Multiplayer Feedback ~ General discussion

Had a week off playing and instead ran through Call of juarez bound in blood. Great fun, ten times better than this £$%^%£$
So for all those still battling to try and force yourselves to enjoy this, dont bother there plenty of better stuff out there
including ME3 Multiplayer.

What I see most reading through these threads is that one aspect is missing. FUN!!    

Since this is the feedback thread...


I've read concerns about how ranking up higher rarity characters is atm...


I had brought up this thought in other threads, but I suppose the feedback thread is a good place for it...





What if, when a character was promoted from level 20 back to level 1, the player was awarded a card for that character?

It's statistically improbable that you'd be able to spend 500k credits on non-supply, non-premium packs and get absolutely no weapons, but I'm not going to call you a liar on that. Improbable doesn't mean it didn't happen, but were I you, I'd spend my next round on the bronze packs. Not much in the way of shinies, but you'll at least get your guns above rank 1. In the meantime, booster-based balancing sucks, but if you're trying to reduce your frustration, rail amps and ammo powers are right there, waiting for you. I know you have them, because of all of those packs you opened.

Likewise, I've literally never been killed by a vanguard pulling a dynamic entry right next to me. You have the ability to open a LOT of ground in very little time, and most things will refocus on the new, closer target if you do that.

EXPERIENCE IS SHARED. Seriously. Can it be aggravating to see one player drastically outperform the rest of the team? Sure. Does it reduce the experience gain for anyone else in the party? In the pithy words made famous by Varren of Wall Station... "Absolutely fucking not." I'm mystified by this- you even say "Anything is shared for team"- how did you miss the fact that that applies to xp and credits, too?

On hack and upload missions, it's actually often helpful to have a single person off the objective, as far away from it as possible, because it splits the baddies, too. That person will not get revived if downed, of course, but if their hit'n'run game is strong, and they don't kite towards the objectives, they can make a difference despite seeming like they're just dicking around.
[EDIT: Ok, not as far as possible as a unilateral rule, but working harassment rather than sitting on the objective.  My own observations have not suggested that more players on the objective actually makes it go faster, but if others have found differently, I'd love to hear from them]


I 100% agree with you on needing the ability to rebind power button order, but when the rest of your post ranges from highly unlikely to outright false, I can't actually endorse what you're saying.

Pizza objectives were only available during last weekend's Apex mission, which was on a night-time version of firebase Sandstorm, if I recall correctly. That objective does seem almost absurdly easy now though - you can sprint, dodge, jump, cloak and possibly even charge (I think, haven't really used vanguards) while carrying the pizza. The only issue is the pizza reverts to its original location if you happen to die while delivering it.
Escort missions haven't been introduced at all yet but I suppose it's only a matter of time.

The Ruzad desperately wants to be a Claymore, and it has the potential to be something like it, if they ever fix shotgun damage and force. It's funny, though- several shotguns claim to be capable of staggering anything short of a fiend... yet I almost never see that happen.

I like the single player but the mp...Damn.

Multiple crash issues, very few maps and worse of all now you only level up each character instead of the class.

A lot more of grind than ME3MP but way less fun for me.

MEA multi is boring. Worse, it’s repetitive.
And a full branch of a game can’t be repetitive AND boring at the same time.

“But that’s like… your opinion man.”
Yes, I know, thank you, but this is the feedback thread, so allow me to express it: let’s see if it strikes home.
I’m disappointed by MEA multi: deeply so, and I fear rightly so (meaning I would like all of this to be only be perception).
I admit I’ve been jaded, because MEA multi failed to understand the lessons learned (which were many) from ME3 multi: worse, it squandered its legacy.
What purpose does MEA serve?
No one, if I must be sincere: it doesn’t promise anything to the player and it doesn’t deliver anything. Only an unjustifiable grind the kind of which would be unacceptable even for a FTP game. Being MEA not a FTP, I take exception to a branch where the only purpose is to do the same thing over and over again with no purpose or meaningful achievement. The grind for new characters and weapons was repaid in ME3 multi with genuine fun. MEA take that away and gives back only more grind: this time BOTH for XP and for single character, where in ME3 multi XP was shared among classes.
SO, MEA multi is a party with sponge enemies, with a x2 grind to achieve the same level from ME3, to be multiplied to the N number of classes we have to level up.
Nx2= a very boring experience.
An experience that becomes even less worthy when we consider that it’s not even that good to begin with. Many decisions were taken to remove from the game… let’s say the most charismatic elements: krogan melee for instance. Personally, I don’t understand why: I just know it took away something without replacing it, worsening the multi branch as a whole.
In the end, MEA as it is now, is a purposeless thing, with very little fun to be found inside.

