Gradthrawn
Veteran
Mass Effect 3
- Thread starter nightshade
- Start date
I noticed playing the demo you have to be looking at cover to be able to get into it. That right there annoyed me so much that I'm simply going to past on it. Movement around cover is still so clunky it makes all the shooting a chore. The one thing people miss about Gears of War was its ability to let you move around the game space quite quickly and fluidly and cover is always snappy and quick. Playing Gears 3 competitively, it's hard to go back to this. I read somewhere that it's like comparing Bayonatta to a bad action game. I think that's an good picture I have of it.
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Well, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Gears 3 is a game with perfectly polished shooting mechanics, because it's a good shooter.
On the other hand, Bioware is a company focused in the story and universe of their games.
They make better games for those players who crave depth and the ability to make real choices or play a role.
The shooting mechanics is just a part of the gameplay because the game is based on the future and it involves weapons that shoot bullets.
The good thing about Bioware is the many possible outcomes and variations because of the richness of the story and the player style and preferences when playing.
For instance, Bethesda games lack a bit in the combat side but people don´t mind, mostly. Also, are Read Dead Redemption and GTA IV, too critically acclaimed games, good shooters?
I'd just say no, they aren't. All I know is that Bioware games and stories will be always remembered for many years to come while other shooters are just a fad that last one year before the next iteration comes out or they are forgotten once the online wears out until next year or game.
There is coherence and richness in Mass Effect, and that's what makes games more interesting and enjoyable for those hardcore players like me who like the story in games and are ok with the combat mechanics regardless how limited...
...or those casuals who just want to be enriched with the story without having to deal with complex combat, which is a new option in ME3.
Most games in the future will be more like Mass Effect :smile: than Gears, I think.
Well, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Gears 3 is a game with perfectly polished shooting mechanics, because it's a good shooter.
On the other hand, Bioware is a company focused in the story and universe of their games.
They make better games for those players who crave depth and the ability to make real choices or play a role.
The shooting mechanics is just a part of the gameplay because the game is based on the future and it involves weapons that shoot bullets.
The good thing about Bioware is the many possible outcomes and variations because of the richness of the story and the player style and preferences when playing.
For instance, Bethesda games lack a bit in the combat side but people don´t mind, mostly. Also, are Read Dead Redemption and GTA IV, too critically acclaimed games, good shooters?
I'd just say no, they aren't. All I know is that Bioware games and stories will be always remembered for many years to come while other shooters are just a fad that last one year before the next iteration comes out or they are forgotten once the online wears out until next year or game.
There is coherence and richness in Mass Effect, and that's what makes games more interesting and enjoyable for those hardcore players like me who like the story in games and are ok with the combat mechanics regardless how limited...
...or those casuals who just want to be enriched with the story without having to deal with complex combat, which is a new option in ME3.
Most games in the future will be more like Mass Effect :smile: than Gears, I think.
You got to have gameplay and the core mechanics are still broken after 3 games in [6 years?].....by the way....there are more people playing Gears 3 and there will always be more people playing Gears 3...... I'm making plenty of memories that'll last for years playing Gears 3 at such a high level competitively and if you are really good at the game (like I am) you get to meet some of the actual developers like Rod and Quinn and give input, have your strategies and tactics featured in their twitter and facebook pages. So yea, I value those memories much more....
More people play COD than gears therefore gears sucks and should be more like COD. Wow this is fun, everyone should be bagging on games for not being the same. /sarcasm
Bioware used their resources quite a bit differently than Epic and that's a good thing, because I really don't want to buy the same game over and over.
Bioware used their resources quite a bit differently than Epic and that's a good thing, because I really don't want to buy the same game over and over.
CoD is only bigger because it's on every platform that has a controller. But this is about core mechanics. Mechanically, CoD is still the best FPS with tonnes of feature rich modes. I forgot what forum I read it on but Mass Effect 3 is to a bad action game, comparably to Gears 3's Bayonatta, mechanically. If you are going to have gameplay in you game it should at least be somewhere on the same level to a passable example of the best in the genre. This doesn't even hit the mid-way mark, they've gone virtually nowhere IMO.
