No "Meaningless Stat Games" in Mass Effect 3

[elilupe]

My thoughts exactly. All of these announcements about Mass Effect's combat are making me nervous. Gears of War and Call of Duty are where we go when we want mindless shooting, Bioware games are where we go when we want messy moral decisions and fantastic and creative environments.

Get that straight, Bioware.

What does the combat side have to do with the conversation side (which is where the RPG sticker comes in to play), exactly?[/quote]

It just seems like they are putting a bit too much emphasis on the combat side of things with all these combat announcements, which could mean the conversation side would be seriously lacking.

Of course, this is all just wild, nervous speculation based on two news reports on my part and I won't judge until the game comes out. It was just making me a bit apprehensive, is all.

 

[Chronologist]

I liked ME1 more than ME2 BECAUSE the game system was deep. Classes had a variety of options, and tech/biotic characters didn't have to wait until the enemy was almost dead in order to use their abilities, while the soldier-types were actually more durable and looked different that their squishy counterparts. Equipment actually had depth, having to balance armor (long-term damage soak) with shields (short-term damage soak) and biotic/tech resistance that could save your life against certain enemies. Weapons and armor could be upgraded to fight what you were fighting at the time, like using phasing rounds against shielded enemies and cryo rounds against enemies that rushed you. Armor upgrades were just as vital, and choosing between faster cooldowns or more shields lead to a suprising amount of depth.

The complexity of the first Mass Effect's system was far outbalanced by how interesting, engaging, and pure fun it was. So what if players had to spend a few minutes after every mission turning their unwanted gear into omni-gel or selling it? It took more time to take an elevator than it did to clear out your inventory. Giving the players options, either from inventory or class abilities, is a vital part of an RPG, and without it, the player does not feel like their gameplay choices are having much of an impact.

In Mass Effect 2, every Shepard has the same "stats". Same health, same shields/armor/barriers, same basic weapons with little variation (and none after a certain mission). The actual class skills were generally boring (ammo types) or useless (biotics and tech), the only good powers being the 6 unique class powers, which forced the player into spamming that one ability over and over. Whatever happened to Warping an Armature with my Adept Shepard, then using an Assault Rifle to gun it down? Lifting a charging Krogan, then blasting it in the air with my shotgun? Overheating the Geth's weapons, then pistol-whipping them to death? In short, where did all the fun go?

Bioware, please, please bring back Mass Effect 1 style equipment and skills. I know that production's already in motion, and that you couldn't do it in time even if you wanted to, but please take it back to how it used to be. There are enough knuckeheaded 3rd person cover-based shooters out there already, but Mass Effect should let you play something better:

A Jedi with a Shotgun.

 

[PhoenixVanguard]

@Chronologist

Really? Deep? Because with the exception of the hardest difficulty in ME1, Singularity incapacitated just about every enemy in the game. Halfway through a normal playthrough, I could opt never to use the Mako and walk around killing Armatures and Colossi on foot with nothing but a Marksman/Overkill, or Biotic Lift/Throw. Even on Insanity, a soldier who chooses Barrier as their New Game+ ability and pumps the crap out of immunity is practically unkillable. And as for powers being useless in ME2? Reave might be the best skill in the game, as it recharges your health AND does massive damage to everything but kinetic barriers. And the tech tree had a different skill to eat through everything but Biotic barriers.

Seriously, I feel like none of you even played these games and are just reacting to a single sentence so you can get on a high horse, whining about your wholly uninformed IDEA of Mass Effect 3 and a very, VERY questionable memory of what Mass Effect 1 actually was. For all the numbers behind the scenes, eventually, all of your guns were pinpoint accurate (To the point where the pistol auto-targeted enemies that were just pixels large and indistinguishable from the background if my reticle was anywhere NEAR them), and all of your biotic skills disabled everything on the screen for super-happy-fun-time-shooting-gallery. Oh so challenging and deep those mechanics were. And just to knit-pick with a mostly irrelevant point because I REALLY don't think you played ME2 at this point, every class has a different amount of base health/shields, so no, not every Shepard is the same

