Poll: Mass Effect 2, from satisfied to disappointed
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You shouldn't be using the auto-sniper as an Infiltrator. The auto-sniper is better suited to the Soldier with his bullet time ability.Conza said:
Infiltrator sniping is all about pumping damage into single headshots for one-hit-kills. You should use the Mantis until you can access the Widow. Also, you should use the Cloak ability primarily as a way to massively increase the damage of a single shot while lining up the headshot safely, and only secondarily as a means of escaping danger. Assassination Cloak is superior for this style of play.
Coupled with Disruptor ammo and Incinerate, the Infiltrator can strip two of the three types of shielding, so all you need is to bring someone with Warp or Reave and you're good.
An alternative way to play Infiltrator is to train shotgun and use the cloak to deliver devastating point-blank shotgun blasts to the faces of your enemies, but personally I think that's a role better suited to the Vanguard.
I hated the Widow, frankly. In that level where (I already had the auto-sniper), I could choose 'better sniper' or 'assult rifle' or something, I chose the sniper first time, and was extremely dissappointed, I went from being able to fire 3-4 shots, taking down most enemies shields in slow motion, to much less ammo, albeit more effective per shot, and I could be mistaken but I believe the total damage possible with the Widow - this is damage x maximum rounds - was less than that with the auto sniper, I mean I had something like 70ish rounds for the auto-sniper, oh wait let me double check *starts ME2, checks and comes back* and got killed on that same bloody mission to recue Jack (This is on Insanity, I'm not a n00bGill Kaiser said:
) - anyway. I had 52+12? hardly enough, I should have something like 12+/8486, I think that's a more reasonable amount.Ah, so the Cloak is about damaging people not being shift... so why even bother cloaking me I wonder? Anyway, I understand it more now and I'll see how I go with that. And yes Incinerate I've found a new use for, but I think it still can't attack shields, so not much help there. Once the shields are down, its fine, Miranda = Warp, Jacob = Lift, and I use Incinerate, then snipe their heads a couple more times.
Yes, shot guns are better suited to Vangaurds, I think it'd be a wasted effort trying to get an Infiltrator to use a Shotgun (especially for insanity).
But enough about Infiltrators, back to M2.
No one expects them to be perfect (alright, alright, I used the word before), but to take away features that you already had cannot improve a game 'unless' you believe its streamlining, which is what this debate seems to come down to. Hopefully the next game will re-introduce some of the M1 features, but have them streamlined, a bit.Vault101 said:
It's quite shocking how few enemy types there are in ME2.Confidingtripod said:
You have the Merc groups (who all effectively fight the same way, despite their "abilities"), Collectors, and about 5 other assorted critters. By the end of the game, I couldn't fathom how the merc groups hadn't collapsed just due to a massive loss of personnel.
Yup. Strictly from a story-telling perspective, absolutely nothing important gets accomplished until the very last mission in the game.
I disagree with your statement, good sir.Ranorak said:
You never could spam abilities in ME1 because the cooldowns were prohibitively long, in the range of 45 to 60 seconds for each ability. Having the option to blow all of your cooldowns back to back would make you very powerful for a few seconds, but would also make you very vulnerable for the next minute while you have no abilities. Deciding when the situation had gotten bad enough to warrant activating all of your abilities was an important skill that encouraged forward-thinking because you also had to decide how to handle the consequence of being left vulnerable.
In ME2, this dynamic doesn't exist. You get one cooldown, no matter how good or bad the situation. It removed a strategy* from my playbook, gave me less options, less character resources to manage, and less consequence for my actions.
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*No, I'm not saying my strategy was to spam abilities. In ME1, I'd keep note of escape routes and defensive positions for when I had to retreat due to abilities being on cooldown. This is wholly unnecessary in ME2, even on insanity.
