Active abilities in ME:A (Updated)

Understood. But let me tell you this: I didn't start MP until I had finished the single player game 8 times (if I remember correctly) and then played it for a ninth time after roughly 1000 hours of multiplayer. Honestly the ninth time was the most fun from a gameplay standpoint, because I had learned so much in MP about combos. The great thing about MP is that there isn't that one and only great combo, but lots of them.

So if the profile changing thing is implemented well, it could be a good thing. You choose how you spend your points on different (but not all) combinations of powers that fit well together and then can swap between maybe three of those, meaning that you have specialized in 9 active powers and still have a wide range of options.

Of course we have to see how it plays out, but I wouldn't be nervous about the 3 active powers limit until having played the game.

Wasn't it? How many people take duration over damage for Tac cloak? Or who doesn't take shield recharge on biotic charge? And speaking of shield recharge, I initially specc'd Annihlation Field for pure damage until I realized how useful the shield recharge evo was, particularly for the typical in your face playstyle of most Furies.

Or put another way, how many powers are awesome on their own, without resorting to a biotic or tech combo? Very few of them. Tac Cloak, Flamer, Overload/Energy Drain, Biotic charge, Stasis, Singularity (maybe), Snap Freze. That's about it. The effects of war

I see your point. But the fundamental issue at the heart of this is less about how many powers you have but what they do. Like I said above, few powers stand out on their own as primary damage dealers or utility. If you want to move away from combos you need stronger/cooler/more varied individual powers.

doh soloed Platinum with every MP character, so if anyone is interested to watch how every power/weapon in MP was used effectively, here is the youtube channel: ex-Clusum

Lots of different ways to have fun with only 3 active powers at any time...

Understood, but I guess that's why we will get the profile system. It all comes down to how we are able to switch between profiles and also the enemy make-up. I didn't think the powers limit was restrictive in ME3MP, but the small maps and basically any enemy running at ya. Hopefully in MEA single player we can choose better whether we want to play ranged or in your face combat.

The link was in response to the thesis that in ME3 there were only a few good powers/combos - which definitely wasn't the case. IMO there are great combos for any playstyle in ME3MP.

"Balanced" implies a discussion of difficulty. But that's not what your issue seems to be. Nor should it. I think we can safely assume that if anything difficulty will be curved towards the low end so as to not drive away the casuals. And even if it wasn't I think it's been amply demonstrated that the hardest content across any ME game can be cleared with minimal powers.

You should also recognize your biased view. What to you is "MP being shoved down your throat", to EA and casuals is "business as usual" (all EA games these days have MP, and casuals more or less expect it.) There's also the trend to cater to new players by simplifying or "streamlining" in marketspeak gameplay to again make it easy to get into. This isn't new or exclusive to BioWare and/or Mass Effect, this is what's happening in gaming in general. And finally once they're done catering to the casuals and the newbies and can finally get around to the return consumers, who are they going to target? SP players that are still crying foul five years later? Or MP players that don't really give a shit whether "art" is in there or not, who'll drop hundreds of hours into the game regardless, play the RNG store and maybe even drop some real money while doing it?

I'm not saying it's right. But surely you see why it is what it is.

See, grouping powers like this makes me want to prune/combine them, especially if we're disregarding power combos.

For example, Throw and Concussive shot are basically biotic/tech mirrors of each other. Do you really need both? Why not have one directed high impact low damage power that simply changes flavors whether you're a biotic or not? Hell you can make Carnage an upgraded version of CS too and that's another one down. Lump in incinerate while you're at it, and differentiate by damage/force. Then lump in cryo blast where you switch the incendiary effect for a chilling one.

Same sort of thinking for Tech Armor/Barrier, especially if you make them passive, which makes more sense to me.

Then you have the hitscan biotics. Warp, Reave, DC. They can be grouped together with the latter being evos of the former.

Singularity makes Pull/Lift obsolete. Evo it into a Dark Sphere, Flare or even Stasis bubble, or add Slam effects.

Ok, bring back pull, just so you can evo it into Lash.

Resultant Biotic powers:
Warp/Reave/DC
Singularity/Pull/DS/Flare/StasisBubble/Slam
Pull/Lash/Slam
Shockwave
Annihilation Field
Biotic Charge

Depending on how that works out, a grand total of 6 with one shared, one passive.

On the tech side;

CS/Carnage/Incinerate/Cryoblast
Overload/Energy Drain/Neural Shock/Sabotage
Combat Drone/Decoy/Turret
Flamer/Snap Freeze
Prox mine/recon mine
Tac Cloak

Another 6. I left out defensive powers because a lot of those can be passives. But yeah, point is you can cut/combine the existing powers to the point where you don't have much variety anyway. The ones that aren't easy to combine are the really specialized ones- ones that rely on some quirk or gimmick of the character wheter it be a melee weapon (sword, hammer) or the character itself (geth, Talon Merc, N7s).  So the best way to have more variety is to do more of those- which is of limited help in SP since we are all Ryder.

That is role-playing via combat in a lot of ways. 

I think the issue then is does the Biotic charge work all the time? If yes, you are right it doesn't need to change much and you can wreck face in a monotomous way.

If no...then maybe switching out the Nova and Annihilation field for Flare and Reave with the Charge might be more prudent to distract before you get in and out real quick.

I think it really does depend on encounter design here, which I think is also Laughing Man's point of contention about enemies being the same-y too and forcing the player to adjust combat style to something they shouldn't be able to do.

