Poll: Mass Effect 2, from satisfied to disappointed

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I found it to be a slight improvement over ME1.

The story of ME1 was better, but the characters of ME2 were MASSIVELY better.

The ammo system felt more smooth then watching your heat bar. And don't get me started on ME1's AWFUL inventory system. I miss the mods, but I am so glad I don't need to sift through hundreds of weapons and armor and mods and stuff. >_<

The Mako was dull and annoying, and the planet scanning was too. No improvement or devolution there.

The ONLY thing that bugged me was the fact that all powers became linked to ONE recharge. I miss being able to use multiple powers at once. I wish I could barrier up, then biotic charge an enemy, then shockwave all his lackeys while I'm in slow mo. Or otherwise combo powers together. I miss that.

Anyway, ME2 was improved over ME1. But it's still missing something. Hopefully, ME3 provides that missing something.

 

[Jordi]

I went for 'kinda better', meaning to me mostly better. The majority of your complaints are basically the streamlining done between the two games. Personally I was happy with the less micromanagement but would have very happily kept the Mako and the more indepth leveling system.

Streamlining is the exact same thing as "dumbing down". It's just reducing complexity. People who like the complexity that is taken away call it "dumbing down", people who didn't like it call it "streamlining". So to say that something is good, because it is streamlining, kind of seems like circular reasoning to me.

Personally, I mostly like how they streamlined the inventory/looting, but I don't like how they dumbed down the classes and skills. The story in ME2 was worse, but if memory serves the environments were less repetitive. Overall I enjoyed ME1 a little more, but I thought both were awesome.

It is not the same. One of the most complex games in the world is chess, a game with very few rules. To take away the things that are redundant is streamlining, but that does not necessairly make it less complex, just less complicated.

Maybe complexity is not exactly the right word. I just mean that streamlining and dumbing down are both just the act of removing "stuff" from a previous game. It seems to me that streamlining is just removal gone right, and dumbing down is removal gone wrong. They are just different words to express a personal value judgment on the same process.

Whether the stuff that was removed is redundant completely depends on who you ask. So if streamlining is "good removal", then saying "it was streamlining, therefor it was good" is like saying "it was good removal, therefor it was good". Which is circular and meaningless. You still have to say why you think that whatever was removed was good/bad/redundant/essential/whatever.

So you're saying that removing the Mako sections was not a good idea?

I don't know where you see me saying that. But the Mako is actually a very good example of my point. From what you're saying here, I gather that you didn't like the Mako sections[footnote]If I'm reading you wrong here, it doesn't really matter, because a lot of other people feel this way.[/footnote] (which is perfectly subjective). You thought they were redundant, so you classify their removal as "streamlining".
People who did like the Mako sections (they exist) on the other hand will disagree with you. For them, the Mako wasn't redundant, its removal wasn't good, and they would probably feel it dumbed down the game.

I won't comment on whether or not the removal was a good idea, because that's a matter of economics (i.e. did it increase sales/popularity, and if not did not having to develop it for ME2 save enough resources to offset the decrease?). But yeah, I liked that it was in ME1 and would have liked to have the option of using the Mako in ME2.

 

[kayisking]

I went for 'kinda better', meaning to me mostly better. The majority of your complaints are basically the streamlining done between the two games. Personally I was happy with the less micromanagement but would have very happily kept the Mako and the more indepth leveling system.

Streamlining is the exact same thing as "dumbing down". It's just reducing complexity. People who like the complexity that is taken away call it "dumbing down", people who didn't like it call it "streamlining". So to say that something is good, because it is streamlining, kind of seems like circular reasoning to me.

Personally, I mostly like how they streamlined the inventory/looting, but I don't like how they dumbed down the classes and skills. The story in ME2 was worse, but if memory serves the environments were less repetitive. Overall I enjoyed ME1 a little more, but I thought both were awesome.

It is not the same. One of the most complex games in the world is chess, a game with very few rules. To take away the things that are redundant is streamlining, but that does not necessairly make it less complex, just less complicated.

Maybe complexity is not exactly the right word. I just mean that streamlining and dumbing down are both just the act of removing "stuff" from a previous game. It seems to me that streamlining is just removal gone right, and dumbing down is removal gone wrong. They are just different words to express a personal value judgment on the same process.

Whether the stuff that was removed is redundant completely depends on who you ask. So if streamlining is "good removal", then saying "it was streamlining, therefor it was good" is like saying "it was good removal, therefor it was good". Which is circular and meaningless. You still have to say why you think that whatever was removed was good/bad/redundant/essential/whatever.

So you're saying that removing the Mako sections was not a good idea?

I don't know where you see me saying that. But the Mako is actually a very good example of my point. From what you're saying here, I gather that you didn't like the Mako sections[footnote]If I'm reading you wrong here, it doesn't really matter, because a lot of other people feel this way.[/footnote] (which is perfectly subjective). You thought they were redundant, so you classify their removal as "streamlining".
People who did like the Mako sections (they exist) on the other hand will disagree with you. For them, the Mako wasn't redundant, its removal wasn't good, and they would probably feel it dumbed down the game.

I won't comment on whether or not the removal was a good idea, because that's a matter of economics (i.e. did it increase sales/popularity, and if not did not having to develop it for ME2 save enough resources to offset the decrease?). But yeah, I liked that it was in ME1 and would have liked to have the option of using the Mako in ME2.

Alright, I get what you're saying. I just do not agree with you on the point that since dumbing down and streamlining are both about removing things, they are the same. But I guess that's just a matter we disagree in.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

**snip**

For me, the only place ME2 pales in ME1 is the plot. ME2 suffers from "middle of a trilogy syndrome" in which nothing much happens. Sure we learn more about how the Reapers operate, which is cool, but other than that it's just a giant meet-and-greet for the cast of ME3.

