There are very few scenarios in which it is necessary to go into hard cover.
Personally, the best use of hard cover is to get grab kills.
I was a sucker for getting grabs, like some crazy addiction - even if it's faster to just shoot an enemy it's often way more satisfying to sprint in for a surprise grab! xD
Right hand advantage wasn't a bug, it was just a flaw in the enemy AI that people used to their advantage. When you were keeping just the right side of your character exposed so you could fire, the AI couldn't figure out that it shouldn't still be aiming at the center of your character.
So long as ME:A MP provides decent difficulty the people who can't handle the highest difficulty are going to try to exploit the stupidity of the AI in order to be able to run the highest difficulty so that they can get the rewards from it. It might be boring to camp a single spot but it's not really a bug as much as it's just taking advantage of the AI.
The best way to avoid that as always is to find a group of like minded people to run with who don't want to camp.
I suspect enemies in ME:A will be able to drop a character quite quickly without some form of cover on the higher difficulties. The game would just be way too easy otherwise.
It may not be a "bug" in the traditional sense of the word, but it certainly functions as one. It is a gameplay exploit that was unintentional that BioWare did not intend. Regardless of how you want to define it, that is cheating and completely undermines the point of the game.
Well hopefully those sorts of cheap tactics will not be possible in any capacity. Mac Walters gave the impression during his interview with Game Informer that enemies are going to be able to force players out of cover much easier and more frequently. Just based off watching game play, it seems to be in the player's advantage to keep on the move and not hunker down anywhere too long.
Cover is certainly still going to be a factor. My point is the jump jet and its rapid ability to maneuver is going to give players some more options than the limited Shepard run and roll that we had in ME3. I don't believe being out of cover is necessarily going to mean instant death as it did with ME3, but we'll know once some folks here get into the MEA MP beta that should be starting very soon.
^Outside of a couple maps, camping in one spot was never a feasible strategy for success in Gold or Platinum.
Every PUG match I ever played in those difficulties with players attempting that ended up downed a large portion of the playtime in spots which others players couldn't revive them.
It may not be a "bug" in the traditional sense of the word, but it certainly functions as one. It is a gameplay exploit that was unintentional that BioWare did not intend. Regardless of how you want to define it, that is cheating and completely undermines the point of the game.
Well hopefully those sorts of cheap tactics will not be possible in any capacity. Mac Walters gave the impression during his interview with Game Informer that enemies are going to be able to force players out of cover much easier and more frequently. Just based off watching game play, it seems to be in the player's advantage to keep on the move and not hunker down anywhere too long.
Cover is certainly still going to be a factor. My point is the jump jet and its rapid ability to maneuver is going to give players some more options than the limited Shepard run and roll that we had in ME3. I don't believe being out of cover is necessarily going to mean instant death as it did with ME3, but we'll know once some folks here get into the MEA MP beta that should be starting very soon.
It's not cheating to make use of the fact that the AI is stupid. Things like right hand advantage fall under clever use of game mechanics, especially since it didn't trivialize platinum just because you used it.
Nothing says it's cheating to do something BioWare didn't intend. BioWare issued multiple patches and DLC if they felt it gave too much of an advantage and they didn't fix RHA like they did the camping spots on Glacier and White(which they felt were being used too much).
It was already to the player's advantage to keep on the move in ME3 MP. That doesn't mean people aren't going to try to find a camping spot so that can make the game easier. The camping spot on Firebase White against Geth existed because people couldn't reliably beat gold but still wanted the credits it offered over every other difficulty(platinum didn't yet exist at this time).
The problem is that if the enemies aren't highly lethal in a short amount of time in ME:A, then exploiting soft cover is going to make the game way too easy for anybody that's half way decent at shooters. Even if you don't allow us to shoot back, you can't stop us from using soft cover and jumping out for only half a second to fire.
With the increased mobility, it's going to be more important than ever to ensure that enemies have ways to take us down before we can just slip away to the next soft cover.
Collector Praetorians, & Possessed Scions will laugh at your right hand advantage in ME3MP. I'll say that left, & right hand advantage will still be a thing, since you don't have to hug a wall to do it. But will the snyc-kill proof ramps/stairs make a comeback? Now that will be funny.