Since the replacement was planet scanning, yes. Mako >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*this goes for a few pages but I'm too lazy to type it out*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Planet Scanningkayisking said:
Heat Bars take away the strategy aspect of the game actually. In ME1 I almost never used anything but my Pistol, because there was never any reason to not use it, unless I was very far away then I would use my Sniper. In ME2 I actually had to think about how to use my weapons. I've got 2 shots left on my Sniper Rifle, a full Sub-machine, and 4 shots on my Pistol. I got 6 enemies to take out, I'll sniper down the big guy charging at me, there goes all my sniper bullets. Now I'll use my Sub-machine to lay down some fire as I advance closer, then switch to my Pistol and headshot the armor off the remaining guys. Now I can stealth in behind them and just Submachine them to death. In ME1 it would have just been use Sniper, or use Pistol, no reason to switch between the two since I'll just use my powers when one is recharging.
I liked the variety of powers compared to ME1, but I didn't think there was really enough change in them as you leveled them. I enjoyed them a lot and used them much more often then I ever did in ME1. Also I liked how they made it so that if you used one power it put a CD on all of them. This means that you can't just spam powers, imagine how powerful an Adept would be since they could just Spam all their AoE damage spells over and over, especially once they started doing loyalty missions and got extra powers. I think it's a lot easier to keep track of in the heat of battle if you just remember there is one cooldown.
I liked the variety of powers compared to ME1, but I didn't think there was really enough change in them as you leveled them. I enjoyed them a lot and used them much more often then I ever did in ME1. Also I liked how they made it so that if you used one power it put a CD on all of them. This means that you can't just spam powers, imagine how powerful an Adept would be since they could just Spam all their AoE damage spells over and over, especially once they started doing loyalty missions and got extra powers. I think it's a lot easier to keep track of in the heat of battle if you just remember there is one cooldown.
Alright, granted, plantet scanning was a horrible mechanic, but that is not what I mean. What I was trying to say is that there is a difference between removing stuff to make it easier, and removing stuff because it is unnecsessairy. But the Mako was abit of a bad example because they replaced it with even more unnecsessairy shit. I appoligize.Agayek said:
The Unity/medigel thing wouldn't be so bad if you could actually restock to capacity on the Normandy. It's ludicrous how the medbay doesn't have any and you only get what you can find in missions.
I definitely agree with the powers not working unless the enemy is down to health, as it really makes the adepts pretty weak especially on the higher difficulty levels. It kinda makes sense that you can't hack a shielded geth but armor shouldn't matter. And, I would love to be able to do exactly what you described lol.Conza said:
Now, I didn't play ME1 because I only have a PS3 (and my PC is 10 years old) so the Infiltrator may have been nerfed; however, the Infiltrator in ME2 is arguably the most powerful class. The Infiltrator can take on any kind of enemy without much trouble.
Strange, I thought I wrote this already, might've been to someone else - buy ME1 on steam or in a bargin bin, even on ebay like I did for 20 bucks or something, because it is worth 'double' every penny, tripple, it is imo, still worth 30 or 40 dollars if you're from the US, here it was probably released around 100 dollars (instead of 50, long story, but 1 usd ust to equal 2 aud, so in the past double price was the same, now we just get ripped off), so for us selling it for 60 or 70 dollars wouldn't be unreasonable, because yes, the game is just that good.Phoenixmgs said:
Pity you can't import your character, but didn't they release a DLC so you could make all the ME1 decisions in a 15 minute story or something? Still, get ME1 for PC, its a better version than the console one (uh uh uh, critics agree with me, its been called the 'definitive version' by some guy on wikipedia, look it up), mouse and wasd always kills two joy sticks for shooters anyway, and besides, you're not going to get an xbox just for this game, and just turn the graphics right down if you have an older PC, it should still probably work, its not a high intensity game, its that good and if you liked the second, you'll either like the first just as much or more - I haven't heard anyone say (yet), that they didn't like the first as much as the second, but some have said the second improved upon the first in mechanics (which I disagree with, and hence the whole point of this thread).
