Been spending the past few days modding the bejeesus out of ME2 with mods and new lighting and massive tweaks to file settings to bring ME2's visuals up a fair notch. I'm quite shocked at how well it turned out - as close to as a remaster as I would realistically expect had Bioware just dumped one out (let's face it they'd just up-rez the textures and that's about it).
Did a slideshow comparison of my old ME2 video series and my new one. Best part of running it on a modern PC too is that it I can run the game at 120+fps even with all those mods heh.
Also doing a new playthrough of my shep with these mods and lighting overhaul, here's the game in motion if you want to see:
I haven't been killed once by sync kills since the change some while ago. They just knock you out, you need a revive, but that's it.. haven't seen insta-death once on myself or another player.
I have to join Rozerad group. I have rozerad and hurricane maxed and the rozerad is simply a significantly superior weapon. It can hit things at range unlike the hurricane, far larger magazine + spare ammo means far less reloading, fires almost as fast, good stability and can be reliably fired from cover without sticking your head out and still hit the target (hurricane is beyond useless if fired from ducked cover at anything beyond point blank range).
I ran with hurricane for ages as it was my ME3 favorite weapon.. but here the rozerad is simply a superior sidearm.
Well, if you want to impose extra challenge and be a jerk to the team.. just sit at extraction when the wave starts.. even 1 player there will draw a lot of enemies onto the extraction spot, making it very hard for you and the rest of the team to survive an actual extraction.
A rank I UR character is perfectly playable. A rank I UR weapon is perfectly usable and in many cases better than lower rarity guns in its class.
There are a few cases where the UR designation makes sense because the UR brings a new mechanic: like the Human Kineticist who has a unique Ascension mode, or the Kishock Harpoon Gun which has a unique "bleed" (damage over time / DOT) effect.
But the majority of URs are just "this is better" and that is by design, per Bioware, straight from their mouths during one of the Twitch streams.
I feel like siphon radically changes the "This is just better" intention for vast majority of players.
This is actually the most surprising aspect of this change. Enemy burst damage is low in this game. What generally gets you is getting chipped down to the point where a positioning error gets you killed rather than wounded. Siphon largely negates that, meaning a strong rare siphon gun craps all over any ultra-rare until it reaches its own siphon variant (lol good luck).
This may have been true prior to 1.09.. but on platinum it is not sustained low damage that gets me.. its almost always a massive hit that takes me from full shields / health to dead in 1-2 hits (hydra volley is almost always fatal if you take even two thirds of the volley). In gold and lower 99% of the time I knew i was going to die a few seconds before I did because damage was coming in steady and I knew I wouldn't reach safety before I went down... but on platinum I can be sitting in cover with full health / shields and drop dead near instantly fairly often unless you're playing a very resilient class like turian soldier etc.
My huntress has been picked off more times than I can count when at full health.. its why I switched to human infiltrator because it has 200 damage resistance when at low health, allowing you a few precious seconds to seek cover or stealth rather than just falling over dead on the spot time and again.
I read in the patch notes there's now accuracy mods for pistol and assault rifle (so you don't have to put a scope on them, which is not ideal for close combat). I understand these can only be bought from the item store.. but does anyone know what they are classified as? Rare, common, etc? I've bought a few rare ones but they're all sniper rifle barrels so far that have a penalty to them as well.
Powerful if you're willing to use your ammo resupply consumables in matches (which shouldn't be a problem, I have hundreds of the damn things and can never seem to use them up). Sometimes I like to just play a trip mine build and spam resupply during very hard fights... toss trip mines one after the other on tough fights.. can do the same with frag / sticky on other characters but i think trip mines have superior damage.
I had a good laugh on one platinum mission where four of us were trying to kill a behemoth inside a hack point. We all fired cobras at it (I fired all 5 of mine and I counted about another 13-15 additional explosions after that, so clearly my team was trying it too) and the damn thing still had about 20% health left... it was absurd.
On a good note Soned "feels" a little bit more accurate. And I mean a little... the bloom? seems to be a bit slower.
Have to get a chance to use the venom to tell you how awesome it is!
I think it's that they changed the visual for the projectile it fires.. they shrank it (the bullets are like half the size now, look much smaller firing and gives the illusion of beign more accurate i think)
Hmmm, it's weird. I've having trouble priming with the Charger Siphon here as well. And the Charger X works fine.
