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Stormwaltz
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Reply #175 on: December 19, 2009, 12:48:07 PM


ignoring that stupid Alliance rogue VI mission

The advanced character classes are unlocked by completing that...

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Hoax
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Reply #176 on: December 19, 2009, 01:03:38 PM

Yeah it was my bad, I ignored it for RP reasons.  The alliance brass calls me up and basically says, forget the council you owe us so go handle this VI and I told them to fuck off for rp reasons.

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Morat20
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Reply #177 on: December 20, 2009, 08:17:15 PM

Yeah it was my bad, I ignored it for RP reasons.  The alliance brass calls me up and basically says, forget the council you owe us so go handle this VI and I told them to fuck off for rp reasons.
Last of those bunkers in that mission is a fucking bitch, too. "let's get, oh, five or six rocket-firing drones and have them all AIM AT YOU". While their buddies with machine-guns swarm around.

I still found soldier to be the most boring of classes, while adept or Vanguard rocked. Garrus and Wrex make excellent companions for those. Also, if you either max out charm or intimidate OR do Wrex's armor quest (it's not even hard, some planet has it in a safe) you can convince him not be a dick and you don't have to kill him.
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Reply #178 on: December 20, 2009, 08:26:42 PM

I didn't care to depart from Soldier much. Just felt like being straightforward about it. 90% of the time my team was mostly me (soldier), Ash, and Wrex or Garrus. All basically soldiers with the exception of Wrex.. but he isn't strictly biotic either.

Not sure if I'd call soldiers boring without calling the entire game boring, as it's basically the foundation of most gameplay.
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Reply #179 on: December 20, 2009, 10:22:29 PM

I didn't care to depart from Soldier much. Just felt like being straightforward about it. 90% of the time my team was mostly me (soldier), Ash, and Wrex or Garrus. All basically soldiers with the exception of Wrex.. but he isn't strictly biotic either.

Not sure if I'd call soldiers boring without calling the entire game boring, as it's basically the foundation of most gameplay.
I don't think a soldier-heavy mix even works on higher difficulty levels. Too many special protections. My problem is the soldier AI is fairly intelligent, but the powers AI isn't -- and I hate micromanaging shit, especially since the camera makes it difficult for me to see what's going on at times.

So soldiers can be relied on to get somewhere, and shoot, and use their specials at least semi-intelligently. But adepts and engineers, not so much. And if I'm going to micromanage someone's biotic use, it might as well be mine.

I ran....Wrex, Garrus, and myself (adept + shotgun) and the only issue I had was having to spend enough skill points for Garrus to unlock everything. Wrex simply destroyed everything and was a major tank, Garrus sat back with a sniper rifle, and I basically just gave them targets. (Singularity or lift to suck them out from behind cover, throw to damage groupings of weak enemies, stasis to lock one of the Lts or Bosses out of combat). Anyone that got close got a face-full of shotgun.

I suppose I enjoyed shaping the battlefield and more or less corralling the enemies together, and left the "aim and pull trigger" stuff to the NPCs.
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Reply #180 on: December 20, 2009, 11:28:14 PM

In hindsight I would have definately gone a combat/powers hybrid.  I just didn't have any sense of it at the time.  I micromanaged with tab/pause all the time, but not powers I found they were almost always being used.  I mostly only activated teammates shield regen and defense buff powers when I knew the fight was about to get ugly.  The lift and whatnot they used all the time themselves.

It sucks though I really would want to have pistol/shotgun + powers and I don't think you can do that w/out bonus feat.  Obviously if the sinper rifle sucks a lot less in MA2 I might go that route I loved my Borderlands Hunter to death.

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stray
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Reply #181 on: December 20, 2009, 11:32:09 PM

If there a human equivalent setup like Wrex? I gave him shotguns, and trained most of the other stuff up at max.
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Reply #182 on: December 21, 2009, 08:23:02 AM

I used a sniper rifle on my main the entire game; it does not suck.