Imo, making enemies less of sponges (reducing them to 60% of their actual life bar) and multiplying for 2.5 (at least) the net XP you received from any completed match would be the first due steps for making MEA multi worth of being played. From there, it is possible to make it enjoyable too.
Until then, I’m afraid multi will remain a dead weight for MEA (which we know it isn’t floating all that well already).

I broadly agree with everything you've said, but have quoted this part as it is actually a proposal for improvement, which I think most of us recognize is needed urgently. Any improvement! Here's my current take on things, and my apologies for the wall of text...

I played 3k hours of ME3 MP on both consoles, taking 4 accounts to N7 120 level, just for the craic. (Edit: in addition to my primary N7 1920 a/c) I was never involved in a grind, as I was having fun, using a leveling-up system which actually worked and fitted in with the Bronze, Silver and Gold difficulty levels, as did the weapons classifications for the most part. I earned close to 200k in combined CP. I loved the game, and even tolerated Collector bollocks on PS3. I rarely used OP kits, as I loved getting the most out of all the weapons and characters. I could happily troll Gold games with a HE and scoped Locust or a TSol/Avenger, just to prove that it really was Deadly on Full Auto. The Avenger in this game is even worse than ME3. The Horror!!!

In Andromeda I have taken a single character to level 20 so far, and am already bored out of my skull. That character was the Krogan Engineer, so it wasn't just boring, it was heartbreaking and embarrassing in equal measure. Seriously. I'm an old guy and I'm not prone to whingeing about every little thing that isn't exactly how I want it to be, but what they've done to the Krogans in this game is barbarism on a scale comparable to the genophage itself. (Drack aside, obviously - Drack is cool! And the Outlaw Berzerkers, who appear to have some quads.) Unless I'm missing something I can think of no reason whatsoever to use that KE character again. With ME3, variety was the motivation, but in MEA there is no variety to all the pew-pew-pewing. As for the character cards, who cares? What does it matter that I can't have an almost unnoticeable pattern on my armour?

The guns are mostly horrible in this game, and so are the powers, and so are the rewards, and so is the 'banter', and so is the size of the font (I dunno who I'm playing with most of the time), and so is the enforced teabagging of downed squadmates or devices when you can't see the 'Y' button because it's too feckin small. OK, so maybe the last one can actually be fun occasionally, but only inadvertently so. I want to love this game, I really do, but it really is just 'meh' as it stands. It's a mess, technically and in concept.

I miss my melee. I miss my Claymore. I miss my Kishock. I miss my Crusader, for real. The Talon now sounds more like a Scimitar or something. I miss my Quarian, Batarian, Vorcha, Drell and Volus characters, along with all their great dialogue. I even, kinda, almost, slightly miss my Toasters. What have I got in their place? An Angara that I haven't unlocked, and probably won't if the current system isn't overhauled. And rumours of the Vanquisher being the gun of all guns, when I found it kinda dull in SP. Whoop-de-doo.

I can only assume that the motivation to make money from microtransactions was ultimately more forceful than the motivation to make a fun game which might garner praise and an enhanced reputation. Short-termism, as usual. I genuinely don't know what level of personality defect is required to spend actual money in the Store in this game. I dropped quite a bit on ME3, out of some kind of feeling of gratitude for the free dlc. On this game? No way, no how, never in a million years. I have better things to be doing with my money. And time. It's sad, because the foundations for a fun game were well laid by ME3, but they dropped the ball, possibly by thinking that Jetboots were all we would need to entertain us. They were fun for a game or two, and are fine in SP.

I say remove Jetboots from the MP except for certain characters who can use them with a short cooldown, and re-design the maps with more stairs or ladders for everyone else - enemies included, in an attempt to give personality and character to them - something sorely lacking at present, especially the Remnant and Kett. (This might also prove beneficial to any team working on a remastered trilogy.) 