I edited the text a little because it looked like I was making a mountain out of a molehill. I just meant holstering your weapon should work like in ME1 and ME2.
It's not so much having your weapon drawn all the time which looks a bit odd for a ME game, but the camera and its zoom. When you holstered your weapon using the Back button in ME2, the camera changed to a zoomed out position where you could see more of your surroundings, which helped during exploration.
Other thant that, I think the dialogue wheel is going to be as good as in previous Mass Effect games, or so I hope, just because the game is a demo -look at what happened with Battlefield 3 and its beta on how good the game turned out to be- and they aren't showing every possibility.
I am loving the demo so far.
It's days like this I wish I didn't have the internet... What I meant is that during those 6 years they focused in other areas of the game because it's a different genre.
Even so, they improved the game shooting/cover mechanics a lot since the first Mass Effect. ME3 is more polished in fact. If you knew the original Mass Effect you wouldn't believe how orthopaedic the character would feel to you.
As for GeoW 3 I played and purchases all the games, and my favourite is still the first one. I don't play GeoW 3 online but the campaign wasn't that good compared to GeoW 1 and 2, imho.
I mean, not that it's that bad, it's just that I find the characters really uninteresting in the third game, sometimes even annoying. I liked them in both GeoW 1 and 2, because the dialogue was more witty, but in the 3rd game I felt totally unattached to the story and characters and I couldn't even complete the campaign.
I have the season pass of the game, all the weapon skins -it cost a lot and I don't use them...
- and so on, but I don't play the game much.I think Alphawolf explained it quite well.
You hold the opinion that Mass Effect is a bad action game, but the point is that it isn't an action game, not even an Action-RPG. Kingdoms of Amalur is an action RPG for instance, and it shows during the combat which is similar to Bayonetta, so to speak.
If you compare it to another RPG, Skyrim, you will notice that Skyrim isn't an action RPG, because of the different combat style and because it has a bit more depth in other aspects of the game.
You also mentioned the differences between Gears and CoD... Despite the fact both are shooters, one is an FPS and the other is 3rd person shooter, which implies different gameplay mechanics.
ME3 isn't even a shooter, but a game with shooting mechanics at the service of the story.
I mean, if you play ME3 for what it is, it gets to a point you won't mind the gameplay that much during combat, I think, but that's just my opinion.
I've been there, and felt like you, trust me. I had played Gears on 2006 and after playing Mass Effect 1 in 2007 I complained about the combat compared to Gears. Many other people did the same, but in the end it they couldn't care less because the game had a lot to offer everywhere else and it is a different genre.
If it matches GeoW quality during combat it wouldn't be Mass Effect anymore.
Yes, he aroused my curiosity as well. I would like to know...
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Have none of you seen Aliens?
I edited the text a little because it looked like I was making a mountain out of a molehill. I just meant holstering your weapon should work like in ME1 and ME2.
It's not so much having your weapon drawn all the time which looks a bit odd for a ME game, but the camera and its zoom. When you holstered your weapon using the Back button in ME2, the camera changed to a zoomed out position where you could see more of your surroundings, which helped during exploration.
Other thant that, I think the dialogue wheel is going to be as good as in previous Mass Effect games, or so I hope, just because the game is a demo -look at what happened with Battlefield 3 and its beta on how good the game turned out to be- and they aren't showing every possibility.
I am loving the demo so far.
It's days like this I wish I didn't have the internet... What I meant is that during those 6 years they focused in other areas of the game because it's a different genre.
Even so, they improved the game shooting/cover mechanics a lot since the first Mass Effect. ME3 is more polished in fact. If you knew the original Mass Effect you wouldn't believe how orthopaedic the character would feel to you.
As for GeoW 3 I played and purchases all the games, and my favourite is still the first one. I don't play GeoW 3 online but the campaign wasn't that good compared to GeoW 1 and 2, imho.
