Bioware Says Shooter Combat "Biggest Risk" in Mass Effect 2

[Nurb]

Mass Effect 2. "Fans are more than just sales. On some level we're all involved in [game] design because we want to make games that will make people happy. So those really hardcore fans are ... the reason I like making games."

Remind EA of that next time they're telling you to work on day-one DLC and online stores

I agree with this statement, also like how Bioware respond to critics and have such high respect for purchasers.

Good to know they are one of the few companies in it for the passion.

I agree, though it's unfortunate the major decisions over their games are in the hands of executives instead of those passionate about making them.

 

[reg42]

This is why I love Bioware; they're honest. It's a nice change.

Mass Effect 2. "Fans are more than just sales. On some level we're all involved in [game] design because we want to make games that will make people happy. So those really hardcore fans are ... the reason I like making games."

Remind EA of that next time they're telling you to work on day-one DLC and online stores

Why is that bad? If there wasn't day-one DLC (90% of which is free), you just wouldn't get to have it, it wouldn't be in the final game.

 

[Rhayn]

Huh, I'm not entirely sure what to feel reading this.

While I did love Mass Effect 2, and I could easily say it's one of my favorite games I've ever played, what I didn't like was the step towards more shooterish style. Yes, I loved the new combat. Worked very well and was very fun, but the problem for me is that the characters no longer had that same 'feel' to them. In ME1, I could head down to talk to Liara and stand there for a good 10 minutes just chatting. In ME2, I go to talk to Garrus and I either get a few short lines that I can't respond anything to, or "Can it wait for a bit, I'm in the middle of some calibrations...".

I'm usually all for change and all that, but I seriously hope BioWare can realize that they didn't in fact create ME2 to appeal to the 'hardcore fans' as they say, but rather to a broader audience. They wanted people that'd never heard of or played ME1 to be able to pick up where so many others have spent hundres of hours playing that 'perfect' playthrough. This dimished the impact of the first game, a lot. Certainly, it's nice to hear that something you did or someone you helped 2 years ago is doing well for itself but without any interraction from it, it ultimately feels very hollow.

Which is not to say they did certain things right. Shiala, for example. Gianna Parasini. The Rachni Queen. (interesting that they all appear on Illium of all places...) I wanted more of that sort of interraction, a connection with the first game other than hearing about things I did over the galactic news.

I consider myself to be a hardcore fan of the series. The second game did so much to improve, but I think it forgot what exactly it was: a fucking space adventure, not a shooter that happens to be set in space. Adventures require you to talk to people, now it felt a bit more like you're just passing by the greater whole on the way to more things to shoot.

Honestly, if I could just get those 20-or-so minutes each I spent chatting with Liara, Garrus, Tali and Wrex back for ME3, I would be happy beyond description. For example, if in ME2 I could've had a chat with Tali about what she'd been up to for the past 2 years, the game would've been so much better. Fucking hell, none of the old characters even seemed that suprised that someone who'd been gone for 2 fucking years suddenly appears in front of them.

The least they could do was sit down and chat for 5 minutes instead of calibrating the god damned weapon systems for the hundreth time.

TL;DR version: wtb more talky bits.

 

[sephiroth1991]

I still think the game is 'meh' but i can see why RPG fans got annoyed with it becoming more shootter and less point, spell, use

 

[Nurb]

This is why I love Bioware; they're honest. It's a nice change.

Mass Effect 2. "Fans are more than just sales. On some level we're all involved in [game] design because we want to make games that will make people happy. So those really hardcore fans are ... the reason I like making games."

Remind EA of that next time they're telling you to work on day-one DLC and online stores

Why is that bad? If there wasn't day-one DLC (90% of which is free), you just wouldn't get to have it, it wouldn't be in the final game.

Day-one DLC is content developed with the release title, but witheld at launch to be sold for extra money for a full priced game. For Dragon-Age there was the Shale companion and sidequests that was removed as a form of DRM aimed at the used-game market, and there was the Warden Keep advertizement in your camp, as well as the weapon/armor packs.

