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Post by Gileadan on Apr 26, 2021 6:53:05 GMT
I know it will mostly just be a graphical update, but I'd really like them to fix the wonky shooting mechanic in ME3 (I don't recall if previous titles had the same problem).
Enemy accuracy against the player should no longer depend on the FPS the game is running at. The game code should not assume that the game is being run at 30 FPS, because on most PCs it won't be.
Also, if the enemy is hitting the player's cover, they should hit the cover where the player was when the shot was fired, instead you can see projectiles change their trajectory in mid air to hit the cover exactly at the player's position if the player is moving. I.e. make the enemy shoot and then see where the shot is going instead of deciding where it will land beforehand and then make it fly a curve to get there.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 19, 2021 5:52:21 GMT
I am not sure how I feel about this. You do provide alternatives to weapon "levels" which sound somewhat interesting. But some quick thoughts about removing weapon levels: 1. I am neither in favor nor opposed to removing weapon levels. All the Mass Effect games have had them so far in various ways. 2. If you remove weapon "levels": a. Enemies CANNOT scale with your character level. If enemies scale with you like they have in previous games, then weapons will essentially get weaker as you progress. b. Damage stat boosts for powers (in power talent trees, class passives, and equipment bonuses) must also account for static enemy stats across multiple difficulties. Now if you want enemy scaling (enemies get stronger as you gain levels), then both weapons and guns need a way to get stronger so you do not feel weaker, unless you want more emphasis on powers rather than guns. Now some of your other ideas can compensate for that. Or perhaps you can have more randomized loot (if you want to loot enemies) like in some other action RPGs with randomized stats, and your modding ideas could further augment that. But those are just my thoughts on the subject. I have some ideas about how powers and damage bonuses could work if enemies do not scale. I just want to echo this. I remember with Mass Effect 2 how much trouble I had with Insanity difficulty if I did a NG+, but I didn't have any of that trouble if I played Insanity from level 1 or if I continued for a bit and started to get upgrades. I think I get what you guys mean, and you make a good point. Removing weapon levels would essentially remove the scaling of increased enemy hitpoints, which the player would need to keep up with by leveling up their weapons to increase their damage output. If weapon levels were removed, it would take longer and longer to whittle down enemy health as it increases during the course of the game, since enemies get stronger as the player levels up. My suggestion would be to drastically decrease enemy health increase for higher level enemies. Instead, the following variables (many of which I realize are not even present in Mass Effect's gunplay mechanics, I would just like them to be there) could be tuned as enemies level up: - distance at which they become aware of the player and turn hostile - enemy accuracy, especially at longer ranges - better armour that stops a higher percentage of damage unless countered by armour piercing attacks - improved shields with a lower delay until recharge and/or a quicker rate of recharge - biotic defenses that do both of the above - the time enemies spend in and out of cover, and how quickly they move between cover spots - enemy access to gadgets and mods - amount of enemy reinforcements available and the speed at which they arrive All this could be used to produce a scaling system that does not use "enemy hitpoints vs player weapon level/damage output" at all but instead make the enemy better via better equipment and skills, hopefully requiring the player to counter those improved defenses with good equipment choices, smart skill use and accurate shooting instead of leveling up weapons to counter increased hitpoints. I know this won't happen since it's way more work in both implementation and balancing, but a man can dream.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 17, 2021 9:11:12 GMT
You bring up another excellent point when it comes to 3D printing and how that technology should evolve by the 22nd century...at the current rate. And well, I do not really like how most games handle looting in these games since its never made a lot of sense to me that a squad can carry like 60 different weapons into battle at the same time. But your comment on 3D printing does give me the idea that they can incorporate the scanning mechanic, like for MEA in the first place, and 'scan' a weapon which will let you then be able to research that weapon and then fabricate it. Could also be used as a justification why you don't have access to all your weapons at the start even in a *friendly* faction. Since that comes down to a liscencing fee even an elite military operative could need to purchase the lisence to use/ build a particular weapon. To think of an analogue from the game the Avenger AR could be the standard AR for the Alliance military but to use the Phaeston could require you purchasing that liscence in game if the player character wants to self modify and have unique arms...for whatever reason. That's a great idea for combining the scanning and fabrication mechanic! You could also just find weapon fragments to scan and either do your own research and development from there, or hope to find more bits of that weapon to scan until the blueprint is complete.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 17, 2021 7:27:54 GMT
Mass Effect's handling of weapons is, in my opinion, in need of a massive overhaul.
