Mass Effect 3

Laa-Yosh said:
You'd still have to micromanage the inventory before and after every battle, you'd need to visit shops all the time (especially as, hey, shops get randomly generated stocks) and you'd still feel silly about the team carrying literally tons of loot after big battles.
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Seems like standard fare for an RPG (Diablo comes to mind). *shrug* Besides, if you don't want to manage your character upgrades, then by all means, skip it. In retrospect, I found waiting for the right gear to come along a lot more engaging than having just the one or two selections in ME2, which was absolutely boring for gameplay. No fun messing around with all the weapon modifiers or armour variability. What ended up as customization in ME2 was just pointless because I had pre-order suits that were overall a lot better to have the entire time instead of searching the galaxy looking for upgrade parts one piece at a time.

Speaking of scavenging the galaxy, I always thought it disappointing not to be able to sell all those bloody resources you accumulated. The tightly controlled money and experience path that the Bioware-Reapers have set for gamers was too much. So what if I have too much money? I spent all that time bleeding planets dry of their resources!
 
My problem with having much of an inventory system, if any at all, in Mass Effect is the pace of the narrative. Diablo has little to no narrative. You just run around destroying monsters, and it's great fun. Spending time looting and comparing items doesn't interfere with anything other than killing more monsters. In Mass Effect you're just slowing the game down, preventing the player from getting on with the next piece of the story by launching the next mission or jumping into the next conversation.
 
Scott_Arm said:
My problem with having much of an inventory system, if any at all, in Mass Effect is the pace of the narrative. Diablo has little to no narrative. You just run around destroying monsters, and it's great fun. Spending time looting and comparing items doesn't interfere with anything other than killing more monsters. In Mass Effect you're just slowing the game down, preventing the player from getting on with the next piece of the story by launching the next mission or jumping into the next conversation.
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If they were trying to speed up the pace of the game by removing the inventory system then perhaps introducing a mind-meltingly dull resource-gathering mini-game wasn't the brighest of choices to go along with that. ;)

I dunno, I missed the looting aspect in ME2. True ME had a borked inventory screen and there was simply too much stuff, but I'd have preferred something inbetween what you had in ME and ME2. Perhaps ME3 will have exactly that.
 
They were quick to admit that mining problem and patched it too (although one still has to wonder how it got through QA at all)

As far as I know we haven't seen anything from ME3's system yet, apart from the gun upgrade workbench...
 
AlStrong said:
Seems like standard fare for an RPG (Diablo comes to mind). *shrug* Besides, if you don't want to manage your character upgrades, then by all means, skip it. In retrospect, I found waiting for the right gear to come along a lot more engaging than having just the one or two selections in ME2, which was absolutely boring for gameplay. No fun messing around with all the weapon modifiers or armour variability. What ended up as customization in ME2 was just pointless because I had pre-order suits that were overall a lot better to have the entire time instead of searching the galaxy looking for upgrade parts one piece at a time.

Speaking of scavenging the galaxy, I always thought it disappointing not to be able to sell all those bloody resources you accumulated. The tightly controlled money and experience path that the Bioware-Reapers have set for gamers was too much. So what if I have too much money? I spent all that time bleeding planets dry of their resources!
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I absolutely agree Al.

For me having a loot system doesn affect the pacing of the game at all, at least not involuntarily. It would have been very easy for them to set up a system where you can simply auto-equip the best stuff and then carry on with the game for those that dislike messing around with that kind of stuff. For me, being a self-professed, undeniable (and sometimes proud) loot-whore, I loved the loot system in ME1 (although i played the PC version where the inventory system was fixed I believe).

Messing around with loot IS half the fun of RPG games for me. It's that extra "choice" afforded the gamer to equip your character with gun A that does massive damage in one burst, or gun B that does a little less damage but continuously. ME2 felt like a cop out, like it robbed me of the fun I had scouring the galaxy and taking on side quests to score more and better gear. Subsequently side quests felt lifeless for me because all you got were minerals and experience, which though overall amount the same thing, still didn't give me the same feeling as in other loot games where I can do a side mission and get awarded for it with a nice big fat tangible uber weapon.

Plus i don't even think pacing should even be an issue in ME games. By their nature they are non-linear games to start with. As such the pacing is dictated by the player as he or she are the one who decides which missions to accept and when. You can't then say that you want to remove things from such a game to improve pacing, when the players perception of said pacing is in his or her control alone. I'm conviced that the switch from inventory system to the ME2 one was a dev time/streamlining decision. Imho it was a bad one and nearly ruined my experience of ME2 entirely.
 
Loot made no sense in ME, you were a SPECTRE, you should have access to the best gear in the galaxy.
Besides even if you couldn't, you would be able to shop in the right place to get the best gear, it's just silly you would buy subpar equipement unless you cannot afford better, and that usual find better gear idea is just retarded for any game remotely aiming at realism.

The best solution is upgrades, you already have the best gear, but you can enhance it slightly, making you more versatile with some rare stuff that you need to actively search for (or research). (you should never stumble over better tech/gear.)