It's not cheating to make use of the fact that the AI is stupid. Things like right hand advantage fall under clever use of game mechanics, especially since it didn't trivialize platinum just because you used it.
Nothing says it's cheating to do something BioWare didn't intend. BioWare issued multiple patches and DLC if they felt it gave too much of an advantage and they didn't fix RHA like they did the camping spots on Glacier and White(which they felt were being used too much).
It was already to the player's advantage to keep on the move in ME3 MP. That doesn't mean people aren't going to try to find a camping spot so that can make the game easier. The camping spot on Firebase White against Geth existed because people couldn't reliably beat gold but still wanted the credits it offered over every other difficulty(platinum didn't yet exist at this time).
The problem is that if the enemies aren't highly lethal in a short amount of time in ME:A, then exploiting soft cover is going to make the game way too easy for anybody that's half way decent at shooters. Even if you don't allow us to shoot back, you can't stop us from using soft cover and jumping out for only half a second to fire.
With the increased mobility, it's going to be more important than ever to ensure that enemies have ways to take us down before we can just slip away to the next soft cover.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. An exploit is a form of cheating in my experiences. Just because BioWare doesn't patch it doesn't mean it's not cheating. The reality is fixing the issue probably was not simply changing or adding some lines of code. It may have been a far more complex issue that wasn't worth the effort, especially since ME3 MP is not a competitive MP scenario where you fight other players. The moment BioWare sees an exploit in PvP on SWTOR, they almost always immediately patch it and they make it clear to the player base not to exploit, otherwise actions will be taken against your account.
Yep. Firebase White was the map I was thinking of. Most players I met always ran to that one corner of the map and would just sit there the entire game. I definitely want enemies to be lethal (the game wouldn't be fun otherwise), I just don't want it to relegate players permanently to cover. The jump jet, at least from the trailers, seems to be a practical means of avoiding damage and evading enemies. I believe that mechanic is going to play into how MEA MP functions considerably. We'll also be able to use all of our skills at once as the global cooldown has been removed, so the entire dynamic for how fights will play out should be drastically different.
I'm all for a challenge. I only play Mass Effect on Insanity and I always went into multiplayer on platinum. I just hope the game and AI are flexible enough to encourage a variety of legitimate strategies that don't rely on exploits, bugs, or broken mechanics within the game.
Collector Praetorians, & Possessed Scions will laugh at your right hand advantage in ME3MP. I'll say that left, & right hand advantage will still be a thing, since you don't have to hug a wall to do it. But will the snyc-kill proof ramps/stairs make a comeback? Now that will be funny.
Nothing can top AI deadliness and shield recharge rate being tied to framerate.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. An exploit is a form of cheating in my experiences. Just because BioWare doesn't patch it doesn't mean it's not cheating. The reality is fixing the issue probably was not simply changing or adding some lines of code. It may have been a far more complex issue that wasn't worth the effort, especially since ME3 MP is not a competitive MP scenario where you fight other players. The moment BioWare sees an exploit in PvP on SWTOR, they almost always immediately patch it and they make it clear to the player base not to exploit, otherwise actions will be taken against your account.
Yep. Firebase White was the map I was thinking of. Most players I met always ran to that one corner of the map and would just sit there the entire game. I definitely want enemies to be lethal (the game wouldn't be fun otherwise), I just don't want it to relegate players permanently to cover. The jump jet, at least from the trailers, seems to be a practical means of avoiding damage and evading enemies. I believe that mechanic is going to play into how MEA MP functions considerably. We'll also be able to use all of our skills at once as the global cooldown has been removed, so the entire dynamic for how fights will play out should be drastically different.
I'm all for a challenge. I only play Mass Effect on Insanity and I always went into multiplayer on platinum. I just hope the game and AI are flexible enough to encourage a variety of legitimate strategies that don't rely on exploits, bugs, or broken mechanics within the game.
An exploit is just using something to your advantage. As a programmer myself saying clever use of mechanics is basically another way of saying "Well I didn't intend for them to do that, but I'm not going to call it cheating". The times where it needs fixing is when it provides too much of an advantage, such as Firebase White/Geth.
