ME3-ME:A Multiplayer Veteran review
Apr 4, 2017 4:33:12 GMT
SalMasRac, MPApr2012, and 5 more like this
Post by Zyurat on Apr 4, 2017 4:33:12 GMT
UPDATE: Bioware is going to balance combat, ping issues and weapons. The review is on the game 'as is' and will be updated.
Hello guys! after a roughly two weeks playing multiplayer, and coming from ME3 multiplayer as well, I made this review.
In all, its core is pretty solid. Key word being 'core'. It's familiar enough that it's not a complete revamp and it's independent enough to be really enjoyable and feel totally new.
Characters
+ There's a nice variety on powers. Having all powers unlocked from start is a nice addition. I never liked having to throw one out to be reliable.
+ They all have a small story, and talk more in-game. They also have unique voice lines.
- Barely any variety on characters. Most of them are humans that you get from start (and reuse the custom face list from ryder), and there's no distinction in powers from being male or female. Feeling there's much more to explore.
- What's with the titles? I do get adept, vanguard, engineer, etc, but not avenger or kineticist. You can't just give a random name, give it a mix of biotic powers and call it a new class. In ME3 you had those weird names, but were classified in its respective place, like the Turian Havoc in soldier, or Geth Juggernaut.
- Still no voice lines you can select at will, like asking for help. Communication is essential.
Combat
+ The combat itself is really solid. Jump jets and dodging feel more natural than ever. It totally added to the immersion of the game.
+ Blind fire: a great addition.
I wish we had it back on ME3.
- Cover takedown: nope. Missing this. I don't know why they took it away since it was so badass, but at the same time very restrictive with who you could or could not do it to.
- Slide over cover: not anymore. Now you have to either jump it over manually, taking sweet ass time (you can't jump without using the jump jets), or get to cover, wait for the button to appear to jump over, and then do it. I really do not like it.
- Off-host issues: If you're not the host, you teleport all over the damn place.
Weapons
+Seeing weapons from previous installments is nice.
=Some new weapons look great. Some not. Most kett weapons look like fungi or tumors.
-BALANCE ISSUES. Assault rifles look and feel really nerfed. I remember using my mattock X (since it's lighter than a harrier and I have a good trigger-finger) on ME:3 and taking out enemies easily. Now it's literally unusable. Slower rate of fire, really low damage. I have to hit 5 headshots in a row to take down just one basic enemy. Shotguns do a lot less damage point blank to the face than a sniper. Sniper rifles are the only ones that stand good (1 shot to the head to take off shields, another one to take off health). Pistols feel unusable as well.
- Off-host issues: If you're not the host, the headshots will not mark 95% of the time. It's downright pathetic.
Powers
+ They look nicer. You also get indicators if a power primes, and when it detonates. They also give indicators of when you performed one, and not just one visual explosion effect.
+ Combo detonations now have an extra effect, like electric making a shield-draining radius.
- Powers are weak. Energy drain, for example, does 20% damage to a shield using enemy, maximum. On ME:3 you'd do a lot more.
- Combo detonations, even when they look good, barely do any damage in comparison to ME3. A fully spec'd Shield Drain could take all the shields off on a trooper, but here the shield drain on a common enemy takes 20-30% of the shields off. That amount of damage can be done (and take the shields completely) with a single sniper bullet, and I'm not talking about the one-shot powerful ones.
Enemies
Kett: Holy shit are they hard. Two insta-kill enemies, A big enemy that tears your shields and health in a breeze, an ass that cloaks everyone and has high shields/health, and the trooper. Oh, and don't forget the chihuahua that turns invisible and bites you.
Remnant: They're cool, except for the flying machines tearing you apart in a millisecond. I really like that you can strip weapons off an enemy (the big tank)
Outlaw: They're cool too. Krogans are krogans, being annoying and getting you up close, angaras are annoying but not deadly, salarians are cowards with decoys, asaris are just slightly annoying (since they just use the shield to get up close) and turians well, they're just common enemies with armor.
+ In all, the effort put into them can definitely be seen. They're not copy-paste.