- Firstly, it needs to stop contradicting their own lore. Thermal clips are supposedly universal, so that's how the game should handle them. If I have a shotgun and a light pistol and ten thermal clips, that should let me reload ten times split over those two however I please instead of giving me a fixed ammo count for both that somehow makes it possible to run out of ammo for one weapon but not the other when the ammo I'm carrying is supposedly universal. Handguns should get way more shots out of one clip than an assault rifle that spits out high velocity projectiles at a high rate of fire since the first generates way less heat than the latter. You either have actual thermal clips, or you have "ammo". Pick one.
- Weapon "levels" should go. They are a gamey mechanic to upgrade your weapons in unexplained ways. This should be replaced with:
- More mods. Allow for more weapon parts to be modified or replaced to improve its performance. Underbarrel grenade launchers, different scopes, different barrels, all depending on the type of weapon of course. Upgrades to or the replacement of the internal projectile micro-factory could enable switching between different ammo types which have different effects on different types of defenses, like armour piercing or shield shortening. This should no longer be a soldier only "skill", because what does that skill represent? He's the only guy who knows where the switch is? "A stone cold killer would have asked what the red button is for..."
- Acquisition: weapons from hostile factions should be looted. Weapons from my own faction should be bought from stores if the protagonist is some kind of freelance operative. If we play as a member of an elite military unit like the N7 I expect to hand in a requisition form and get the finest tools of extermination that I want, depending on resources available. Also, given the likely advances in 3D printing, we could just buy/loot the blueprint and feed the required resources to a 3D constructor unit on our ship or base and watch it create the item.
- Upgrade/mod acquisition: just like weapons.
- While we're at it, please rework the wonky way the AI shooting at the player character is handled and make it work more like in other shooters.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 16, 2021 7:42:38 GMT
Synthesis is absolutely the one where Shepard should have been able to go "Uh... I need more details." Robots and equipment getting blown up or malfunctioning is something everybody understands even if the ultimate consequences could vary between 'back on our feet in a few years' and total galactic societal collapse and mass extinction, and the ambiguity of Control relies on Shepard's trust in their own sanity and integrity and the Catalyst's word that those won't disappear. But Synthesis could mean literally anything for all life everywhere, ever, and that's a hell of a thing to just blindly say yes to. I'd definitely say that the others are better defined, and that Synthesis is... interesting and thought-provoking. But not exactly well-written, no. And I kind of like the 'pick your poison' aspect. If you ever got to pick one out of a dozen possible futures for yourself then you could bet that there'd be things about each one of them that you'd find it really, really hard to choose to live with. I envy you for seeing this entire argument in-universe like this. I was taken right out of the game by the ending choices, and I picked them as a player, not as the character Shepard. To me, "pick your poison" is less "Shepard has to pick from three possible futures, each of which has at least potentially some very bad things in it" and more "the player can pick one of three endings, neither of which is very good or satisfying". My thoughts about Synthesis I already posted. Control is scary because it gives near total power to an AI based on Shepard's personality. Now what if that Shepard made at least one renegade decision in any of the three games? Tossing that mercenary through the glass wall for example, always a fan favourite? It would mean that there's a condition that would make the AI act similarly - just with a reaper fleet. Some Batarian pissing off Shepard AI the wrong way? Exterminatus by Reapers, wheee! And Destroy is essentially a hostage situation to me. It's the writers putting a gun to the geth's heads and daring me to shoot the thing, "do it and the toasters get it!". That made me cranky, and I shot the thing.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 16, 2021 6:55:17 GMT
That DLC model though.
