ME: which mechanic is worse? What instead?

[Choppaduel]

So which game mechanic did you dislike more: the tedious button pushing of planet scanning or the vehicle that controlled like a fat man riding a unicycle?

Now I know what you're going to say: "Wheres the discussion value?"

Well that comes from your, hopefully practical, solution to this.

Fix the vehicle physics? add a fun minigame to the planet scanning? make the planet scanning completely optional? cut both and continue "streamlining" the series? something I haven't thought of?

TELL ME!

oh and I'm talking about the series, not just the first game.

EDIT: ...and of course the poll vanished. *sigh* Anyone know what I can do to get the poll fixed at this point? like who to whine to?

[hr]

Spoiler: Mikeyfell

I actually think the vehicle controlled like a shopping cart in a bouncy house.

The problem is that the Mako exploration was mostly frustrating while the planet scanning was boring.

After playing Mass Effect one hundred billion times I got used to the Mako.
After ten billion playthroughs of Mass Effect 2 the planet scanning is still boring as all hell.

Spoiler

as a testament to how big of a nerd I am I made a handy dandy little chart of all the planets I need to scan in order to get all the elements I need to get all the upgrades.

In all honesty they both sucked, but the Hammerhead tank from the Cerberus Network DLC was pretty cool. If the brought back the exploration but let us use the hammerhead tank I'd be happy.

Best reply & best practical solution so far imo.

Spoiler: gbemery

I liked the planet scanning...Oh god don't hurt me please...I'll explain...I liked it only because of the point that the ships have sensors. So you would think they could scan the surface for POIs (points of interest) such as mineral deposits, anomalies, etc. But with that said the scanning itself can be summed up in "where did i put that piece of wall i bash my head against?"

I liked the vehicle sections and hope they bring them back because they added so much to the immersion and depth. Plus I liked the feeling of being on an alien planet for a simple distress call etc. BUT I didn't like the Hammerhead tank DLC. It seemed very impractical. Every time it lands or skids into the Normandy they will have to refurnish the bottom of the Hammerhead and the cargo bay because it scrapes like none other. Plus I don't know how scanning in the Hammerhead made it near impossible to hold stable in one spot. I want a wheeled vehicle back but not as many craggy ass planets where I can drive up an 89 degree incline at 1 foot an hour and then when I loose forward momentum just turn the Mako a degree to either side and be off again.

Or they could just let us use the shuttle to fly over the surface land and scan/explore on foot the POIs. I think that actually sounds more interesting. Maybe a mix of something more like the Mako with better handling and camera control plus the shuttle craft.

Spoiler: Riddle78

Combine scanning and vehicles: Have a rover/tank hybrid (a la Mako) and add a sophisticated sensor arry to it. This will allow you to scan for rich deposits of materials while you hit enemy positions with an armoured assault.

On the topic of another ME mechanic switch I dislike...Thermal Clips. Why? In ME1,ammo was infinite. Fire too much,gun overheats and you have to wait fifteen seconds. ME2,ammo is finite,and more often than not,an endangered species. My suggestion?

Merge them. Keep Thermal Clips,but when you run out,you revert to ME1's system;shoot too much,you have to dump the waste heat. Simple,no?

Spoiler: Ladette

My issue with the Mako wasn't the controls, it was how boring driving it around the planets was. You very seldom got to use the weapons because most of the time you were driving up a verticle cliff to reach the mission on the planet.

As much as I don't like the Mako I absolutely hate planet scanning. It's boring, it's no fun, there's no excitment, and unless you import a previous save it's mandatory to keep everyone from dying. If I ever meet the person who came up with that idea I will punch them in face as hard as I can.

I'd prefer that neither of them return. If they absolutely needed to have one though i'd take a more polished Mako with a set path you had to drive down like on Noveria. Then at least you'd have something to shoot at to stave off boredom.

Good suggestions guys & gals, I was wondering where all the good ideas were hiding at.

