Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

That's one of those explanations that makes things worse than if they had just refrained from saying anything.

We have a trope for that.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

We have the technology. We can rebuild it.

xmultiple

Regarding logistics vs keeping on firing, the latter has also never been a problem (a certain build notwithstanding). The marginal increase in overall firing rate might make sense for Shepard's squad in some cases (like boarding actions on derelicts or the many fights in mineshafts or prefab buildings full of crates), but even then it should mean that clips are only specialized equipment not available to most, and they should also be random loot that every single armed organization in the Milky Way is using.

Also, I just read through the Shamus Young retrospective. Can't wait to get into it with the missus once we finally get through the series (I expect to at lest wrap up Virmire by this weekend, if not the endgame of 1 entirely since IIRC Ilos doesn't take that long). I also miss when the geth were actual aliens that killed everyone who ventured into their space.

Sidenote: was there any explanation as to why mechs seem to have disappeared between ME 2 and 3? Seems like relatively autonomous killbots would be really useful to fight against enemies who exert mind control fields on organics and rely on the corpses of your dead allies to replenish their shock troops' numbers.

edited 30th Nov '17 3:13:16 PM by PRC4Eva

What build are you talking about?

Sniper rifle + HE ammo.

I tried it on the shotgun, once.

Also added a wistful musing on the actual mysterious and dangerous geth from ME 1, as well as wondering where the ME 2 mechs went.

Oh, that. I assumed you were talking about 3 for some reason. I too have used High Explosive Rounds with shotguns before.

edited 30th Nov '17 3:22:49 PM by VeryMelon

It doesn't matter if you let the gun cool for many short periods so it doesn't overheat or one long period after it does overheat, there's still enforced periods of inactivity either way. Keeping the player engaged in the gameplay is just the better solution for making the game fun. ME3 did it one better, by having reload cancelling. Even if that was an unintentional mechanic, it improved player engagement even further.

edited 30th Nov '17 4:04:57 PM by shigmiya64

So the Initiation book dropped yesterday.

Anyone read it?

#IceBearForPresident

What enforced periods of inactivity? I found my Shepards to almost always be shooting something. The pause after I've killed something and now I'm deciding which other target to shoot has generally been sufficient to cool the gun down to an acceptable level.

If anything, a bigger problem than overheating was just grenades being really useless, even with a maxed out HE or incendiary upgrade.

That's enforced. Just because you as a player decided to do it doesn't mean you wouldn't still have to. The active input of choosing to reload/pop the heat sink just feels better than waiting, for myself and I think many if not most players, even if it's the exact same amount of time spent, and having that little bit of tactile, visual, and audio feedback make a big difference in the the way the game feels to play. Even in the third game, just being able to trigger heat venting manually on the Lancer makes it a much more satisfying weapon to use. Goes to immersion.

edited 1st Dec '17 4:06:51 PM by Unsung

Yeah, an enforced mechanic is one where a specific playstyle is required by the mechanics. It might not be noticeable if your particular playstyle suits the enforced one, but it's still there.

For instance, a player who predominately chooses stealthy options in adventure games will not be adversely affected by required stealth sections of the game, but those sections are still enforcing stealth. More action-focused players will notice.

The stealthy player, meanwhile, is liable to get frustrated at parts of a game where an alarm is sounded during cutscene, your stealth options are disabled, and you are forced to run and gun your way out.

edited 30th Nov '17 6:32:58 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

I remember the mechanics for a hybrid system where there was weapon cooling, but could you eject and use a clip in cases of 'MORE DAKA NOW' was still in the files of Mass Effect 2 and just needed to be activated to be used. Was that any good? Did it bridge the divide here or did it just cause more problems?

It's hilariously game breaking (in the sense it's overpowered) IIRC

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

I would presume that in a game where much of the difficulty is in the need to scrounge for ammo (yay for encounters where there are more enemies than ammo in my primary weapon, forcing me to use my sidearms!), no longer needing to scrounge makes it game-breakingly overpowered, yes.