I mean, not that it's that bad, it's just that I find the characters really uninteresting in the third game, sometimes even annoying. I liked them in both GeoW 1 and 2, because the dialogue was more witty, but in the 3rd game I felt totally unattached to the story and characters and I couldn't even complete the campaign.
I have the season pass of the game, all the weapon skins -it cost a lot and I don't use them...
I think Alphawolf explained it quite well.
You hold the opinion that Mass Effect is a bad action game, but the point is that it isn't an action game, not even an Action-RPG. Kingdoms of Amalur is an action RPG for instance, and it shows during the combat which is similar to Bayonetta, so to speak.
If you compare it to another RPG, Skyrim, you will notice that Skyrim isn't an action RPG, because of the different combat style and because it has a bit more depth in other aspects of the game.
You also mentioned the differences between Gears and CoD... Despite the fact both are shooters, one is an FPS and the other is 3rd person shooter, which implies different gameplay mechanics.
ME3 isn't even a shooter, but a game with shooting mechanics at the service of the story.
I mean, if you play ME3 for what it is, it gets to a point you won't mind the gameplay that much during combat, I think, but that's just my opinion.
I've been there, and felt like you, trust me. I had played Gears on 2006 and after playing Mass Effect 1 in 2007 I complained about the combat compared to Gears. Many other people did the same, but in the end it they couldn't care less because the game had a lot to offer everywhere else and it is a different genre.
If it matches GeoW quality during combat it wouldn't be Mass Effect anymore.
Yes, he aroused my curiosity as well. I would like to know...
I was a big fan of Mass Effect, I put in over 100 hours combined on the two games and I was never a big fan of Gears until 3. I played a few hours of multiplayer here and there; like you, I didn't care for the story or the stupid dudebro it brought about and the mass sea change of more bro culture. On the surface of it, once you start playing a game like Gears competitively, playing it 2-3 hours day at such a high level, the game comes alive and everything that's mechanically bad to its lesser peers gets magnified.
I finally get why people feel that Ninja Theory doesn't have the pedigree to deliver on a good action game in the Devil May Cry universe after playing the demos of Mass Effect and Binary Domain. I don't think you really get when I say that Mass Effect's gameplay feels like a bad version of what should be decent pedigree but falls short mechanically (like a bad action game) that would make such a more enjoyable core game, not just for me but for everyone. It's kind of how everyone says Bayonetta is mechanically the best action game out there and games like God of War and its clones are mid tier, that are easier to get into and then there are those games that are worse. Well, I'm telling you for a person who plays Gears of War 3 competitively, who's really good at the game, Mass Effect is simply bad at the shooting, taking cover and using it as a mechanic bits, it's passable but that's all it is.
I don't get why you can't have the RPG with Gears of War gameplay mechanics, that makes no sense to me.
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Because game development is tradeoffs. For instance, in ME3, they removed the holstering for, ostensibly, memory reasons. Gears plays through in like 10 hours, Mass Effect is much longer, etc.
We're happy you love Gears, but as someone who hasn't bothered playing Gears 2 and three because the story is just not there, and the game is simply too hard to be fun, I'll keep my Mass Effect, thanks.
I don't get how the story has to do with how the game plays.... /rolleyes emoticon.....
Are you telling me they thought up some bad mechanics because there's no memory for good gameplay? lol!!!!!!
There aren't going to be many people playing your game for very long if the gameplay isn't there, story or no story.
Are you telling me they thought up some bad mechanics because there's no memory for good gameplay? lol!!!!!!
There aren't going to be many people playing your game for very long if the gameplay isn't there, story or no story.
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It is a simple tradeoff.
In ME2, they traded some of the RPG elements, for better action elements (shooting mechanics).
ME games, are, part Adventure, part RPG, and part Action.
And every game in the series, shifts between action (shooting mechanics) and RPG, (stats), with the Adventure part (dialogs, story) always intact.