I like the gameplay more in ME2, and in no way do I like any part of ME1 better. The dungeons were way more interesting in ME2 (they weren't just copy/paste bunkers half the time).

tl;dr: I loved ME1 for the story - I loved ME2 for fun gameplay. Here's hoping ME3 has a truly epic story with the wonderful gameplay from ME2.

 

[bombadilillo]

I liked the Mako. It was a little open and barren at times, but dude your exploring a random planet. I thought it was fun.

The point is I was excited to see how they improved in in ME2 and instead they made me stare at a picture for hours if i wanted upgrades. I couldnt be bothered and half my crew died because of it. I HOPE THEY ARE HAPPY.

 

[Ranorak]

Gameplay wise.
ME2 takes the cake, and pretty much the rest of the fridge on ME1.

Items:
It didn't even make sense why a top agent like a Specter didn't have access to Spectre weapons at the go.
The whole item and armour was pretty pointless, as they only served as upgrades, they didn't add anything else. So finding space pants in a box, or upgrading them from a terminal is pretty much the same anyway.
The mods were a nice touch, I did miss those.

Skills:
Again, Shepard is a soldier (job, not class persee) (s)he had training in weapons before the start of ME1 I assume. Why the hell can't I shoot properly?! I'm a bloody Commander, yet, I still have to train my pistol to learn how to use a sniper?
As for the separate skills with each it's own cooldown. You say it got dumbed down so that you only have a few and can't spam. I don't call that a dumb-down. You now have to think what skills you use. and combine it with party members. You can't go around spamming like a goldseller Bot. This part of the game was turned from a machine-gun to a precision sniper.

Mako: I cried with tears of joy to see it broken on the ice world. As for "exploring" those planets.
You looked at the map, drove the Mako to the locations and picked up some random collectable.
Most of the planets looked the same with just a colour swap.
Scanning: It wasn't better, but it wasn't that bad to just take a relax moment and scan a few planets.

 

[VulakAerr]

ME2 was better in every way except for 2. One of those is obvious (okay, if you LIKE scanning planets, you need to get your head examined) and the other is the overarching plot of the game. EVERYTHING else in ME2 was better. The writing, the characters, the ship, the acting and the gameplay mechanics. And yes, I include the introduction of ammo. It gave the combat a better sense of ebb and flow and also forces you to swap out to different weapons sometimes.

Let's not forget the ridiculous universal cooldowns the original game has, the cut and paste levels, the poorer lighting model, the pop-in textures, the torturous inventory system (no. 10 levels of the same gun is not customisation. No, slight differences to fire rate vs damage is not fun) which was an exercise in awful GUI design. Don't even get me started on the fucking Mako. That it gets confused between moving forward relative to the camera and forward relative to the vehicle when the camera is perpendicular to the damned thing is nigh on unforgivable. Steal Halo's Warthog controls in future. Please! Whatever else Halo did right or wrong, the vehicle controls are perfect and always have been.

It's a testiment to the game world and story that we put up with a game so rough around the edges. However, we rightly bitched about its issues and get a vastly superior game in Mass Effect 2.

 

[Quellist]

I would say kinda worse, while i may be one of the only people who loved the car in ME1 i cant be alone in hating the hammerhead of ME2 and don't even get me started on planet scanning.

Imo ME1 was 75% hardcore PC RPG just like Dragon Age:Origins. ME2 was a shooter with RPG elements (and those elements were set to 'lite' to make it more mainstream). I honestly cant think of a single mechanic of ME2 that i preferred to its ME1 iteration, not that i hated ME2 by any means it was just dissapointing. I love inventory management, i love complex character abilities that force you to make genuine choices that you cant go back on later.

Essentially i love the old bioware and i don't like the way they are going now.

 

[Hyper-space]

Mass Effect 1 (from here on in M1 and M2 to shorten), Unity was a power, and Medigel was separate, now it's one and the same (a power that uses the Medigel), and there's less of it! Powers in M1 also had much longer, but 'individual' recharge times, which was wonderful, now, they all have varied recharge times, but use one and block the rest, so if I use tech-armour, it takes ages before I can use anything else, which is just unnecessary.

You might view it as unnecessary, but to me it adds a tactical element, that is, you have to actually think ahead of what you're doing and judge whether its right to use the power. Sure it might be a bit harder than ME1, but i do not think anyone could fault Bioware for making the game more tactical.

There's also less powers per class, and the powers themselves are less effective. Weapons, now, M1 had a ridiculous amount yes, (and since it was just the same fours weapons with different stats, M2 can be seen to have more in a way), M2 adds the auto-sniper, which I love, however, the powers to equip/use different ammos I think doesn't really work, they should bring the mods back (in a more limited capacity than M1s 20x10 mods).

Maybe you have to patch the game or something if the Ammo power doesn't work, as it worked 100% for me (on harder difficulties you might not notice right away the extra damage).

Now, the skills were kind of redundant (especially when it came to biotics and tech skills), and having each skill do more than one thing and reducing the number of same'ish skills did wonders, as being able to spam every skill at once made the game way to easy.

The levelling system sucks in M2, M1 it might've been a bit much, but there was a 60 lvl cap, which was great, and you could spend 1 point at a time on a certain power, M2 its 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, and that's it? There's also less powers and options to upgrade.

The "1,2,3,4" approach to the skills actually made choosing skills deeper, as now you had a choice: do you spend your skill points or save them up for a new talent?, whereas in ME1 you only had 1 one choice (spend them right away). Again, its all about adding a more tactical approach to the gameplay and give the player more meaningful choices, and the same thing applies to the upgrades.

Concerning the upgrades, most of the weapons have 8-9 upgrades (each weapon type has different types of high-end upgrades), with the assault rifles having the most upgrades and about 1-3 different models (ostensibly more unique than in ME1), not counting DLCs. Compared to the upgrades in ME1, they break-even (in terms of quantity), but come ahead in terms of uniqueness. So there is no loss when it comes to the upgrade/weapon department.