- I wish the enemies were more balanced. Kett are the hardest by a long shot, and are the only ones with insta-kill.
Objectives
= Hack: well, standard. Stay in the zone and wait for the hack to complete.
= Target: take down a specific enemy. Easy enough.
= Device: Just stand still for a few seconds disabling a device. Standard stuff.
---------- Transfer: Now this is the stupidest addition. If you get this on gold and not have a 4 squad then you're screwed. If you try this solo it's downright impossible, since the rules are stupid. You have to hack three places, but when you hack no enemy has to touch the circle, if it does, you have to take it down. But guess what? most of the times you either get overrun with small enemies and get stuck for a minute or so since there's infinite spawn, or get a huge enemy which you can't take down and have to leave. What happens if you leave? the counter begins to decrease all the way to zero. It's the hardest objective BY FAR. I'd be with my squadmates breezing through all the way to wave 6, then we get this objective and it's a literal
- If you stand on, or you're deactivating the objective as the marker reaches zero, the overlord will call mission failed and say everyone died, instead of a timeout.
Difficulty
- It's dumbed down. Gold can be played with a level 1 character.If you tried that on ME:3 you'd get your ass in a plate. According to users, this is not the case. Seems it was just my feeling.
- No platinum means less credits/experience and no variety.
Strike teams and currency
+ Strike Teams and a mobile app make it very modern. It's not just behind a PC/Console, now you can have it anywhere, customize your characters, make your squads go on missions, etc. They even have unique traits that will improve or reduce the effectiveness on the mission.
+ Having a new currency (mission funds) to buy items for your strike teams, or even better, to buy equipment for yourself (and not just consumables but permanent ones as well, like gear equipment on ME3) is an excellent addition.
- Strike Team issues, like selecting a team but not sending them will bug the mission and will make it unavailable to send any unit until it expires. Also strike teams can get contradictory traits, like "heroic" (+10 effectiveness on "we need a hero" missions), and "hero complex" (-10 effectiveness on "we need a hero" missions) at the same time.
- Strike teams can't get their negative treats treated.
- Lack of content on strike teams makes it boring pretty quick.
Overall I give it in its current state a 6.5/10. I'm glad they took their time to improve the multiplayer, but it needs some tuning badly.
What's your opinion? I'd like to know!
Hello guys! after a roughly two weeks playing multiplayer, and coming from ME3 multiplayer as well, I made this review.
In all, its core is pretty solid. Key word being 'core'. It's familiar enough that it's not a complete revamp and it's independent enough to be really enjoyable and feel totally new.
Characters
+ There's a nice variety on powers. Having all powers unlocked from start is a nice addition. I never liked having to throw one out to be reliable.
+ They all have a small story, and talk more in-game. They also have unique voice lines.
- Barely any variety on characters. Most of them are humans that you get from start (and reuse the custom face list from ryder), and there's no distinction in powers from being male or female. Feeling there's much more to explore.
- What's with the titles? I do get adept, vanguard, engineer, etc, but not avenger or kineticist. You can't just give a random name, give it a mix of biotic powers and call it a new class. In ME3 you had those weird names, but were classified in its respective place, like the Turian Havoc in soldier, or Geth Juggernaut.
- Still no voice lines you can select at will, like asking for help. Communication is essential.
Combat
+ The combat itself is really solid. Jump jets and dodging feel more natural than ever. It totally added to the immersion of the game.
+ Blind fire: a great addition.
I wish we had it back on ME3.
- Cover takedown: nope. Missing this. I don't know why they took it away since it was so badass, but at the same time very restrictive with who you could or could not do it to.
- Slide over cover: not anymore. Now you have to either jump it over manually, taking sweet ass time (you can't jump without using the jump jets), or get to cover, wait for the button to appear to jump over, and then do it. I really do not like it.
- Off-host issues: If you're not the host, you teleport all over the damn place.
Weapons
+Seeing weapons from previous installments is nice.
=Some new weapons look great. Some not. Most kett weapons look like fungi or tumors.