Yep I have a pretty strong feeling against managing inventory and comparing stats, and against those "rules" that make no sense and just make the game more gamey and less of an adventure to me.
:p
 
Rodéric said:
Loot made no sense in ME, you were a SPECTRE, you should have access to the best gear in the galaxy.
Besides even if you couldn't, you would be able to shop in the right place to get the best gear, it's just silly you would buy subpar equipement unless you cannot afford better, and that usual find better gear idea is just retarded for any game remotely aiming at realism.

The best solution is upgrades, you already have the best gear, but you can enhance it slightly, making you more versatile with some rare stuff that you need to actively search for (or research). (you should never stumble over better tech/gear.)

Yep I have a pretty strong feeling against managing inventory and comparing stats, and against those "rules" that make no sense and just make the game more gamey and less of an adventure to me.
:p
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Well to me I see that one of the biggest issues of a lot of game devs and games this gen.

Realism != Fun

And ME is a SciFi futuristic game that even from the setting alone requires you to already suspend your disbelief. If you want to talk about realism and making sense then ME is not the series you should be using as your subject matter. F*ck realism if it removes my enjoyment of the game.

Demon/Dark Souls is probably one of the most "gamey" games this gen, doesn't take anything away from how awesome and enjoyable it is.

If you're playing a game like ME and expecting every little detail to "make sense" and fit neatly into your own little predefined notion of "realism" in a Sci-Fi universe then you're doing it sorely wrong.

Edit:
I played through two whole Mass Effect SP campaign stories so far, and despite John Shepherd supposedly being a human, never once has the guy stopped to take a sh!t throughout the course of both games. If we're taking about realism, and i'm a dude who has to make lots of super critical decision upon which the fates of my colleagues and even the entire galaxy rests, then i'm gonna need to take a sh!t at least once throughout my journey!

My main point is that gameplay elements that are enjoyable and fun (and a staple for the genre) should not be thrown out or gimped for the sake of preserving some sense of realism in the narrative. Gameplay should come first, then narrative. At the end of the day you can't ever get away from it being a GAME, thus you'll ALWAYS have things that don't make "sense" in realistic terms. Don't make it worse by gimping or sidelining features that fans had lots of fun with, simply because you want it to make "sense" to you.

Note: Obviously i know you don't work for Bioware (do you?), so this isn't aimed at you personally Roderic.
 
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I know from a very reliable source that Commander Shepard prefers the shuttle's loo. So he always pays a visit whenever they bring him down to a mission, or on his way back from a planet.

Occasionally though, he relies on the armor's internal filtering system.
 
Rodéric said:
Loot made no sense in ME, you were a SPECTRE, you should have access to the best gear in the galaxy.
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Well, if you want to keep with the realism, do the council races pay a particular tax to the council? Gotta fund all that high end gear. And who's to say it's necessarily the best? The companies that make the spectre gear can hold back their best or experimental stuff for private armies or competition or some other anti-council agenda (Shady backroom deals).

Finding gear that's experimental or rare due to some custom field modifications from who knows what enemy isn't that crazy for a galaxy-wide playing field. Stuff in the Terminus systems for instance... i.e. non-council space.

The companies making the spectre gear need a way to test the hardware and they won't necessarily be having geth or other rare tech in their labs to further the tech due to some short-sighted Council laws, not that the spectres are supposed to be walking tanks. They're the peace-keepers of the galaxy. The council's not expecting you to fight a war out in the open.

Besides even if you couldn't, you would be able to shop in the right place to get the best gear, it's just silly you would buy subpar equipement unless you cannot afford better, and that usual find better gear idea is just retarded for any game remotely aiming at realism.
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Yes, well, you aren't given the spectre hardware for free. There doesn't seem to be enough funding set aside by the Council for all their spectres, which would also be needed for maintenance/repairs of said gear (invisible to the gamer).

Supposing that was in place, then BioWare would have you start with Spectre gear as the minimum (i.e. crappiest spec), and what you find in the galaxy would necessarily be better for the gamer to care. So sure, that was probably their mistake, making spectre gear the absolute best along with having a hilarious scaling of income that made it too easy to acquire it, thus putting all their work into the other gear rather meaningless.
 
Prophecy2k said:
Realism != Fun

...

If you're playing a game like ME and expecting every little detail to "make sense" and fit neatly into your own little predefined notion of "realism" in a Sci-Fi universe then you're doing it sorely wrong.

Edit:
...

My main point is that gameplay elements that are enjoyable and fun (and a staple for the genre) should not be thrown out or gimped for the sake of preserving some sense of realism in the narrative. Gameplay should come first, then narrative. At the end of the day you can't ever get away from it being a GAME, thus you'll ALWAYS have things that don't make "sense" in realistic terms. Don't make it worse by gimping or sidelining features that fans had lots of fun with, simply because you want it to make "sense" to you.

Note: Obviously i know you don't work for Bioware (do you?), so this isn't aimed at you personally Roderic.
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Oh gameplay is king, and I agree I about "realism" I should have written "believable" instead.