It's a dirty trick to try and squeeze more money out of paying customers and loyal fans of the developer that wouldn't have been done if Bioware was still independent

 

[reg42]

This is why I love Bioware; they're honest. It's a nice change.

Mass Effect 2. "Fans are more than just sales. On some level we're all involved in [game] design because we want to make games that will make people happy. So those really hardcore fans are ... the reason I like making games."

Remind EA of that next time they're telling you to work on day-one DLC and online stores

Why is that bad? If there wasn't day-one DLC (90% of which is free), you just wouldn't get to have it, it wouldn't be in the final game.

Day-one DLC is content developed with the release title, but witheld at launch to be sold for extra money for a full priced game. For Dragon-Age there was the Shale companion and sidequests that was removed as a form of DRM aimed at the used-game market, and there was the Warden Keep advertizement in your camp, as well as the weapon/armor packs.

It's a dirty trick to try and squeeze more money out of paying customers and loyal fans of the developer that wouldn't have been done if Bioware was still independent

First of all, if you don't want it, don't buy it. Secondly, all that DLC is developed after the game itself is finished (most of the time). It's often quite a while between a game being finished and being sold, so what do the devs do in the mean time? They make DLC.

 

[Nurb]

This is why I love Bioware; they're honest. It's a nice change.

Mass Effect 2. "Fans are more than just sales. On some level we're all involved in [game] design because we want to make games that will make people happy. So those really hardcore fans are ... the reason I like making games."

Remind EA of that next time they're telling you to work on day-one DLC and online stores

Why is that bad? If there wasn't day-one DLC (90% of which is free), you just wouldn't get to have it, it wouldn't be in the final game.

Day-one DLC is content developed with the release title, but witheld at launch to be sold for extra money for a full priced game. For Dragon-Age there was the Shale companion and sidequests that was removed as a form of DRM aimed at the used-game market, and there was the Warden Keep advertizement in your camp, as well as the weapon/armor packs.

It's a dirty trick to try and squeeze more money out of paying customers and loyal fans of the developer that wouldn't have been done if Bioware was still independent

First of all, if you don't want it, don't buy it. Secondly, all that DLC is developed after the game itself is finished (most of the time). It's often quite a while between a game being finished and being sold, so what do the devs do in the mean time? They make DLC.

Yea, the usual response is "screw off if you don't like it" to any legitimate criticsim, then they whine about sales and piracy when it doesn't sell well while ignoring what customers are saying

Also, I was talking about "day one DLC" spesificly.

 

[Keava]

Well in case of DA you got the DLC 'free of charge' with collectioners edition, cant see a problem with it. Even more so, considering how many people usuallyc omplain about not being able to get all the CE goodies after they bought regular version, here they got a chance to get it for a fee, and they still complained. Simple fact is people will always find plenty of reasons to just blame someone for anything like it was matter of life and death.

As for story in ME2 and general out of touch feeling, i must agree, it seemed more shallow than in the first one and after first playthrough the whole game seemed for me like an extended teaser for whats to come in ME3. And that pretty is that. ME2 is the interludium of the trilogy, the moment where they try to tie all the plot stirngs to progress to the inevitable climax in part 3.
Sure would be lovley to get all your decission form 1st game make noticeable impact on further progress but, sometimes you need to be reasonable about it. They had to cut some thign here and there to provide relatively fluent gameplay while same time not cutting off people thatdidnt spent ages on ME1.
Me2 was solid game, maybe not the game some of us dreamed about it but uh, generally if you want something to be exactly as you want it to be - D.I.Y (do it yourself)

 

[Axolotl]

And exactly what RPGs do so much better than Mass Effect (or any Bioshock RPG really, since you started this by hating on the company as a whole) that you feel it fails so hard in that aspect? The only other company that really does much freedom with their games is Bethesda, and their recent titles have been fairly poor offerings as far as "choice and consequence" go, and their stories no less cliche than Mass Effect.

Why on earth would you think I liked Bethesda? They're far worse than Bioware. For good RPGs Black Isle or Troika produced far better games than any of Biowares games.

