No "Meaningless Stat Games" in Mass Effect 3

Bebus

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Feb 12, 2010
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Good news.

Can anybody HONESTLY tell me that having to spend half a dozen 'points' in Sniper Rifles just to be able to use the damn thing was fun?

That once you spent one ability point on a biotic/tech power all the remaining 12 did was make it do 1% more damage over a 1% bigger radius, was that good design?

ME2 did a wonderful thing in binning the whole lot of these and replacing it with a system in which every upgrade you got made a much more noticeable difference. Let's hope for ME3 they take this even further.
 

MetallicaRulez0

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http://youtu.be/wpFg52bpzZM
I'm not usually a naysayer... but this sounds pretty horrible. Calling Mass Effect 2 an RPG was a stretch, but if anything else gets removed it will flat out not be an RPG. A Gears of War space opera is 100% accurate.
 

Fuselage

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This and the "Marketing to mass market thing" means that this will be Gears of War in Space, doesn't it?
 

Azaraxzealot

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Agayek said:


This accurately summarizes my feeling on this issue. Why the hell do RPG developers keep removing the RPG from their games?
for the same reason they removed no extra lives and no continues from games.

they're outdated mechanics that have no place in the public view.

there's plenty of place for that old school stuff right where it is. in the old school. or in the indie scene.

OT: I like my games feeling like i have control over the battles. i HATE IT when there's any amount of random chance, because it ALWAYS seems like i have the worst luck ever...

Canid117 said:
Arehexes said:
So it's now 100% Gears of Wars in Space.
Because Gears of War wasn't already in space.
technically true, earth is in space (depends on your perspective)

Traun said:
Xanthious said:
Honestly, if this is what I can expect from Bioware now that EA is at the helm then I say FUCK Bioware, FUCK EA, and FUCK the sloped brow bottom of the barrel lowest common denominator type of morons they are trying to attract with these bullshit changes! They can all feel free to go bugger each other with hot pokers for all I care because that will probably provide me with more entertainment than any game Bioware will release from here on out.
You know, I feel for the FPS fans. Imagine the scenerio - you are playing your games, enjoying the free time you have and then RPG fans come breathing down your neck blaming you for ruining a a franchise you aren't even interested in.
well. its like the saying goes "ignorance is bliss".
and its why Cash-In of Duty and Transformers (referring only to the movies) are multi-million dollar franchises
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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Azaraxzealot said:
for the same reason they removed no extra lives and no continues from games.

they're outdated mechanics that have no place in the public view.

there's plenty of place for that old school stuff right where it is. in the old school. or in the indie scene.
Except stat progression and character customization are not outdated. It introduces a layer of choice into the game, allowing one to make their own unique character to suit the player's playstyle. Removing them does nothing but limit meaningful player agency.

It's not even confusing most of the time and that's literally the only valid complaint against the system.

Besides, after what they did to the game in ME2, there aren't any more RPG elements to remove, meaningless or not. Your character customization options in ME2 were as follows:

1) One of 2-4 guns (with no balance between them, latter ones always superior, removing any meaningful choice)
2) One of 3 sets of armor (with practically no difference between them)
3) Three of four possible skill trees

That's literally it. There was no other meaningful character customization or stats. You cannot remove any more without just making it a straight shooter with a dialog system.

And none of that even remotely mentions how they're going to take a massive dump all over the story, again.
 

Azaraxzealot

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Agayek said:
Azaraxzealot said:
for the same reason they removed no extra lives and no continues from games.

they're outdated mechanics that have no place in the public view.

there's plenty of place for that old school stuff right where it is. in the old school. or in the indie scene.
Except stat progression and character customization are not outdated. It introduces a layer of choice into the game, allowing one to make their own unique character to suit the player's playstyle. Removing them does nothing but limit meaningful player agency.

It's not even confusing most of the time and that's literally the only valid complaint against the system.