People have been telling you repeatedly in this thread that ME3 didn't require cover. It's completely on you that you want to be relegated to that playstyle because it is not only not required, but it's a less effective way of fighting the enemy once you know how to use soft cover. Even if you aren't specifically "exploiting RHA" you can still make good use of soft cover with hard hitting/slower firing weapons.
My advice to avoid players constantly just running to one area of the map to hold it is to get a group of people together that don't want to camp because I assure you it will happen in ME:A MP as well. The people who can't handle running around the map will try to find ways to reap the rewards of the higher difficulties and once that tactic gets out, it will become mainstream in pugs like it did in ME3 MP.
My concern is that if they make mobility in an of itself a way of avoiding incoming damage then people like myself who are used to playing DOOM on the highest difficulty are going to make it hilariously easy because we're already very well practiced at staying on the move in a game that is much harder than anything Mass Effect has ever thrown at us(and we don't have biotics to help us out there =P).
An exploit is just using something to your advantage. As a programmer myself saying clever use of mechanics is basically another way of saying "Well I didn't intend for them to do that, but I'm not going to call it cheating". The times where it needs fixing is when it provides too much of an advantage, such as Firebase White/Geth.
People have been telling you repeatedly in this thread that ME3 didn't require cover. It's completely on you that you want to be relegated to that playstyle because it is not only not required, but it's a less effective way of fighting the enemy once you know how to use soft cover. Even if you aren't specifically "exploiting RHA" you can still make good use of soft cover with hard hitting/slower firing weapons.
My advice to avoid players constantly just running to one area of the map to hold it is to get a group of people together that don't want to camp because I assure you it will happen in ME:A MP as well. The people who can't handle running around the map will try to find ways to reap the rewards of the higher difficulties and once that tactic gets out, it will become mainstream in pugs like it did in ME3 MP.
My concern is that if they make mobility in an of itself a way of avoiding incoming damage then people like myself who are used to playing DOOM on the highest difficulty are going to make it hilariously easy because we're already very well practiced at staying on the move in a game that is much harder than anything Mass Effect has ever thrown at us(and we don't have biotics to help us out there =P).
Again, we'll have to agree to disagree as this has become subjective due to the degrees of how much an advantage it affords the player. Any kind of unintended advantage, in my eyes, is cheating and an exploit. Those kinds of incidents have always been treated with negative consequences in every MMORPG or competitive multiplayer game I've played.
I don't believe I ever stated I would sit in a corner and camp. That being said, it's not entirely bright to run off on your own while the rest of your team is camping either. If you on the off chance happen to get incapacitated, your teammates aren't coming for you. It's a catch 22, but really it was more of an issue with poor implementation of game design more than anything else. If BioWare puts in systems to discourage that kind of behavior, players wouldn't be relying on it to start.
The fact that I would have to create a group due to the inadequacies of the game already shows a flaw in game design. I'm definitely going to give MEA MP a try, as I'm expecting it to be different from ME3 MP. That being said, I shouldn't necessarily have to be forced to have cooperative players just to play a match as intended. There will always be bad players, but the game shouldn't encourage those poor practices.
DOOM is actually not a bad example of what Mass Effect Andromeda combat may look like. Again, we'll have to see just how viable staying on the move is compared to using cover. However, BioWare wants the player to move and the combat was largely influenced by Destiny, which is a shooter that requires a lot of movement. There is no cover system in that game, let alone most shooters, so having quick reflexes really becomes the dominant skill in these kinds of games.
Honestly, I think a more movement-based gameplay would actually be better than the soft cover approach that you have to endorse with ME3. Sure, some folks wouldn't like the change if they aren't particularly good at shooters. That being said, BioWare can't please everybody. I think the ideal situation would be to have a nice mixture of both.
Last Edit: Feb 20, 2017 23:13:21 GMT by Revan Reborn
I don't know about improved. Its different. But I'm trying to figure out what was wrong in ME3's combat that needed an overhaul.
I'm reserving judgement on the new cover system. I'll take omnibutton over magnetic cover any day of the week. I don't want to be running next to a wall and get consistently sucked in, or using soft cover and getting boned. The only problem with omni button was that it also handled the interact actions. If A was just run, dodge and cover that works.