 

[Avaholic03]

Keep the planet scanning, but after the first few times, allow it to be set on "auto" for those that get bored with it.

 

[BlindTom]

I don't care about the minigames until they patch the dialogue system to make shepard say what I tell her to say. The dissonance between the onscreen indicators and the actual dialogue give me the impression that I'm selecting a first draft design response and then delivering some boneheaded misinterpreted dialogue from a junior writer who pumps out hundreds of them a day. This simply can't be the case.

 

[Legion]

I didn't mine the Mako, what I disliked was the horrific level designs of the planets you had to mine and find missions on. I didn't find the Mako itself difficult to drive.

I don't see removing either as streamlining as neither are particularly useful or even all that necessary.

In Mass Effect the mining was purely for credits (which you can get plenty of from other means) and a few scanning based missions for XP (again, easier ways to get it).

In Mass Effect 2 scanning gets you resources to get upgrades, but you honestly don't need many of them apart from the 3 major ship ones.

In order to get upgrades why not just buy them or branch out the levelling system to include weapon/defensive based skills.

 

[Corpse XxX]

I don't care about the minigames until they patch the dialogue system to make shepard say what I tell her to say. The dissonance between the onscreen indicators and the actual dialogue give me the impression that I'm selecting a first draft design response and then delivering some boneheaded misinterpreted dialogue from a junior writer who pumps out hundreds of them a day. This simply can't be the case.

I agree, to many times when i intend to be rude and evil, Shepard comes off with some baby dialogue that would not even offend a pregnant woman..

So the offstray chance when he actually does what i want him to, im really shocked.. When he actually just pulls out his gun and shoots their heads off..

 

[veloper]

The mako was very easy and forgiving to drive.
I'll concede it was boring, but I don't get how anyone can be so unskilled to get frustrated with it.
The damn thing will survive almost any fall and automaticly right itself. It can climb near vertical cliffs. You can dodge bullets with it. It's too easy.

Scanning then is worse, becasue it's more grindy and boring.

 

[SlayerN]

Work mineral gathering into gameplay.

I would do this by adding much more exploration that needed to be done on those "anomaly detected" planets and adding a few large resource caches and giving a substantial amount of a given resource when acquired.

They would have to be hard to get (IE fight larger enemies, have advanced hacking modules that are a real pain, or just explore further out of your way then you normally would.) You could even make acquiring the resources deduct a amount of time if the quest was a timed one.

yes I know this would require more exploration which some people do not like but this sure beats the hell out of the first 2 ME's ideas. I love going for 100% completion this would give more players the incentive to do the same.

 

[suitepee7]

the planet scanning could be replaced with a simple fold out menu, would have been a lot quicker.

maybe hovering over the menu highlights it on a map to the side? just not scrolling the map itself to select

 

[manythings]

Keep the planet scanning, but after the first few times, allow it to be set on "auto" for those that get bored with it.

Which is two steps away from just clicking on one planet and the game giving you infinite resources.

The mako was very easy and forgiving to drive.
I'll concede it was boring, but I don't get how anyone can be so unskilled to get frustrated with it.
The damn thing will survive almost any fall and automaticly right itself. It can climb near vertical cliffs. You can dodge bullets with it. It's too easy.

Scanning then is worse, becasue it's more grindy and boring.

It made planetary exploration a thousand times the chore it had to be. It took about 15 minutes per planet, and I don't care what anyone says, maybe three of those planets were really worth exploring for the little things. Scanning a planet took three minutes and 5-10 probes, stick to only rich planets and you'll empty a cluster in the time it too for a single boring, boring mako planet.

OT: Scanning was completely optional, like the loyalty missions. You never had to do them to succeed but you did have to at least a bit to survive. People who are prepared are people with better chances.

What I would've liked was an option to sell resources I didn't want. Just ditch them at fuelling stations, or even exchange them for fuel and probes.