So go buy it dude!
What can I say. You have perfectly described why I like ME1 more than ME2. I especially hate the clips. If they wanted to add ammo they could have just made overheating more dramatic. And come on no health bar, regenerating health has no place in such an RPG. I feel that they took too many RPG elements out of a game that was a definitive RPG. Feels like they are going the way of fable.Conza said:Let me make something clear before you read my rant, I still love Mass Effect 1 & 2 dearly, and some may think I'm splitting hairs by writing this, but I think it deserves being said.
Originally, I played Mass Effect as an Infiltrator, beat it and loved it, then immediately imported my character into Mass Effect 2, beat it and loved it (February '10 or something is when I started playing this series).
I've just gone back and beat Mass Effect on Hardcore, with a Sentinel character, and I re-fell in love with the game, even just the Spacebar over the Right-Shift and E and Right-Shirt over... both Spacebar.
Ok, hair splitting time.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Oh, and planet scanning, we all hate that I hope. I know many of us didn't like the car thing, but c'mon, it was just an enabler for combat, so what if it got stuck on 80 degree mountains but not 79, and had a tendency to oversteer? You got to hunt Geth.
Geth! I loved killed Geth, all sorts of Geth, the giant walkers, the mini ones that'd snipe you, the Destroyers and the Prime, all of them, great great enemy. Mechs? What the hell? No, I hate Mechs, they were okish, but nothing on Geth (Geth will probably come back in M3 anyway).
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.
So, was 'everything' improved in M2? Only some bits and others made worse? Or was it all worse? I hope the five options are enough.
I actually don't know my current answer, at the moment "kinda worse" but I'll have to see what you think and whether or not I can beat the game on Insanity with my re-imported M2 Infiltrator will persuade me somewhat (suggestions on which character out of the first 3 are easiest to get would be helpful).
I'm hoping some people will dissect certain portions of my rant and say to me why (I'm just wrong
I think a balance between the two games would be the perfect happy medium, a dozen of each weapon, bring back the mods in a smaller way (including the inventory system), shoot the planet scanning in the knee caps, and yeah, just be a beater all round game.
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!
I actually thought of a solution to the thermal clip "problem." Instead of making each weapon have its own thermal clip reservoir (which means you can have spare clips in another gun, but are unable to switch them to the empty gun), there should only be a single source of thermal clips with a single max amount (i.e. 30) that would reload each weapon regardless.
Secondly, to appease the ME1 lovers and ME2 lovers at once, the ME1 weapon-overheat bar should come back and perform the same sort of function as in ME1. In ME1, it was a giant pain when you inadvertently overheat a weapon and are forced to either wait or switch to another weapon. So the difference here is that if the weapon overheats, you have the option to eject that thermal clip and continue firing as opposed to waiting for it to cool down. That way, the thermal clips have a purpose, the canon reason for the clips remains intact, and the ammo system is reworked to please both sides of the debate. For example, let's say it is ME1 and you are a Vanguard on Insanity. Your shotgun overheats quickly before you are able to advance enough to get the Frictionless Materials mods. So you're pounding away at some Rachni Warriors when your weapon overheats. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to put a High Explosive mod on your shotgun, fire, eject the thermal clip, put in a new one, and continue the fight? I know that would've been a good thing back then, even with sniper rifles with the HE mod; just eject and fire again. Of course, the good thing about this would be the fact that if you run out of clips, you can still fire the weapons, albeit without clips to fall back on.
TL;DR: Bring back the ME1 weapon-overheat bar, but have thermal clips act as the much faster way to cool the weapon when it overheats so you can fire again.