Now, powers on shields and armour, that's just all wrong, I should be able to tell Jacob to lift up an entire group of shielded enemies, then have Miranda Overload all their shields, then in slow motion (+1 for M2), snipe out the enemies. What happens instead? I have to snipe the shields off the enemies first, using overload on 'one' enemy at a time, then when it doesn't seem worth it anymore, lift the enemy/ies without a shield, and then snipe/pistol them out.

Well, dunno what kind of argument this falls under actually, "i cannot easily do away with a group of enemies using this specific tactic"? having barriers, shields and armor gave the combat in ME2 more depth, as you had to use different skills and characters (thus encouraging team-play) to properly dispose of your enemies, instead of relying on just one type of skill to get their shields down.

Infiltrators and Vanguards have been nerfed, power wise anyway, I feel, Infiltrator basically gets the Sniper and only retains a few tech abilities, in M1 he was a perfect combination of Engineer and Soldier, sacrifice the shotgun and assault rifle and receive most of the tech powers instead, now I think it's probably one of the harder classes.

Now that's just difficulty, something that you cannot really complain about (after all, you can change the difficulty).

EDIT 1: Big thing I forgot, I also hate the heat clips, bring back the heat bar, that was so much better! My pistol in M1 had infinite ammo (Frictionless Material x2, oh yeah), but in M2, I'm constantly running out of ammo (and no, I'm not a bad shot! ).

Again, having ammo adds a tactical approach and an extra-layer of depth to the combat, in that you have to conserve ammo and act according to how much you need (also positioning becomes much more crucial, you have to be near ammo).

 

[Gill Kaiser]

The Infiltrator, along with the Soldier, is the most overpowered ME2 class, especially on higher difficulties.

 

[boag]

Im not going to go into a long rant, because I love both games, but ME2 overall seems a bit shorter than ME1.

 

[Darthbawls77]

They had way more time for the story in ME1 thats why it seems more complete than ME2 but I enjoyed both games thoroughly. I mean super mario bros was and still is an amazingly fun game to play with little to nothing to change to improve it but as we saw every mario game that followed changed things up every game almost. Instead of comparing the two like cars we should just appreciate both games for what they are and what they bring to us.

 

[bombadilillo]

The ammo really killed my immersion. Every time I had to reload, or run over to collect some ammo I was reminded about how in space, technology evolves backwards. And dont tell me its more "TACTICAL" because overheating also makes every shots timeing tactical. Is a different type of tactical. One meant to cater to a wider audiance for better or worse.

 

[Idsertian]

Thank you, you've added heaps of great stuff there, I agree with everything, except, did you really think the story was better? I felt M1 was more complete, even though the impending Reaper threat remained by the end of the game, there was a definitive objective and it was achieved, in M2, it was kinda, 'yeah we killed that giant human reaper, thing (or not, or whatever), but that didn't help much' - maybe that's just me.

Yeah, pretty much. The story was just as deep and engaging in the second one as it was in the first one, for me anyway. You were given your objective: Go kick the shit out of the Collectors and by god that's what I did. Pissing off the Illusive man afterward is just a bonus.

 

[Conza]

I have snipped down all my comments to try and reduce space. I'll let Hyper-space do their own.

M1 seperated Unity and Medigel, M2 combines them. Powers in M1 also had much longer individual recharge times, M2 has varied recharge times, but use one and block the rest.

You might view it as unnecessary, but to me it adds a tactical element, that is, you have to actually think ahead of what you're doing and judge whether its right to use the power. Sure it might be a bit harder than ME1, but i do not think anyone could fault Bioware for making the game more tactical.

Well, this is what I wanted, a blow by blow rebuttle. And yes, that's exactly what I'm doing here, I'm faulting them for taking away the perfectly good power system. Why? Because add to the fact that we have ammo now, powers need to be more readily available, honestly, in M1 I didn't use powers for my entire first play through, Garrus and Wrex were on Assault rifle duty, and I sniped - that was it! But in M2 I was forced to play in a similar manner, and once I knew of the powers, it annoyed me, so no, it's not more tactical to limit us, I combo-ed powers all the time in M1, and it rocked, and I paid the price for using that power then, because they took ages to recharge, now everything takes less time, but still enough that I can't combo very well (per character).

M2 has less powers per class, and their less effective. M1 had the same four weapons with different stats, M2 has more, in a way, but it uses powers to equip/use different ammos instead of the M1 mods.

Maybe you have to patch the game or something if the Ammo power doesn't work, as it worked 100% for me (on harder difficulties you might not notice right away the extra damage).

Now, the skills were kind of redundant (especially when it came to biotics and tech skills), and having each skill do more than one thing and reducing the number of same'ish skills did wonders, as being able to spam every skill at once made the game way to easy.

The Ammo powers activated fine, but you had a limited choice on which ones you could get depending on your class, in M1 you could have all of them for every class, which was better. And it didn't need 10 skill points just so your squad could use it too.

All the powers in M1 were unique and effective for different scenarios and situations, lift, throw, singularity, were all the great biotic powers I can recall, overload, disruption? and something else for tech, in M2, I pick one per character, then need to wait 30 seconds while the remaining enemies storm towards me, in which time I use all my ammo taking them out, more enemies generate, and I have to run forward to collect more ammo, and on insanity, I'm down to half health despite storming to the next barrier and no one shooting at me when I begin.

So they weren't redundant, they were very useful, and should be brought back to be more like M1, if I could chose. I see nothing here that's tactical (yes, I'm going to button all my responses like this if it warrants it).

The levelling system sucks in M2, M1 there was a 60 lvl cap, and you could spend 1 point at a time, M2 its 1, 2, 3, 4, and that's it. There's also less powers and options to upgrade.