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Segoris
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Reply #183 on: December 21, 2009, 08:41:30 AM

Obviously if the sinper rifle sucks a lot less in MA2 I might go that route I loved my Borderlands Hunter to death.

What was wrong with sniper rifles? Just for reference, how high did you invest points into the talent and what type of gun were you using?
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Reply #184 on: December 21, 2009, 09:17:10 AM

If there a human equivalent setup like Wrex? I gave him shotguns, and trained most of the other stuff up at max.
Only soldiers can wear heavy armor, so --- soldier. Vanguard is probably the closest you can get. Medium armor, pistols and shotguns, and Warp, Throw, Lift, and (I think) Stasis as biotic powers. You can specialize into a more soldier-y class from there.

I tend to add Singularity to Vanguard.

Hoax: Sniper rifles take some getting used to. They're EXCELLENT weapons once you figure out what you're doing. You need a good rifle, for starters (Spectre Gear, if you can get it). Second, you need a lot of ranks in it for accuracy and stability, and the right mods.

One tip: Your gun is more accurate when crouching, or when firing from cover. With a sniper rifle, if you're shooting, you need to be crouching or behind cover. :)
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Reply #185 on: December 23, 2009, 08:10:56 AM

Yeah, I played as an Infiltrator (and will do the same in ME2, just to experience some "continuity" with the first game) and it was great, but at the beginning you have to get used to the hybrid strategy/real time system. Normally, in these games you tend to get to the frontlines, but it's nice to stay back and order your companions around and place them so that they cover you while you rip enemies apart from distance.

I think Virmire was simply the perfect environment to use sniper tactics, especially when you are in the forest. Obviously you won't have as much fun in those cramped bases/labs on side-quest planets.

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Reply #186 on: December 23, 2009, 02:53:15 PM

It sucks though I really would want to have pistol/shotgun + powers and I don't think you can do that w/out bonus feat.  Obviously if the sinper rifle sucks a lot less in MA2 I might go that route I loved my Borderlands Hunter to death.

According to a Dev interview I read the sniper rifle is one weapon they specifically mentioned as being improved for the sequel.

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Reply #187 on: December 24, 2009, 03:22:19 PM

I never had a problem with the sniper rifle except for the fact that the vast majority of fights were not in places where sniping could be effective, since you were really pretty up close with the enemy most of the time.

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Reply #188 on: December 26, 2009, 04:52:12 PM

Agreed 100%. Most of my time as Vanguard, I never even bothered with anything else but the pistols and force push.

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Reply #189 on: December 27, 2009, 03:04:46 AM

I'd like to see someone do a game like this, but with even more emphasis on dialog and covert encounters. There was a detective-story-in-space feel to it, but at the same time, it also wanted to be action. I'd rather see more of the detective shit... Like a new Bladerunner game.
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Reply #190 on: January 24, 2011, 08:02:52 AM

I'm the old thread necromancer today. Most of my gripes have already been aired but I chip in anyway.

I picked this up from the 360 bargain bin last friday and I'm now already 20 hours in.

Short: If Bioware had put as much effort in the game as they did in the descriptions and dialogue it would be great, so it's just a good with some minor flaws.

360 controls are bad, seriously. Trying to aim with the analog sticks is a recipe for frustration. Whoever designed the controls either didn't care or has superhuman precision. It's just too jerky, the number of times the targeting cursor went just a little bit too far off are too many to count. I list this because there are other games which did it better. I now also get why Bethesda invented the VATS system. Stopping time not just to select powers but also for orientation would have been great.

This is quite a problem for every part of the game with fast movement. Aiming and trying to avoid getting two-shotted by some alien thing while driving the Mako made we want to punch somebody. Enemies are usually just suicide-charging your position completely ignoring their target or your squad mates and they run like they are on exctasy. They also in the later game pack insane defensive and offensive power. Full-auto shoot them for 10 seconds and you merely wear their shields down but if you move your ass out of cover you are two shotted by some mad display of firepower and biotic powers.

There were two boss fights already which nearly made me quit the game for good.