Secondly, to appease the ME1 lovers and ME2 lovers at once, the ME1 weapon-overheat bar should come back and perform the same sort of function as in ME1. In ME1, it was a giant pain when you inadvertently overheat a weapon and are forced to either wait or switch to another weapon. So the difference here is that if the weapon overheats, you have the option to eject that thermal clip and continue firing as opposed to waiting for it to cool down. That way, the thermal clips have a purpose, the canon reason for the clips remains intact, and the ammo system is reworked to please both sides of the debate. For example, let's say it is ME1 and you are a Vanguard on Insanity. Your shotgun overheats quickly before you are able to advance enough to get the Frictionless Materials mods. So you're pounding away at some Rachni Warriors when your weapon overheats. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to put a High Explosive mod on your shotgun, fire, eject the thermal clip, put in a new one, and continue the fight? I know that would've been a good thing back then, even with sniper rifles with the HE mod; just eject and fire again. Of course, the good thing about this would be the fact that if you run out of clips, you can still fire the weapons, albeit without clips to fall back on.
TL;DR: Bring back the ME1 weapon-overheat bar, but have thermal clips act as the much faster way to cool the weapon when it overheats so you can fire again.
I still think that Mass Effect 2 excelled at putting a lot more polish on the universe itself and putting some detail into the small things in the world and stepping up the overall performance of all the voice work. Even in returning characters like Garrus, Tali and Wrex's cameo- each of their voice actors definitely seems to have refined the sound of the characters they are portraying. Not to mention a better use of exploring those character's back-stories. That and fighting mechanics are much better than before. Combat was actually something to look forward to and felt very smooth and dynamic, more of a sense of teamwork with the squad.
Mass Effect 2 suffered compared to the first game when it comes to its overarching story which was just not as fulfilling or executed as well as the first game. They had something with the Collectors that could have worked really well but I think it was definitely underused and just underwhelming, could have been a lot worse, though. Just have to mix the two based on how you want to play or what you want from a gaming experience. I guess I like to think of it as ME1 being the Epic Space Opera while ME2 being a Character-Driven Space Opera.
More than anything, I've enjoyed Mass Effect for being a series that truly tells one story following the player's character all the way from the beginning to whatever end they find themselves (that is assuming you have played both games so far, and imported those files)
Mass Effect 2 suffered compared to the first game when it comes to its overarching story which was just not as fulfilling or executed as well as the first game. They had something with the Collectors that could have worked really well but I think it was definitely underused and just underwhelming, could have been a lot worse, though. Just have to mix the two based on how you want to play or what you want from a gaming experience. I guess I like to think of it as ME1 being the Epic Space Opera while ME2 being a Character-Driven Space Opera.
More than anything, I've enjoyed Mass Effect for being a series that truly tells one story following the player's character all the way from the beginning to whatever end they find themselves (that is assuming you have played both games so far, and imported those files)
I should have expected alot of what has been written here but it still gives me an uneasy feeling to see how many people consider their personal subjective opinion as the only possible truth in the entire universe. So here a few thoughts:
1. "they said they improved EVERYTHING and it's not true...":
Of course they said it. "Some things have actually gotten slightly worse" doesn't exactly sell more units of your product.
2. "the removal of 'insert rpg mechanic here' made the game worse":
What you wanted to say was "I dislike that the gameplay focus of Mass Effect 2 was not the rpg genre". Mass Effect 2 isn't a pure rholeplaying game and it doesn't want to be for the same reasons as in 1. They wanted to broaden thir consumer base and in that they suceeded. Namely because shooter fans often dislike rpg mechanics. From their point of view (which isn't mine in case you wonder) Mass Effect 2 has the better gameplay compared to part one.
3. "There are grave plotholes in the story":
As much as i love this game i have to admit this is absolutely true. If you think about in detail many points of the main plot do either make little sense or are really unrealistic.
4. "class X got better/worse in Mass Effect 2":
In my opinion all classes but the adept are playable to a reasonable extend even on insanity. However, because the difficulty curve actually goes downhill instead of uphill the entire game (bit of a design flaw here in my opinion) the heavier the class relies on weapons instead of powers the easier it is to play.