Gameplay? Check again, a major chunk of skills that were involved in ME 1 were just the basic "shotgun/assault rifle/pistol/armor" skills so obviously there would be less when they junked those.
Fun? Yep. Convoluted inventory systems aren't fun, despite what people think. Tedious isn't fun. Driving the gosh-darn Mako was certainly not fun.

None of those are what matters in an RPG.

Hang on a sec...gameplay and fun don't matter in an RPG? What the hell kind of argument is that?!

I wasn't very clear in what I meant there, sorry.

What I mean is driving, inventory hell ebven shooting weren't important in Mass Effect. The shooting was passable, nothing great but it served the game as much as it needed to. The main focus of the game was the dialog and story, which were bad. Not only was it marketed and hyped on its story and choices and all that but the game focused on those aspect. If all the combat in the game were removed very little of the important parts of the game would have been lost. But when the sequel came around Bioware focused entirely on the less important aspects. All the hype focused on how they'd fixed the shooting and that they'd removed the driving and removing the driving/planet searching. Bioware seems to have entirely focused on the least important parts of the game instead of trying to improve upon the parts that the game based itself upon.

 

[SomeBoredGuy]

Gameplay? Check again, a major chunk of skills that were involved in ME 1 were just the basic "shotgun/assault rifle/pistol/armor" skills so obviously there would be less when they junked those.
Fun? Yep. Convoluted inventory systems aren't fun, despite what people think. Tedious isn't fun. Driving the gosh-darn Mako was certainly not fun.

None of those are what matters in an RPG.

Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. Step back a second. You're telling me that in an RPG (that's Role-Playing game) fun and gameplay does not matter?

The point of the game is that you have fun. If you want to grind yourself silly in inventory management, get a job were you can actually get paid for it. And as for gameplay? Again, it is a game. The entire reason you play a game is for the gameplay. Yes, story is a huge bonus but if all you want to do is sit around, watch a story and sometimes choose whether a character is gonna be a a demon spawn or Jesus-incarnate, then buy one of those old choose your own adventure books and leave the RPGs that dare focus on gameplay and fun to the people who enjoy actually being happy.

EDIT: The poster quoted has clarified what he said so, yeah. IGNORE ME!

 

[JediMB]

I sort of disagree... as an Infiltrator on insane, pull and warp were two of THE most useful skills I could ever have.

Husks fell in the thousands to "pull field" and "warp" would do similar damage to the shields of enemies... although it is true it was not me myself using these biotics, on the harder difficulties having teammates that can use them is extremely useful.

You missed my point. I was talking specifically about the Adept class, where Pull is rendered pretty much pointless by Singularity, since Singularity will both pull enemies up on impact and continue to suck enemies in as they run into it. On top of that, Singularity also continually stuns many armored enemies.

Pull was a very useful ability for my Vanguard, but it had very little use on my Adept.

 

[JediMB]

First of all, if you don't want it, don't buy it.

Don't be stupid. He wouldn't complain about the issue if he didn't care about the content.

Secondly, all that DLC is developed after the game itself is finished (most of the time). It's often quite a while between a game being finished and being sold, so what do the devs do in the mean time? They make DLC.

Warden's Keep was finished and announced before the game had gone gold... as it had to be, since a character was actually put in the game to advertise the DLC.

You can hear all sorts of excuses from the developers, but they're just covering their asses.

The funniest one was the claim that they, the people who created the game, couldn't put a freaking storage chest in the camp because there are multiple instances of the camp. So apparently they didn't realize that they could just create chests in all the instances that all link to the same global inventory box? Even the sub-par programmers working on Final Fantasy XI did that.

 

[AfroTree]

I liked mining. Especially probing Uranus.

Spoiler: this is for you

also, they know their strength's and weaknesses, good on 'em

 

[Daedalus1942]

"No one likes the mining game" is right, but I don't agree that the shooter combat has been improved that much. Sure it got better in some ways, but at the same time it got worse in other ways.