The "1,2,3,4" approach to the skills actually made choosing skills deeper, as now you had a choice: do you spend your skill points or save them up for a new talent?, whereas in ME1 you only had 1 one choice (spend them right away). Again, its all about adding a more tactical approach to the gameplay and give the player more meaningful choices, and the same thing applies to the upgrades.

Concerning the upgrades, most of the weapons have 8-9 upgrades (each weapon type has different types of high-end upgrades), with the assault rifles having the most upgrades and about 1-3 different models (ostensibly more unique than in ME1), not counting DLCs. Compared to the upgrades in ME1, they break-even (in terms of quantity), but come ahead in terms of uniqueness. So there is no loss when it comes to the upgrade/weapon department.

Deeper? It only made leveling them more difficult since you only got 2 points per level, so instead of going from level 2 to 4, you had to wait till the following level, in which you had 4 points, 2 going unused for an entire level, then at the next level you had 4 points, but again 1 goes to waste untill 2 more levels, where you now have 5 points, but only need 4, and 1 goes to waste. Its a really bad idea, and they should go back to M1s 1 point per block, even if there are less blocks and they do more per block. I see nothing here that's tactical.

And you'll need to elaborate on the powers. For example, M1 you had ammo mods, weapon mods, armor mods (heat sink, tungsten rounds, shield battery, ect), all I remember from M2 was 'more damage' 'more prescision' ect, if that's all it is, then M1 wins out on both fronts, however if I'm missing something do tell.

Powers on shields and armour, are wrong, I should be able to use any power on any enemy at any time. Instead, I have to take down an enemies shields for some powers, then armor for most others.

Well, dunno what kind of argument this falls under actually, "i cannot easily do away with a group of enemies using this specific tactic"? having barriers, shields and armor gave the combat in ME2 more depth, as you had to use different skills and characters (thus encouraging team-play) to properly dispose of your enemies, instead of relying on just one type of skill to get their shields down.

A. that's not what I said B. If I did say it, I'd use a capital letter at the start of my sentence, especially for the word "I".

Mass Effect is about Shepard, plain and simple, I like many of the additional characters, but the story is how Shepard saves the galaxy from the Reapers, so he should be central to killing all the enemies along the way. I do see the tactical point here, the shields, armor and health can only be attacked by certain powers - I don't like it.

Infiltrators and Vanguards have been nerfed, Infiltrator basically gets the Sniper and only retains a few tech abilities, in M1 he was a combination of Engineer and Soldier, sacrificing the shotgun and assault rifle toreceive most of the tech powers, now it's one of the harder classes.

Now that's just difficulty, something that you cannot really complain about (after all, you can change the difficulty).

No, actually that has nothing to do with difficulty, it has to do with proper class balancing and making each class just as effective as any other, in any scenario, which M1 achieved much more seemlessly than M2 did.

EDIT 1: Big thing I forgot, I also hate the heat clips, bring back the heat bar, that was so much better! My pistol in M1 had infinite ammo (Frictionless Material x2, oh yeah), but in M2, I'm constantly running out of ammo (and no, I'm not a bad shot! ).

Again, having ammo adds a tactical approach and an extra-layer of depth to the combat, in that you have to conserve ammo and act according to how much you need (also positioning becomes much more crucial, you have to be near ammo).

Ok, there is a tactical point of view to ammo. But like someone previously said, if we have the technology not to use clips, why would we introduce it? 'Gee you know what, I hate it when I constantly shoot and my weapon over heats, I'd love to have a clip that I could remove to instantly cool down my weapon, but lets make sure that also governs the total number of rounds'. Well in M1, you were punished for overheating your weapon, you'd be forced to wait for a cool down, in this, you're basically forced to overheat it unless you're an obsessive reloader.

 

[-Dragmire-]

PC related gripe.

Both ME1/2 do not support gamepad controls. wasd cramps my fingers, my personal favorite control setup for 1st/3rd person shooters is a nun-chuck/(1/2)controller for analogue stick movement/couple of mapped buttons and a mouse for aiming. Hammerhead controls really suck wasd for movement, left shift for jump and space for boost. Cramp hell.

ME2 problem only - all interfaces can use arrows(but not for scrolling for some reason) to navigate but need to click on with mouse to execute(mouse scroll wheel also can't be used to scroll for some reason...). This is only a problem for me because when I'm not in battle, I prefer to relax my mouse arm and use keys, especially when navigating the journal/any large text based hub.

 

[kuyo]

The ending [SPOILER ALERT STOP READING NOW AND FINISH THE GAME IF YOU HAVEN'T AND PLAN TO] where you had to either keep the awesome technology (Renegade), or destroy it (Paragon) is a bit irritating, since this character was Paragon, so I was forced to give it up.

This sentiment is a problem they need to address. If this is Shepard's choice, then either choice should be valid and shouldn't just boil down to how you want your stats to balance. Also, why force Shepard to give it to the illusive man? They should've made it two different choices. First, keep the base or be an idiot, then during the debrief either go rogue or be an idiot.

I really hated how they kept saying they improved everything. They said they improved the Normandy, but they didn't. It's supposed to be a stealth ship and they made it bigger (More ship to be spotted), brighter (dark blue blends well with a night sky, much better than black. What the hell is white with black fins and some gold ornamentation going to blend into?) and covered in Cerberus logos (Not only are you going to get spotted, people are going to immediately know you're a terrorist), really exemplifies Cerberus's secrecy. I think Cerberus was supposed to personify whoever forced the game to be this bad, and the railroading was some expression from the writers or a hidden message to indicate their abuse.