Besides, after what they did to the game in ME2, there aren't any more RPG elements to remove, meaningless or not. Your character customization options in ME2 were as follows:

1) One of 2-4 guns (with no balance between them, latter ones always superior, removing any meaningful choice)
2) One of 3 sets of armor (with practically no difference between them)
3) Three of four possible skill trees

That's literally it. There was no other meaningful character customization or stats. You cannot remove any more without just making it a straight shooter with a dialog system.

And none of that even remotely mentions how they're going to take a massive dump all over the story, again.
you just commented in another thread saying that you liked the combat and inventory and everything better in mass effect 2 (except the story)

but for the record, mass effect 2 made me many kinds of tears. all of them good.
all 3 times i played it.

and its not like i have bad taste in art or stories, i like my citizen kane and my knights of the old republic and my quentin tarantino as much as the next guy, but mass effect 2 had a deep impact on me, and the only thing disappointing about it... is that mass effect 3 is not already here.
 

Vibhor

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So its just a TPS with dialogue choices.
Pretty much why I didn't gave a fuck even in the beginning.
 

Agayek

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Azaraxzealot said:
you just commented in another thread saying that you liked the combat and inventory and everything better in mass effect 2 (except the story)

but for the record, mass effect 2 made me many kinds of tears. all of them good.
all 3 times i played it.

and its not like i have bad taste in art or stories, i like my citizen kane and my knights of the old republic and my quentin tarantino as much as the next guy, but mass effect 2 had a deep impact on me, and the only thing disappointing about it... is that mass effect 3 is not already here.
Yes actually, I did quite like the Mass Effect 2 system. It could have been better, but it was definitely damn good. The problem I have is that from what they've been saying, they're going in the exact opposite direction of where they should to improve the gameplay.

They took too much out between the first two games. It was an improvement (mostly), don't get me wrong there, but they still went too far with it. What they need to do is something like ME2's system, where you have more than 4 abilities and some actual depth to it.

An example off the top of my head, maybe when you level you get a "Skill Point", and with one skill point you can unlock or upgrade one of your abilities. In addition, as you play the game, you get "Biotic Points" (or whatever you want to call it) that you can use to augment your abilities. I'm thinking maybe certain quests and/or plot events reward Biotic Points, and you can use one of these to add additional effects to your skills.

Let's take a Vanguard for example. Upgrading the Biotic Charge ability will make it do more damage, lower the cooldown, etc. Then you could use Biotic Points to add a special effect, like slow-motion on use, or pull all nearby enemies to you, or stun nearby organic enemies, something like that.

You could only have one Biotic Point upgrade for any given skill at any time, but you could rearrange them at a respec station somewhere on the Normandy, then choose another one.

I came up with that whole idea in about 2 minutes. It's far and away better than what they had in ME2, being both simple/easy to use and with a lot of potential for depth.

Instead, they're going to just rip it all out and hand us a shooter with a probably-crap-but-potentially-good story.

As for you liking ME2: I agree. I quite liked the game as well. It's definitely high up on my list of favorite games. That doesn't change the fact that the main story sucked donkey balls. It made no sense and most of the major plot events required at minimum 3 separate, highly intelligent and motivated individuals to act like complete idiots and/or completely counter to their purpose.

The side-/character missions were all exceptionally well done, IMO, and I thoroughly enjoyed them all. The problem I have with it is that you go from quite good side missions to a nonsensical main story. The dissonance is rather jarring and bothered me more than a little while I was playing. If you really want me to, I can list out all the ways everyone acted out of character, stupid and/or directly counter to their own goals over the course of the game, but that's a lot of work and I don't feel like typing it all out.

Edit: Just to make it abundantly clear: ME2 was a great game. I thoroughly enjoyed it and played it through 3 times within a week of release, because I was addicted to it. That does not mean it is perfect, and that does not mean the sequel gets a pass though.
 

Xerosch

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Oh God, this will be another Dragon Age 2, will it? As soon as EA bombards players with DLC that makes an easy game even easier or launches a 'Mass Effect'-Facebook game, this one will be bought only after a severe price drop.