In my opinion, the selling point of the game, and the reason that they are unique as a series, is that they manage to successfully combine those three genres.
Of course, I can't think of one single game were everything is perfect, and a hardcore action gamer, or a hardcore RPG gamer will find them lucking in many respects.
In the end, it's a mater of taste.
In ME2, they traded some of the RPG elements, for better action elements (shooting mechanics).
ME games, are, part Adventure, part RPG, and part Action.
And every game in the series, shifts between action (shooting mechanics) and RPG, (stats), with the Adventure part (dialogs, story) always intact.
In my opinion, the selling point of the game, and the reason that they are unique as a series, is that they manage to successfully combine those three genres.
Of course, I can't think of one single game were everything is perfect, and a hardcore action gamer, or a hardcore RPG gamer will find them lucking in many respects.
In the end, it's a mater of taste.
If you're playing games at the level you say you're playing them, then to be honest what you think about the gameplay doesn't really matter. You're playing at a level that 99.9999% of gamers are not playing at. Mass Effect is not a competitive shooter. Not good enough for you, but probably good enough for most other people when paired with the other gameplay elements it offers in terms of being an RPG.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Correction. ME1 wasn't broken. It featured very good and satisfying RPG centric combat. Comparing the mechanics in ME1 to Gears would be like trying to compare FF VII with with a good 2D platformer.
ME2 broke the gameplay from ME1 by trying to be more action and less RPG, IMO. ME3 looks to just be continuing that. But since they wanted to be more like Gears at this point. I somewhat agree with you. The comparison is far more valid between ME2 and Gears, but they are still quite different types of games.
Although thinking about it. I wouldn't mind seeing a game with the setting and NPC interactions of ME (as long as they are meaningful unlike ME2) and the more polished action gameplay of Gears that ME 2+3 are trying to emulate. Just don't call it ME.
This would be a pretty compelling new franchise, IMO.Regards,
SB
The Vanguard and Sentinel classes would be so much better if they had better honed the shooting and cover mechanics. I think more people would play those classes instead of Solider with finer tuned mechanics. I can't really push people in the face with my shotgun as a Vanguard, the cover system is too clunky. The reason why you play Vanguard is to Push people in the face with a Shotgun, it's probably the most fun thing to do from a combat perspective. They got the concept from Gears of War but it just falls apart.
After setting up to break energy shields that should be a perfect time to start pushing people in the face for a one shot kill, can't do it because your character moves like a tank around the game space. I'll get one maybe two guys after doing that shift move and they got that new wide area attack that'll blast a couple feet back so I'll get 2 and maybe one more in a room with 5 guys. By that time you've expended your power usage and your teammates and then are left with the very poor cover system that makes you LOOK at cover to be able to get into the game falls apart. Just imagine that you are in a firefight with 5 guys in a room and you get 3 of them and expended all you powers and can't use cover that's right there because the guy that's shooting you in the face is near the cover you need but you have to spend precious milliseconds looking into his shotgun to use it - game over.
After setting up to break energy shields that should be a perfect time to start pushing people in the face for a one shot kill, can't do it because your character moves like a tank around the game space. I'll get one maybe two guys after doing that shift move and they got that new wide area attack that'll blast a couple feet back so I'll get 2 and maybe one more in a room with 5 guys. By that time you've expended your power usage and your teammates and then are left with the very poor cover system that makes you LOOK at cover to be able to get into the game falls apart. Just imagine that you are in a firefight with 5 guys in a room and you get 3 of them and expended all you powers and can't use cover that's right there because the guy that's shooting you in the face is near the cover you need but you have to spend precious milliseconds looking into his shotgun to use it - game over.
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The hell it wasn't broken. There were a lot of serious problems with the combat in ME1, making the game incredibly annoying when you try to re-play it after ME2.
See, that is where you're wrong.
RPG style combat does not work with a real-time third person approach as a start.
You have certain expectations, that when the game expects you to aim with a crosshair then the bullets will actually fly to the place you're pointing at (a little spread and kickback in full auto mode is acceptable though).
