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

[Lemon Of Life]

I also fail to see how the global cooldown improved anything.

This is my main beef with the new system. It takes away from the less weapon-oriented classes; Adept, Sentinel and Engineer.

Most biotics getting the additional nerf of being unable to affect anything with armor, shields or barriers only makes it worse, of course. I mean, yeah, it's a balanced system for Soldiers, Infiltrators, Vanguards and Sentinels... and it's probably alright for Engineers too, but the almost entirely biotic-oriented Adepts just end up with a heap of useless abilities.

Warp.

The only barrier adept's can't handle is Shields, and they're also the easiest to get rid of

And Singularity works on enemies that have armor/barriers IIRC, and if you can land a warp inside a Singularity, it will explode.

Hence the "most biotics".

Adept's strength used to be its great variety of abilities, but in ME2 you'll usually just use Warp, and Singularity to set off Warp explosions. Throw, Pull and Shockwave were rarely useful.

Really? I used throw, warp and shockwave all the time, especially on the later levels. Knocked them off the platforms and gave me time to pick off a different enemy.

Did I mention I was playing on insanity?

Shockwave is a blessing when you have a group of unshielded enemies coming at you, I don't know how I could manage those husk swarms without it. I love playing as the adept.

I really like what they've done with the mechanics, I find it really fun. The first game I played only for the story, and still liked it, but I'm happy they improved the combat. Nice one Bioware.

 

[Simon1]

I liked mining. Especially probing Uranus.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

 

[MiracleOfSound]

LOTR backs up it's basic good against evil plot with themes and ideas integrated into the story. Mass Effect does not.

I dunno, I thought Mass Effect had lots of themes and side stories runnning through it...

Humanity and it's arrogant, aggressive, controlling nature (Council's attidue towards humans, Cerberus)

The ramifications of reliance on advances in technology (Quarian Geth war)

Child abuse and how it effects people in later life (Jack, Kaidan)

The moral question of whether or not to cripple a dangerous but emotionally sentient species (Genophage, the Rachni)

Mommy and daddy issues (Miranda, Jacob, Liara, etc..)

Parental abandonment (Thane)

Power corrupting a flawed but sympathetic villain who thought he was doing the best thing for everyone in his own way (Saren)

The philosophical debate about whether an assasin is a killer or simply an instrument (thane)

Would you kill your own family to protect others (Samara, Liara)

Revenge, and is it worth it (Garrus, Zaied)

Coming of age and finding your place in the world (Grunt)

 

[Axolotl]

Do you want a Reaper to give some cliche monologue explaining their whole plan in its entirety and why they do it? They want to destroy all galactic life, we don't know why yet. Villains can work just as well when their is mystery behind their motivation.

They did give a cliche monologue explaining their whole plan in its entirety, but they didn't have a reson for it beyond saying they were far too alien to comprehend.

 

[Simon1]

I understand why you hate the mako, but I found it quite enjoyable to be able use a 255mm cannon to blast one guy into smithereens.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I loved most of the changes, particularly the tighter feeling snappier combat, but there are definitely a few things I missed. My biggest issue is really what Yahtzee complained about.. the lack of "bigness" and scale that you had in the first game due to the more cohesive space travel and the ground based missions. I also miss the slightly deeper levelling and skill system in the first but in retrospect I can't say I really noticed it having a huge impact on my actual gameplay experience.

As for things I didn't miss, the inventory in ME1 was a mess and all of the much lauded customization was really rather pointless. Picking up tons of "different" guns and armour was great, but the only stats that really mattered were attack strength for weapons and damage resistance for armour. Plus every weapon in each type was the same so weapon/armour selection was just comparing one stat and then selling 99% of what you picked up. Customization was really the same as there was a linear progression of upgrades that were actually worth using and the rest was garbage.

 

[teknoarcanist]

Can I just say that I really enjoyed the mako, and was annoyed to see it go? The ability to touch down and rove around on other planets really went a long way in making the universe feel massive. In ME2, it essentially feels like Omega, Illium, and then a shitload of mission levels--which, let's be honest, are mostly pretty samey.

Granted, the mako badly needed tweaking...but c'mon. I can't be the only one to look at earth from the moon and feel a genuine moment of awe.

(...before crashing into a turret and flipping over.)

 

[mare84]

Since mining is the biggest problem overall, I say keep up the good work Bioware! If gameplay becomes a problem that's bad...
Besides you don't need to mine that much even for all the upgrades...two or three nebulae...
ME2 is one of the most "complete" games recently.

 

[crazy-j]

And this is why I dislike Bioware.

explain please?