I hope this will help at least some people to actually label their opinions as such when engaging in a discussion. In case you are interested i played through Mass Effect 2 11 times till now, 4 times of which on insanity with every class but the adept so i do hope that my opinions aren't too far off the so-called truth.
1. "they said they improved EVERYTHING and it's not true...":
Of course they said it. "Some things have actually gotten slightly worse" doesn't exactly sell more units of your product.
2. "the removal of 'insert rpg mechanic here' made the game worse":
What you wanted to say was "I dislike that the gameplay focus of Mass Effect 2 was not the rpg genre". Mass Effect 2 isn't a pure rholeplaying game and it doesn't want to be for the same reasons as in 1. They wanted to broaden thir consumer base and in that they suceeded. Namely because shooter fans often dislike rpg mechanics. From their point of view (which isn't mine in case you wonder) Mass Effect 2 has the better gameplay compared to part one.
3. "There are grave plotholes in the story":
As much as i love this game i have to admit this is absolutely true. If you think about in detail many points of the main plot do either make little sense or are really unrealistic.
4. "class X got better/worse in Mass Effect 2":
In my opinion all classes but the adept are playable to a reasonable extend even on insanity. However, because the difficulty curve actually goes downhill instead of uphill the entire game (bit of a design flaw here in my opinion) the heavier the class relies on weapons instead of powers the easier it is to play.
I hope this will help at least some people to actually label their opinions as such when engaging in a discussion. In case you are interested i played through Mass Effect 2 11 times till now, 4 times of which on insanity with every class but the adept so i do hope that my opinions aren't too far off the so-called truth.
I'm almost positive my PC can't play ME1 and if it can play ME1, it could only play it with all the settings on rock bottom; I just played the first Portal on my PC and ran into graphical glitches. I'm running a 1.8Ghz P4 with 512 MB of RAM and a 64 MB ATi card. Plus, a couple of my friends played ME1 on their PC and ran into framerate issues and they have pretty good PCs. In fact, ME2 ran a lot smoother for them on the PC than ME1. I would like to play ME1 but it's just not going to happen unless I get a new PC. I also much prefer playing on a controller compared to a keyboard and mouse; yes, the mouse is great for aiming but I hate the keyboard for moving since it's all digital input. I gotten really good at aiming with a joystick actually as I've played Metal Gear Online for nearly 3 years, and it's basically second nature to me as in that game you need headshots to kill other players (you can't just spray like COD) and there is no sticky aim or aim-assist in MGO like in console FPSs. I did watch this 3+ hour ME1 movie (before playing ME2) that this guy on Youtube put together so I knew the story really well along with all of the characters.Conza said:Strange, I thought I wrote this already, might've been to someone else - buy ME1 on steam or in a bargin bin, even on ebay like I did for 20 bucks or something, because it is worth 'double' every penny, tripple, it is imo, still worth 30 or 40 dollars if you're from the US, here it was probably released around 100 dollars (instead of 50, long story, but 1 usd ust to equal 2 aud, so in the past double price was the same, now we just get ripped off), so for us selling it for 60 or 70 dollars wouldn't be unreasonable, because yes, the game is just that good.
Pity you can't import your character, but didn't they release a DLC so you could make all the ME1 decisions in a 15 minute story or something? Still, get ME1 for PC, its a better version than the console one (uh uh uh, critics agree with me, its been called the 'definitive version' by some guy on wikipedia, look it up), mouse and wasd always kills two joy sticks for shooters anyway, and besides, you're not going to get an xbox just for this game, and just turn the graphics right down if you have an older PC, it should still probably work, its not a high intensity game, its that good and if you liked the second, you'll either like the first just as much or more - I haven't heard anyone say (yet), that they didn't like the first as much as the second, but some have said the second improved upon the first in mechanics (which I disagree with, and hence the whole point of this thread).
So go buy it dude!