 

[Hyper-space]

Why? Because add to the fact that we have ammo now, powers need to be more readily available, honestly, in M1 I didn't use powers for my entire first play through, Garrus and Wrex were on Assault rifle duty, and I sniped - that was it! But in M2 I was forced to play in a similar manner, and once I knew of the powers, it annoyed me, so no, it's not more tactical to limit us, I combo-ed powers all the time in M1, and it rocked, and I paid the price for using that power then, because they took ages to recharge, now everything takes less time, but still enough that I can't combo very well (per character).

M2 has less powers per class, and their less effective. M1 had the same four weapons with different stats, M2 has more, in a way, but it uses powers to equip/use different ammos instead of the M1 mods.

The Ammo powers activated fine, but you had a limited choice on which ones you could get depending on your class, in M1 you could have all of them for every class, which was better. And it didn't need 10 skill points just so your squad could use it too.

All the powers in M1 were unique and effective for different scenarios and situations, lift, throw, singularity, were all the great biotic powers I can recall, overload, disruption? and something else for tech, in M2, I pick one per character, then need to wait 30 seconds while the remaining enemies storm towards me, in which time I use all my ammo taking them out, more enemies generate, and I have to run forward to collect more ammo, and on insanity, I'm down to half health despite storming to the next barrier and no one shooting at me when I begin.

So they weren't redundant, they were very useful, and should be brought back to be more like M1, if I could chose. I see nothing here that's tactical (yes, I'm going to button all my responses like this if it warrants it).

I'm gonna snip some parts so this post doesn't end up taking up a whole page. Also, a lot of your points touch upon the same thing, so just condensed them all. Now, on to the point.

First, i am not quite sure what you mean by that "once i knew of the powers, it annoyed me" (i think this is a case of the brain thinking much faster than one's typing, i often fall in the same trap), but you say that now its harder to for your character to combo by himself, and i think this might be a case of preference vs actuality, you prefer to control a single character but the game is made so that you control a team of characters, and you have to utilize each and every one of them. ME1's design went against the gameplay, that is, the design was that of a teamwork oriented game, but the gameplay made any attempt at said team-play unnecessary and obtuse.

Bioware noted that the gameplay in ME1 did not encourage teamwork, and so they kept all the combos but made it only possible by having team-mates chip in, thus the design-philosophy of the game did not go against the gameplay. I get your frustration when you go from being able to combo alone to having to combo with your teammates, but i would chalk it up so simply being a matter of preference and that Mass Effect is just a different type of game than what you expected.

Deeper? It only made leveling them more difficult since you only got 2 points per level, so instead of going from level 2 to 4, you had to wait till the following level, in which you had 4 points, 2 going unused for an entire level, then at the next level you had 4 points, but again 1 goes to waste untill 2 more levels, where you now have 5 points, but only need 4, and 1 goes to waste. Its a really bad idea, and they should go back to M1s 1 point per block, even if there are less blocks and they do more per block. I see nothing here that's tactical.

It is more difficult, but it has more choice, which is the tactical aspect of it. How you level up your character is much different than in ME1, as you could go about it in many ways. For example: you spend your points right away or save them for more powerful skills and on top of that, if you are dedicated enough and wish to plan out a setup that is 100% point effective, you can. As now you have to think ahead when putting points into something and the difficulty does not lie in that its an obtuse system, but just strategy and planning ahead how your characters gonna be. Thus the hardcore players that put more effort into the point system reap greater rewards.

And you'll need to elaborate on the powers. For example, M1 you had ammo mods, weapon mods, armor mods (heat sink, tungsten rounds, shield battery, ect), all I remember from M2 was 'more damage' 'more prescision' ect, if that's all it is, then M1 wins out on both fronts, however if I'm missing something do tell.

There were only two types of ammo mods that were worth anything, i think that it was the sledgehammer? (or hammerhead) and the toxic ammunition (why only do +30% damage to organics when you can do +30% to all enemies?), ME2 had 6 ammo types and all of them had a purpose and gave you an chance to combo. ME2 also had armor upgrades which pretty much did the same thing as the ones in ME1, so ME2 wins out based upon the ammo types being much better.

Mass Effect is about Shepard, plain and simple, I like many of the additional characters, but the story is how Shepard saves the galaxy from the Reapers, so he should be central to killing all the enemies along the way. I do see the tactical point here, the shields, armor and health can only be attacked by certain powers - I don't like it.

Again, this kind of ties into my first point about teamwork and how Bioware RPGs are about a team of characters working together, Shepherd isn't alone in saving the galaxy, in fact, the more time you spend on your teammates affects whether or not you will survive the final mission. So ME is simply not geared towards a lone-wolf approach (gameplay-wise and story-wise).

No, actually that has nothing to do with difficulty, it has to do with proper class balancing and making each class just as effective as any other, in any scenario, which M1 achieved much more seemlessly than M2 did.

I've tried playing with the infiltrator, and hes one of the better classes suited for insanity-difficulty, the stealth-capabilities and incinerate (one of the most useful dmg-powers in the game) plus AI hacking and squad cryo ammo does not make him underpowered, its just that for him to work, you have to use teamwork and command your squad accordingly.

Ok, there is a tactical point of view to ammo. But like someone previously said, if we have the technology not to use clips, why would we introduce it? 'Gee you know what, I hate it when I constantly shoot and my weapon over heats, I'd love to have a clip that I could remove to instantly cool down my weapon, but lets make sure that also governs the total number of rounds'. Well in M1, you were punished for overheating your weapon, you'd be forced to wait for a cool down, in this, you're basically forced to overheat it unless you're an obsessive reloader.

This might be a more subjective issue: do you like the tactical aspect of conserving your ammo or do you like the cool-down system?

But subjectivity aside, it makes positioning more crucial and adds a situational combat-aspect to the game, so its not a down-grade from the cooldown system.

 

[airrazor7]

this thread still feels like the same conclusion about those who have played ME1 & 2 vs those who have only played 2: If you played ME1 and loved it, you'll either hate or just feel like 'meh' towards ME2 yet if you've only played ME2 and loved it then you'll wonder what all the ridiculous fuss is about from the ME1 players.