It's on sale (~25% off) on Steam, and you can get all the DLC (sans base game) for a mere 217.82€.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 16, 2021 6:41:55 GMT
Synthesis is just poor writing.
How does remote-infusing organics with cybernetic bits stop them from creating the synthetics that will eventually kill them? How does organics having cybernetic bits stop synthetics from eventually killing them? "Greater understanding" is just a phrase. Humans (and other organic species) understand each other well enough and still exterminate each other all the time.
That said, the other endings aren't that much better, it's just a "pick your poison" situation.
Where will I buy the LE? At wherever gives me a fat discount first.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 6, 2021 5:46:58 GMT
I think that EA absolutely want and need a multiplayer live service cash cow that Anthem was planned to be, but have given up on the thought that BioWare are going to be the studio to deliver it and so are no longer willing to finance any multiplayer releated endeavour from them. That might well include the Mass Effect franchise.
We'll see, I guess.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 1, 2021 6:49:15 GMT
It doesn't seem fair to compare a galaxy to a cluster, I agree. But what I'm really comparing is the content of two games. Despite being limited to one cluster, MEA was a bigger game than ME1 and still had way less history and variety than that so much older game. If ME1 had been done the same way MEA was we would have had one allied alien race (let's say Turians) and one hostile one (Geth probably), and we wouldn't have been aware of the existence of any other species, meaning that much of the richness and variety that ME1 offered despite being the smaller game would have been lost, making it that much less interesting. It doesn't help Andromeda's cause that one of its two races feels a bit like ME2's Collectors with a different paint job and the other having only existed for 80 years or so. It's actually hard to imagine a setting with even less background and history unless you'd remove one of the two species, meaning we'd either have no allies or no enemies in Andromeda. Of course there could be more alien races in Andromeda's other clusters, but the same is true for the 98% unexplored parts of the Milky Way. There are pros and cons to both. I don’t disagree with your points, but on the other hand we got a ton more development of the Angara as opposed to the various races in ME1. For the Milky Way races, most of what we learn is in Codex entries or exposition dumps, while for the Angara we actually learn all of it. For example we don’t read a codex about their religious beliefs, but have a quest line about it. Show vs Tell. Also where are you getting that the Angara are only 80 years old? They have members like the Moshae who are older than that. The 89 years ago is when the Kett first arrived. The Angara have been around for a less than a millennium, but a lot more than a century. I don't disagree with your points either. Focusing on one race allows for way more detail and elaboration, and it's true that much of what we learn of the OT's species is from the Codex, especially in ME1. I'm sorry about the 80 year mistake, they did exist for longer than that but if I remember correctly, all their records of their history prior to their contact with the Kett has been lost, so that's the extend of background they have. Thank you for correcting me.