So for me: Raptor and Charger work fine. But I've gone over 50 for the Charger and it still fails to prime.
Could the issue be specific to Projectile weapons only?
Charger? I thought there were no variants of the common weapons.
Siphon Weapons I've tested that prime just fine (albeit needing a shitload more rounds than you'd expect):
Reegar Predator S Phalanx
I don't have any others, so can't test.
Look, despite your video, there is clearly a bug in the game. So far only reegar siphon has primed an enemy for me... and that was 3 times in 14 waves, the prime rate on it must be less than 1%.. whereas regular regar which I carry as my other weapon procs within 2 to 3 seconds of sustained fire ALL the time.. I can drain the entire reegar siphon before it will finally sometimes prime the enemy.. no other non-siphon weapon needs to empty a clip before it primes except maybe 1 to 3 round sniper rifles.
Equalizer siphon absolutely will not prime.. not once for me in 3 matches. Also, common weapons can get siphon etc.. I have charger siphon and avenger siphon (I have it at rank 5 already) and it too has yet to prime for me, but I only tested it for 3 waves before giving up on it. Shadow siphon also never primed once for me either.
The prime % on siphon weapons (at least some of them) must be bugged, it is astronomically rare.. yet the original weapons prime with regular ease and frequency.
Concussive raptor seems to prime normally.. but siphon raptor refuses to prime once at all and bulwark raptor won't prime either. Either this bug affects everyone, or just some players.. but it has to be a bug, 3 of my friends who play with me have given up on the new weapons because they too cannot get them to reliably prime targets.
EDIT: I should point out, I play on pc... are you people without issues playing on console? Perhaps the issue is the pc version.
it absolutely DOES NOT prime.. the prime VISUAL effect works but it is not in fact primed.. I spent over an hour testing it. Shoot enemies with siphon gun + ammo.. visual effect for prime triggers, hit enemy with lance / throw etc,.. no combo detonation. Yet if i switch to my other non siphon/bulwark/concussive weapon the enemy always primes without problems.
It is clearly a bug as the visual for priming triggers but you can't actual combo off it... also, the stun from disruptor ammo NEVER triggers with siphon guns.. yet always does with non siphon weapons.
I suggest you actually observe in game (solo, to make sure others aren't priming your target). The targets never prime with siphon etc.. just the effect activates, but you cannot combo off it.
Oh?
Well then there is clearly something wrong in game (though I'm dubious since you're using a cheat which modifies the game, so I don't know how reliable your video is) as I have tested ammo ranks 1-3 in solo silver games for a solid hour and my siphon guns never prime the target... yet the non-siphon gun i carry always triggers it almost immediately without issue.
I've tested with hesh siphon, shadow siphon, equalizer siphon... none of them prime enemies, not in 1 hour of testing.. yet their plain counterparts prime almost instantly.
Turn your cheat off that is clearly modifying game mechanics and repeat your test.. I'll be intrested to know if it still works.
And yes, ammo DOES prime, with most weapons it primes the same as the base weapon, with all others it primes in the maximum number of bullets per the formula - 50 most likely.
Please search around other threads here before posting proclamations like this that aren't true.
it absolutely DOES NOT prime.. the prime VISUAL effect works but it is not in fact primed.. I spent over an hour testing it. Shoot enemies with siphon gun + ammo.. visual effect for prime triggers, hit enemy with lance / throw etc,.. no combo detonation. Yet if i switch to my other non siphon/bulwark/concussive weapon the enemy always primes without problems.
It is clearly a bug as the visual for priming triggers but you can't actual combo off it... also, the stun from disruptor ammo NEVER triggers with siphon guns.. yet always does with non siphon weapons.
I suggest you actually observe in game (solo, to make sure others aren't priming your target). The targets never prime with siphon etc.. just the effect activates, but you cannot combo off it.
Siphon, concussive, bulwark... all of them do the same stats from rank 1-10.. what's the point in anything beyond rank 1? The weapon damage, weight, ammo etc is all the same unlike the old weapons.. also, a rank 1 siphon weapon has the same heal amount as a rank 10 siphon weapon.. this seems pointless.
Also ammo no longer primes enemies when you use the new weapons, making them vastly inferior as the damage from a combo a weapon ammo booster can provide is vastly better than the meagre bonuses these new ones do.
Hesh shotgun is very effective at interrupting them (has extremely high stagger rating despite its moderate damage and fires very fast).. otherwise just break line of sight for a few seconds or sit under cover until the animation ends, then kill em.