My point was that what different people find fun is quite different and each person has a rather strong bias toward what he/she likes, and everyone wants the game to be fun by his/her standards... Quite tough to please them all...


(I'm indeed not working for Bioware.)

AlStrong said:
...

Yes, well, you aren't given the spectre hardware for free. There doesn't seem to be enough funding set aside by the Council for all their spectres, which would also be needed for maintenance/repairs of said gear (invisible to the gamer).

Supposing that was in place, then BioWare would have you start with Spectre gear as the minimum (i.e. crappiest spec), and what you find in the galaxy would necessarily be better for the gamer to care. So sure, that was probably their mistake, making spectre gear the absolute best along with having a hilarious scaling of income that made it too easy to acquire it, thus putting all their work into the other gear rather meaningless.
Click to expand...


You'd think that with SPECTRE above the law and being the highest ranking operatives, the council or SPECTRE themselves would have access to the best gear, one way or another.
As I said, I'm not against upgrades, prototypes and such, but I don't think you should have 8 versions of the same stuff and only have the first one at the beginning. You should have few, meaningful upgrades.

(From ME to ME2 they went from one extreme to the other, I really couldn't stand ME mess, but ME2 felt too little, so I'd rather have it closer to ME2 than ME. Hence talking about Crysis weapon system.)


But then again, it's all about taste.
 
Rodéric said:
Oh gameplay is king, and I agree I about "realism" I should have written "believable" instead.

My point was that what different people find fun is quite different and each person has a rather strong bias toward what he/she likes, and everyone wants the game to be fun by his/her standards... Quite tough to please them all...

...

As I said, I'm not against upgrades, prototypes and such, but I don't think you should have 8 versions of the same stuff and only have the first one at the beginning. You should have few, meaningful upgrades.

(From ME to ME2 they went from one extreme to the other, I really couldn't stand ME mess, but ME2 felt too little, so I'd rather have it closer to ME2 than ME. Hence talking about Crysis weapon system.)


But then again, it's all about taste.
Click to expand...

Fair enough mate, I agree you're correct in that it is impossible to please everyone. I guess for me i really enjoyed ME1 as a more traditional wRPG. ME2 was a massive diparture, and based on my time with the first game I felt that they had set an expectation with regards to what the game was meant to be, and then turned around and gimped it in the second outing.

Had ME2 been the first game in the series, I'd have not had that expectation and thus would have been able to appreciate the game in a very different way, principally as i'd have considered it as more of a TPS franchise than a wRPG sci-fi space opera.

Bioware is gonna have a really tough job pleasing their fanbase with ME3, but i'm still eager to see what they do. Tbh though, as much as I would love them to take the franchise back down the traditional wRPG route, if they don't, i think it would be easy for me to just accept that they have consigned the franchise to more of a TPS fate and would just roll with it considering the game as such. It would be a damn shame, but i would accept it and could still enjoy the game.

I just hope that they, as well as EA, have seen how well Skyrim has sold & reviewed, and will try to salvage Dragon Age again as the traditional wRPG it was always meant to be before they bastardized it (trying to do a "Mass Effect" to it - *smh*):devilish:
And if they do try to revive the staple RPG systems from ME1 and bring them back as improved versions in ME3, reinstating it as the sci-fi RPG space opera that was promised by the first game, then i will be very happy indeed :D
 
Every minute you spend sorting loot, buying loot, selling loot or travelling around the galaxy to various shops, is a minute you've spent away from interacting with the other characters, or advancing the main or side plots. A game like Diablo is a loot game. The game is driven by upgrading your character. The story is secondary. You upgrade and you fight to check out your new gear. For me, Mass Effect is not the appropriate place for a heavy loot system. Yes, you can derail from the main story, but you're always onto another small side story. The mining for resources in Mass Effect 2 also detracted from the "pace" of the game. What I mean by pace is the speed at which you advance to the next piece of narrative, whether it's on the main or side plot line. Mass Effect is a story-driven game. Derailing players from the story seems stupid.

And no, you can't skip on buying, selling and sorting. Unless you want to wear all the crappy equipment you started the game with, and die A LOT, you pretty much have to worry about inventory management. My personal feeling is that Mass Effect 2 could have had a more interesting customization with the skill tree (well, it wasn't really a tree, just a bunch of linear advancements) and with the weapon and armor upgrades, but removing the buying/selling and sorting was 100% the right way to go. One option I think would be interesting would be to have your weapons and armour as an upgrade tree of their own. Level up and choose to upgrade your powers or weapons and armour as you see fit.
 
hm... so FemShep trailer is coming tomorrow. Cinematic trailer is coming next week.

ooo... I just noticed the trailer for arsenal customization:


I'll summarize for those who don't want to accidentally see anything:

Better UI showing armour stats now. Weapon mods are back and appear to have visual changes to the weapon.

Skill progression seems to be expanded with a few levels of choices.

http://www.masseffect.com/about/arsenal/ More info + screens regarding weapon mods


------------------------

Randomly hoping that there's a new Geth flagship, which Legion et al dub The Shepard. (Totally not referencing The O'Neill from SG-1, of course. >_>)
 
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