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

[Axolotl]

And this is why I dislike Bioware.

explain please?

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

 

[Dogstile]

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

Did I mention I was playing on insanity?

Funny. Shockwave really stopped being useful to me once I left Veteran difficulty. Throw found its uses against husks, due to the insta-kill once I'd worn down their extra defenses, but I never found myself in a situation where Shockwave would be more effective against an enemy group than Singularity or Reave.

EDIT: As for Warp... I just said that it's pretty much the most-used Adept ability ever. Pull was that third less than useful power.

Whoops, I meant pull, not warp. Sorry about that.

Anyway, shockwave was more useful to me against single enemies. If you were the right distance you could hit them back and up. Shooting them so far they literally died no matter what.

 

[Sparrow]

I enjoyed Adepts more in ME 1. I enjoy Soldiers more in ME 2.

Really can't comment here. Infact, I only have one point to make: Bring back the Mako.

And that risk took away from it for me. When I play a Bioware game...I want an RPG, not a shooter. Still a great game, and once FF13 is done, I'll be mopping up the game as my Adept.

Yes because getting rid of the massive inventory system and altering combat irrevocably destroyed the conversation system i.e. what the actual "role-playing" part is.

...seriously?

Oh look...its one of those people who likely believes all JRPGs are shit and not RPGs.

Let me know if I'm right.

Ok. I'm not involved in whatever is going on here, but I only have one thing to say: man up. Seriously, that was near flame level. He never even said something along the lines of "JRPGs are shit", and you're bating him into a cock waving contest because he is against your opinion.

Next time you pull shit like that, I'm hitting the report button.

 

[Agayek]

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

The main story in ME2 didn't make a whole lot of sense. The loyalty missions were fantastic, but just about everything involving the Collectors simply did not make sense.

Spoiler

The Reapers were using an organic race (which they have an avowed hatred towards) in order to create a new Reaper to activate the Citadel relay. But this new Reaper was made out of a paste from thousands of humans. It would have been easier, cheaper and less likely to be stopped if they simply built a new ship out of the pieces floating around their station and installed Reaper software on it. The whole plan of the Reapers to use the Collectors is full of plot holes the size of the Galactic Core.

I loved ME2, but I have 2 major issues with it. The first is the aforementioned stupid plot. It was just silly and made very little sense in the grand scheme of things. The second is the feeling of getting stronger, or lack thereof, in the game. I just didn't feel any stronger at level 30 than I did at level 1.

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

 

[Axolotl]

Alright, and what actually matters in an RPG hmm?
Story? Check, its Bioware.

No Mass Effect does not get a check for story. In a post Planescape market I require more from an RPG than save the galaxy from killer robots for the plot. RPGs especially of the style Bioware is selling have the story as the main ocus and Mass Effects just didn't hod up. It starts as evil robots attacking humanity and it doesn't get much more than that, the bad guys don't even get a motivation but somehow I still remember them giving me long motive rant.

What matters in an RPG is story, dialog, freedom, and choice and consiquence. Mass Effect does poorly on all those fronts.

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

None of those are what matters in an RPG.

 

[DustyDrB]

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

Haha. You don't see this kind of candidness from business people about their own product.

As for the shooter elements, I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of the game. It's a damn fine go at it for a developer that "needs to learn" how to do it.

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

None of those are what matters in an RPG.

Maybe games don't exist to fulfill narrow genre definitions? Hmmmm?

 

[high_castle]

The shooting was the biggest risk in ME2? Not the complete removal of the inventory, the over-simplification of the level systems, dumbing down of characterization, forced plot points, removal of many paragon options, or the nerfing of the adept and technician classes? Color me surprised on this one. I think I'm the only one who was just fine with the combat in ME. At least if you played an adept or techie, you had some cool powers and never needed to use your gun. But ME2's combat was as generic as all shooters these days. And rather boring, too. I play BioWare games because I like RPGs, not shooters. I would have endured the changes in combat if the story and characters were as strong as the first, but alas that wasn't the case. Which is why I won't be playing the third one.

 

[RobCoxxy]

I accepted the mining but I wasn't fond of the ammo system.

 

[CmdrGoob]

It definitely worked, ME2 combat is so very much better than ME1.

 

[Naheal]

I don't think ME would be nearly the hit it is if it weren't for the fact that it's an FPS as well.

Also:

Yeah, Adepts are fine. I played through the game as an Adept on veteran difficulty on my first playthrough, and it was fun as hell. Every other class I've tried since then have been boring in comparison, so Adepts seem to be working well enough. If you could just toss every guy with full shields and everything into the horizon and have a turkey shoot right away, it would be laughably easy.

Biotic charge is awesome once you get the combat shotgun.

 

[JeanLuc761]

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

None of those are what matters in an RPG.

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

I don't want to spend 10 minutes before and after each mission rummaging through my inventory looking for shit to sell; that's not entertaining...that's just grind. Besides, Mass Effect has never pretended to be anything more than a shooter/RPG hybrid, not a straight RPG like so many people keep saying.

If the storyline is appropriately epic and engrossing and the gameplay is satisfying, I see no reason for Mass Effect to be confined to the very narrow definition of an RPG simply so people can say "This is an RPG."

 

[CK76]

Only Bioware series I do not care for precisely do to the combat. I like all the old RPG stuff, why I played Baldur's Gate so much way back. Least I have Dragon Age.

 

[Clashero]

I loved everything about the new combat system in ME2. Even despite scarce ammo, sniping is more satisfying, and global cooldowns on powers made the combat more fluid and fun, without breaking the game.

About the clip system - don't you think it was weird that you could shoot 1000 bullets without ANY cost? It made no sense at all. Sure weapons overheated, but it wasn't a penalty hard enough.

Not at all. They explained it perfectly in Mass Effect 1. The weapons, in short, had a small slab of metal for a clip, and the weapons only shot extremely tiny pieces of metal with every shot, propelled forward by a Mass Effect generator. The weapon calculates how much mass is needed to penetrate the target, and a lot more things I can't remember.

 

[Turtleboy1017]

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

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

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

Warp.

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

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

Hence the "most biotics".

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

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

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

 

[Gaias]

What I cannot understand is how the mining mini game was ever thought to be a tolerable replacement to the Make? I am surprised it even passed through the test groups and focus groups they tend to have for this kind of stuff.

 

[MONSTERheart]

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

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

 

[duchaked]

in the first Mass Effect, I seriously dreaded having to fight enemies...really
I mean I was all for going on a mission (I was a bit impatient about traveling so much but that factors from real life experiences haha), and going through the epic story, and always ramped up to kick some butt...but once I got there I was like "aw crap I gotta shoot stuff now" lol

hopefully the second game will be better for me with its revamped combat
idk about the mining, but it does seem to cater well to the lazy people

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

What matters in an RPG is story, dialog, freedom, and choice and consiquence. Mass Effect does poorly on all those fronts.

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

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

None of those are what matters in an RPG.

Then maybe you should go back to your precious tabletop games, because obviously gaming isn't what you're after.

 

[CrafterMan]

I loved everything about the new combat system in ME2. Even despite scarce ammo, sniping is more satisfying, and global cooldowns on powers made the combat more fluid and fun, without breaking the game.

About the clip system - don't you think it was weird that you could shoot 1000 bullets without ANY cost? It made no sense at all. Sure weapons overheated, but it wasn't a penalty hard enough.

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

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