Yep.. but that damage boost at rank 20 is very very significant, making common classes considerably more lethal than rank 10 rare / ultra rare classes. 40% damage to powers, combo damage (that one is the big one) and even the 40% melee damage boost let you bring enemies down in platinum much much faster than a rank 10 could hope to. A rank 20 human vanguard is surprisingly devastating on platinum if you're careful enough (in my eyes it gains the most from the rank 20 bonuses since as a class it relies on all 3 aspects heavily.. power damage, combos and lots of melee.. fits vanguards extremely well).
No, it's not as much of a bonus as you think. It's additive, not multiplicative. And enemy health values skyrocketed to Platinum. What's a 1300 damage combo going to do to a 60,000 HP Hydra?
It is appreciatively noticeable in game however. My rank 20 male vanguard's combos, novas and melee attacks bring enemies down noticeably faster than my rank 9 female vanguard despite having the exact same spec / gear. My rank 20 can kill a standard unshielded red enemy in standard 3 punches (no bonus from charge.. just regular punching)... the rank 9 vanguard needs 4 and sometimes 5 punches for some reason to kill a red.. that is MANY precious seconds wasted focusing on 1 target and in platinum every second you spend exposed is dangerous.
Look at it this way... vs saboteur (armored), my rank 20 can charge, 2 punch, nova.. he dies. My rank 9 does the exact same thing (same spec / gear) vs saboteur and the enemy is still alive with 25% health at least, often more... often have to punch several more times or fire off 2 or more shotgun blasts to drop him... the rank 20 simply kills much faster, means less time waste in the open or not focusing on bringing down larger enemies.
Is it significantly superior vs boss enemies? Not so much... but at clearing out weaker / trash enemies (who hit very hard despite their low health) the rank 20 is vastly superior / more efficient.
I was worried about power classes & squishy classes... but it sounds like XX characters were meant to make up for that.
Veteran bonus only adds melee, power and combo detonation damage. Doesn't give you DR, so the squishiness remains.
Yep.. but that damage boost at rank 20 is very very significant, making common classes considerably more lethal than rank 10 rare / ultra rare classes. 40% damage to powers, combo damage (that one is the big one) and even the 40% melee damage boost let you bring enemies down in platinum much much faster than a rank 10 could hope to. A rank 20 human vanguard is surprisingly devastating on platinum if you're careful enough (in my eyes it gains the most from the rank 20 bonuses since as a class it relies on all 3 aspects heavily.. power damage, combos and lots of melee.. fits vanguards extremely well).
Well, it's not even a matter of not using the Mic. Most would hear such instructions and act of them if it makes sense and they can understand it.
The issue is when you have an open Mic and it picks up EVERYTHING around you ALL the time. I tend to mute these players and forget to unmute them afterwards. Resulting if you do need to issue an instruction, I won't be hearing it any time soon.
My experience with Hacks and Uploads in my recent Gold games have been rather good. Yesterday first few matches was very hit and miss. Later on and now today, most seems to have got the info about how best to approach these already.
Gold has been fine despite the changes, namely because gold is very easy to do for a fair number of players now. Well kitted players can easily decimate hack points even if all 4 players are stupidly sitting inside it.. just brute froce, no strategy required.. so long as you have a couple team members with the weapons and boosters to do it fast enough.
This does not work in platinum at all though, even with rank x ultra rare weapons and the best boosters.. strategy is the only way to take those hack points (keeping only 1 or 2 players inside the ring while the others go far away to engage / draw enemies).. Enemies are too resilient, respawn almost instantly within spitting distance of the circle if you kill them and they move very fast allowing them to get inside the circle and stay there perpetually, preventing any progress on the meter... can't brute force the hack rings like we can on gold.
Also on gold cobra rpgs still do very good damage and can basically clear a hack ring.. on platinum, cobra rpgs are beyond useless since many enemies are those purple-name bastards who are basically near immune to cobra rpg damage, making it impossible to clear a hack poitn with cobra rpg (seriously, try firing a cobra rpg at a purple hydra.. it does a sliver of damage... 2 seconds of spray fire from my hurricane does more damage).