The decrypting/hacking mini game is just pressing the right button when it lights up on screen, just like 'Simon says'. Unfortunately it's been programmed by a twelve year old with perfect reflexes. I seriously had to save/reload quite a few times even on the easy challenges because the time that you have to react feels like milliseconds rather than seconds. Alternatively you can open locks or hack computers by using a ridiculous amount of universal gel (15 - 25 for a lock? When I can repair a whole armored transport with 15?) which is hard to come by if you don't want to dismantle equipment or upgrades.

You can notice the lack of polish in a few details. People talking to you about things you've never mentioned. A whole class that doesn't get a single weapon skill. I can buy all sorts of weapons and upgrades but there is not one electronic lockpick or other misc equipment that temporarily boosts skills, no augmentations or body modifications. You get 6 different versions of every weapon and armor at every level of which usually only one is worthwhile. Sell value is ridiculous (a piece of armor that costs 100,000 credits sells for 1,500) and other such things where you just notice something missing or not entirely tuned.

There are a lot of side quests but so far all of them have been kill quests, I have yet to do a side quest in which I don't encounter geth or mercs or the person I should find is already dead.

Dialogue is usually well written but it's harder to get decent speech skills since you not only have to put points into either charm or intimidate but also have to earn paragon/renegade points to get additional slots for the skill points.

So far I enjoy it, I miss quite few things though that I kinda got used to in the Fallout games.

I'd like a lot more diversity in missions and the levels are entirely too linear. I hope they changed it in ME 2 (which I also got cheap). In my mind it's actually a step backwards from Fallout 3 (which was released in the same year) at least it's rock solid and hasn't crashed on me once.

I also don't see the reason for why the game let's me choose between six different possible squad members. By the time I get most of them I and my squad are past level 10.

My recommendation would be to pick it up at bargain pricing because it's actually a nice RPG and the sci fi setting makes it stand apart from most other games.
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Reply #191 on: January 24, 2011, 10:01:58 AM

Stopping time not just to select powers but also for orientation would have been great.


Um, I did exactly that repeatedly on the XBox version. Only way I would make it through the 1st Krogan fight, and it was a huge help against Saren. Hold down RB, reorient cursor on to your target, release RB while pulling RT.

Not sure about your dificulty with the Simon game (it was annoying though). I analy saved before every salvage, and in 40 hours only screwed up twice. Anyone who knows me will advise you that I do not have the reflexes of a young man. As far as the Mako goes, I've run in to many people who played half the game before realizing that the Mako has jump jets. Fighting in the Mako without using Jump is suicide.

Don't get me wrong, the game had flaws (horrid inventory UI for example), but some of your complaints are confusing. Like why would it matter what level you are when you get new companion choices? They get the same xp and you just level them up.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2011, 10:10:38 AM by Bunk »

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Sjofn
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Reply #192 on: January 24, 2011, 11:00:30 AM

Omni-gel is your universal lockpick. Crush some of your 4358936458245 spare guns into it, life is happier!

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Reg
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Reply #193 on: January 24, 2011, 11:03:11 AM

There was actually a line in Mass Effect 2 talking about the good old days when omnigel worked on everything that I found amusing at the time.
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Reply #194 on: January 24, 2011, 11:04:39 AM

Ha, yes, that made me laugh too.

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Jeff Kelly
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Reply #195 on: January 25, 2011, 09:44:54 AM

Um, I did exactly that repeatedly on the XBox version. Only way I would make it through the 1st Krogan fight, and it was a huge help against Saren. Hold down RB, reorient cursor on to your target, release RB while pulling RT.

I always connected that to selecting powers only. Which is annoying enough since you have to hold RB the whole time. Thanks for the tip.

Quote
Not sure about your dificulty with the Simon game (it was annoying though). I analy saved before every salvage, and in 40 hours only screwed up twice. Anyone who knows me will advise you that I do not have the reflexes of a young man.