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Post by Gileadan on Apr 1, 2021 6:18:05 GMT
The Milky Way has a much richer history to build on and a greater variety of races. Andromeda has the angara, who existed for 80 years or so, and the kett, who give me strong "budget collectors" vibes. The Jardaan are either still out there or not, and I don't remember anything interesting about them. There's the Mom Ryder situation and the Jien Garson murder, but that's just material for two side quests. They'd have to come up with something new for Andromeda just like they would for the Milky Way. Rebuilding from a devastating war just seems like a more interesting setting to me than the few loose ends of Andromeda. But that's just my personal preference. I never connected with the Andromeda setting or MEA's characters, so I have very little motivation to revisit the place. So you’re comparing an entire galaxy to one cluster? Of course one is going to have more story than the other. As you expand more into Andromeda, it would become as rich if not richer than the Milky Way, which was the point and plan. It doesn't seem fair to compare a galaxy to a cluster, I agree. But what I'm really comparing is the content of two games. Despite being limited to one cluster, MEA was a bigger game than ME1 and still had way less history and variety than that so much older game. If ME1 had been done the same way MEA was we would have had one allied alien race (let's say Turians) and one hostile one (Geth probably), and we wouldn't have been aware of the existence of any other species, meaning that much of the richness and variety that ME1 offered despite being the smaller game would have been lost, making it that much less interesting. It doesn't help Andromeda's cause that one of its two races feels a bit like ME2's Collectors with a different paint job and the other having only existed for 80 years or so. It's actually hard to imagine a setting with even less background and history unless you'd remove one of the two species, meaning we'd either have no allies or no enemies in Andromeda. Of course there could be more alien races in Andromeda's other clusters, but the same is true for the 98% unexplored parts of the Milky Way.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 31, 2021 18:03:14 GMT
Andromeda is basically a lesser Milky Way. We brought some the major Milky Way races along - humans, turians, asari, salarian, krogan... but we left behind the quarians (didn't read the book), geth, drell, elcor, volus, hanar etc. Instead we got the angara and the kett (another angry carapaced race that kidnaps and transforms others, we didn't have that in a while). So most of Andromeda actually feels familiar instead of new because the Milky Way races outnumber the Andromeda races, but it also feels diminished because a lot of the Milky Way races stayed home and we didn't get anything exciting in return. Now we could ship the missing Milky Way races over to Andromeda, but why? It would feel like a new galaxy in name only because most people we'd get to meet would be from the Milky Way then. Returning to the Milky Way would be a richer setting with more races and more history to it. I personally hope that the Milky Way timeline won't be advanced over 600 years just to catch up with Andromeda and then get the interesting time of rebuilding after the reaper war as a mere codex entry. I'd rather play through that. The problem as I see is that going back to the Milky Way is exactly the same thing that you describe Andromeda to be. I don't see how it will improve the story or concepts when they never carried forward before aside from a few basics that were "solved" in Mass Effect 3. What defined the Milky Way for me was the things like the Quarian/Geth conflict or the Genophage which both were wrapped up in ME3 and if they continue I would expect them to become canon so for those that didn't pick the canon choice BioWare makes it would feel like going to Andromeda all over again. So that is where my thinking is that Andromeda or Milky Way its going to have the same problems and those expecting it would be different aren't going to get what I think they would expect. The Milky Way has a much richer history to build on and a greater variety of races. Andromeda has the angara, who existed for 80 years or so, and the kett, who give me strong "budget collectors" vibes. The Jardaan are either still out there or not, and I don't remember anything interesting about them. There's the Mom Ryder situation and the Jien Garson murder, but that's just material for two side quests. They'd have to come up with something new for Andromeda just like they would for the Milky Way. Rebuilding from a devastating war just seems like a more interesting setting to me than the few loose ends of Andromeda. But that's just my personal preference. I never connected with the Andromeda setting or MEA's characters, so I have very little motivation to revisit the place.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 31, 2021 13:34:54 GMT
Andromeda is basically a lesser Milky Way. We brought some the major Milky Way races along - humans, turians, asari, salarian, krogan... but we left behind the quarians (didn't read the book), geth, drell, elcor, volus, hanar etc. Instead we got the angara and the kett (another angry carapaced race that kidnaps and transforms others, we didn't have that in a while). So most of Andromeda actually feels familiar instead of new because the Milky Way races outnumber the Andromeda races, but it also feels diminished because a lot of the Milky Way races stayed home and we didn't get anything exciting in return.
Now we could ship the missing Milky Way races over to Andromeda, but why? It would feel like a new galaxy in name only because most people we'd get to meet would be from the Milky Way then.
Returning to the Milky Way would be a richer setting with more races and more history to it. I personally hope that the Milky Way timeline won't be advanced over 600 years just to catch up with Andromeda and then get the interesting time of rebuilding after the reaper war as a mere codex entry. I'd rather play through that.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 27, 2021 18:47:42 GMT
The story has to start in either the Milky Way or the Andromeda galaxy, and given that Andromeda only shows up in the opening shot of the two galaxies while dead reapers and Liara are shown prominently later in the trailer, I would hazard a guess and say that the Milky Way is the starting point. And if they really wanted to involve Andromeda from there, they would have to completely trivialize the distance and travel time between the two galaxies.