Human infiltrator for me is still my preferred class.. it is the only class which I am personally able to prevent a complete mission failure with, even on platinum.. in most circumstances anyway. If all 3 players are down and jsut me standing, I have the means to get some of them back up with ease.. if all 3 are down and out, it is the one class I find that has the survivability (stealth + 200 damage resistance when health goes critical.. that one has saved me countless times and bought me the precious seconds I needed to either cloak or pop a heal) to carefully clear out the remaining enemies when the party is all dead.. and it is an excellent class for most mission objectives overall.
Other stealth classes work well too, but for me its the ability to use incinerate (simply superior to most other stealth class offensive abilities in my eyes) and the huge resistance boost when health goes critical (which is very common in platinum.. that 200 resistance will let you survive almost anything except a hydra volley, giving you the precious seconds you need to cover / cloak / heal.. no other stealth class has that level of insurance when things go bad unexpectedly).
I enjoy playing my asari sentinel as well, very sturdy... but I've been completely unable to prevent mission failures with it when I was with a bad team or if things went south in a hurry.. without some means of escape even the sentinel's tankiness won't generally buy you the means to save a mission when 3 members are down (which in my 14+ platinum runs so far is veyr damn common).. yet I have saved 4 missions so far from total party wipes using my human infiltrator.
Salarian infiltrator would be my next choice I suppose.. energy drain is a good addition to survivability.. but the class lacks the ability to survive alpha strikes like a human infiltrator can (no resistances.. human infiltrator can have 50 resistance in cover.. or 250 resistance if in cover and critical health).
Asari duelist can sort of do this too with less success despite the lack of stealth.. but by "cheesing" the system and using her melee attack to teleport through walls etc you can also have reasonable success (she's invincible during her melee attack animation.. if you spam it and with a bit of luck you can get through most swarms somewhat safely)
The issue is less of what class is being used and more that people are still playing like pre 1.09... everyone sits in the bloody hack zone, drawing enemies into the circle and making it utterly impossible to finish. Pugs need to learn to leave only 1 or MAYBE 2 at the most people in the hack ring while the others go far away from it and engage enemies to at least divide the forces up.. if at least half the enemies are avoiding the hack circle it is viable to keep enemies out of the ring.. but with 3 or all 4 players in the ring, it's basically mission failure since it'll never work.
As a rule of thumb, I basically never go into hack circles anymore. I try to instead divide up the enemy forces by going to the other end of the map and harassing them with a sniper rifle to draw them to me (and don't bloody kill any enemies.. they just respawn immediately.. wound them, control them, get their attention and have them chase you AWAY from the circle while 1 or 2 people sit in the circle to secure it)
I'm finding the common classes far more powerful in platinum than rare or ultra rare classes.. namely because it is extremely easy to get the common classes to rank 20 buying cheap crates after each mission.. getting a rare or ultra rare class to rank 20 is extremely difficult / time consuming.. and the bonuses a rank 20 common class gets is very significant to your offensive capabilities, something you won't have on your rank 10 rare / ultra rare class.
I wouldn't mind them if they weren't bugged and cause my screen to turn all red or green or yellow anytime I use dodge or cloak. For some reason anytime I equip these new variants it causes massive visual glitches.. never when I just use the regular version of the weapons though.
Gonna use this to cut down on the exceedingly annoying driving times it takes on some worlds just to get to some objectives.. hated it in DAI, hate it here.. prefer the condensed / focused maps of me1-3, this should help a lot.
Sequel to Andromeda and its crew are very unlikely based on what happened to the studio - clearly they are not happy with the game's performance financially and the fact they said the franchise has been shelved for now strongly suggests this is the last we've seen of Ryder & Crew. In all likelihood the next game (5+ years from now perhaps) will go the Dragon Age route with all new characters in each game or a possibly entire franchise reboot.. who knows.. but I'd bet money against us seeing Ryder and crew ever again other than in codex entries as reference.
I have to agree. I played the SWTOR expansions lately and the dialogue / cutscenes in those 2 latest expansions are extensive and high quality (characters are doing things all the time, moving around, being active.. not standing in one spot for five minutes). They really nailed the dialogue cinematics in SWTOR's expansions (not the base game though... in base game dialogue is like MEA, just standing in one spot for 5-10 minutes flapping their mouth).
Most of the cutscenes in MEA are inert.. characters stand in one spot and talk, barely ever moving anything other than their head... in SWTOR characters talk while moving about a room - moving to other rooms, interacting with the environment, gesticulating etc - it looks / feels natural.. that sort of thing is very rare in MEA's cutscenes.