@Iname

As BeauNiddle already pointed out, this isn't an RPG where you start as a random farm hand thrust into a world of magic who must unlock his true potential to save the world. You open the game as a decorated military officer who has seen some of the worst combat scenarios in the galaxy. The rank of commander is incredibly high, and there is absolutely NO reason to believe Shepard can't handle a gun. At all. That argument is at least 8 different kinds of mute in least 7 different countries. Besides that, your argument forgets that this is both a shooter AND an RPG. If I select "Shoot Enemy" from a menu in a turn based game, and it misses...okay, that's the nature of the thing. Sucks, but I know what I'm playing. If I'm playing a hybrid that forces me to take the time to pick when to get out of cover, take aim, and place my shots in real time, then why should I then ALSO have to land the invisible dice roll that potentially makes the whole motion utterly pointless in a potentially crucial scenario? If that REALLY seems like intuitive programming to you, then I pray you never develop a major video game, because I like winning and even losing based on my performance...if I wanted luck to determine how well I do in a game I'd go to Vegas, not my living room.

On top of all that, you CAN portray a character's growth in skill through something besides random hits and misses. Just a few crazy ideas off the top of my head...unlocking more abilities as the game progresses? Becoming stronger and faster, perhaps? I'm sure that very few people here on this board are trained marksmen or fighters, and our IRL character sheets would be pretty pathetic. But untrained though we all are, if I point a gun or sword at someone and let fly, and they don't move at ALL, I'm confident they will die. Or at least be thoroughly maimed. Likewise, in a game, we can balance hits and misses with more competent enemy AI that actively avoids attacks, goes for cover, makes better shots, and acts as a unit to perform distractions and flanks to take you down. Knock on shooters all you want, but the taxing difficulty, crucial teamwork, and sheer strategic thinking needed to beat ANY Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six game on hard or realistic straight outclasses any "traditional RPG," which in nearly every instance I can think of has half a dozen ways to min/max your character's stats and skills to the point where nothing even vaguely resembles a challenge. Behind the scenes dice rolls aren't a way to add depth or immersion, they're an easy way for a programmer to avoid programming enemies that are ACTUALLY challenging.

 

[repeating integers]

I am seriously in awe of the Mass Effect fanbase now. I didn't know it was possible for people to be this stupid.

One vague statement that could mean anything = Bioware is a horrible excuse for a developer company who has stabbed their fans in the back to appeal to the unwashed shooter-playing peasants by turning Mass Effect 3 into Gears of War in Space (despite Gears of War already being in space...)?

I could rant about it, but it would make no difference to the preconceived opinions in this thread. I wonder if I should just stop associating with the Mass Effect fanbase entirely, because this makes me ashamed to be part of it.

 

[Brotherofwill]

So its an FPS (or TPS I suppose) pretending to be an RPG?

What does that remind me off? ...Oh yes! Mass Effect 2.

I find it strange how quickly Bioware is changing their direction. Credit to them if they can make more money and attract different fans...but the prizzzze!

 

[chainguns]

an RPG is not about numbers, its about character progression and being able to make your own choices in where said progression leads, its being able to shape the outcome of events, an RPG is NOT FUCKING NUMBER-CRUNCHING ONLY.

Did I say otherwise? I agree, it's not about numbers ONLY, though stats are an important part of the mix.

also, do you know what a troll is?

"do not try to make yourself look superior by insinuating that you somehow have higher standard, for one you are wrong and two it makes you look like an elitist dick" smells trollish to me.

numbers were not there as a preference, but as a necessity, thus the formula went like this: player action -> dice roll/stats/ -> outcome (nota bene).

They were as a preference because back then (unlike you now), people understood that it was not YOU the player firing an arrow, but your character. The D&D (don't know about this 'DnD' you mention) I played was about imagination. If we did not want numbers as a proxy for combat performance, the DM would have made us play darts, or chop down trees, or shoot pellet guns at pigeons instead. We'd have managed to have fun without Nvidia.

But as processing power became more and more, suddenly developers could do ALL sorts of stuff (visually that is). Suddenly they could have visual representations of the actions the player took. This shift in how we view RPG elements meant that as more and more visual representations became possible, the less we had to use numbers. So the formula has been slowly going this way: player action -> visual representation -> outcome. Now, instead of an dice roll and stats, we had visual cues.