They focused on the combat and the minigame messing about istead of trying to improve the parts of the game that actually matter.

i agree with you on the combat, i liked the first games combat system better. However i didnt mind the mining and hacking minigames. Overall i do think that the first game was better, but mass effect 2 is still a solid game

 

[crazy-j]

Can I just say that I really enjoyed the mako, and was annoyed to see it go? The ability to touch down and rove around on other planets really went a long way in making the universe feel massive. In ME2, it essentially feels like Omega, Illium, and then a shitload of mission levels--which, let's be honest, are mostly pretty samey.

Granted, the mako badly needed tweaking...but c'mon. I can't be the only one to look at earth from the moon and feel a genuine moment of awe.

(...before crashing into a turret and flipping over.)

lol i missed the mako to. i actually found it really easy to drive!

 

[StriderShinryu]

This article has sealed the deal, I am not getting mass effect 3, the franchise is dead to me. others can enjoy it, btu clearly its not a game for people like me. Ill stick to dragon age and final fantasy for now

Great idea. Not that I'm happy you don't feel you'll be able to enjoy ME3 at all, but it's nice to see a poster stating that something just isn't for them and that they'll go play games they do enjoy.

There are so many great games out there these days. If you don't like the way one (or one series) plays, then that's cool because there's probably a ton other games out there you will enjoy.

ME1 was a shooter/RPG hybrid, with the emphasis really on the Shooting and the RP. ME2 just took that and refined it further, which meant some of the things people view as staples of RPGs were left behind... but it's still a shooter/RPG with emphasis on the shooting and the RP. Not all of the changes were good ones but it's not like, as an example, what Nintendo did from Zelda 1 to Zelda 2.

 

[Gaias]

Well at least they were clear on the direction for ME2: Make a competent shooter to sell well, while stringing alone the core fan base with promises of better story and legacy RPG elements for ME3.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

Well as a gamer who only plays RPG's and Shooter's I felt that ME1 and ME2 were great. ME2 improved on a lot of things. I loved how they gutted the system and made it more simple. There is only 1 thing I am worried about for Mass effect 3 and that is them not including character's from ME2 because they could all die at the end. When I say that all I really mean is please keep Garrus and Tali they were my favourite character's for ME1 and ME2.

 

[DTWolfwood]

bigger ammo stores for the good pistol and assault rifle please. kinda sucks the 2 best weapons have such crappy low amounts of ammo the upgraded sniper rifle is A O K tho ^-^

oh and get rid of shotguns altogether <.< who uses them useless things. even as a vanguard, i've found myself using the thing literally 3 times the entire game. shooting a total of 6 shots <.<

mind u i've already clocked 87 hours in the game XD

 

[Funkysandwich]

They need removable helmets on every set of armour!

 

[Lim3]

"Oh, the mining game," she says. "No one likes the mining game."

Hahaha. I liked the quote at the end.

Hopefully ME3 will be near perfect.

 

[geldonyetich]

Personally, I'd say the shooter combat was less of a risk than ripping out half of the previous game which they did when they decided it'd be better to remove driving portion instead of just make it play better.

 

[Miral]

Also, heatsinks, lose them. Terrible idea, especially when nigh every enemy drops them and you never run out of ammo anyway, unless you're terrible.

I completely agree. It was particularly bad when trying to play as an Infiltrator -- in the first game, I could use the sniper rifle all the time (which fit the character perfectly), I just had to space out my shots to prevent overheating. In the second, you only get 10-12 shots before you have to go find another ammo clip, and each clip only restored one or two shots. So most of the time you have to use other guns anyway. Now maybe this is something they were actually trying to achieve, but I don't think nerfing sniping makes the game any better.

You know what would be a GREAT replacement for the Mako/probing?

Its another exploration vehicle like the Mako, but its a flying/hovering remote control probe so you don't have to deal with all that terrain bullshit.

Was this tongue in cheek? (My detector is broken.) Because that was one of the preannounced bits of DLC...


In all seriousness, I quite liked the Mako sections, and I enjoyed driving the Mako itself for the most part -- its handling was actually quite good. My only gripes about these sections were:
1. Ridiculously hilly terrain on most of the planets, which just serves to annoy people.
2. No apparent relationship between the planet's supposed gravity and the handling of the Mako.
3. A little too samey and "randomly-generated" feel to many of the worlds.

All of those issues could have been solved without giving up the driving sections altogether.

But still, I did enjoy playing ME2. The characterisation is brilliant, even though the plot is a bit suspect.

 

[uberDoward]

Agreed on taking out a single humanoid with a 255mm cannon. Or completely decimating the Rachni with it.

Also agree that my biggest beef with the Mako - I'm on a planet with supposedly 1.1G of gravity, yet the Mako still bounces around like a kid on a trampoline. Would some physics here really have killed it?

ME1 just felt bigger to me than ME2.