I wouldn't be overly surprised if they actually did that, I personally just wouldn't like it very much because making 2.5 million light years a small step for a man would essentially remove space from a space story for me.
Then again, BioWare occasionally teases things that then get forgotten about. Anyone remember Hawke going to Weisshaupt or being really important to Seeker Cassandra? Yeah.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 22, 2021 7:03:41 GMT
I'm personally not very interested in The Further Adventures of Goofball Ryder and the Bland Brigade. I also don't really need to know who murdered Jien Garson or who the benefactor is.
But then again, a good story can be had in either galaxy, if BioWare has the writers to actually create that story and the management to see it implemented into a good game. Unfortunately, this also works the other way around.
I expect Andromeda to take a backseat because most of the trailer visuals seemed Milky Way related, and the only recognizable character in it, Liara, is not generally associated with Andromeda.
Eh, I'll pick I AM KROGAN!
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 20, 2021 7:21:08 GMT
Edit: sigh let's try that again Christian Dailey@ChristianDailey @sergoldman perfect! Happy Friday my friends - I hope you are all staying out of the rain! Stay safe. Have a great weekend!! Inquisitor Adrastia, is that you?
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 17, 2021 22:33:24 GMT
Some of the companions might be interesting.
The map design will probably look beautiful.
With any luck, DAI's clunky, messy combat will be iterated on a lot. Proper hitboxes and a less suicidal companion AI would be great.
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Gileadan
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 15, 2021 8:40:45 GMT
I'm a middle aged white guy from Germany and the concept of representation doesn't do much for me. BioWare has never offended me with stereotypes or anything, and the games industry in general tends to portray Germans as either nazis (this carries entire franchises ) or ruthless scientists (XCOM: Enemy Unknown). It doesn't offend me though, I'm having as much fun with Wolfenstein and XCOM as the next guy. And there's always Reinhard in Overwatch who loves listening to Hasselhoff.
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Gileadan
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 15, 2021 7:40:38 GMT
However BioWare or anyone else defines live service, it must have been different enough from their standard patch/DLC post launch support routine to require a reboot of Dragon Age 4 (from Joplin to Morrison, and now back to single player only). If live service (according to BioWare) was defined as "patches and DLC post launch", then no reboot would have been necessary because they had been doing that for many years now. Patches can't possibly require a reboot, and neither should DLC, certainly not while the game is still in pre-production and DLC can be planned for accordingly. Whatever the reboots did, it must have been such a significant change to the game's structure that it could not be accomplished by patching or adding DLC. That doesn't follow. We don't know anything at all about the initial version of the game and we don't know what changed and we don't know what has changed now. Schrier's giant 'expose' was just a whole lot of gossip about workplace drama from anonymous sources. It didn't actually tell us anything about any version of DA4. I don't see the flaw in my logic. A reboot is only necessary if the changes made vary so greatly from the initial design that normal patches and DLC are not enough to implement the desired change. I did assume that Schreier's article "DA4 was rebooted to include live service" did contain enough truth to actually merit a discussion. But of course I wasn't there and I don't know any details, true. But if we assume that Schreier's article was just gossip and drama, then there's very little to actually talk about because no trustworthy source (who would be that anyway...) has put out any information to base a discussion on.
