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So it's now 100% Gears of Wars in Space. | |
I for one am extremely nervous about this news. "Behind the scenes stat games" makes me think of things like, weapon upgrades that add some percent damage increase or firing rate increase, does this announcement mean an end to the game's weapon customization? | |
Oh god, incoming rage. Prepare thyselves, Bioware. Hell hath no fury like an entitled gamer scorned. | |
I'm so glad that my love of leveling, looting, and tactics is now relegated to "meaningless stat games". | |
hahaha. True. This still seems like Gears of War with a better story...in SPACE! | |
Okay now I'm worried. | |
*sigh* It's not really entitled when fans of a series expect it to have some way resemble to the rest of a franchise, why do you think long time Final Fantasy sames might not like 13 as much? Now should people be able to complain, sure they should be able too it's a forum. But lets hope Bioware fans aren't stupid and feel they should have it their way. | |
What they mean by that last bit is "Every single thing you do will has a real impact only in the battle." | |
I think it was a really bad idea for them to announce that they're making fairly large changes to the gameplay without giving us ANY details. If they would just tell us some specific things they're tweaking, there wouldn't be nearly as many freakouts. | |
So anyone who has some standards is somehow branded "entitled" these days? Nice... | |
So the way to blend shooters and RPG's is to completely do away with all the RPG aspects? Hwy Bioware! Gears of War already exists! Make Mass Effect 3 for fucks sake! | |
On one hand, an RPG for me means a developed, dynamic story with in-depth character interaction. For a lot of people (and by "a lot of people" I mean "a solid chunk of Bioware's customer base"), however, it means a deep stats system. "Stat-free" RPGs can be done - Borderlands jumps to mind, for instance - the stat customization is roughly on par with COD or BFBC2, and it's widely seen as Diablo in space. But Bioware has not exactly inspired the confidence as of late. | |
This accurately summarizes my feeling on this issue. Why the hell do RPG developers keep removing the RPG from their games? | |
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever, we get it, combat is more fluid and smooth and whatever. What about the non-combat aspects? I want to know where I'll be traveling, will vehicles return? Will these still be linear corridors? Can I explore planets like I did in the first Mass Effect? Will areas have more branching paths rather than point A to point B missions? What customization options do I have? Who is on my side and who isn't? What is the state of the Citadel and the Council in the wake of Earth's invasion? What choices will have the most impact from the previous two Mass Effect games? C'mon, it's supposed to be a friggin' Space Opera, not another action-packed blockbuster as much as we may love those at times! | |
We don't think they're meaningless because we're used to RPGs and used to incremental damage increases. My big fear is that this means that there will be no subtlety in any level ups or upgrades, no incremental progress where your gun gets a 20% damage boost or your cloak skill lasts 6 seconds longer, every upgrade will be so overhauling that you become immediately and noticeably more efficient at the skills job. Why is this a bad thing? Exhaustion for one, getting worn out over the fact that skills keep only having radical increases. Balance for another, if the progress is too sporadic and radical, then something that's impossible with one level of the skill could become too easy with the next level. Incremental progress (or, "meaningless stat games") provide a more gradual curve of efficiency, keeping the players from getting overwhelmed and making the game easier to balance. | |
Just don't you dare touch my Adept class...I love throwing black holes around with people floating around and then throwing ball of energy at them to explode the damn thing...simply put ;) What "meaningless" stats are they talking about? Can't really think of any meaningless stats in ME2...are they removing the "gathering" aspect of the game? I don't have to literally farm entire galaxies to just upgrade Garrus' calibration cannon, or? | |
What he^ said :) | |
I for one am glad for this news. Mass effect 1: Level this skill up for a measly "1% accuracy bonus" That isn't something I feel right away so I generally ignore that skill path for ones that actually do, like new skills. Now I imagine all of those having a meaning (rather than some little -1 second recharge time) and being tempting options. | |
So its an FPS (or TPS I suppose) pretending to be an RPG? | |
Just give me sweeping science fiction vistas and a feeling of continuity between areas. And friggin' heat based weapons. You assholes. | |
ME1 was too cluttered with stats, yes, but ME2 streamlined the system very effectively, and I don't see it getting any more streamlined unless they rip out all pretense of subtlety in the level up system. | |
I don't see what the problem is. As long as the mechanics make sense and there is lots of non-combat RPGing to do, why does it matter about hidden stats? And I'm also confused as to how many changing stats there can be in a shooter, other then changing your equipment. In Mass Effect 1 it always annoyed me how much time I spent in the equipment menu re-equiping my stuff, so always was happy they simplified it. Seriously, in a ROLE PLAYING Game I want to feel like I AM the main character, this awesome action/fantasy/sci-fi hero, not the ship's quartermaster! | |
My thoughts exactly. All of these announcements about Mass Effect's combat are making me nervous. Gears of War and Call of Duty are where we go when we want mindless shooting, Bioware games are where we go when we want messy moral decisions and fantastic and creative environments. Get that straight, Bioware. | |
I'm looking forward to seeing how Mass Effect 3 is received. It sounds like Bioware is making the game for who they think their fans are and that they are going to be in a rude awakening when it's out. Its gonna be Dragon Age 2 all over again and between the failure of that franchise, how badly TOR is shaping up to be, and the direction they seem to be wanting to move in with Mass Effect 3, Bioware is very quickly moving from one of the best to one of the worst AAA developers. | |
This just means that when we spend points, we know what's changing. No pointless math equations giving the false impression of depth. Besides, if RPG purism is getting in the way of a better Mass Effect, then RPG purists can screw off.