And thus, my friend, we lost the plot as far as RPGs went. Because now in order to decide whether Athelas, my elite elven archer hits a monster or not - I, John Doe, have to aim at some pixels. Whether the monster gets hit is dependent on MY reflexes, not those of Athelas. This is a step back in RPG terms, not forward. The new graphics you are so in awe of should have been used to show off Athelas' skills, not replace his skills with mine.

Well, now they put the responsibility of succeeding in the players hands, no longer is failure determined by some assortment of numbers. Now the control is in your hands, now you need skills to succeed!.

Wrong genre. I too like games where I need to have good twitch reflexes to succeed. But boy are you an idiot if you think these are the only skills that matter, or that these skills are superior to those tested by traditional RPGs, because the latter are antiquated by improvements in graphics. Just because they are numbers rather than twitch reflexes does not make them obsolete.

where there was no skill involved and you only had to know what numbers were higher. And just as you demonstrated in your post, superiority without having to prove it with skills is just what you are looking for, you even said it yourself.

RPG skills involve developing your character, investing in stats, skills and equipment. You clearly stated that you found this "accountant's work" so, I say again - don't buy it. I on the other DO hand like these things, and don't denegrate you for wanting your twitch reflex, eye candy dependent skills tested.

 

[Rythe]

So my dear Escapists, an RPG is not defined by how much it resembles an accountant's work, but if there is character progression (this can manifest itself in many ways), cause remember: RPGs should be about choice, not min-max'ing and problems. So Bioware is not getting rid of the RPG elements, but are advancing them, taking them from their non-visual past and bringing them into visual future. Crying over stuff like this is the same as crying over cars no longer having to use that old-timey handle on the front.

I'm going to reiterate what Hyper-Space has been saying because it's probably on the right track, at least it was also my first line of thought when I read the news.

Assuming Bioware actually knows what they're doing with RPGs, I'm next going to assume they're removing the numeric Paragon/Renegade system and will just give you the options when interacting with other characters/environments, and those options are actually going to affect how future stints of combat play out.

This is a HUGE improvement in my opinion. I HATED getting barred from some stupid obvious line of conversation because I was playing my Shepard like a real person instead of gaming the Paragon/Renegade system and going for max points in one or the other. I could be wrong, but then my 'eh' opinion of Bioware would have to be dropped a few more notches.

This knee-jerk reaction to removing 'meaningless stat games' (and the Paragon/Renegade system is the only one I can think of in ME2) smacks of ignorance and general hysteria because, oh no, they're removing more of your beloved number bars and inventory clusterf*s like they did going from ME1 to ME2. Wake up, there's nothing left to cut there.

 

[Rythe]

Oh hey, now it shows up. I guess I should have just mashed refresh for another few minutes.

But anyways, yeah, I suppose I'll throw a nod to the people that are saying all of this is pretty absurd, but then it's a Bioware game on the Escapist forums. That's kinda the norm.

 

[Continuity]

So why is the dice roll stuff central to what makes an RPG an RPG? Let's say I want to model shooting someone - I can either model it by rolling Attack Bonus + 1d20, or model it as a shooter. Tabletop games are better at the former, but the latter is generally a more immersive and engaging way to do it.

Dice rolling isn't necessarily essential, neither is inventory, leveling, customisable equipment, customisable characters, branching dialogue and plot lines, non-linear exploration... no one of these things by itself make a game an RPG, but there comes a point where you've taken so many of these elements away that what you're really looking at is a different genre.

Yes combat can be modelled by dice rolls or it can be simulated in real time; the important point here is that both are valid methods and one does not obsolete or supersede the other. Some games should have simulation and some should be probability based. The simulation approach gives you a skill based combat system which is great, and the probability approach gives you a tactical combat system which can support lots of complexity.

RPG may stand for "role playing game" but usage is more important than etymology in word definition, and RPG has come to mean games that involve loot, customisable characters/equipment, dialogue trees, and stats; with the focus on character building/equiping.
There are relatively few examples of this sort of RPG faring as well with simulation based combat as with turn based, turn based/probability based lends itself strongly to the application of stats and complex equipment.
Its quite difficult to achieve complexity that the player can make any sense of without giving them numbers.