I got into the series in ME2 (PS3 owner) and have yet to put the game down since the time I bought it back in February (stopped couting playtime after 200+ hours). However I am not going to treat the game like a godsend and have a few negative points of my own that actually match a few of yours. Also, something note worthy to anyone who may read this: I have only played the game on Veteran and Hardcore difficulties and not any of the lower ones or Insanity so that is what my perspective is based on.

I like the combat for the most part however it feels like I'm spending most of the game debuffing enemies. You have to knock off their shields/barriers/armor before you can actually use your abilities to really have fun with the enemies. I did one play through as a soldier and I would just debuff enemies for my squad mates to take out. The only exception I have found is the ability to explode enemy barriers with warp.

Powers shouldn't use the same recharge meter. This has caused me to wait during a fight and take me out of the fun of it all because I have to wait for the recharge from a shield/cloaking power to finish just to use another necessary power.

I always viewed planet scanning as a necessary chore but the thought that comes to mind is: if I have a full crew and staff to operate whatever tasks on the Normandy, how come I do not have a team dedicated to retrieving resources? I know this will not happen but for the next game they should implement a system in that you do a quick scan of a planet to see if it has resources and what type they are then drop a team planet side that would mine the planet to an extent chosen by the player that would only take a few minutes real world time. Upgrading the mining team would mean upgrading their tech so that you could send less people to one planet which would mean that upgrading the team would allow you to split them up and mine several planets simultaneously. Also, while they are mining the player should be able to do other things besides sit and wait for them to finish. For example, if I'm in the same star system as Ilium, I should have a few mining teams spread out over a few planets while shopping in Ilium and when they're done, EDI should contact me stating that they need to be picked up. The only restriction should be that I cannot leave a star system while a mining team is working on one of the planets in it.

Also, I wanted to make a positive point. I know most will not agree but I think Kasumi's Shadow Strike is one of the best abilities in the game. It's pretty powerful when maxed out and it's one of the few abilities that doesn't have any shield type restrictions

Going off topic a bit, the possible inclusion of a melee class that was mentioned in one of the articles sounds pretty cool. However I'm sure I'll be disappointed because when I imagine a melee class, I picture Shephard fighting like Thane and Jack do in their cutscenes which I'm pretty sure Bioware will not do for a possible melee class.

As far as ME2 is concerned, and after learning about the experience I may have missed due to not playing ME1, I think I'll consider ME2 streamlined instead dumbed down overall. I like the fact that ME2 is a story driven action/adventure game with rpg elements instead of being a stat and inventory management game that has action and a story as a side dish. Not to be trollish but I honestly can't understand how people find stat and inventory management entertaining. I'd rather scan and probe planets all day than do that. I guess there's just all kinds of people each with their types of enjoyment cause I'm sure there's someone out there who can't understand the things I like (like dill pickle flavored chips, I'd eat them all day If I didn't care about my health or figure). I actually agree that the leveling and ability statistic system needs some work and a few more options but it doesn't need to mirror the leveling system of WOW, Diablo or any other PC game with rpg elements.

And for my last point, I liked the armor modding system, I just wish it had a few more options and more armor to buy and choose from. However, I think that instead of the potential weapon modding system in the ME3, they should instead have a custom weapon creation system; after all it was said in ME2 that there is a research team dedicated to weapon research and creation on the Normandy. So why not use them? I think you should be able to combine parts and resources to create new weapons but once a weapon is created it is finished; no going back to mod it.

 

[Conza]

Sorry, a lot to say, hopefully if you're reading this you can skip/skim most of the cut sections and just read my comments, otherwise, enjoy 3000+ words of ME commentary .

Why? Because add to the fact that we have ammo now, powers need to be more readily available, honestly, in M1 I didn't use powers for my entire first play through, Garrus and Wrex were on Assault rifle duty, and I sniped - that was it! But in M2 I was forced to play in a similar manner, and once I knew of the powers, it annoyed me, so no, it's not more tactical to limit us, I combo-ed powers all the time in M1, and it rocked, and I paid the price for using that power then, because they took ages to recharge, now everything takes less time, but still enough that I can't combo very well (per character).

M2 has less powers per class, and their less effective. M1 had the same four weapons with different stats, M2 has more, in a way, but it uses powers to equip/use different ammos instead of the M1 mods.

The Ammo powers activated fine, but you had a limited choice on which ones you could get depending on your class, in M1 you could have all of them for every class, which was better. And it didn't need 10 skill points just so your squad could use it too.

All the powers in M1 were unique and effective for different scenarios and situations, lift, throw, singularity, were all the great biotic powers I can recall, overload, disruption? and something else for tech, in M2, I pick one per character, then need to wait 30 seconds while the remaining enemies storm towards me, in which time I use all my ammo taking them out, more enemies generate, and I have to run forward to collect more ammo, and on insanity, I'm down to half health despite storming to the next barrier and no one shooting at me when I begin.

So they weren't redundant, they were very useful, and should be brought back to be more like M1, if I could chose. I see nothing here that's tactical (yes, I'm going to button all my responses like this if it warrants it).

I'm gonna snip some parts so this post doesn't end up taking up a whole page. Also, a lot of your points touch upon the same thing, so just condensed them all. Now, on to the point.

First, i am not quite sure what you mean by that "once i knew of the powers, it annoyed me" (i think this is a case of the brain thinking much faster than one's typing, i often fall in the same trap), but you say that now its harder to for your character to combo by himself, and i think this might be a case of preference vs actuality, you prefer to control a single character but the game is made so that you control a team of characters, and you have to utilize each and every one of them. ME1's design went against the gameplay, that is, the design was that of a teamwork oriented game, but the gameplay made any attempt at said team-play unnecessary and obtuse.