When I saw the teaser trailer I was extremely turned off. Seriously, how often can you save earth from aliens? Do something else, Bioware! Give us something we haven't fought for one billion times already!
 

Xkaliber

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Sigh... When did Bioware give up on being excellent RPG designers and just start jamming their stories into action games?

Edit: Also in Mass Effect 3! Bioware has decided to do away with conversation choices, character interaction and any kind of choices/options you may have had previously. /sarcasm
 

Yarpie

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How in the sodding hell did people manage to get "Removal of pretty much every single RPG-feature" out of "No meaningless stat games"? I interpreted it as that every RPG-element (at least those combat related) would be able to impact the battle at hand, not that they were getting rid of them all together. In fact she went as far as saying "We want to enrich the role-playing aspects of the game, while making sure that they're always meaningful in combat". At no point does she imply that they intend to completely strip the game of RGP-features, but rather make them more meaningful.

One can hope that this means that, for example, I can use my biotic powers without having to work my way through two layers of shields and armor. You know, actually make them useful in the majority of encounters, as well as offering possibilities for a slightly more tactical approaches, including some proper crowd control.

But I guess we can't have reasoning like that when there is rage to be had and baseless conclusions to jump to. By all means, carry on predicting the death of Mass Effect, Bioware and the RGP-genre as a whole based on one statement that doesn't reveal anything concrete. We did such a damn fine job of it yesterday, so why stop now?
 

Traun

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Azaraxzealot said:
for the same reason they removed no extra lives and no continues from games.
We didn't. If you play platformers or shmups you will still see lives and continues present, we don't have lives and continues in FPS games because these gameplay mechanics don't work with them. About the value of RPG mechanics...I think it was well explained in this thread already.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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stoprequesting said:
It depends - stats-based stuff does have a place in games. But not all stats-based stuff is good gameplay design. Take percentage-based hits/misses - when you have an actual hitbox you can aim at, you already have a mechanic to simulate accuracy. Adding a second "accuracy" mechanic doesn't fit.

And the guns (esp. the DLC ones, although the DLC thing is its own problem) are actually meaningful choices, vs. "slightly better than the previous gun." Shotguns balance ROF with spike damage, (and including DLC with range) so you're going to pick a specific shottie depending on whether its your close-range panic button, primary weapon, or point-blank vanguard teleport weapon. Snipers are a choice between spike damage and dps (which, in a cover based shooter, becomes an important trade-off at higher difficulty levels.) And so on and so forth.
I agree with you for the most part, but that's not really what I was trying to get at. %-based hit/miss in an actually shooter-esque game like ME or Oblivion or whatever is just kinda dumb. I can kinda see the reasoning behind it, but it doesn't really serve a function.

I was talking about meaningful character customization, ie what weapons you use, what kind of abilities you have, and what your optimal playstyle is. There really needs to be sufficient options that allow for player agency, not just "here's your gun, there's the bad guys. Kill they ass." I don't think it's too much to ask for a game claiming to be an RPG to support player agency.

I will concede the point about the guns. I have never tried them. Since the DLC came out, I've only played through as a Vanguard, and I've never used a weapon other than the Claymore shotgun, because that thing will one shot everything but a YMIR.
 

Azrael the Cat

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Traun said:
Compatriot Block said:
Oh god, incoming rage. Prepare thyselves, Bioware. Hell hath no fury like an entitled gamer scorned.
So anyone who has some standards is somehow branded "entitled" these days? Nice...
It's 'entitled' in the sense of 'landed gentry' or 'nobility'. We are the gentry whose titles and knighthoods declare our sophistication, as opposed to the proletariat that devours whatever is pushed at them.
 

Trolldor

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Meaningless stat games...
And a complete absence of any explanation as to what they're actually remove.
They equated roleplaying with combat, I detect more DA2 level faggotry ahead. Even more of a reason to be polarised in your behaviour and attitudes because, once again, properly roleplaying will punish the player by forcing them to miss out on things and disadvantaging them in combat.

YAY.

After DA2 I can't be fucked buying any more Bioware games.