 

[Duskflamer]

Look, just take a look at the AAA market right now, what do you see more of? Big budget shooters? or big budget RPGs? I guarantee you that you'll see more of the former, there are more than enough big budget shooters on the market, and while there are plenty of smaller RPGs out there, there's fewer and fewer big budget ones (especially given the disaster that were the last two offerings from the Final Fantasy series).

So yes, we're going to panic when it seems that one of the few good big budget RPGs on the market is veering off too far into Shooter territory. No we do not like meaningless stats in our games, but we do not trust EA to differentiate meaningless stats from stats who's effects are not instantly obvious (And in the first place, if there's truly a meaningless stat in a game, that is horrible game design, if the stat is there it has to be doing something).

We understand that plenty of you would enjoy playing the plot of ME without having to deal with the RPG elements, but that is simply a preference. Please understand that others would prefer there to be even more RPG elements to deal with. Neither side holds some absolute truth that must be followed, both sides have valid points, but just keep in mind that if you want a big budget shooter, there's plenty of choices on the market (Brink's about to come out if you need a new one), while RPG fans practically have to scavenge the alleyways of gaming in order to find a good one for their genre, and ME3 just being another shooter is not going to help that.

 

[LordFisheh]

And what exactly is the fun of having to sit down with a calculator to work out optimal stats?

It means that when you modify your weapon, it does something. It sets things on fire - that's fun. It does 5% extra damage - how is that fun?

 

[Hyper-space]

Did I say otherwise? I agree, it's not about numbers ONLY, though stats are an important part of the mix.

Yes, you are saying that Numbers HAVE to be in an RPG to make it an RPG. Let me paraphrase the idea of an RPG without stats (this is from a previous thread).

"Imagine when you are making a character, that instead of putting points into strength, you would adjust the muscle of your character. Imagine, instead of putting points into agility, you would make your character leaner, and to increase intelligence, you would increase the neural activity in your brain.".

But according to you, this is not an RPG, despite being able to create your own character and advancing your skills. This closed-mindedness is what causes stagnation and denies the genre its potential to grow and evolve.

"do not try to make yourself look superior by insinuating that you somehow have higher standard, for one you are wrong and two it makes you look like an elitist dick" smells trollish to me.

No, that's not trolling, that's asking people to not try and think that liking one thing is somehow superior to the other. That includes snide comments such as "for wanting your twitch reflex, eye candy dependent skills tested". I want memorization-, comparison-, reflexes- and tactics-skills tested, not just the skills of knowing which numbers are bigger and luck.

Wrong genre. I too like games where I need to have good twitch reflexes to succeed. But boy are you an idiot if you think these are the only skills that matter, or that these skills are superior to those tested by traditional RPGs, because the latter are antiquated by improvements in graphics. Just because they are numbers rather than twitch reflexes does not make them obsolete.

Again, you think that the RPG is limited to ONE THING AND ONE THING ONLY and has to have that ONE THING or else its not a RPG. Which is frankly ignorant of the possibilities and potential that the RPG as a genre has.

RPG skills involve developing your character, investing in stats, skills and equipment. You clearly stated that you found this "accountant's work" so, I say again - don't buy it. I on the other DO hand like these things, and don't denegrate you for wanting your twitch reflex, eye candy dependent skills tested.

You got the part about developing your character, but investing in stats and skills is not only "putting in points" and can manifest itself in different ways. So yes, i understand that some people like the traditional approach, and i think the indie platform is a prime venue for niche markets. But to cry fowl everytime the industry tries to move forward and evolve the genre and accuse it of "dumbing down" (despite no loss in complexity) is wrong.

 

[Duskflamer]

And what exactly is the fun of having to sit down with a calculator to work out optimal stats?

It means that when you modify your weapon, it does something. It sets things on fire - that's fun. It does 5% extra damage - how is that fun?

It's not fun for you, that's fine, don't play RPGs. But what do you have against RPG players? Did a 5% stat bonus kill your parents or something?

 

[Arec Balrin]

And what exactly is the fun of having to sit down with a calculator to work out optimal stats?

It means that when you modify your weapon, it does something. It sets things on fire - that's fun. It does 5% extra damage - how is that fun?