I don't know if I'm just that slow and simply live in denial but the last reflex-based game I played was Heavy Rain and I managed to beat that on the highest difficulty setting. There you have even more potential buttons and longer sequences.

Last night and with not enough gel left I spent half an hour and more than 50 tries on a medium difficulty lock just to get a 5 part button sequence right. Reload, start sequence, get the 'decryption failed' message because you failed to press one of the buttons on time, repeat. It was not because I pressed the wrong button but because I didn't hit the right one quick enough.

Maybe I'm obsessive enough to try and time it but I reckon that you have less than a second to actually press the right button after it flashes on the screen. This is getting more and more frustrationg because the length of the sequence doesn't seem to depend on the difficulty of the lock (this only determines the skill level in electronics needed to open it) but rather on the item level of the contents. I'm now at 6 or 7 step sequences for easy locks to get to level 5 or 6 gear and the number of retries needed to get a perfect try multiplies.

Since you need between 15 and 25 units of gel per lock and only get 4 units per destroyed component (regardless of item size) I cannot collect enough gel to open every lock that way. This is becoming more and more a really frustrating experience, even so frustrating that I don't bother to open crates anymore.

Quote
Don't get me wrong, the game had flaws (horrid inventory UI for example), but some of your complaints are confusing. Like why would it matter what level you are when you get new companion choices? They get the same xp and you just level them up.

By the time I got the first NPCs my main party (Ashley, Kaiden and Shepard) was already at Level 15 and decked out in Level IV gear, I played Artemis Tau and the quest to find Liara last, after Feros and Noveria by that time my party was beyond Level 20 and yet I had huge problems with the Benezia boss battle.

So I never bothered to take any of the others with me because I didn't want to waste time playing side missions until they had caught up with me in experience and levels. Facing hordes of Geth at Level 30 with a Level 1 biotic user (useless without skill points) seems pointless.

Unless you tell me that they level up whether or not you use them, something I never considered and so didn't include them in my away teams.

The second thing I complained about was the skill choice for characters. Kaiden for example doesn't have a single weapon or armor related skill not even small arms even though you can outfit him with all 4 gun types and light armor and he actually uses the selected firearm when his biotic powers are on cooldown.

For several reasons this makes him quite useless in a fight every time his powers are on cooldown. First you have to spent a whole lot of skill points to actually unlock all possible powers, second his starting powers are weak unless you have invested some SPs in them and third he cannot tap the potential of his armor or weapon without the skill.
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Reply #196 on: January 25, 2011, 10:30:10 AM

By the time I got the first NPCs my main party (Ashley, Kaiden and Shepard) was already at Level 15 and decked out in Level IV gear, I played Artemis Tau and the quest to find Liara last, after Feros and Noveria by that time my party was beyond Level 20 and yet I had huge problems with the Benezia boss battle.

So I never bothered to take any of the others with me because I didn't want to waste time playing side missions until they had caught up with me in experience and levels. Facing hordes of Geth at Level 30 with a Level 1 biotic user (useless without skill points) seems pointless.
Um, they auto-leveled. All your party members were your level. Complete with skill points. The biggest bitch was if you were using Ashley and Kaiden (I used the same pair the whole game, for the unlocks) and you had to replace one of them as a plot point. So I ended up with Wrex instead of Kaiden, and he HAD all his skill points -- but Level 1 armor. Took a few fights to get him geared.

After that, I just used the guys I wasn't using as high-end gear storage. (I had a feeling the store algorithm might have leaned towards "Which of your companions has the shitties armor" because it only seemed to have good shit for the people I wasn't using.).

So, um, either your game bugged out in the weirdest way, or you didn't bother clicking over to the character screen and assigning all those points.