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Gileadan
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 14, 2021 22:27:03 GMT
That said, I can't think of any such character that I'd want in DA4, so I'm back at "ideally no one". No interessed in Harding, Calpernia or an Adult Bevin as possible DA 4 companions? Not that much, no. Harding deserves some peace and quiet, Calpernia I didn't find that interesting and Bevin was a kid in a side quest with a few lines of epilogue text if I remember correctly. All of them will be strangers to the new protagonist anyway. For me personally, returning companions only really make sense with a returning protagonist.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 14, 2021 22:00:47 GMT
Ideally no one. I'd rather meet new people. Hopefully they will come up with new companions that can carry the storyline instead of having old ones return as crutches. And what about known characters who weren´t previous companions? Like DAO Isabela, DAO Merrill (i know she was a temp companion in Dalish origin but this doesn´t count) and DA 2 Cassandra who were made into full flesh out companions? I have no problems with those since I don't have to pretend to get to know them all over again and they didn't have their time in the spotlight yet. That said, I can't think of any such character that I'd want in DA4, so I'm back at "ideally no one".
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 14, 2021 21:57:07 GMT
However BioWare or anyone else defines live service, it must have been different enough from their standard patch/DLC post launch support routine to require a reboot of Dragon Age 4 (from Joplin to Morrison, and now back to single player only). If live service (according to BioWare) was defined as "patches and DLC post launch", then no reboot would have been necessary because they had been doing that for many years now. Patches can't possibly require a reboot, and neither should DLC, certainly not while the game is still in pre-production and DLC can be planned for accordingly. Whatever the reboots did, it must have been such a significant change to the game's structure that it could not be accomplished by patching or adding DLC.
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Gileadan
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 14, 2021 18:13:32 GMT
Ideally no one. I'd rather meet new people. Hopefully they will come up with new companions that can carry the storyline instead of having old ones return as crutches.
If Varric shows up one more time it will feel like he's actually the protagonist and we just play his temporary sidekicks throughout the series. I really don't want to have another round of "Tell me about the champion" with him.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 9, 2021 18:25:17 GMT
God help BioWare if ME5 has Shepard get beaten to death by a female krogan. Then make a vengeful Liara the protagonist and have you occasionally play as the female krogan, too. Man, imagine all those "bold masterpiece, 10/10" reviews... one week before release.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 6, 2021 8:04:18 GMT
And 30 minutes later, ResetEra lifts the ban to even talk about the game on that forum. Now they can discuss how to pirate it so J.K. Rowling doesn't see a penny. A noble sacrifice to buy the project and the remaining team a temporary reprieve from the cancel mob, I suppose. Luckily I'm only following this with some vague interest since the HP franchise never did much for me (only saw the movies, cba with the books). It changed little for Resetera because WB, at least in the public eye, based on what he said, did nothing to push him away. This was all on him, at least officially. I have little doubt that conversations with WB executives happened based on the recent weeks, but if at least apparently, WB was okay with him remaining and it his was all on him, there’s no ‘credit’ for WB to spend with those that wanted him gone. The leaked news on the CC is likely going to be more helpful overall, expecially if/when they’ll announce it. I don’t see this really as a noble sacrifice, but fair enough. It’s presence or absence from the project wasn’t really relevant with the problem with Rowling’s views, because, if those that supported him online were saying the truth, his stance on LGBT rights was different from her and more in line with what appears the majority of the team’s one. The "noble sacrifice" was a poor attempt at humorous exaggeration, I apologize. I think he just got out before it got worse, for his own sake and for the team's. As far as I understand, he was being targeted for his own views, not for supporting Rowling's. But apparently his presence on the project made difference enough for ResetEra to allow the discussion of the game again. A bit of a shame really, it could have been their Voldemort game - the name that must not be spoken.
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Post by Gileadan on Mar 6, 2021 0:05:10 GMT
This was a tough question for me.
Overall, I'd say I'm indifferent.
On one hand I like that there is no multiplayer that might compromise the single player game's control scheme and gameplay, but on the other hand I find the focus of the franchise's plot utterly uninteresting. Ancient elves, "lords of fortune" and whatever else weird factions were mentioned in recent books just don't catch my interest at all. Nor did all that rule of cool stuff in the trailer.
It still might be good of course, but at the moment I'm not expecting much.
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