I would make a snide remark about you needing a calculator but the drooling morons that are all for RPGs no longer being recognisable RPGs would make a similar generalisation about me.

So I won't.

 

[Kahunaburger]

So why is the dice roll stuff central to what makes an RPG an RPG? Let's say I want to model shooting someone - I can either model it by rolling Attack Bonus + 1d20, or model it as a shooter. Tabletop games are better at the former, but the latter is generally a more immersive and engaging way to do it.

Dice rolling isn't necessarily essential, neither is inventory, leveling, customisable equipment, customisable characters, branching dialogue and plot lines, non-linear exploration... no one of these things by itself make a game an RPG, but there comes a point where you've taken so many of these elements away that what you're really looking at is a different genre.

Yes combat can be modelled by dice rolls or it can be simulated in real time; the important point here is that both are valid methods and one does not obsolete or supersede the other. Some games should have simulation and some should be probability based. The simulation approach gives you a skill based combat system which is great, and the probability approach gives you a tactical combat system which can support lots of complexity.

RPG may stand for "role playing game" but usage is more important than etymology in word definition, and RPG has come to mean games that involve loot, customisable characters/equipment, dialogue trees, and stats; with the focus on character building/equiping.
There are relatively few examples of this sort of RPG faring as well with simulation based combat as with turn based, turn based/probability based lends itself strongly to the application of stats and complex equipment.
Its quite difficult to achieve complexity that the player can make any sense of without giving them numbers.

Well, I'd rather have this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAcUzi6MfII&feature=related
than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l54ZlwSAUs&feature=related

Both are examples of good RPGs, with deep levels of character and gear customization. (I'd argue Morrowind gives you more options, whereas Borderlands gives you more variety from character to character, but the point is that they're both examples of doin it rite.) When you've got a game where they player has real-time control over his or her character, it makes more sense to make stuff like hitting or missing contingent on player skill. This is why, for instance, Bethesada dropped the % hit mechanic of Morrowind for Oblivion and presumably Skyrim.

Stats are more effective for games like Dragon Age and Final Fantasy, where you're trying to model large scale melee combat, because melee is generally more complex to model than shooting. But the Mass Effect always focused on shooter gameplay, and I don't think using mechanics designed to model shooting vs. mechanics designed to model (mostly melee) combat abstractly for tabletop games is necessarily a bad thing for ME3 to be doing.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Look, just take a look at the AAA market right now, what do you see more of? Big budget shooters? or big budget RPGs? I guarantee you that you'll see more of the former, there are more than enough big budget shooters on the market, and while there are plenty of smaller RPGs out there, there's fewer and fewer big budget ones (especially given the disaster that were the last two offerings from the Final Fantasy series).

So yes, we're going to panic when it seems that one of the few good big budget RPGs on the market is veering off too far into Shooter territory. No we do not like meaningless stats in our games, but we do not trust EA to differentiate meaningless stats from stats who's effects are not instantly obvious (And in the first place, if there's truly a meaningless stat in a game, that is horrible game design, if the stat is there it has to be doing something).

We understand that plenty of you would enjoy playing the plot of ME without having to deal with the RPG elements, but that is simply a preference. Please understand that others would prefer there to be even more RPG elements to deal with. Neither side holds some absolute truth that must be followed, both sides have valid points, but just keep in mind that if you want a big budget shooter, there's plenty of choices on the market (Brink's about to come out if you need a new one), while RPG fans practically have to scavenge the alleyways of gaming in order to find a good one for their genre, and ME3 just being another shooter is not going to help that.

On the other hand, big budget shooters are veering into RPG territory at least as much. Bioshock, Borderlands, etc. - even games like Black Ops or BFBC2 have classes and customization now. Genre isn't as important as good gameplay, IMO.

 

[Duskflamer]

snip

On the other hand, big budget shooters are veering into RPG territory at least as much. Bioshock, Borderlands, etc. - even games like Black Ops or BFBC2 have classes and customization now. Genre isn't as important as good gameplay, IMO.

I was typing up a long, detailed responce to this when my computer decided to blue screen out of nowhere >.< so I'll give you the short version.

In games, genre = gameplay.

Borderlands is the perfect example of an FPS/RPG

Bioshock is iffy, but I'll admit it has significant RPG elements.