The game will require a certain level of player skill at third person shooting even if everything works fine, ie. you have the best possible weapon with the best mods and the highest skill level. But if this player skill is artificially ruined by introducing negative modifiers on lower levels, then the main gameplay loop becomes frustrating and the player loses any kind of enjoyment.
In games like X-com 1, the dice roll based combat works because no player skills are involved. You point at the target, the game does some math, and you either hit the target or not, based on the squad member's abilities. You can save in every round if you want to, and you can counter the squad's weakness in accuracy through various means, like walking closer to the enemy, or reserving action points for multiple characters to have several backup shots in case the first guy misses. In short you have many tactical options.
But in ME1, you peek out of cover, try to shoot at something, and you see your shots miss all the time, and the realtime combat and the lack of precise control over squad members does not give you enough options to compensate for that. Later through the game, an Adept may have enough biotic power to disable most enemies - but for most of the other classes the main method of offense was shooting (and it's the most effective in general). So the intentionally broken shooter gameplay inevitably lead to frustration.
Then there are the other issues: enemy AI, level design, class based restrictions, poorly considered skill system.
As an example, on my latest playthrough I decided to go with a Sentinel, so that I can import it into ME2 and try Insanity mode. The game presented me with the best possible example for its set of problems at the boss fight in Liara's rescue mission.
- the area was poorly designed, there were no safe areas with cover, I always got surrounded by the geth and the krogan; and due to the poor cover mechanics and camera control, I usually didn't even see who shot me and from where
- squad members were silly and got killed in seconds most of the time
- the krogan almost always charged me, incredibly quickly, and the sentinel was of course unable to stand up to the damage
- the offensive powers failed to do any serious damage, the guns missed all the time, usually because by the time I was able to actually execute something, the targets have moved away
- also, the skill system was flawed because the gameplay required your team to be good at several things at once - you couldn't open crates to get loot for the equipment upgrades if you didn't have electronics and decryption skills, you couldn't use weapons and armor if you didn't have proper skills, you couldn't use certain powers if you didn't have certain skills, and you didn't get paragon/renegade options if you didn't spend skill points on that too... so you either became a jack of all trades, or you were locked out of some part of the game (loot / equipment use / conversation options / powers etc.)
All in all, here was a very tough battle that could have been won by carefully positioning party members, combining powers, and concentrating fire. But this could only be done in an isometric view, with turn-based gameplay!
But in ME1, enemies either hide so well you can't see or hit them, or they charge you so fast you have nowhere to run and melee you to death; and you can't even rely on simple shooting because unless you maxed out skills, your character can't hit anything. In the end I got through by pure luck on like the 20th try and almost broke my controller in frustration several times. This is by no means good gameplay, this is fundamentally flawed by trying to be two things at once and failing at both.
No, ME2 actually fixed the gameplay by making the main game loop of running and gunning actually enjoyable. You only get frustrated if you're bad at the actual shooting - but if you're bad at that kind of gameplay mechanics, then you were frustrated by ME1 just as well, even after you leveled up everything.
Again - in a shooter, if you get a crosshair, you want the game to put the bullets to the point where you're aiming at.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
That was my main issue with ME1. Not being a big RPG fan, I really didn't understand why my bullets weren't hitting the target when or as often as they should.
It was a strange mix of a game, but I did love the story. Hated the inventory and the combat and didn't really pick up ME2 because I wasn't sure if their changes were going to make my issues better or worse.
Do you understand that these things take system resources, money and effort to accomplish?
As for the gameplay... for many people buying an RPG, the story and the choices they make within that story, is the gameplay. They go through the machinations of the required action sequences to further the story. Gears better action cover mechanics, offers nothing to these people.
Combat in ME isn't just a downgraded version of Gears either, they have a bunch of different powers that they need to incorporate and balance as well as the squad control system. If it was just a weaker version of gears, it would be very disappointing, but it's not.