I'm hoping the jetpack proves useful but I don't have much of my hopes up that it'll be worthwhile on higher difficulties.
The best part of ME3 was how fast it was, even if it was erratic at times. Now it looks like they've made a couple moves to slow it down.
Individual cooldowns sound nice, but how often did you have 3 activation abilities you wanted to consistently roll through? A lot of times it was a sustained mode, a useful ability you wanted to use a lot, and another ability that was a grenade or for more specialty use that would be either skipped or specced into barely. Won't be a lot of fun in MP if you're dealing with a 12 second cool down on overload.
Again, we'll have to agree to disagree as this has become subjective due to the degrees of how much an advantage it affords the player. Any kind of unintended advantage, in my eyes, is cheating and an exploit. Those kinds of incidents have always been treated with negative consequences in every MMORPG or competitive multiplayer game I've played.
I don't believe I ever stated I would sit in a corner and camp. That being said, it's not entirely bright to run off on your own while the rest of your team is camping either. If you on the off chance happen to get incapacitated, your teammates aren't coming for you. It's a catch 22, but really it was more of an issue with poor implementation of game design more than anything else. If BioWare puts in systems to discourage that kind of behavior, players wouldn't be relying on it to start.
The fact that I would have to create a group due to the inadequacies of the game already shows a flaw in game design. I'm definitely going to give MEA MP a try, as I'm expecting it to be different from ME3 MP. That being said, I shouldn't necessarily have to be forced to have cooperative players just to play a match as intended. There will always be bad players, but the game shouldn't encourage those poor practices.
DOOM is actually not a bad example of what Mass Effect Andromeda combat may look like. Again, we'll have to see just how viable staying on the move is compared to using cover. However, BioWare wants the player to move and the combat was largely influenced by Destiny, which is a shooter that requires a lot of movement. There is no cover system in that game, let alone most shooters, so having quick reflexes really becomes the dominant skill in these kinds of games.
Honestly, I think a more movement-based gameplay would actually be better than the soft cover approach that you have to endorse with ME3. Sure, some folks wouldn't like the change if they aren't particularly good at shooters. That being said, BioWare can't please everybody. I think the ideal situation would be to have a nice mixture of both.
In my years of playing WoW it always depended on what it was. Using an ability to drop combat during a boss fight so I can revive somebody wasn't intended, but I wasn't punished for doing it. After a while it becomes difficult to say what is or isn't intended unless the devs come out and say it(which to my knowledge they never did say if RHA was intended or not).
I know you don't want to sit in a corner and camp, because you've been saying how you're looking forward to the increased mobility. I was merely pointing out that:
A. People will try to camp anyway and once somebody finds a viable camping tactic, the pugs will adopt it for widespread use like they did in ME3 MP. B. Once A happens, the best thing you can do to avoid matches of people camping all the time is to get a group of people together that don't want to camp.
Though still my main concern is mobility making the game too easy if enemies can't still drop you as quickly as they do in DOOM on Nightmare. Mobility is something that requires a very careful balance otherwise it trivializes the entire game when we're talking about playing against AI.
In my years of playing WoW it always depended on what it was. Using an ability to drop combat during a boss fight so I can revive somebody wasn't intended, but I wasn't punished for doing it. After a while it becomes difficult to say what is or isn't intended unless the devs come out and say it(which to my knowledge they never did say if RHA was intended or not).
I know you don't want to sit in a corner and camp, because you've been saying how you're looking forward to the increased mobility. I was merely pointing out that:
A. People will try to camp anyway and once somebody finds a viable camping tactic, the pugs will adopt it for widespread use like they did in ME3 MP. B. Once A happens, the best thing you can do to avoid matches of people camping all the time is to get a group of people together that don't want to camp.
Though still my main concern is mobility making the game too easy if enemies can't still drop you as quickly as they do in DOOM on Nightmare. Mobility is something that requires a very careful balance otherwise it trivializes the entire game when we're talking about playing against AI.
In fairness, ME3MP was BioWare's first attempt at an online experience. They had never done anything like it previously and so there were bound to be some mistakes and flaws in design made. Considering BioWare Montreal created the ME3MP, I'm assuming they went ahead and created the new MP for MEA, although I'm aware Edmonton and Austin are also helping with the game.