The 'heat clip' system was retarded compared to the overheating system in the first, and the cover system meant that every battle was pretty much the same "take cover, shoot enemies when they emerge from their cover". It also made it way too easy to see where fighting would be needed, because as soon as you say a hallway full of chest-high cover you knew there was gonna be fighting (granted, the first game also kinda had this problem, just in a different way). I also fail to see how the global cooldown improved anything.

The global cooldown was mega lame, as was having medi gel tied to the cooldown (wtf?).
I personally don't think they improved the combat system at all, apart from the AI. The cover system is just awfully broken.
I played as a vanguard and would regularly use Charge.
Even when it's maxed out and gives you a sort of "time dialation" period in order to allow you to escape your foes and get back to cover, Shepherd still sticks to every single thing in the map while you're trying to run for cover, not to mention they never give you enough stamina to get to safety in time.
Shepherd is a trained militant ffs... yet he/she can only run for like 10 seconds before being exhausted? Really? I can sprint longer than that I mean, crap, that armour Shepherd wears must be crazy heavy.

 

[Grumman]

I disagree with Norman that that was the biggest risk they took.

To me, the biggest risk they took a risk was killing Shepard at the start of the game. It was as if they were trying to sever my ties with my in-game avatar by killing her in an unavoidable cutscene. This is the sort of thing Obsidian is known for, and I thought Bioware knew better.

 

[JeppeH]

The key things I hope they fix for ME3 is:

Space:
I didnt get the feel I was in space or on a spaceship. I couldn't see my ship, walk around it (outside) or go up the docking ramp. There was no flying or combatflying. The view was boring as hell.

ME1 did it better with the dockingbay and MAKO where you got a feel of grandness. KOTOR did this space-flying thing just about right including a more cramped spaceship-feel and outdoors spacewalks.

Those upgrades I made to the ship had no meaning in the playable game, where it was so obvius they could have. Bigger radar-area, shootier guns for the spacefights etc.

Main story:
The sidemissions are great, but the main story is just crap. It makes no sense when viewed from a ME1 perspective.
It is broken in every possible way from knowledge about Reapers to the psychological impact on old friends and the Galactic Media when their fallen Hero is back. Imagine Princess Diana resurrected.. what would the impact be?
But what makes it worse is that Shepard didn't die in ME1, they killed him without reason in the intro of ME2. It makes no sense! we already had a impossible enemy to kill, there was no reason for Shepard to die, just for a resurrection. If they wanted a new Shepard and thus a clean slate, why not make the player Shepards protege?
So I hope they pull a bunny and makes it make sense in ME3, although it seems impossible right now.

Motivation
Give me a reason to want to save all life, because till now in ME2 I'w only met criminals and whiny morons.

combat
Although I loved the innovative thinking of ME1 weapon-overheat and hate the ME2 ammo-system and powers-cooldown. Don't touch a thing! just focus on the story and make me feel like I'm flying in space saving my friends and possible the life of everyone else.

 

[Keava]

Well big problem of ME2 story was it being the middle child in a trilogy. Im guessing BioWare wanted to set up the stage for the Me3 while still connecting it to ME1, and that is risky buisness in itself. They had to tie all the plot strings in a way someone how never bothered with ME1 had still hance to get into it while also leaving the story open enough to progress towards the 3rd part.

Mass Effect1-3 was supposed to be somewhat continous expierience throughout all the pieces of the serie, its not like Tomb Raider 1-90000 where the only common point is treasures and bewbs. Yeah i didnt liked ME2 storyline that much because it seemed for me as a teaser for ME3, the endining was your typical cliffhanger.
Same issue with the death at the neginning, only reason for it seemed ot be loosing your old team so you can get sucked in by Cerberus, why? Well the ancients called it deus ex machina, it was needed to advance the plotline, the Council be it human or the original one didnt belive in Reapers so under their directive you would never be able to pursue them. Yes it could have changed after the attack on Citadel but apparently they prefered to keep Council as sceptics so you could go into traverse systems which are not under Citadels jurisdiction. They went easy mode on it, for better or worse.