An open letter to Bioware
- Thread starter sumanoskae
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I havent played Mass effect 2 and I didnt read your post, but I just want to say that the opening post was the biggest ive ever seen.
This definitely. ever since killzone on the ps2 - which had various routes depending which of the characters you went - i've been waiting for a game to bring that back and with mass effect's class system this would probably be the perfect place to bring it in.AVATAR_RAGE said:
hmm, call me negative, but I don't like a lot of these...
Some have good points, such as the adept being more of an adept instead of a soldier, but others seem to want to turn Mass Effect into a combination of different games. This looks, at least from what I read (I read almost everything up until the edit lines) to take the current mechanics, throw almost all of them out the window, and start fresh. Heck, they weren't the best mechanics, but they worked decently for the most part.
I think the paragon/renegade system should be more of a moral "how people view you" kind of thing that has nothing to do with charm/intimidate. Perhaps instead bringing back the first game's approach on the skills. (you could make yourself super powerful, or you could make yourself less powerful and instead capable of getting out of situations/getting better rewards.)
Lots of flaws, and lots of good points, too many for me to go through at three in the morning though.
Some have good points, such as the adept being more of an adept instead of a soldier, but others seem to want to turn Mass Effect into a combination of different games. This looks, at least from what I read (I read almost everything up until the edit lines) to take the current mechanics, throw almost all of them out the window, and start fresh. Heck, they weren't the best mechanics, but they worked decently for the most part.
I think the paragon/renegade system should be more of a moral "how people view you" kind of thing that has nothing to do with charm/intimidate. Perhaps instead bringing back the first game's approach on the skills. (you could make yourself super powerful, or you could make yourself less powerful and instead capable of getting out of situations/getting better rewards.)
Lots of flaws, and lots of good points, too many for me to go through at three in the morning though.
I didn't read the whole original post because good heavens was it long and many parts I disagree. However, the Paragon/Renegade thing does indeed need a change. Never is it more clear than in Legion's loyalty mission.
That is perhaps the most morally ambiguous choice in the series and it gets lessened by "good points vs evil points." Shepard's arguments with Mordin over the genophage falls into this too because calling Mordin a heartless murderer is the "good option" when there is obviously more to it than Paragon Shep's naive outlook. There should be more events in the game where you get no points or Renegade points no matter which option you pick to really drive home the morally grey areas that frequent this series.
That is perhaps the most morally ambiguous choice in the series and it gets lessened by "good points vs evil points." Shepard's arguments with Mordin over the genophage falls into this too because calling Mordin a heartless murderer is the "good option" when there is obviously more to it than Paragon Shep's naive outlook. There should be more events in the game where you get no points or Renegade points no matter which option you pick to really drive home the morally grey areas that frequent this series.
I read the first few paragraphs, and the overarching theme appeared to be "Make it not be Mass Effect anymore"
No thankyou. I thought ME2 was a brilliant improvement over an original that often got too bogged down in weak combat, and would like to see more of the same.
No thankyou. I thought ME2 was a brilliant improvement over an original that often got too bogged down in weak combat, and would like to see more of the same.
I think ME needs a more dynamic world, the npcs should react to major desecions, like when you go to illium, its the same NPCs saying the same convo's over and over again.
Have NPC's walking around, possible night to day cycle so then different NPCs (besides quest NPCs) are around at different times.
Have NPC's walking around, possible night to day cycle so then different NPCs (besides quest NPCs) are around at different times.
While I am loathe to argue with someone about what they like and their opinions, I would be so disapointed that I would not be able to describe it with words if Bioware spent a second on developing an online community/share feature/media production feature that they could have spent writing dialog/story/fixing other things that people have mentioned.Spencer Petersen said:
I am pretty sure it'll be on PC, why not get it for PC and make movies that way?
A few things i disagree with in your op
1) the ifiltrator is my favorite class as is mainly because its the only class with a sniper rifle and because of ai hack i think a stealth factor would ruin this charachter especally a splinter cell type stelth that you mentioned.
2)I actually enjoyed the driving parts of the first mass effect at least the parts where you are driving around the planets not actually trying to fire the stupid gun at a target so i would prefer for them to fix the original instead of doing away with it completly.
3) As for damage and the Biotics/tech powers for the most part in terms of damage shown and sounds Ithink its fine the way it is except that would prefer if they would bring back the weapon special powers and have each power recharge sepratly.
4) You also mentioned that they dont have to worry about balancing which is not true because all the classes have to get through the game with roughly the sam amount of dificulty if you can barely beat the game on nomal with the vangard how are you going to beat it on insanity?