Why can't I have the Ascendant's Drone? That thing is practically indestructible - it can survive 2 point blank Cobras. On Bronze.

As for XP and leveling-up, based on what I learned from my ME3 experience, no more than two games should be required on Bronze before having powers capable of doing damage on Silver. Likewise, a couple of games on Silver should be all that's required before moving up to Gold, assuming possession of a decent weapon. No consumables should ever be required on Bronze, and should only be optional for Silver. How they can be surprised if people aren't using consumables is beyond me, considering how I played an entire SP campaign without even remembering they were an option, and then in MP they hid them behind a convoluted, multi-layered menu system. XP needs buffed, most weapons need buffed, but powers and particularly combos need buffed a lot more for this to be a Mass Effect game. I'd like Apex missions to work as longer missions, with better credits and MP rewards if played in MP. The current Apex reward system is perplexing to say the least. Apex teams exist because there are Apex missions, which will give you funds, to buy or equip more Apex teams, ad infinitum and round and round and round we go in our little hamster-wheels. Why?

MEA MP is not a complete turd - I believe it can be polished. But it requires an acknowledgement that this current iteration has been a tech demo, and needs a major overhaul. Otherwise it'll be dead by summer. Or sooner. 

TL/DR: No Claymore, No Bang.

So, in case the devs are still following this thread, I'd like to call out how much a lot of us miss the heavy melee option. Now, yes, the asari sword/krogan hammer/omni blade/biotic punch were all heavy melee attacks in ME3 (and the ability to do a melee attack aside from a pistol whip or butt stroke was actually the single thing that most excited me when the gameplay trailers for ME3 came out), but overall, despite the (awesome, but impractical due to iffy hit detection) ground pound, the depth of melee combat seems noticeably lower in ME:A than in ME3. The loss of not only the variety of melee attacks for different situations(and sometimes just for variety's sake), but of the over-cover grab system, is something I notice a couple of times a match.

I understand that adding something like grabs post-launch could be difficult, but I hope the devs at least consider it; in addition to the gameplay utility, it was an opportunity to add so much flavor to some of the kits. From the standard omni-blade strike, to the frenzied chopping of the vorcha, to the biotic characters showing what happens when you deliver massive knockback straight down into a head that's braced against the floor, to the sheer BWAHAHA! factor of a krogan driving his bare fist through some careless mook's face, even to the possibility of an Angaran doing a quick takedown/throatcut with their firaan, grabs can be a great tool to really show us why the character we're currently playing is an awesome badass. Aside: such animations, which essentially play as mini-cutscenes, make for excellent trailer material. Pithy and visceral.

Beyond grabs, I've been missing the flexibility of light/heavy melee choice. I like omniblades and biotic haymakers, but sometimes I'd love to have a quick pistol whip or butt stroke to stagger a dogbeast, to be finished off with a snap shot or power. It wasn't right for every solution, but I miss light melee.
Conversely, while the headbutt is still nice (audio tweak could give it that still-needed feeling of weight; give us a bit more 60hz)oh, do I ever miss the mighty Krogan backhand. That slight shudder to the screen, that bassy, gratifying WHUMPcrunch... it felt so rewarding, and the times it didn't quite kill, and I had to either chase down my erstwhile victim, or sometimes even miss out on Rage because they technically died from hitting a wall, rather than me hitting them... well, that second one was kind of a pain, but even that still gave me a bit of a chuckle, and really drove home that I was playing a krogan. Psst... giving that feeling back to us would do a lot to help us forget about the slap-fight in the single player...

I'd also like to point out that, unlike the grabs, pistol whip, butt stroke, and krogan charge animations already exist for what certainly look like the human, salarian, turian, asari, and krogan models. You'd want to speed them up for player use, but that seems to this particular player as the bones of a two-speed melee system. You've certainly proven to us that the engine can handle inputs that mean different things depending on how long you hold the button!

They're not mutually exclusive, thankfully, but I do agree that fixing what's actually broken/unresponsive is more immediate than adding new options- especially if those fixes carry forward and improve the mechanical function of any new additions to the melee system.