That could be a concern, or it could be a forced RP experience where you purposely stick to one "profile" for the duration. I don't know in the end if that is appealing or not for everyone. 

Until we have an official confirmation (or hopefully a negation) on the numbers of abilities we will be allowed to use in combat, this thread will always have the power to frustrate me to no end. And as jaded as I’ve become thanks to RL, I know I’m fucked XD.

We still don’t know if “signature powers” (i.e. charge/singularity) will be in or out the 3 slots and/or if passives /progress will allow for more slots to be unlocked in ME:A. Still, I would like to reiterate again how incomprehensible such a game mechanic would be.
Limiting the number of abilities to 3, but allowing free switch when not in combat would be abysmally stupid, and twice as offensive and aggravating to be subjected to. Truly a fig leaf to make a 3 abilities system all the more evident in its limitations. At this point, simply unlocking more slots it’s better.

If the reason for this supposed mechanic is “the game becomes too easy”, I prefer to see every enemy with 10x life points. I can manage a sheer difficulty with a nice combat: it’s impossible to do the same with such an arbitrary limit, especially when one of the best feature of ME:A has been sold as “No more classes: you pick what you want to be”.
If the reason for such a supposed limit is to make the transition to multiplayer easier to do, again I think this feature is plainly wrong. In ME3 we managed (and still manage), multiplayer sessions with 1 or 2 powers because we have human teammates, who understand how to best synergize with us (or are simply better). A kind of tactical thinking a NPC will never be able to reach at the status of current technology: the base action of flanking the enemy is something I really doubt our companions in ME:A will be able to do properly (Is it confirmed we can’t even give order to them?). So, it’s not really the numbers of powers that makes the difference in multiplayer: it’s the people we play with.
With a 3 powers limits, single player campaign combat could become as fun as a solo gold game session in ME3 multiplayer: something you generally try to avoid after unlocking the pertaining objective. Sure, it would be a push to play multiplayer, but at that point it would only be to alleviate the pain of single player, before trashing the game altogether, uninstall it and go play something else.  Applying MMORPG logic to balance a single player experience it isn’t something I think could work: even then, a 3 powers limit with so many talents to unlock would be aggravating. And with many powers to choose from, but this infamous supposed limit, it would be like shooting in your foot because you’ve 6 bullets loaded but only 5 targets in front of you. Way too extreme.

Lastly, let’s examine the distinction between caster classes and shooter classes: in an ideal situation, I suppose a shooter class, or someone who prefer the warm embrace of the Dakka, would invest in more passive to increase its raw damage. While a caster class would invest in more slots to have combos at its beck and call…
Do you understand what I’m pointing out? An arbitrary limit of only 3 abilities in combat would cripple any caster setup: I don’t think shooter setup should be the only way to play and enjoy ME:A, because, again, ME is at its core an RPG (great story, great combat, hand in hand), so rogue and mage too, not only two handed warriors.
With an arbitrary limit of only 3 powers, personally I think ME:A could become the story we would like to play, but not the game we want to play.

I have nothing against a system that forces you to specialize and choose, if it allows also to earn your playstyle. Again, if in ME:A, 3 slots is the base from which you go big it would be acceptable. You want more slots? Spend those level points you’ve earned in the “slots unlock tree”. You prefer to increase your damage? Go for the passives. You’ve already done the first? Acquire more abilities. Try, experiment…
ENJOY!
Something like the above I would even endorse: you would begin the adventure as a zero (more o less) and become the hero you know you can be. Not the crippled fool tied to an arbitrary system…

Ranting is over: a witness of black over white of how much ME has been able to captivate me during the years. Of how much potential and bravery there was and is in this game and in Bioware.

I agree with the thrust of your point but we do know that charge and tac cloak will probably be in the three slots because that's where they appeared in the gameplay trailer last month. There was also an icon that looked a lot like singularity but that particular power was only shown briefly and didn't get used.

On the other hand, combat drone (engineer) and marksman's focus (soldier) are profile-specific powers that can't be put in the three slots, indicating that each profile has a separate, non-switchable power. Whether or not this power is active - I'm hoping that this is what the dpad-down button is for but I could be wrong - or just passive, remains to be seen.

Four active powers would still be a disappointing limit but it'd be a markedly better limit than three.

And I pray that they're not gonna do a tier ulocking system that'll have each slot specialized.

In other words, say you're an adept.

Slot 1 - Tier 1, Reave. Tier 2, Dark Channel. Tier 3, Singularity.

Slot 2 - Tier 1, Throw. Tier 2, Shockwave. Tier 3, Warp.

And you can't have any of the three in any other slots. In other words, if I chose Dark Channel for Slot 1. Then, I couldn't have Reave or Singularity for any other slot. If I choose Throw for my second slot, I couldn't choose Shockwave or Warp for any other slot.

This is feeling extremely bad.

They might not have to. They want for biotoc/tech explosions to be part of the game so bad, they made them where you have to have them just to get through the game. At least that's what I'm thinking. 6 (hell, even 8) skills isn't enough to justify spending 250 points (if our level cap is 50). We get 5 skill points per level, and if the math from the old game holds up it would be 21 points to level something all the way up.

The only way it could work is if our level cap was 25. But I'm imagining 4 * 21 = 84, 84 * 3 = 252. Still, my math doesn't work out. But it just feels bad.

So once you pick ability #4 you're...what, stuck? You wasted a perk, either before or now? After three powers are we just supposed to pick passives?

So because "Infiltrator" is poorly named (at least for a corridor shooter game), class distinctions are meaningless?