Mass Effect: Thermal Clips vs Overheating
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I preferred overheating, because it integrated gameplay with the lore and story. Concessions were made in the prequels, but Bioware decided to try and handwave it by rewriting the lore to pass off the mechanics as justifiable.
That's what I would go with. I have my gripes with both systems, but overall liked both.gigastrike said:
well, the combat in ME 2 and 3 was way better but i preferred the overheat system from a lore point of view, it was just cool and made me feel like i was in the future. I would have liked if they just modified the overheat system, have weapons cool down over time but still have the thermal clips as a kinda rare bonus that you should save for when you really need those extra shots.
also some kind of reload mode where you just open a port on the weapon and have it vent faster but be unable to fire until you close it again.
also some kind of reload mode where you just open a port on the weapon and have it vent faster but be unable to fire until you close it again.
I'm kind of apathetic, I really didn't care which one was used, although I slightly prefer themal clips.
That's Dr. Conrad Verner, and yes he's right. Especially since with halfway decent mods (like 5s of 9) you could pretty much fire forever. Thermal clips were a stupid idea.Mikeyfell said:
Overheat. Overheat. A million times, Overheat.
The thermal clips, and how they were implemented, were the worst thing that happened to the Infiltrator class.
They went from being Sniping gods to mere Fireball-hurling mages due to insufficient ammo capacity and recovery.
The thermal clips, and how they were implemented, were the worst thing that happened to the Infiltrator class.
They went from being Sniping gods to mere Fireball-hurling mages due to insufficient ammo capacity and recovery.
I greatly preferred ME1's cooldown system.nick2150 said:
I HATE the fact that after every battle in ME2/3, I need to run around the empty area looking for spare thermal clips for my Sniper Rifle (or whatever). Thermal Clips break game flow - cooldowns slow down people who use Assualt Rifles (and no one else).
And, come on, - who uses Assualt Rifles? They are far and away the worst weapon in the game. Heavy Pistols are better than Assualt Rifles. Submachine Guns in 2 and 3 are better than Assualt Rifles. There is no class that benefits from having an Assualt Rifle compared to other weapons.
Edit:
To people saying that "I liked the combat better in ME2/3, so I guess clips" - I say, clips had NOTHING to do with the better combat in ME2/3. I liked the combat better in ME2/3 too - and I would have liked it even better if I didn't have to backtrack for fucking Thermal Clips after firing my Sniper Rifle six times.
Overheat was the more interesting system, but it was too easily broken with the right skills/armor mods. My favorite thing to do was abuse Marksman on my Commando--with enough CDR through medical exoskeletons, I could have permanent uptime on Marksman and therefore run double scram rail and fire an endless stream of death with no fear of overheating .
Murder all the things indeed.
Murder all the things indeed.
I really could go either way. When I saw that ME2 used thermal clips, my first thought was "Well, that's an awkward way to introduce an ammo system," but it still works.
I much preferred the overheat/cooldown thing. At least with that your gun wasn't rendered completely useless. I still say the best option for adressing all that whining would've been to combine the 2 systems so that ok, you had the heat sinks, but when you ran out of them your gun started to overheat and behave like it did in ME1, but you could still use it.
I would've like to see them use both, you can wait for the gun to finish it's cooling or you can eject a thermal clip and be able to fire immediately if you need to. similar to what you said, but being able to choose either system at any time regardless of the number of thermal clips. What really got me was the fact that for whatever reason you had a clip limit on each gun, considering the way system was introduced it would have made more sense for you to be able to carry X number of clips, and that way you can use your weapon until you are out of clips overall, not just until you have no more clips for THAT weapon.canadamus_prime said:
I enjoyed the overheat system more. And I didn't generally make use of the no overheat mods, since if I was careful and used my head, it wasn't needed. If I screwed up and blasted away without thinking...my own fault. Made shotgun fun with damage boosted weapon playing Carnage tag...interesting. One shot, two shot, overheat and time to get moving and use my biotics while I high tail to another position and let things recharge and the gun cool off. Things are cool, time to blast a few more Armatures or Collosuses. I didn't really mind the thermal clips, but...gotta agree with Conrad...plus...with the explanation for them, honestly seemed like they should have been able to cool down anyhow, naturally, but you'd have the option of hot swapping them if you needed to shoot NOW. You could do that, then they'd make sense.
I would've liked to see both. Newer weapons using thermal clips and older models using overheat. So you could actually pick and choose. Perhaps even creating a hybrid that only dispenses the thermal clip if the gun is about to overheat.
From a gameplay perspective I was OK with either option even if you could definitely break the overheating system. From a lore perspective I honestly would have preferred "Shut up that's why" to the "explanation" they gave with regards to the transition from overheating to thermal clips as said explanation wasn't very good.
I was more partial to the overheat system, it gave ME1 a distinct style of gameplay. That and I'm never fond of limited ammo in any game, realism and tactical gameplay be damned; I just want to have fun, and effectively unlimited ammo helps that sensation along the way. Stats being the only differentiation between weapons was a bit of a downside, though the copious amounts of equippable modifications and ammo definitely helped things out... though all those superfluous ranks for everything made managing the already awkward inventory system quite the annoyance, at least until you had the best stuff and could simply convert everything to omni-gel (and as a result, never have to bother with the hacking mini-game ever again).
When you think about it, the move towards thermal clips was handled fairly well with the in-game lore; still, there's no denying that the real reason was so that ME2 had more conventional (and to be honest, better) gameplay and combat. Seeing as this was coupled with weapons actually becoming more distinct, perhaps it was for the best. The removal of mods was probably the bigger problem, but that issue was addressed in ME3... if still somewhat limited compared to what ME1 offered. But seeing as ME3 not only kept the variety of weapons, but expanded up it? You can't complain too much about the lack of mod variety when the weapon variety more than makes up for it. A less cumbersome re-implemetation of weapon and mod ranks (by making them upgradable) was also a welcome addition.
And finally, something more of a tangential debate, but I preferred equippable ammo in ME1 to the ammo powers in the second and third games. It's just that powers seem limiting, as you can't switch between them freely regardless of you class and available powers. Meh, I guess it's not something really worth complaining about at this point.
When you think about it, the move towards thermal clips was handled fairly well with the in-game lore; still, there's no denying that the real reason was so that ME2 had more conventional (and to be honest, better) gameplay and combat. Seeing as this was coupled with weapons actually becoming more distinct, perhaps it was for the best. The removal of mods was probably the bigger problem, but that issue was addressed in ME3... if still somewhat limited compared to what ME1 offered. But seeing as ME3 not only kept the variety of weapons, but expanded up it? You can't complain too much about the lack of mod variety when the weapon variety more than makes up for it. A less cumbersome re-implemetation of weapon and mod ranks (by making them upgradable) was also a welcome addition.
And finally, something more of a tangential debate, but I preferred equippable ammo in ME1 to the ammo powers in the second and third games. It's just that powers seem limiting, as you can't switch between them freely regardless of you class and available powers. Meh, I guess it's not something really worth complaining about at this point.
I preferred the over-heat system from the original game. Sugar-coat it as much as they like but thermal clips only really introduce finite ammunition to weapons that the lore states have nearly unlimited rounds. If, in the two years Shepard was 'MIA/KIA' technology had grown in a way that thermal clips were the norm than surely the overheat system would have remained in-tact anyway for people who either ran out of or, didn't have any clips to begin with.