Bioware noted that the gameplay in ME1 did not encourage teamwork, and so they kept all the combos but made it only possible by having team-mates chip in, thus the design-philosophy of the game did not go against the gameplay. I get your frustration when you go from being able to combo alone to having to combo with your teammates, but i would chalk it up so simply being a matter of preference and that Mass Effect is just a different type of game than what you expected.

First off, I probably just didn't make it clear, but when I said "Once I knew of the powers, it annoyed me." when taken out of context makes no sense. In its original sentence, it goes to say that once I was aware that powers existed, I was irritated by the fact they were much less useful in M2 than previously in M1.

Actually, M1's gameplay could be seen as very Shepard central, I remember going to all those extra planets, and sniping out Geth and towers, then I'd just drive down when everyone was dead to enter the bunker, but once I was in the bunker, Garry and Wrex were very very useful, Wrex would run in and provide a distraction (with Barrier on), myself and Garrus would wait for the enemies to be drawn out, then we'd overload their shields, sabotage their health, and begin shooting, with Wrex Rifling it all the way. So I would say it certainly encouraged team work in parts, M2 encourages it everywhere though.

Deeper? It only made leveling them more difficult since you only got 2 points per level, so instead of going from level 2 to 4, you had to wait till the following level, in which you had 4 points, 2 going unused for an entire level, then at the next level you had 4 points, but again 1 goes to waste untill 2 more levels, where you now have 5 points, but only need 4, and 1 goes to waste. Its a really bad idea, and they should go back to M1s 1 point per block, even if there are less blocks and they do more per block. I see nothing here that's tactical.

It is more difficult, but it has more choice, which is the tactical aspect of it. How you level up your character is much different than in ME1, as you could go about it in many ways. For example: you spend your points right away or save them for more powerful skills and on top of that, if you are dedicated enough and wish to plan out a setup that is 100% point effective, you can. As now you have to think ahead when putting points into something and the difficulty does not lie in that its an obtuse system, but just strategy and planning ahead how your characters gonna be. Thus the hardcore players that put more effort into the point system reap greater rewards.

I would agree that in M1 you could go about leveling in many more different ways, having certain characters be experts in Electronics, or Medicine, certain weapon specialists, in M2, you couldn't. And I discussed the points system, it was much more limited and made the allocation of new points less effective - there's no excuse for them not going back to a 1+1 scenario, +2, +3 and +4 was unhelpful and unwanted.

And you'll need to elaborate on the powers. For example, M1 you had ammo mods, weapon mods, armor mods (heat sink, tungsten rounds, shield battery, ect), all I remember from M2 was 'more damage' 'more prescision' ect, if that's all it is, then M1 wins out on both fronts, however if I'm missing something do tell.

There were only two types of ammo mods that were worth anything, i think that it was the sledgehammer? (or hammerhead) and the toxic ammunition (why only do +30% damage to organics when you can do +30% to all enemies?), ME2 had 6 ammo types and all of them had a purpose and gave you an chance to combo. ME2 also had armor upgrades which pretty much did the same thing as the ones in ME1, so ME2 wins out based upon the ammo types being much better.

Oh no, my fellow Mass Effect player, those two were some of the less useful ones, you had Combat scanners, heat sinks, armor piercing and shredder rounds, barrel extensions, weapon stabilizers, the list goes on and on, and if there weren't so many of them, it would've been so so awesome, removing all of them is a failing and they should return but in a limited capacity.

Yes, M2s did all have a purpose, and warp ammo I think was new, and it?s kind of a good all rounder - all points worth noting, however, I haven't played a class where I had access to all of the ammo powers yet, M1 allowed you access to every conceivable mod (with a high enough difficulty for the ultimate mods), making every class more balanced as they all have this advantage of swappable mods. This speaks for grenade and armor mods too.

Mass Effect is about Shepard, plain and simple, I like many of the additional characters, but the story is how Shepard saves the galaxy from the Reapers, so he should be central to killing all the enemies along the way. I do see the tactical point here, the shields, armor and health can only be attacked by certain powers - I don't like it.

Again, this kind of ties into my first point about teamwork and how Bioware RPGs are about a team of characters working together, Shepherd isn't alone in saving the galaxy, in fact, the more time you spend on your teammates affects whether or not you will survive the final mission. So ME is simply not geared towards a lone-wolf approach (gameplay-wise and story-wise).

Well yes and no, I had my entire characters loyal bar one (I couldn't do her mission for some reason, it was the chick who held the shield up), even so, I only included those said characters if A. I had no choice, or B. I had no choice since it was their mission and they needed to be there.

They are cutting down the amount of characters in M3 btw, which I think is a smart decision, minimum of 5 maximum of 9 would be preferable, have one of each class, then have a few who don't really fit into any class perfectly, plus Shepard and you have a good pool of ten characters. I concede that Mass Effect does need its support characters, but I should be killing more people then both my support characters combined - they should simply help me and get the stragglers.

No, actually that has nothing to do with difficulty, it has to do with proper class balancing and making each class just as effective as any other, in any scenario, which M1 achieved much more seemlessly than M2 did.

I've tried playing with the infiltrator, and hes one of the better classes suited for insanity-difficulty, the stealth-capabilities and incinerate (one of the most useful dmg-powers in the game) plus AI hacking and squad cryo ammo does not make him underpowered, its just that for him to work, you have to use teamwork and command your squad accordingly.

Good to know Infiltrator is suited for Insanity, I think the slow motion snipping is incredible good, it?s not enough when you need 200 rounds of auto-snipper to take down one giant Mech, but I'll take that on board. I maintain that the stealth ability is really a waste of points, it doesn't last for more than what? 30 seconds? hardly enough time to turn it on, get into a new cover, and shoot more enemies, I found it a wasted opportunity for a great power.