As for the things i agree with i would defenatly prefer the old inventory system and more character conversations bring back the elevators intead of those loading screens oh and space battles
1) the ifiltrator is my favorite class as is mainly because its the only class with a sniper rifle and because of ai hack i think a stealth factor would ruin this charachter especally a splinter cell type stelth that you mentioned.
2)I actually enjoyed the driving parts of the first mass effect at least the parts where you are driving around the planets not actually trying to fire the stupid gun at a target so i would prefer for them to fix the original instead of doing away with it completly.
3) As for damage and the Biotics/tech powers for the most part in terms of damage shown and sounds Ithink its fine the way it is except that would prefer if they would bring back the weapon special powers and have each power recharge sepratly.
4) You also mentioned that they dont have to worry about balancing which is not true because all the classes have to get through the game with roughly the sam amount of dificulty if you can barely beat the game on nomal with the vangard how are you going to beat it on insanity?
As for the things i agree with i would defenatly prefer the old inventory system and more character conversations bring back the elevators intead of those loading screens oh and space battles
Well at least you haven't taken a razor to the game and have actually suggested slight tweaks that may make things better. Kudos.
The only real thing I disagree with you is on the combat. The melee system definately needs to be reworked (if I smack an organic meatsack human merc it should be totally different to belting the mass of plastic, steel and wire that are the Geth) but i think it should be more Jack Bauer-esque high impact takedown to the Marcus Fenix head crushing brutality. I don't want the Mass Effect combat system to get any more Gears Of War-like; at the moment its getting close. As much as I love GoW, Mass Effect's combat needs to offer something different. Perhaps refining the biotic and tech powers as you suggest may give it that sense of individuality.
What I found beneficial was to go back and play the original straight after playing Mass Effect 2 and I noticed that it does the bulk of things A LOT better. Of course the original has some feature like the inventory which I think is better than the armory system (although a combination of the two would be heavenly); but on the whole ME2 is much more refined. The Paragon/Renegade actions are an improvement, the planet scanning is marginally interesting than flying to each planet and seeing if the 'land' option appears and as much as I wasn't originally impressed with the way ME2 distributed points for leveling (what's with this level 4 maximum shit?) I did like the way that once you reached level 4 you could choose a speciality from two different options.
The only real thing I disagree with you is on the combat. The melee system definately needs to be reworked (if I smack an organic meatsack human merc it should be totally different to belting the mass of plastic, steel and wire that are the Geth) but i think it should be more Jack Bauer-esque high impact takedown to the Marcus Fenix head crushing brutality. I don't want the Mass Effect combat system to get any more Gears Of War-like; at the moment its getting close. As much as I love GoW, Mass Effect's combat needs to offer something different. Perhaps refining the biotic and tech powers as you suggest may give it that sense of individuality.
What I found beneficial was to go back and play the original straight after playing Mass Effect 2 and I noticed that it does the bulk of things A LOT better. Of course the original has some feature like the inventory which I think is better than the armory system (although a combination of the two would be heavenly); but on the whole ME2 is much more refined. The Paragon/Renegade actions are an improvement, the planet scanning is marginally interesting than flying to each planet and seeing if the 'land' option appears and as much as I wasn't originally impressed with the way ME2 distributed points for leveling (what's with this level 4 maximum shit?) I did like the way that once you reached level 4 you could choose a speciality from two different options.
The cooldown system needs to be drastically changed. Tech abilities and biotic abilities somehow having the same source, engineers and their damn Combat Drones: it doesn't work.
I just think that with everything nowadays using the standards set in Gears of War we could use something different. There's really no need for Mass Effect to try to become a boilerplate FPS, or to try to overextend itself into things like proper stealth, at the expense of the development of things like story or length (because development time IS finite unfortunately)sumanoskae said:
If I'm not mistaken, you said Bioware is focused on Dragon Age. What I'm saying is that the Dragon Age team is focused on Dragon Age, and the Mass Effect team is focused on Mass EffectMr Pantomime said:
A) Yes, they could use something different, that's why I'm suggesting ideasdanpascooch said:
B) I don't like cover shooting either, but that's what Bioware are going for, so why not take instructions from someone who knows how?. I don't consider GoW a great or even exceptional game, but it does what it does a lot better then 90% of whats out there
C) As I said, I don't expect any great deal of this to make it into Mass Effect 3, "but if you should ever decide to do more with the series or concept, here are some ideas"
Oh my god... I want to marry you!Vicarious Vangaurd said:
This is exactly what i've been saying since Mass Effect 2 became my worst game of 010.
You sir, are a god.
Bring back the RPG elements and can we NOT have Vanguard as a broken class this time?
My favourite class was completely useless in Me2 and it really ruined my enjoyment of the game.
-Tabs<3-