Well, if that scenario does happen and PUGs begin resorting to those kinds of tactics for maximum efficiency, I can only hope that BioWare would be more responsive to those kinds of fixes. Avoiding players that endorse those strategies would only be half the battle.
I definitely agree with you that there is a balance that has to be made. Cover is still meant to be a viable tactic and I don't believe that's going away. The way I see it is we are merely having more arsenals under our belt to diffuse certain situations. Of course, if just using the jump jet tends to be easier than using soft cover, then BioWare would have to tweak AI balance to discourage players from jumping and dodging too much. I'm sure this is probably something they've been grappling with for months internally and perhaps those of us lucky enough to try out the beta will be able to see just what the balance actually looks like.
Either way, I'm excited by the prospects and hopefully BioWare has learned a lot from ME3MP as well as DAI MP.
L2P problem spotted. Then, more action, means more L2Play Sounds like a problem
This sounds like the ramblings of a mad man.
If you believe it's viable to run around on platinum difficulty out of cover most of the match with enemies shooting at you, more power to you!
Moving around out of cover was essential for a decent level of play. There are literally hundreds of gold and platinum solo videos with people running around out of cover. It would actually be much more difficult to solo platinum while staying in cover the whole time, it helps to move away from certain enemies. And with a team it is much safer to move around and quicker to finish the run.
I don't believe I ever stated I would sit in a corner and camp. That being said, it's not entirely bright to run off on your own while the rest of your team is camping either. If you on the off chance happen to get incapacitated, your teammates aren't coming for you. It's a catch 22, but really it was more of an issue with poor implementation of game design more than anything else. If BioWare puts in systems to discourage that kind of behavior, players wouldn't be relying on it to start.
The fact that I would have to create a group due to the inadequacies of the game already shows a flaw in game design. I'm definitely going to give MEA MP a try, as I'm expecting it to be different from ME3 MP. That being said, I shouldn't necessarily have to be forced to have cooperative players just to play a match as intended. There will always be bad players, but the game shouldn't encourage those poor practices.
Bioware has already tried to discourage camping in ME3MP through 'cover busters' and re-designing maps and they will do the same in MEAMP. What you don't seem to understand is that the people using soft cover and RHA and the people camping in one spot of the map aren't the same. In fact, good players will run around the map like rambos and actively destroy spawns while using soft cover, stagger, high dps, as well as shield and health gate to stay alive. The campers you are complaining about aren't good enough to do that, hence why they are camping in one spot (which unnecessarily prolongs the match).
In ME3MP the enemy AI was dependant on the host player's framerate. IIRC from the moment they have line of sight on you there is a certain time until they lock on to you (3s on 30 fps and 1.5s on 60 fps). Once they do, they will hit you with perfect accuracy until you break LoS for a certain amount of time. Correct me if I'm wrong, @cyonan. It's what I remember from Annomander's data-mining.
Now, if they used that same programming, your jetpack would do fuck all. My prediction for MEAMP is that at the higher difficulties enemies will still wreck you, if you hover around like an idiot or stay out in the open for too long. Meaning that soft cover will still give you the best survivability and the improved mobility will only make it easier to go from one soft cover to the next. If they made it so mobility allows you to avoid enemy fire (meaning no perfect target lock), then players like me would just roflstomp across the map and trivialize the highest difficulties.
I used to play Defiance (a sci-fi TPS) for a while and RHA was impossible in that game. Your gunfire would simply bounce off the corner, even if you tried to shoot past it. Yet you could still utilize it against a group of five enemies to make it so only the one on the right could target you. Then kill him and work your way towards the left. Using soft cover is the concept of having something between you and the opponent without actively going into cover, I could technically use teammates as soft cover. With a single-shot high-dmg weapon I can simply move out of soft cover for half a second, headshot an enemy and move back behind a corner. It is always better than being glued to a piece of level architecture, since it allows for more mobility. Remember, I want to run around and kill shit.