I posit that the main reason for preference of ME 2's playstyle is familiarity, not because it's inherently better or worse, and that ME 2 should have been inclusive of both playstyles, rather than take the old one away and replace it with a new one.

Also...was I the only one who found grenades to be useless in ME 1? Or Wrex's character model to look the most lifelike in ME 1? I think I already have an answer to "mysterious geth that just shot everyone entering their space on sight was the best geth" based on trawling the archive of this thread..

edited 1st Dec '17 10:03:38 AM by PRC4Eva

Grenades are legit terrible-whenever I used them outside the Feros colony, it was always for a lark. The time it takes to throw and detonate them is better spent moving, shooting, or using skills. Honestly, even if they were automatically refilled in each mission, I still would not have used them.

Can't we frickin' have sharks with laser beams on their heads already?

Isn't that the Mako?

Well, it's a mass accelerator cannon, but it's the thought that counts, right?

We'll probably do Virmire tonight or tomorrow and probably endgame at the same time (since I'm not sure that she'll be particularly thrilled to end a game session on, well, Virmire).

What is the Hammerhead armed with?

A pathetic little peashooter.

Hitokiri in the streets, daishouri in the sheets.

I feel like the Hammerhead was a fix for something that wasn't broken. Yes, the Mako physics were hilariously f*ckstupid, but the cardinal word there is "hilariously". That thing was a goddamn blast to drive around in and cartwheel pointlessly down mountains.

The Hammerhead took out the funny parts and just left a kind of bland driver sequence.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Climbing up hills could sometimes be bad.

Falling down hills, on the other hand, never fails to amuse.

I've never noticed how big that xp penalty was until this playthrough, though.

The problem with the MAKO was the maps were fairly dull and also STUPIDLY STEEP.

The problem with the (I can't even remember what the vehicle was in Andromeda) was it had no gun and just felt superfluous. The most fun I had with it was that low gravity asteroid. A few more missions like that, or areas designed around the driving (Rather than just a massive overworld) - like Noveria and Feros, with interesting and flowing combat encounters... that could've made it more.

I miss the MAKO.

The Mako has a ton of problem. Besides the shitty handling, the combat sucks (Which is no surprise as it's ME 1 and all combat sucks). The Mako has the endurance of papier maché. Which isn't super bad when you got slow projectiles (Thresher maw spit or rockets) and you can circle around your target, but falls apart if your opponents have bullets or the terrain is jagged enough for the Mako's shit physics to kick in. So you end up having to engage enemies with the scope to shoot them with the cannon at range, which of course the AI isn't equipped to deal with (Coz it's ME 1) and that becomes boring as fuck coz it's shooting targets who don't even try to fight back.

Plus there's also the disconnect that Sheppard is a space cop so why's he off doing random exploration of planets unrelated to what his job ostensibly is. We sent twelve people to walk on the moon. 0 of them were FBI agents. Just saying.

Of course the Hammerhead goes the other way: It gives your papier maché tank the ability to dodge and more easily maneuver, but opts for guided missiles coz we can't risk combat being engaging. And makes the missions even more pointless than the Mako ones, which is quite an achievement.

edited 4th Dec '17 7:36:48 AM by Ghilz

For the same Reason the entirety of the Command Staff deploy from the starship Enterprise...

But I get you - there could've been some nice minigames about deploying a squad of Red Shirts to secure you LZ or on side missions from your ship, whilst you do the main deployment.

Remember this is the game that has you (An Enlisted Officer of the Systems Alliance) also given the full rank of SPECTRE, then you get grounded, despite ALSO STILL being a SPECTRE (Who have near carte blanche....) - so it's all a bit murky about who commands what and where.

I enjoyed the MAKO but its balance was all over the shop. It's superior to the Hammerhead which was tissue paper. But there were things needed to tweak on it - and the random physics engine was also only noticeably quirky because of the way they made the maps in ME 1.