And AI hacking is nice, but it either doesn't last long enough, or when it doesn't, the shields are too powerful, so it doesn't encourage the user to max out that stat either way, because you're left with an AI who's shields you can't take down, in the time allowed, so you either have to wait and watch him stand there with no enemies left, or make a feeble attempt to take down his shields anyway, wasting valuable rounds, only to find that his shields just magically wore off and he now remembers he hates you again.

Ok, there is a tactical point of view to ammo. But like someone previously said, if we have the technology not to use clips, why would we introduce it? 'Gee you know what, I hate it when I constantly shoot and my weapon over heats, I'd love to have a clip that I could remove to instantly cool down my weapon, but lets make sure that also governs the total number of rounds'. Well in M1, you were punished for overheating your weapon, you'd be forced to wait for a cool down, in this, you're basically forced to overheat it unless you're an obsessive reloader.

This might be a more subjective issue: do you like the tactical aspect of conserving your ammo or do you like the cool-down system?

But subjectivity aside, it makes positioning more crucial and adds a situational combat-aspect to the game, so its not a down-grade from the cooldown system.

Can't argue there, it is very subjective (as all yours and my points are when it boils down to it), and it does add tactical element to it, but it limits what you can do, and when you ust to love unlimited ammo, and taking down enemies was only a matter of time, now its a matter of ammo, and I don't like it as much.

this thread still feels like the same conclusion about those who have played ME1 & 2 vs those who have only played 2: If you played ME1 and loved it, you'll either hate or just feel like 'meh' towards ME2 yet if you've only played ME2 and loved it then you'll wonder what all the ridiculous fuss is about from the ME1 players.

Funny you should say that, because I'm finding people have mixed reviews, my two friends who both happen to love the Vanguard class, tell me they prefer M2 over M1, in almost every way (excluding the power nerfing), and bagged my game style previously, because I played Mass Effect like a shooter (although I was an Infiltrator, they suggested I should just do Soldier). But, there've been people here who agree with me, and preferred M1.

I like the combat for the most part however it feels like I'm spending most of the game debuffing enemies. You have to knock off their shields/barriers/armor before you can actually use your abilities to really have fun with the enemies. I did one play through as a soldier and I would just debuff enemies for my squad mates to take out. The only exception I have found is the ability to explode enemy barriers with warp.

Powers shouldn't use the same recharge meter. This has caused me to wait during a fight and take me out of the fun of it all because I have to wait for the recharge from a shield/cloaking power to finish just to use another necessary power.

You would love ME1, I'm a PS3 owner myself, and I do have a great gaming PC, but ME1 doesn't have that high graphics requirements, my laptop with a 1280 x 800 screen, GeForce 8600GTM 256MB VRAM, and 4 GB Ram was enough to run the thing on close to high settings, no lag, so if you have any computer at all I advise you check out the first game, I feel it has much more replay ability, and you may enjoy uses a mouse instead of a joystick to kill stuff, so much easier imo.

I always viewed planet scanning as a necessary chore but the thought that comes to mind is: if I have a full crew and staff to operate whatever tasks on the Normandy, how come I do not have a team dedicated to retrieving resources? I know this will not happen but for the next game they should implement a system in that you do a quick scan of a planet to see if it has resources and what type they are then drop a team planet side that would mine the planet to an extent chosen by the player that would only take a few minutes real world time. Upgrading the mining team would mean upgrading their tech so that you could send less people to one planet which would mean that upgrading the team would allow you to split them up and mine several planets simultaneously. Also, while they are mining the player should be able to do other things besides sit and wait for them to finish. For example, if I'm in the same star system as Ilium, I should have a few mining teams spread out over a few planets while shopping in Ilium and when they're done, EDI should contact me stating that they need to be picked up. The only restriction should be that I cannot leave a star system while a mining team is working on one of the planets in it.

Yeah, that'd pretty much solve my issues with it too. Or, bring the Mako back and make it awesome, or just have more minerals lying around in places, but harder to find and in higher quantities.

As far as ME2 is concerned, and after learning about the experience I may have missed due to not playing ME1, I think I'll consider ME2 streamlined instead dumbed down overall. I like the fact that ME2 is a story driven action/adventure game with rpg elements instead of being a stat and inventory management game that has action and a story as a side dish. Not to be trollish but I honestly can't understand how people find stat and inventory management entertaining. I'd rather scan and probe planets all day than do that.

The inventory system in M1 was clogged, but it was still so much better than not having one. Imagine instead of being limited by the type of ammo power you had, you simply found an item, which you could equip to any weapon, on any squad member, and suddenly that weapon was +40% more effective against Techs or Collector, or did bonus to shield or knock down, or poison, all that has basically been dumbed down (not streamlined in this case, really isn't), and replaced with a much simpler less effective system.

I actually agree that the leveling and ability statistic system needs some work and a few more options but it doesn't need to mirror the leveling system of WOW, Diablo or any other PC game with rpg elements.

You know, never played Wow, and Diablo IIs leveling system is a bit dated, stats like power and dexterity ect, but the leveling in M1 was so much more superior, I wrote in detail on it previously, but its just more flexible, more effective and more expansive than the half a dozen powers you get in M2.

And for my last point, I liked the armor modding system, I just wish it had a few more options and more armor to buy and choose from. However, I think that instead of the potential weapon modding system in the ME3, they should instead have a custom weapon creation system; after all it was said in ME2 that there is a research team dedicated to weapon research and creation on the Normandy. So why not use them? I think you should be able to combine parts and resources to create new weapons but once a weapon is created it is finished; no going back to mod it.

Hey not bad, its very similar to M1s weapon mods and ammo mods in a way, with a new twist, don't like the 'once done its done' model, reminds me of putting a ruby in my sword in Diablo II, then later one finding it was obsolete because the ruby wasn't perfect, and the sword is more useless than a pee shooter.