You say that you only played on platinum, yet you seem to think that RHA is cheating. Frankly, I don't think you are a very good player. Have you ever solo'd platinum? Have you ever played squishy characters on platinum and done well with them?
I'll leave you with this pinnacle of GI solo gameplay on platinum from Heldarion:
He makes perfect use of soft cover, proxy mine stagger and killing enemies before they can shoot him.
Right hand advantage wasn't a bug, it was just a flaw in the enemy AI that people used to their advantage. When you were keeping just the right side of your character exposed so you could fire, the AI couldn't figure out that it shouldn't still be aiming at the center of your character.
So long as ME:A MP provides decent difficulty the people who can't handle the highest difficulty are going to try to exploit the stupidity of the AI in order to be able to run the highest difficulty so that they can get the rewards from it. It might be boring to camp a single spot but it's not really a bug as much as it's just taking advantage of the AI.
The best way to avoid that as always is to find a group of like minded people to run with who don't want to camp.
I suspect enemies in ME:A will be able to drop a character quite quickly without some form of cover on the higher difficulties. The game would just be way too easy otherwise.
It may not be a "bug" in the traditional sense of the word, but it certainly functions as one. It is a gameplay exploit that was unintentional that BioWare did not intend. Regardless of how you want to define it, that is cheating and completely undermines the point of the game.
Well hopefully those sorts of cheap tactics will not be possible in any capacity. Mac Walters gave the impression during his interview with Game Informer that enemies are going to be able to force players out of cover much easier and more frequently. Just based off watching game play, it seems to be in the player's advantage to keep on the move and not hunker down anywhere too long.
Cover is certainly still going to be a factor. My point is the jump jet and its rapid ability to maneuver is going to give players some more options than the limited Shepard run and roll that we had in ME3. I don't believe being out of cover is necessarily going to mean instant death as it did with ME3, but we'll know once some folks here get into the MEA MP beta that should be starting very soon.
If ISIS invades my house, I'm going to "Camp" around the corner above the stairs and "exploit" right hand advantage by poking my gun around the corner and firing down the stairs while they can't see me.
Call me a "cheater", oh wait, you won't be able to, because when they invade YOUR house, you'll be dead, because you jumped right out onto the top stair right in front of them. At least you died "fair".
It holds the line, or else it gets the hose again Banner made by howyummy! Let your inner peace destroy the behavior of others
I don't believe I ever stated I would sit in a corner and camp. That being said, it's not entirely bright to run off on your own while the rest of your team is camping either. If you on the off chance happen to get incapacitated, your teammates aren't coming for you. It's a catch 22, but really it was more of an issue with poor implementation of game design more than anything else. If BioWare puts in systems to discourage that kind of behavior, players wouldn't be relying on it to start.
The fact that I would have to create a group due to the inadequacies of the game already shows a flaw in game design. I'm definitely going to give MEA MP a try, as I'm expecting it to be different from ME3 MP. That being said, I shouldn't necessarily have to be forced to have cooperative players just to play a match as intended. There will always be bad players, but the game shouldn't encourage those poor practices.
Bioware has already tried to discourage camping in ME3MP through 'cover busters' and re-designing maps and they will do the same in MEAMP. What you don't seem to understand is that the people using soft cover and RHA and the people camping in one spot of the map aren't the same. In fact, good players will run around the map like rambos and actively destroy spawns while using soft cover, stagger, high dps, as well as shield and health gate to stay alive. The campers you are complaining about aren't good enough to do that, hence why they are camping in one spot (which unnecessarily prolongs the match).
In ME3MP the enemy AI was dependant on the host player's framerate. IIRC from the moment they have line of sight on you there is a certain time until they lock on to you (3s on 30 fps and 1.5s on 60 fps). Once they do, they will hit you with perfect accuracy until you break LoS for a certain amount of time. Correct me if I'm wrong, @cyonan. It's what I remember from Annomander's data-mining.
Now, if they used that same programming, your jetpack would do fuck all. My prediction for MEAMP is that at the higher difficulties enemies will still wreck you, if you hover around like an idiot or stay out in the open for too long. Meaning that soft cover will still give you the best survivability and the improved mobility will only make it easier to go from one soft cover to the next. If they made it so mobility allows you to avoid enemy fire (meaning no perfect target lock), then players like me would just roflstomp across the map and trivialize the highest difficulties.
