno, pick one.

Fun is subjective.
I never said it wasn't fucking valid I said it wasn't the optimal way to do it.
Just because you find another method more fun doesn't make it any better in terms of the games ability to be finished. Just because you, yourself, have a fine time with it also doesn't mean it was the best/fastest/easiest way chosen by developers during it's design.

Have you seen someone else's playthrough then?
If not I would wonder how you'd actually know for certain without experiencing it for yourself, other than being told.

A stand-alone MP ME game would honestly not be all too great as without the connection to the rest of the game I'd find it just a Mass Effect skin on a generic MP game.
Much like how Star Wars Battlefront has become just Battlefield with a Star Wars skin I'd think the ME on would become very similar.

[magnuskn]

I still play Vanguard every time. Because it rocks, in ME2 and ME3 especially. Normally I take Soldier for ME1, though, since shotguns in that game ain't all that.

Actually, no, I played a Sentinel playthrough for ME 3 one time on the second highest difficulty and it was so super easy that it bored me to tears.

[Joblom]

The game does. Just because you fail to see it does not mean there is not an optimal way of doing things?

I never said there was no optimal play style; what I said was that it doesn't matter to ME2. At this point we've got a bit off topic here. ME2 has more distinctive weapons than ME1. That was my observation and I stand by it.

Oh, maybe because it's been literally 2-4 years since I properly played ME2 last and this playstyle was done near the time I bought the game back in 2011?

So you remembered it wrong? That's fine, just say so. It's not a big deal and if my question came off as hostile then it wasn't intended that way. If my tone is coming across as impolite I apologize. The only point in bringing up that playstyle was to point out that it is unlike anything you'll find in ME1. In ME1 the base firing rate for all sniper rifles is the same, just some can fire more shots before they overheat. That is until you've got those high end guns and frictionless materials.

Regarding fun and such, I never said that playing optimally wasn't fun, I just said it wasn't the requirement for playing the game. I said that the different classes and play-styles don't need to be equal in their efficiency; they all just need to able to finish the game. The goal I said, was not to create several optimal playstyles but to create several distinct playstyles that would give the player some freedom to tailor the experience for themselves.

A stand-alone MP ME game would honestly not be all too great as without the connection to the rest of the game I'd find it just a Mass Effect skin on a generic MP game.

It'd have Mass Effect classes, races, factions, locations, vehicles, weapons, ect... You could give it some lore content as well to give it context. I'd keep it mild though. What I'd do is set the game between ME1 and ME2. It is the Council retaliation against the geth which takes place mostly in the Terminus Systems. The maps are designed around that but are really just arenas. You'd have three factions; Council Alliance, the Geth, and Mercenary Coalition. The Council is fighting the geth to push them back into the Perseus Veil but the Mercenary Coalition is composed of the Terminus' various merc groups and pirates/slavers and such who don't want the Council's forces gaining a foothold and also want to loot the leftovers from the conflict. Just an excuse really to give us another faction to select. Then just let players go to town on big open maps that have vehicles (shuttles, gunships, MAKO's, ect...)

If you're gonna call that just a Battlefront clone then is Mass Effect a Gears clone? I suppose you could make a reasonable case for that in ME3, to be fair, since so much of the dialog and roleplaying was stripped out.

[Sinekein]

I still play Vanguard every time. Because it rocks, in ME2 and ME3 especially. Normally I take Soldier for ME1, though, since shotguns in that game ain't all that.

Actually, no, I played a Sentinel playthrough for ME 3 one time on the second highest difficulty and it was so super easy that it bored me to tears.

ME 3 is easier than ME 2, mostly because Shepard is far more mobile, but also because the combo possibilities are much greater.

I think I did Insanity runs with all classes but Vanguard (somehow I really don't like Novacharging), and the "easiest to hardest" went something like Infiltrator -> Adept -> Sentinel -> Soldier -> Engineer.

And I never really minmaxed - for example I played an Adept with Reave as a bonus power, despite it being nowhere near the best one to compensate for Shep's weaknesses (namely, Shields). But it still worked fine, especially as Tali or Garrus were usually there to compensate.

In any event, the game felt balanced. Aside from maybe Engineer, all classes could get you to reach godlike power towards the end, in one way or another. There wasn't really "one better way" to play, all were efficient.

[magnuskn]

Vanguard was very difficult in ME2 on Insanity (I actually gave up on that difficulty on a second try some years after the first) and super easy in ME3. Double Nova + Charge + 200% recharge speed makes the entire thing super zippy and fun in my personal opinion.

[Sinekein]

Yeah but I had bad experiences as a Vanguard in MP playing with a slight lag, and the mental block remained.

[Mazder]

Oh, yeah, Vanguard and lag are a horrible combination, no doubt you ditched it after an experience like that!
When it works it is so much fun though.

[Sinekein]

The one Vanguard I regularly played in MP was the Turian female who had no Charge. I did my only solo plat with her, she was amazingly mobile, except in a more sneaky way, kind of like the N7 Shadow.

[magnuskn]

Yeah, I normally tried to host when I wanted to play the Vanguard in MP. Then it worked out well. But for single player, every single time I could.

[Alienmorph]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEYBO5A18YQ

Yeah, suck m'dick EA. I wasn't gonna buy Anthem before, and I sure as shit won't do it now, if these are the premises.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmi7O3YglvQ

This demo only lasts from 25 to the 28 so not worth the preorder, not the game is worth preordering to begin with.

[NCLanceman]

https://youtu.be/qSSBag_U4uc

That's okay, this is about all the info you need to know from that demo anyway.

[Someone With Mass]

Holy shit, that demo runs like ass at the moment for a lot of people. Also, the power combo is literally the same as it was in Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda. So glad this game exists.

[Alienmorph]

Yeah honestly by the looks of it the gunplay and powers work and feel alot like ME3 and ME:A,minus the most obvious stuff like the omni-blades and the vanguard charge. Hell, pretty sure alot of sounds effects are the same too.

[TheodoricFriede]

Thankfully the shoddy servers wont effect the people who play videogames for the single player campai---

...Oh...

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_RdCBEQDI

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTPpuUhE8dI

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfYWVBtYPfI

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D-_rCVvZzU

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3lM_ODmZD0

[Dragaros]

"anthem-producer-mike-gamble-teases-the-future-of-mass-effect"

"happy-birthday-mass-effect-2"

[magnuskn]

Yeah honestly by the looks of it the gunplay and powers work and feel alot like ME3 and ME:A,minus the most obvious stuff like the omni-blades and the vanguard charge. Hell, pretty sure alot of sounds effects are the same too.

No Vanguard charge, no buy.

[Alienmorph]

"anthem-producer-mike-gamble-teases-the-future-of-mass-effect"

"Oh, no. Mass Effect is definitely still happening," my source told me. "That franchise is much too valuable to EA for them not to do anything with it."

EA doesn't think even fucking Star Wars can be valuable enough to not cancel shit left and right. Don't fool yourself, Mikey.

[Someone With Mass]

"happy-birthday-mass-effect-2"

It's been that long, huh?

[Joblom]

As long as Anthem makes a profit I think at least one more attempt with Mass Effect is likely. It has brand recognition... granted that is not strictly good recognition these days.

[TheodoricFriede]

The best thing I have heard about the demo thus far is "Its not horrible".