-BALANCE ISSUES. Assault rifles look and feel really nerfed. I remember using my mattock X (since it's lighter than a harrier and I have a good trigger-finger) on ME:3 and taking out enemies easily. Now it's literally unusable. Slower rate of fire, really low damage. I have to hit 5 headshots in a row to take down just one basic enemy. Shotguns do a lot less damage point blank to the face than a sniper. Sniper rifles are the only ones that stand good (1 shot to the head to take off shields, another one to take off health). Pistols feel unusable as well.
- Off-host issues: If you're not the host, the headshots will not mark 95% of the time. It's downright pathetic.
Powers
+ They look nicer. You also get indicators if a power primes, and when it detonates. They also give indicators of when you performed one, and not just one visual explosion effect.
+ Combo detonations now have an extra effect, like electric making a shield-draining radius.
- Powers are weak. Energy drain, for example, does 20% damage to a shield using enemy, maximum. On ME:3 you'd do a lot more.
- Combo detonations, even when they look good, barely do any damage in comparison to ME3. A fully spec'd Shield Drain could take all the shields off on a trooper, but here the shield drain on a common enemy takes 20-30% of the shields off. That amount of damage can be done (and take the shields completely) with a single sniper bullet, and I'm not talking about the one-shot powerful ones.
Enemies
Kett: Holy shit are they hard. Two insta-kill enemies, A big enemy that tears your shields and health in a breeze, an ass that cloaks everyone and has high shields/health, and the trooper. Oh, and don't forget the chihuahua that turns invisible and bites you.
Remnant: They're cool, except for the flying machines tearing you apart in a millisecond. I really like that you can strip weapons off an enemy (the big tank)
Outlaw: They're cool too. Krogans are krogans, being annoying and getting you up close, angaras are annoying but not deadly, salarians are cowards with decoys, asaris are just slightly annoying (since they just use the shield to get up close) and turians well, they're just common enemies with armor.
+ In all, the effort put into them can definitely be seen. They're not copy-paste.
- I wish the enemies were more balanced. Kett are the hardest by a long shot, and are the only ones with insta-kill.
Objectives
= Hack: well, standard. Stay in the zone and wait for the hack to complete.
= Target: take down a specific enemy. Easy enough.
= Device: Just stand still for a few seconds disabling a device. Standard stuff.
---------- Transfer: Now this is the stupidest addition. If you get this on gold and not have a 4 squad then you're screwed. If you try this solo it's downright impossible, since the rules are stupid. You have to hack three places, but when you hack no enemy has to touch the circle, if it does, you have to take it down. But guess what? most of the times you either get overrun with small enemies and get stuck for a minute or so since there's infinite spawn, or get a huge enemy which you can't take down and have to leave. What happens if you leave? the counter begins to decrease all the way to zero. It's the hardest objective BY FAR. I'd be with my squadmates breezing through all the way to wave 6, then we get this objective and it's a literal
- If you stand on, or you're deactivating the objective as the marker reaches zero, the overlord will call mission failed and say everyone died, instead of a timeout.
Difficulty
- It's dumbed down. Gold can be played with a level 1 character.
- No platinum means less credits/experience and no variety.
Strike teams and currency
+ Strike Teams and a mobile app make it very modern. It's not just behind a PC/Console, now you can have it anywhere, customize your characters, make your squads go on missions, etc. They even have unique traits that will improve or reduce the effectiveness on the mission.
+ Having a new currency (mission funds) to buy items for your strike teams, or even better, to buy equipment for yourself (and not just consumables but permanent ones as well, like gear equipment on ME3) is an excellent addition.
- Strike Team issues, like selecting a team but not sending them will bug the mission and will make it unavailable to send any unit until it expires. Also strike teams can get contradictory traits, like "heroic" (+10 effectiveness on "we need a hero" missions), and "hero complex" (-10 effectiveness on "we need a hero" missions) at the same time.
- Strike teams can't get their negative treats treated.
- Lack of content on strike teams makes it boring pretty quick.
Overall I give it in its current state a 6.5/10. I'm glad they took their time to improve the multiplayer, but it needs some tuning badly.
What's your opinion? I'd like to know!