I used to play Defiance (a sci-fi TPS) for a while and RHA was impossible in that game. Your gunfire would simply bounce off the corner, even if you tried to shoot past it. Yet you could still utilize it against a group of five enemies to make it so only the one on the right could target you. Then kill him and work your way towards the left. Using soft cover is the concept of having something between you and the opponent without actively going into cover, I could technically use teammates as soft cover. With a single-shot high-dmg weapon I can simply move out of soft cover for half a second, headshot an enemy and move back behind a corner. It is always better than being glued to a piece of level architecture, since it allows for more mobility. Remember, I want to run around and kill shit.
You say that you only played on platinum, yet you seem to think that RHA is cheating. Frankly, I don't think you are a very good player. Have you ever solo'd platinum? Have you ever played squishy characters on platinum and done well with them?
I'll leave you with this pinnacle of GI solo gameplay on platinum from Heldarion:
He makes perfect use of soft cover, proxy mine stagger and killing enemies before they can shoot him.
Bioware has already tried to discourage camping in ME3MP through 'cover busters' and re-designing maps and they will do the same in MEAMP. What you don't seem to understand is that the people using soft cover and RHA and the people camping in one spot of the map aren't the same. In fact, good players will run around the map like rambos and actively destroy spawns while using soft cover, stagger, high dps, as well as shield and health gate to stay alive. The campers you are complaining about aren't good enough to do that, hence why they are camping in one spot (which unnecessarily prolongs the match).
In ME3MP the enemy AI was dependant on the host player's framerate. IIRC from the moment they have line of sight on you there is a certain time until they lock on to you (3s on 30 fps and 1.5s on 60 fps). Once they do, they will hit you with perfect accuracy until you break LoS for a certain amount of time. Correct me if I'm wrong, @cyonan. It's what I remember from Annomander's data-mining.
Now, if they used that same programming, your jetpack would do fuck all. My prediction for MEAMP is that at the higher difficulties enemies will still wreck you, if you hover around like an idiot or stay out in the open for too long. Meaning that soft cover will still give you the best survivability and the improved mobility will only make it easier to go from one soft cover to the next. If they made it so mobility allows you to avoid enemy fire (meaning no perfect target lock), then players like me would just roflstomp across the map and trivialize the highest difficulties.
I used to play Defiance (a sci-fi TPS) for a while and RHA was impossible in that game. Your gunfire would simply bounce off the corner, even if you tried to shoot past it. Yet you could still utilize it against a group of five enemies to make it so only the one on the right could target you. Then kill him and work your way towards the left. Using soft cover is the concept of having something between you and the opponent without actively going into cover, I could technically use teammates as soft cover. With a single-shot high-dmg weapon I can simply move out of soft cover for half a second, headshot an enemy and move back behind a corner. It is always better than being glued to a piece of level architecture, since it allows for more mobility. Remember, I want to run around and kill shit.
You say that you only played on platinum, yet you seem to think that RHA is cheating. Frankly, I don't think you are a very good player. Have you ever solo'd platinum? Have you ever played squishy characters on platinum and done well with them?
I'll leave you with this pinnacle of GI solo gameplay on platinum from Heldarion:
He makes perfect use of soft cover, proxy mine stagger and killing enemies before they can shoot him.
The obviously potential flaw in your post is the assumption that MEA MP will function the same as ME3 MP. We simply do not know at this time. We can assume enemy AI will just be able to auto target once you are out of cover for a certain amount of time, but until folks beta test it, this is all just speculation. What we do know is MEA gameplay has changed quite drastically from ME3 gameplay, and it would be silly to assume that won't somehow impact the MP experience as well.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that balancing priorities for this kind of multiplayer is very different from typical competitive multiplayer. This is not PvP. We are fighting against waves of predictable AI that will do the same things over and over. This is part of the reason so many of these exploits are effective, because the AI isn't sophisticated enough to adapt to the bad behavior of the player.