Haven't played the last two, but from what I hear about Black Ops, it does have rank ups and skills as a result of that, and I applaud their inclusion, but nobody is calling it an FPS/RPG, they just call it an FPS, because at the end of the day, the RPG elements are haphazardly tacked on while the overwhelming focus is on the FPS elements of the game.

ME1 was squarely an FPS/RPG, not executed nearly as smoothly as Borderlands but still definitely an RPG at heart.

ME2 is closer to Bioshock level, it's certainly more solidly an RPG than Bioshock is, but it's close.

The fear is that ME3 will end up being closer to Black Ops and similar games, a shooter with RPG elements tacked onto it, and EA's recent announcements are only fueling that fear.

 

[Saviordd1]

I'm so glad that my love of leveling, looting, and tactics is now relegated to "meaningless stat games".

Just gah.

Where the fuck does it say its getting rid of leveling and tactics?

It said that those things would have a greater impact, not that they were vanishing.

Oh, and to other "hardcore" rpg gamers. ME is a RPG, get over it

 

[Kahunaburger]

snip

On the other hand, big budget shooters are veering into RPG territory at least as much. Bioshock, Borderlands, etc. - even games like Black Ops or BFBC2 have classes and customization now. Genre isn't as important as good gameplay, IMO.

I was typing up a long, detailed responce to this when my computer decided to blue screen out of nowhere >.< so I'll give you the short version.

In games, genre = gameplay.

Borderlands is the perfect example of an FPS/RPG

Bioshock is iffy, but I'll admit it has significant RPG elements.

Haven't played the last two, but from what I hear about Black Ops, it does have rank ups and skills as a result of that, and I applaud their inclusion, but nobody is calling it an FPS/RPG, they just call it an FPS, because at the end of the day, the RPG elements are haphazardly tacked on while the overwhelming focus is on the FPS elements of the game.

ME1 was squarely an FPS/RPG, not executed nearly as smoothly as Borderlands but still definitely an RPG at heart.

ME2 is closer to Bioshock level, it's certainly more solidly an RPG than Bioshock is, but it's close.

The fear is that ME3 will end up being closer to Black Ops and similar games, a shooter with RPG elements tacked onto it, and EA's recent announcements are only fueling that fear.

Well, the real question is how you define an RPG. Because to me, a story-driven game with extensive dialogue, a large cast of characters who fight alongside you, a customizable PC, an emphasis on choice, character classes, and skill trees is solidly in RPG territory.

And for me, the whole genre vs. gameplay thing boils down to this: a choice made by game developers to put a game into a genre does not necessarily also work to make the game a good game. Take the chance to hit mechanic in Morrowind - it's an RPG trope, but it detracts from good gameplay. Morrowind is still 100% RPG with or without that mechanic.

Or take Mass Effect - in the first game, you buy and sell weapons. This makes basically no sense - if Shepard works for the Council, they'd find a way to keep her supplied. From a design perspective, it's in the game because people generally do that in RPGs, not because it makes sense in terms of the story. (Of course, the "scanning for resources" replacement makes even less sense, but that fits more into the "bad idea" category than the "RPG" or "shooter" categories.)

So the point is that devs should just focus on making their RPG a good game, rather than trying to cram as many RPG tropes as possible into it. At the end of the day, a Mass Effect game will be an RPG regardless of whether Commander Shepard had her gun built on the Normandy, filled out a requisition form for it, or bought it in a store somewhere.

 

[Karma168]

And what exactly is the fun of having to sit down with a calculator to work out optimal stats?

It means that when you modify your weapon, it does something. It sets things on fire - that's fun. It does 5% extra damage - how is that fun?

I'll agree with that, i would spend maybe 20 mins in mass effect 1 running back and forth between the team lockers and the on board shop scribbling down what every gun, armour piece and upgrade to see which one would suit each teammate best. By the end i was just throwing anything on because i cba working out my dps and everything else.

Same with WoW, used to watch my brother when he played, number of times i would sit for a good hour just watching him compare equipment to see what would give him the best stats. I'd ask him when he'd get to the actual game and he'd tell me that that was the game, why you pay £15 a month for that is beyond me