As for Kaiden -- didn't he have pistol? Everyone has pistol. Maxed-out pistols skills were pretty stellar. (I think someone crunched it and it topped out near the top on DPS). Second, he was a biotic/tech mix -- one of his skills massively boosted his shields (in addition to either allowing decrypts or hacking). And didn't he have barrier too?
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Reply #197 on: January 25, 2011, 10:45:29 AM

Seriously Jeff... You got all the way through the game without realizing the characters all auto-leveled to keep up with you whether you took them out or not? It makes me suspect you must have been doing something consistently wrong over and over again to have so much trouble with the lockpicking.
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Reply #198 on: January 25, 2011, 11:06:54 AM

 Heart JeffK
Jeff Kelly
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Reply #199 on: January 25, 2011, 11:17:39 AM

In-game it's never mentioned and since you never actually have to use one of the other NPCs (at least up to where I am now) you don't realize it by accident either at least I didn't.

I have just re-read the manual and auto-leveling is mentioned there so I must have missed it the first time. (It's mentioned in a sentence somewhere in the party control chapter). So I just assumed that it is handled the way it is in nearly every other CRPG, that NPCs start off with a certain higher level if you get to them later in the game but don't actually level further if you don't include them in your party.

I seriously never considered that possibility. I checked the inventory saw that they had crap items and kinda assumed that this must be because they were lower level than my squad.  So my presuppositions about the way RPGs usually work fooled me. Now I feel stupid (at least more than usual).

So I suppose that I could be equally stupid with the handling of the lock-picking mini game. As I understand it the game shows you the a,b and x,y buttons on screen and you have to press the button that is highlighted. If you were fast enough another button is randomly highlighted and so on until you've reached the last in the sequence and the lock opens. If you are too slow the mini game fails and you have to use universal gel to open it. Sounds simple enough. Yet somehow 9 out of ten tries I fail because even though I press the right button it seems like I hit it too late.

In my version of the game the window of opportunity for pressing the button is at most 1 seconds.

@Morat: I checked, Kaiden has neither pistol, nor light armor skills in my version of the game. Barrier and guardian skills offset that to some extend though

To conclude, it seems that I have to retract some of my issues with the game due to player stupidity  embarassed. So to save face I'd at least say that Bioware doesn't do a great job tutoring you on the game mechanics, since most players won't even read the manual (even if they do this might not help as I so gloriously demonstrated).  Grin
« Last Edit: January 25, 2011, 11:23:14 AM by Jeff Kelly »
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Reply #200 on: January 25, 2011, 11:26:30 AM

Kaidan doesn't have a weapon skill talent, but his Sentinel class ability improves his pistol damage and accuracy (along with some other useful stuff) so he can still be pretty functional with it. Liara is the one with no way to improve her weapon use at all (but she's got every biotic power available anyway so her weapon use isn't really that big a deal.)

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Reply #201 on: January 25, 2011, 02:07:43 PM

I seriously never considered that possibility. I checked the inventory saw that they had crap items and kinda assumed that this must be because they were lower level than my squad.  So my presuppositions about the way RPGs usually work fooled me. Now I feel stupid (at least more than usual).
Yeah, but everyone has crap items at start. I mean, you weren't getting curious when you kept finding Krogan heavy armor despite not using Wrex or anything?

Kaiden worked out fine for me -- I think I used him and Ashley with my Vanguard run-through. He was there for tech/biotic powers, and to open locks. Using him for guns was a bit pointless.

Oh well, given that ME2 shoves you to first the character screen EVERY FUCKING TIME anyone in your party has even a point to spend when you go on a mission, followed by the load-out screen, that's not a mistake you can make in ME2.
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Reply #202 on: January 26, 2011, 03:45:10 PM

This is getting more and more frustrationg because the length of the sequence doesn't seem to depend on the difficulty of the lock (this only determines the skill level in electronics needed to open it) but rather on the item level of the contents. I'm now at 6 or 7 step sequences for easy locks to get to level 5 or 6 gear and the number of retries needed to get a perfect try multiplies.
Actually the xbox version has (unless they fixed it) a bug where the first lock you encounter after loading the game determines the length of sequence for the rest of that play session.  So if the first lock you open is an easy lock, you'll only need to do a sequence of three even for the hardest locks.  But if the first lock you open is a harder one, then you'll need to do a long sequence even for the easiest of locks.

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