I think that any flaw or exploit that is not intended is cheating, regardless of the game. It simply does not matter. I remember back in the days of Halo 2 with the BR fast reload exploit that was hugely popular. I had to learn it for the sake of ranked team deathmatch to maintain my rank, but I wasn't happy about using a clear exploit just to be competitive. I prefer experiences that are balanced, fair, and that are entirely built on player skill. In the case of a shooter, that's hand-eye coordination, not exploiting a flaw in the game where you can use soft cover and kill NPCs without them being able to hit you. That's not skill. That's avoiding playing the game as intended so that you can game the system and win easy. Call it being clever, but I see that as taking the easy way out.
I understand we simply will never see eye to eye on this issue, and that's fine. From my perspective, it's like playing a game of basketball and you are traveling without dribbling the ball. It will be a lot easier for you to take the ball down the court because you have less to worry about due to bending the rules. I'm not that kind of individual. I play by the rules and if others can't, especially in a non-competitive wave-killing shooter, what's the point? Really, what skill do you have to prove by killing NPCs? I just don't understand.
Not trying to mock you, but I just don't see what's so skillful about exploiting a game and not playing as BioWare intended.
It may not be a "bug" in the traditional sense of the word, but it certainly functions as one. It is a gameplay exploit that was unintentional that BioWare did not intend. Regardless of how you want to define it, that is cheating and completely undermines the point of the game.
Well hopefully those sorts of cheap tactics will not be possible in any capacity. Mac Walters gave the impression during his interview with Game Informer that enemies are going to be able to force players out of cover much easier and more frequently. Just based off watching game play, it seems to be in the player's advantage to keep on the move and not hunker down anywhere too long.
Cover is certainly still going to be a factor. My point is the jump jet and its rapid ability to maneuver is going to give players some more options than the limited Shepard run and roll that we had in ME3. I don't believe being out of cover is necessarily going to mean instant death as it did with ME3, but we'll know once some folks here get into the MEA MP beta that should be starting very soon.
If ISIS invades my house, I'm going to "Camp" around the corner above the stairs and "exploit" right hand advantage by poking my gun around the corner and firing down the stairs while they can't see me.
Call me a "cheater", oh wait, you won't be able to, because when they invade YOUR house, you'll be dead, because you jumped right out onto the top stair right in front of them. At least you died "fair".
I have no idea what this has anything to do with a video game where you are killing waves of NPCs. This isn't a life or death situation. You are literally cheating and taking the easy way out because you refuse to play the game as intended. There are no similarities here with your over-the-top example.
“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” ― Douglas Adams, 1980
Not trying to mock you, but I just don't see what's so skillful about exploiting a game and not playing as BioWare intended.
When I started playing ME3MP, I didn't know about soft cover or RHA. The average pug doesn't know about it either. It's a skill you have to learn in order to play well on higher difficulties. It's not just about hugging corners, but mainly about positioning. If there's an enemy to my left, I may position myself in such a way that he doesn't have LoS on me while I quickly dispatch the one in front of me. Even if the enemy could still target your right shoulder around a corner it wouldn't make much of a difference, since his three friends to the left can't see you. But if you aim out of hard cover, they will. If you think that staying out of the enemy's LoS is cheating, then you're an idiot. Go play Puggernaut and face-tank your opponents in honorable combat.
I play by the rules and if others can't, especially in a non-competitive wave-killing shooter, what's the point?
You play by the rules in a PVE shooter? How very noble of you, we wouldn't want to hurt the AI's feelings after all. Who made these rules and where are they written down anyway? Bioware made the game the way it is. They saw people using RHA, shrugged and called it 'clever use of game mechanics'. Same for reload-canceling, reload-hiding and pizza running.
The enemies in ME3MP are cheating shits anyway, they spawn on top of you, wallhack, double-tap, stunlock, ignore your powers and shoot you while knocked down or frozen. Atlases will shoot butt missiles at you and Phantoms will stab you after you break their blade. Why wouldn't you use the game mechanics, that weren't explicitly labeled as cheating by the devs, against them? It's not like we're exploiting against human opponents, like you did in Halo.
Your basketball analogy was flawed. We're not playing against each other, but together against mindless zombies who don't really care about basketball and would rather eat our brains. If you want to kill them as efficiently as possible, you need to make use of their stupidity.