Depending on where ME3 starts it might not have any of those things. I mean if the reapers are busy eating the Earth I can't see (or I hope I don't see) Shepard fucking about with a miners helmet on.

 

[DEAD34345]

I say scrap the whole idea, and just leave in a few token vehicle sections for variety if you must (like the firewalker DLC).

People are right saying the Mako was easy to control, but the problem was that it was boring. It was so boring that the planet scanning actually seemed better to me somehow, probably because I only had to do it to about 3 planets before having enough minerals for everything I needed anyway.

Neither of them improved the game in anyway, and I doubt any system of grinding for upgrades they include in the 3rd game will either, so why bother including them?

 

[Choppaduel]

I say scrap the whole idea, and just leave in a few token vehicle sections for variety if you must (like the firewalker DLC).

People are right saying the Mako was easy to control, but the problem was that it was boring. It was so boring that the planet scanning actually seemed better to me somehow, probably because I only had to do it to about 3 planets before having enough minerals for everything I needed anyway.

Neither of them improved the game in anyway, and I doubt any system of grinding for upgrades they include in the 3rd game will either, so why bother including them?

I feel that the open world vehicle sections did improve the game. Without them it feels kinda like you're just in a series of small rooms... Yahtzee put it better than I did, "they give the [Mass Effect] universe a sense of tangible bigness..." that the planet scanning doesn't.

The linear vehicle sections also did this, though not to as great an extent.

 

[aenimau5]

At least with them Mako I could use the guns to play the evil star wars theme.

 

[DEAD34345]

I feel that the open world vehicle sections did improve the game. Without them it feels kinda like you're just in a series of small rooms... Yahtzee put it better than I did, "they give the [Mass Effect] universe a sense of tangible bigness..." that the planet scanning doesn't.

The linear vehicle sections also did this, though not to as great an extent.

If I thought it did that then I would have agreed, but it never felt like that to me. When I was in the Mako it didn't feel like I was driving around in a really big area, it just felt like I was fighting smaller enemies and moving around a same-size environment but on a larger scale. Like how an RTS can have an entire city that still feels smaller than a single alleyway in an FPS, due to the change in scale.

What made the universe seem larger and more real to me was places like the Citadel and Omega, that (sometimes) really feel like they are bustling with life, and just a small part of a bigger area.

However since they apparently gave others enjoyment, I'll change my statement. I think if the exploration stuff is kept in the game it should be entirely optional and NOT be required to do well in the game or get certain upgrades. It could offer rewards, but only rewards you could also get doing other forms of gameplay if you don't want the exploration.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I prefered the planet scanning, cuz the level design in the Mako was just "drive up several mountains for profit" though i didn't see why Shep didn't just take all the millions of creds i'd imported from the first game and set up a mining business on the side, 's lot simpler...

 

[Goofguy]

While I do like the open world feeling of the Mako sections in ME1, it was all too formulaic. It was always one small square portion of the planet with 2-3 resources to mine, 1 bunker/outpost to explore, 1 buried technology and 1 trinket/artifact.

However, I did prefer surveying the number of piles of mining resources in ME over the probing and collecting of 1000s of pounds of the mining resources in ME2. To be honest, I can't really think of a happy middle that could encompass the best qualities of both while eliminating the worst parts.

 

[Souplex]

The Mako was an awesome rover tank.
Planet scanning was an annoying chore.
They need to bring back the Mako.

 

[Woodsey]

Preferred the planet scanning. No, it wasn't much better, but it also didn't take up as much time.

 

[Kotep]

The Mako was actual gameplay, the scanning felt like sitting in a menu. I think it would be better to just fix the Mako's controls, make the planets more interesting to explore (maybe by actually making the descriptions relevant to what you find--I remember seeing a planet that was supposed to have an entire biotic ecosystem, which would have been awesome to see), and keep the 'sandbox' sort of feel.

If there is scanning MAKE IT OPTIONAL. The reason it was okay in ME1 was because you didn't have to do it.

 

[Smertnik]

Both were alright by my book.