When did they say they were removing leveling, tactics, or looting? | |
Notice that in my post, I said entitled gamers will complain. Did I say that everyone who disagreed was entitled? Although I greatly enjoy you both putting words in my mouth and acting as if anyone with "standards" will be upset with this news. | |
Stop raging. One major problem Bioware fixed from ME1 to ME2 was the fact that, since enemies scaled according to your level, you could never really get a distinct advantage by upgrading your weapons (unless you found something exceptionally higher than what enemies would drop, as with Spectre weapons). ME2 fixed this by not constantly upgrading from weapon to weapon within the same category. Again, though, ME2 had this same unnecessary scaling with the "+X% damage" bonuses in ME2: enemies still scaled and scaled according to your approximate power, so instead of your base weapon actually getting any stronger, all of the other weapons would get weaker over time. From the sounds of it ME3 is going to skip all of this and go for a Call of Duty-style talent and experience system, which - in all honesty - is probably going to be the best place to take it. Whats the point of a stat system when the entire difference is doing 10 hp against an enemy with 100 at the start of the game, and 100hp against an enemy with 1000 at the end of the game? | |
So long as there's no scaled leveling (or at least, not like in ME2 where all those nice new upgrades ultimately didn't mean shit), and I can actually, you know, play the role of my specific flavor of Shepard, I'm happy. Hmm... I keep thinking about Vanquish every time I hear more news about combat overhauls. And goddamn that game was awesome... | |
So, all those bloody points you had to spend just to be able to use a sniper rifle was meaningful? And if you didn't have the skill, you couldn't use it worth crap? That's meaningful and fun? Face it, a lot of the points in ME 1 was just fodder to fluff up skill trees, as long as they don't outright neuter the skill trees like they did in Dragon Age 2, I'll be fine. I also hope there is more in terms of actual skills, and not passive buffs to weapons, than in ME 2. Same with the inventory system. You think its fun selling and/or converting 50+ copies of the same item into gem or money? You think thats deep? You'd have to be insane to think that. But I also liked having an inventory system, they just outright cut it out, and I'd of preferred they actually fixed it, instead of gutting it entirely. I'm also glad they veered away from the obscene stat numbers of the first game with armor. Pieces had individual bonuses, and while that did annoy me to an extent because at the same time they added more armor customization, its better than the one-piece crap we dealt with in ME 1. And be glad they are bringing back the mod system, plus letting it finally show up on the weaponry. I'm also hoping they dump the Renegade/Paragon system for the most part. The major issue with ME 2 is that its forced us to either be complete dbags, or goody-two-shoes in a world that is supposed to be shades of gray. It's no fun being just black or just white, around a bunch of grays. | |
Really, now that I think about it, if Mass Effect 2's combat was pretty much where the team wanted to go, why are they continuously telling us this about Mass Effect 3? If it's what you wanted then there should be no reason why you are constantly telling us this. Give us information about the (most likely pointlessly binary) decisions we're going to have to make, the state of the Council, Shepard's Spectre ranking, all that good stuff. See, this is when I get frustrated that I can't talk to the guys in charge directly. I want to tell them, face-to-face, exactly what I thought about Mass Effect 1 and 2 and the changes they made, both good and bad (not screaming in their face, mind you) because there is only so much you can get across through text. Instead, I have to resort to pointlessly typing away my thoughts on a forum that most likely will never even be glanced at by the BioWare team. And even making a video would be pointless as people would go "Durh hur, you RPG-fanboy!" and BioWare still would not bother with it. Sometimes I feel we forget that there are people behind these companies who want to make the best damn game possible, and that these people in the companies forget that we want to recieve the best game possible. Sure, it'd be hard to discern the real criticisms and grievances to the fanboys and trolls, but still... Bleh, end rant. | |
Looting was gone in ME2, as was in depth leveling and combat was much less tactical and more fast paced. Seems to be what he is referencing. | |
Love this, anything to piss off traditional gamers amuses me. You can keep your minute level upgrades .01 sec to lift length etc, and exploring baren planets with about 15 textures. I'll take streamlined combat and bioware story over that crap any day. | |
I must admit, I was presumptuous. However you must admit that the line you used has been used a lot in order discard complains about certain games and gaming trends. | |
Here's what I'm wondering
How are messy moral decisions and fantastic and creative environments mutually exclusive with shooting from behind chest-high walls? | |
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No "Meaningless Stat Games" in Mass Effect 3
BioWare says there will be no "meaningless behind-the-scenes stat games" in Mass Effect 3 and that everything the player does will have a real impact on combat.
Mass Effect Senior Designer Christina Norman told OXM that when it comes to blending shooter action and RPG elements in Mass Effect 3, the focus is on ensuring that nothing is wasted. "We want to enrich the role-playing aspects of the game, while making sure that they're always meaningful in combat," she said. "We don't want to have any meaningless behind-the-scenes stat games, where the output is very minor in combat. Every single thing you do has a real impact in the battle."
I find it difficult to imagine how Mass Effect 3 will be even more streamlined than Mass Effect 2, which was itself a stripped-down RPG experience compared to the original Mass Effect. But Norman said while numerous improvements are being made, they won't be so obvious this time around.
"We got combat the way we wanted it for ME2, so you're going to feel right at home straight away," she said. "But there are so many subtle improvements that you'll miss them if you go back."
The role-playing nerd in me bristles at the suggestion that "behind-the-scenes stat games" can be so easily tossed aside and I'm a little iffy about the apparent focus on combat above all else, but I have to admit that similar reservations about Mass Effect 2 dissipated very quickly once I actually started playing the game. Calling Mass Effect an RPG is a pretty serious genre stretch at this point, but that doesn't mean it won't be a hell of a good game when it comes out.
BioWare announced yesterday that Mass Effect 3 has been pushed back from its planned launch target at the end of 2011 so that it can be tweaked to appeal to as wide a market as possible. The game is now scheduled to come out in early 2012 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
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